Something interesting about West Coast American English

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by mèþru »

zompist wrote:Who pronounces the l in talk/walk/stalk (in American English)?
Me but I'm weird. I also pronounce [lˠ] in half/calf
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Soap »

I couldn't find info on Wikipedia at all, but it might be a Southern (or south-central?)trait, based on garysk's post and an early board member from the Shreveport LA area.
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Vijay »

garysk wrote:Oh, and I forgot palm/balm/psalm/calm: I do pronounce the /l/ in those words
I don't. Apart from that, I'm still the same as you.

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by garysk »

my father is the ONLY person I have ever heard pronounce the /l/ in walk/talk/stalk, so this may be a Southernism and may well be dying out. In my experience, MOST people pronounce the /l/ in calm/balm/psalm, but I have heard them without also, but not often. These are all features that are very easy to miss unless one is looking for the differences. And since they are all monosyllables, their share of the total speech signal of an utterance is very small, making it hard to detect the inclusion or elision of the /l/ in rapid speech.
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Travis B. »

I myself was wondering that too - walk/talk/stalk/balk and half/calf lack /l/ in any variety resembling Standard English that I know of.
Last edited by Travis B. on Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by KathTheDragon »

Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by linguoboy »

KathTheDragon wrote:Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"
I might insert an /l/ there because it's an uncommon word to hear in conversation and overpronouncing it would aid comprehension, but it's not there in my spontaneous pronunciation.

I hear some people insert /l/ in almond nowadays and it always sounds a bit jarring to me, like almonds are something they learned about from reading and didn't grow up buying or eating.

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Salmoneus »

I sometimes have /l/ in "caulk", but I think that's because I did indeed learn about caulking from books. Similarly, when I was younger it took me a little while to realise that the "bork line" was actually a "baulk line".
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Travis B. »

linguoboy wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"
I might insert an /l/ there because it's an uncommon word to hear in conversation and overpronouncing it would aid comprehension, but it's not there in my spontaneous pronunciation.

I hear some people insert /l/ in almond nowadays and it always sounds a bit jarring to me, like almonds are something they learned about from reading and didn't grow up buying or eating.
At least in my idiolect, practically all the <alm> words are spelling-pronounced as /ɔlm/ (which of course has been vocalized again to [ɒo̯m]). Middle-aged people (e.g. my parents) and older seem to be more likely to have non-spelling-pronounced pronunciations of these words, whereas, say, my daughter has /ɔlm/ in almond, and I am pretty sure she did not learn the word from reading herself.
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Vijay »

KathTheDragon wrote:Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"
You do pronounce the l in valve, though, right? (Just making sure. He did mention that earlier).

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Axiem »

I'm pretty sure that in talk/walk/stalk, I pronounce the <l> as /ʎ/.

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by garysk »

Ah, yes, I forgot about almond too. I pronounce the /l/ just is in calm/balm/psalm. In particular, the /l/ in psalm seems right, if you consider "psalter' (unless some pronounce it /psatɚ/ or /psɔtɚ/); the /l/ seems inherent. Unlike caulk (with /l/), I pronounce baulk as /bɔk/ though sometimes /balk/. It's very difficult to determine if my pronunciation is what I learned as L1, or if it has been influenced by spelling pronunciation.
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by KathTheDragon »

Vijay wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"
You do pronounce the l in valve, though, right? (Just making sure. He did mention that earlier).
Yeah, but the vowel is completely different - /vælv/ vs. /pɑːm/

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Vijay »

KathTheDragon wrote:
Vijay wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"
You do pronounce the l in valve, though, right? (Just making sure. He did mention that earlier).
Yeah, but the vowel is completely different - /vælv/ vs. /pɑːm/
Same, although I do specifically remember two people pronouncing the first vowel in almond as /æ/.

