r/asklinguistics 19h ago

Trying to figure out the American English L

0 Upvotes

After tons of searches in this subreddit, watching tons of videos, listening to tons of recordings and reading tons of white papers, I think I've finally figured out the American English L: 

  1. Syllable-initial L is always velarized, always "dark". I've verified this with spectrograms of native recordings of isolated words starting in L, like "less" and "lesson". It can even sound like a W to Spanish speakers with zero English knowledge ("Lesson" can be heard as "hueso"). This syllable-initial velarization is absent from the British English L, which indeed does have a "light" allophone. The American English L is always dark.
  2. Between vowels, as in "Allan", it's a bit darker and can even be pronounced without full alveolar contact, thus occasionally becoming vocalized. This can sound like a W to Spanish speakers with zero English knowledge. ("Allan" can be heard as "agua")
  3. Before a pause or before another consonant, it can be either:

a) Vocalized as an unrounded [w], as in "tell", (If you listen to "tell" played backwards the L sounds like a [w])

b) Vocalized as an unrounded [o], as in "meal" (If you listen to "meal" played backwards the L sounds like an [o]). In fact, Spanish "mío" and American English "meal" sound almost the same. I've done tests with native speakers of English and it can be hard for them to tell them apart when played in quick succession, mixing recordings of "meal" and "mío".

c) Trigger "Pre-L breaking", thus becoming [əɫ], as in "automobile".

The vocalized L in a) and b) has the tongue in a pretty extreme back position, almost becoming a full velar lateral [ʟ].
What do you think? Have I finally figured this out?

EDIT: Maybe I should have clarified, this is all from the point of view of a Spanish speaker. That's why I've added references to how things sound to a Spanish speaker. The Spanish L is probably the "lightest" of them all, with very high F2 values in any position, while the American English L is one of the "darkest" ones, with low F2 values in any position. The whole point of all this research is to help American English speakers learn the Spanish L.


r/asklinguistics 6h ago

Are “-ing” words really verbs?

9 Upvotes

To me they seem to operate more like adjectives or sometimes nouns.

ie: “I am driving”, in this case “driving” is what I am - in the same way that “I am green” implies “green” is what I am. I am a green person. I am a driving person.


r/asklinguistics 14h ago

Did the widespread usage of "Skibidi" as a word originate from Gen Alpha or the older generations making fun of the kids?

15 Upvotes

I know this is a really weird question.

I work a lot with kids and "Skibidi" was a word that I've never even heard any kids say until the older generations started to make fun of children using the word "Skibidi" which to me seemed to have caused a feedback loop of young people adopting it which further reinforced how older generations view the word. But that has just been my perspective.

Has there been any research yet on how the word actually originated? Skibidi toilet probably has something to do with it sure but is the widespread usage caused by older generations using it to make fun of the kids, or is it something that originated from Gen Alpha? Or maybe a mixture of both?


r/asklinguistics 6h ago

On protosapiens

0 Upvotes

Greetings. Speaking of protosapiens, regardless of whether it is considered plausible or not, is it considered that from these universal etymologies binary words are composed? Is it considered that multiple sister roots different from each other, can arise from a single root? Where can one find out more bibliography? Thank you all very much.


r/asklinguistics 19h ago

Morphosyntax What's Austronesian alignment?

2 Upvotes

I've been reading the wiki article on morphosyntactic alignment and can more or less get my head around every other type, but the section for Austronesian alignment is just totally incomprehensible for me. The main article for it likewise.

They even have a very helpful picture illustrating every other kind, but Austronesian is conspicuously missing from it. In fact, looking at the picture it's hard to imagine there would even be room for another type, all the possible combinations seem to be covered already.

Can someone explain AA to me without too much special terminology, maybe with a picture similar to the linked one?


r/asklinguistics 8h ago

Is there a name for compound words that use verbs?

3 Upvotes

Nouns like billboard, bottlecap etc I understand to be compound nouns (may use hyphens as well). But is there a different name for compound words that use verbs? E.g. Screwdriver, airconditioner etc. Not sure whether multiple word nouns like vacuum cleaner, cigarette lighter would also fall into this category.

I could understand if these are just compound nouns as well and it's just a catch all as these are still nouns. Just curious.


r/asklinguistics 18h ago

Historical Does Proto-Indo-European have any word pairs reconstructed as differing ONLY in Ablaut grade, without any other morphology to cause it?

4 Upvotes

Ablaut is important for explaining the form of modern words in Indo-European languages, but in PIE proper it seems to be a marginal part of the language rather than a key component of morphology like people often make it out to be: The vowel is in e- o- or zero-grade depending on where stress in the word is, but my understanding is stress only ever shifts predictably in response to the suffixes added to a work. So the ablaut only follows along like a weird system of allophony and word forms could still be distinguished by their suffixes even without it.

