Acoustic properties of coda liquids in Californian English

Synchronic and diachronic processes which affect one liquid in a language are likely to affect all liquids in the language (Walsh 1997; Proctor 2009). While it is well-established that the English rhotic [ɹ] may serve as the syllable peak in certain words such as church, bird, and verb, little work as investigated the possibility of a lateral syllable peak in analogous words such as milk, filled, and help. Given that coda-position /ɹ/ may be the syllable peak in certain closed syllables, it is expected that coda-position /ɫ/ behaves similarly. The current study examines coda-position liquids in closed syllables uttered by native California speakers to predict sonority based on liquid type, speaker gender, lexical stress, and other phonological features. Additionally, the formant values of liquids are examined to determine the similarity of liquids to vowels, as Gick et al (2002) suggests that the articulation of /ɹ/ and /ɫ/ are most similar to /ə/ and /ɔ/, respectively. It is therefore predicted that the formant structure of these sonorous liquids will mirror the formant structure of these two vowels. Results indicate that liquids in Californian English exhibit similar patterns regarding sonority under certain conditions, although rhotics may be more vowel-like than laterals.