Laterals    

special Icelandic problems

phonemes and allophones

So why plural - why "laterals"?

If you think about it, the l-sound in these three words is not the same - there are THREE l-sounds in English.

• Check section 2.4 in English Pronunciation for Icelanders - CD 2, tracks 21 - 25.
  1. There is a LIGHT l-sound in "lip" - to make it, try saying the KIT vowel AS YOU ARE PRONOUNCING the l.
     This is the sound of l WHEN IT IS FOLLOWED BY A VOWEL.

  2. There is a DARK l-sound in "milk" - to make it, try say the LOT vowel AS YOU ARE PRONOUNCING THE l.
     This is the sound of l WHEN IT IS NOT FOLLOWED BY A VOWEL.

  3. And there is an UNVOICED l in "clip" - to say it, you UNVOICE (or whisper) the l - sound.
     This is the sound of l when it follows the sounds p or k just before a vowel in a stressed syllable.

• LIGHT l when a vowel follows:
  lamp
  love
  look
  follow (remember: only one l in pronunciation!)
  miller (remember: only one l in pronunciation!)
  
• DARK l when no vowel follows:
  help
  wealthy
  fall
  mill
  BUT: if the next word begins with a vowel, the final l in 'fall' and 'mill' becomes light, of course:
  fall over
  the mill isn't working
• UNVOICED l: after p or k beginning a stressed syllable:
  please climb clear of the plank
  BUT note that after sp- or sk- , l remains voiced:
  display , exclaim

REMEMBER our flowchart for deciding which -s inflection to use?
The same sort of chart can be drawn up to explain which l-sound to use. It looks like this:

How is l pronounced? -

Problems for Icelanders

There are some major differences between the Icelandic and English laterals which Icelandic speakers need to bear in mind, since they are a prominent feature of "Icelandic English"!

LIGHT l and UNVOICED l are pretty much the same in both languages, and cause no trouble to Icelanders, - Icelandic uses a light l in front of vowels, and has an unvoiced l in the same place as English.
Compare:

English	Icelandic
lake (light l)	leikur (light l)
clip (unvoiced l)	klippa (unvoiced l)

BUT: there is no dark l () in Icelandic - and what is worse, Icelandic uses an UNVOICED l in some places where English uses a dark l:

English	Icelandic
tell (dark l)	tel (unvoiced l)
milk (dark l)	mjólk (unvoiced l*)

(* Not unvoiced in Northern Icelandic! But still not "dark" ...)

So be particularly careful you're not using an unvoiced l in words like milk belt faulty pulp - everywhere, in fact, in front of a fortis plosive -
and at the end of words such as tall, fill, full, people

Phonemes and allophones

You may have noticed that dictionaries don't usually show these different pronunciations of l. They don't have to - the rules which decide which l is used are fixed, and speakers use them without noticing. The rules are UNCONSCIOUS, and most speakers of English feel they are using only one type of l.

We have seen examples of unconscious, automatic differences between sounds before: we dealt with it when we were discussing PHONEMES and ALLOPHONES. So what we are nowe saying is that these different realizations of l are allophones of the phoneme l. To jog your memory, go back and re-read the page on phonemes here .

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If you have any questions mail me at peturk@hi.is.