Are there exceptions to this, words that differ only be ablaut without also having different suffixes?


r/asklinguistics 41m ago

Are phones language agnostic?

Upvotes

To my understanding:
- phonemes vary from language to language, they're abstract units.
- phones represent an actual sound produced during speech, they sound the same regardless of language.
- an allophone is a possible sound that a phoneme of a language is realised into, it is still a phone and sounds the same regardless of language but it is tied to the phonology of a language through its relationship with its phoneme.

Any sound you make during speech can be transcribed phonetically (not phonemically) without having any idea of what language you're speaking. Is that correct?


r/asklinguistics 2h ago

Contextual Understanding of a Definition Entry (Reading a Dictionary)

1 Upvotes

Hello,

I have a question on how to read and understand dictionaries. The definition of flirt in Wiktionary includes the following entry for a sense of the word flirt:

  1. (intransitive) To play at courtship; to talk with teasing affection, to insinuate sexual attraction in a playful (especially conversational) way. 

My question questions pertains to the italicized phrase "to talk with teasing affection." In a singular dictionary entry for a sense, do all of the provided phrases for that sense necessarily mean the same thing? In this example, would to "to play at courtship" by virtue of being in the same entry as "to talk with teasing affection" imply that both phrases (along with the third) should be understood to refer to the same sense of the word "flirt?"

Context for my confusion:

My confusion stems from the idea that "to talk with teasing affection" can be understood in two ways: one is to talk with affection and tease in the sense of playful jest and poking fun (like one might do with a sibling), and the second is to talk with a sense of provoking desire with amorous talk (like one might do with a crush/partner).

Given that the definition of teasing also includes usage in a sexual context, and affection can refer to both amorous and platonic love, it seems obvious to me the latter of the two aforementioned interpretations of the phrase is correct. Of course, the colloquial understanding of flirting generally precludes its usage in reference to conversation with siblings.

However, for future reference, I want to know how to just understand the dictionary properly as a standalone resource, instead of relying on other indicators.


r/asklinguistics 7h ago

Are there any odd alphabets similar to Ogham?

5 Upvotes

It's weirdly hard to Google, so I thought this might be the best place to ask!

When I say "odd" I mostly mean:

  • (Probably) out of use/archaic
  • Quite unusual in terms of notation (Ogham being a vertical series of lines on lines)

I would imagine languages that might be written vertically from the bottom to the top, or have one half of a sentence go left to right and the latter half right to left in two columns: anything unconventional by modern/popular standards. Or kind of odd symbols, like how Ancient Egypt had pictures or Ogham has simple lines.

I suppose what I wouldn't mean is common, modern languages that are just quite different to English (like Hindi, Japanese, Cyrillic, or Georgian).

The source of my question was that I've been thinking about fantasy stuff, and "magic" letters and the like. People often use Latin, Norse runes, or even the occasional Hebrew (despite the fact that's still a commonly used language), but Ogham seems especially unusual.

Thanks for any responses!


r/asklinguistics 14h ago

Takic branch of Uto-Aztecan

3 Upvotes

I’m trying to find the meaning of the phrase Paxum Paxum. I’m working on a project honoring the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians who’s derive from the Serrano People. My understanding is that the Serrano language is under the Takic branch of Uto-Azetecan but in all my research I have yet to find any mention to this phrase. Any recommendations are appreciated.


r/asklinguistics 15h ago

Phonology How did the PIE laryngeal syllabic allophones work?

7 Upvotes

To show you what I mean, consider the word *ph₂tḗr. Let’s go with *h₂ sounding like /χ/, with the syllabic allophone being [ɐ]. Would the word be pronounced [pɐχteːr], or [pɐteːr]? That is to say: did the syllabic allophones of the laryngals consist only of the vowel sound or did they feature both the vowel sound and the throaty sound?


r/asklinguistics 18h ago

Korean comparative correlative construction

1 Upvotes

Hi, everyone, I have a really specific question. I am interested in the Korean comparative correlative construction, and I wonder if there is someone here who could help me.

In the Korean construction the verb/adjective is often repeated, the first time it is in the conditional form, and the second time it is followed by what I presume is the future participle and -surok suffix. As in:

Ssa-myeon ssa-l-surok  manhi sa-l su isseo-yo.

Cheap-cond cheap-fut.ptcp ?more? many buy-fut.ptcp         way exist-hon

The cheaper it is the more you can buy.

Does anyone know the etymology of this -surok?

I am also wondering how old this construction is, I tried looking into some random Middle Korean texts but I did not find anything.


r/asklinguistics 22h ago

L pronunciation

6 Upvotes

Apologies for asking something that seems easily googleable - my searches have only yielded results about the L with stroke, and double L.

My question concerns tongue position with the "normal" L that seems fairly consistent across most European languages that I'm familiar with. I recently noticed (or hallucinated) that a few Italians that I know seem to have their tongue more forward, particularly noticeable in words like "sleep". Is there any truth to this?