Date:  Tue, 31 Oct 1995 15:06:40 EST

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: folk/folklore



David Rojas writes:

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

After the /I/ in 'milk', 'silk', and 'film', I do pronounce the /l/ before the

final consonant; however, in /a/ words such as 'balm', 'calm', 'balk', 'talk',

'walk', etc, I think I never pronounce the /l/ before the final consonant.

I would like to get some feedback on the distribution of this pronunciation

"rule" that I seem to express.   D M Rojas (drojas1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ua1vm.ua.edu)

-------------------------------------------------

Yes, that's consistent with a number of us who report operating with* a

regular distinction between non-back vowels, after which the L is pronounced

([I] as in milk and film, [E] as in elm, [AE] as in talc (= talcum) and calc

(= calculus), and schwa as in hulk and sulk) and (some) back vowels, after

which it isn't (open o as in balk and talk, [a] as in balm and calm). For me,

as mentioned, [o] sometimes wipes out the following L (as in the 'folk' words

and 'yolk') and sometimes doesn't (Polk, Volks(wagen), Tolk ['Tolkien groupie']

and so on).



Larry



*at least in my case; I probably shouldn't generalize