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Travis B. »

In the case of valve, the pronunciation with /l/ is the standard pronunciation. It seems that this elision/vocalization of /l/ only applies to words containing EModE /al/ followed by /m/, /k/, /f/, or /v/ (when it alternates with /f/), for whatever reason.
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Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Sumelic »

As far as I know, the historical development in standard English is as follows:
  • /l/ lost in -alk words resulting in /ɔːk/, which makes sense if we assume it was some kind of vocalization of /l/ to [w] in this context that occured before the change of [au] (=[aw]) to /ɔː/. (I don't know if we actually have evidence indicating that this is exactly how this change occurred.)
  • /l/ lost in -alm words resulting in, for some reason, /ɑːm/. Maybe it's related to the historical variation in BrEng between /ɑː/, /ɔː/, /æ/ and /eɪ/ before nasals in words from French, like aunt, haunt, grand and chamber. I don't know how old /ɔm/ pronunciations are in American English; I suspect that they mostly represent a development that's more recent than the BrEng/AmEng split, but I could be wrong about that. With regard to non-final -lm-, "salmon", which comes from French, seems to be a case of early l-reintroduction like "fault" etc, but I don't know the details, and "almond" likewise seems to have been variable in French.
  • /l/ lost in "calf", "half", leading to /ɑː/ in (most varieties of?) BrEng but /æ/ in AmEng. This seems related to the trap-bath split, but it's unclear to me in what way: it could be that the pronunciation with /æ/ is older and this was broadened in BrEng because of the phonetic context, or it could be that the pronunciation with /ɑ/ is older and this was shortened to /æ/ in AmEng because of the rarity of the sequence /ɑf/ in other words, and the association of the sequence /ɑf/ with bath-type pronunciations. Maybe compare "laugh" where as far as I know the development was along the lines of /laux/ > [lauxʷ] > [laxʷ] > [laf], with subsequent /af/ > /ɑːf/ in BrEng (in contrast, "cough" has a short vowel in BrEng but /ɔ/ in non-cot-caught-merged AmEng).
I assume "calve" and "halve" are mainly patterned after "calf" and "half".

The common modern American English /ɑlm/, /ɔlm/ pronunciations are I'm pretty sure due to re-introduction of /l/ and possible coloring by it. Maybe /l/ was actually retained all along in some American English accents, but that seems a bit unlikely to me unless anyone knows of some evidence of this.

I don't think there is anything historical that sets "psalm" apart from "palm" etc. Influence from "psalter" may have made reintroduction of /l/ in "psalm" more probable than in other words. John Walker IIRC argues for using /ælm/ in words derived from "-alm" words like palmistry, palmate, calmative (I don't remember if these are the exact examples he gives). This doesn't require the synchronic presence of /l/ in the original word any more than the use of /mn/ in words like hymnal, damnation implies that /mn/ is present in "hymn" and "damn".

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Zaarin »

zompist wrote:
garysk wrote:in my variety of American English, I have father/bother/cot/caught all with the same vowel, and talk/walk/stalk are pronounced with the same /a/ as father (tock/wok/stock), with no remnants of the /l/ present in the spelling. My father was horrified to learn that I did not pronounce the /l/ in talk/walk/stalk.
Who pronounces the l in talk/walk/stalk (in American English)? The AHD has them all as /ɔk/, which is how I say them. I don't have the cot/caught merger, so I don't merge cock /kak/ and caulk /kɔk/.

Likewise, putting an l in half/calf would seem odd to me, and the dictionary agrees.

But I'm with you on the -alm words— for me they're /ɔlm/, at least emphasized. In rapid speech they might well be /ɔm/.
Same, except in palm, but for me they're /alm/ (also not cot/caught merged). I also have an /l/ in folk, but only for the music genre.
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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by vergil »

linguoboy wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"
I might insert an /l/ there because it's an uncommon word to hear in conversation and overpronouncing it would aid comprehension, but it's not there in my spontaneous pronunciation.

I hear some people insert /l/ in almond nowadays and it always sounds a bit jarring to me, like almonds are something they learned about from reading and didn't grow up buying or eating.
I've only heard one person NOT pronounce the /l/ in almond in the States, and he's from California. Course, he pronounced it /æmənd/, which just made the difference stand out even more.

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Fooge »

vergil wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
KathTheDragon wrote:Brit here, and I don't believe I have ever heard the l pronounced in any of these words, except maybe "balm"
I might insert an /l/ there because it's an uncommon word to hear in conversation and overpronouncing it would aid comprehension, but it's not there in my spontaneous pronunciation.

I hear some people insert /l/ in almond nowadays and it always sounds a bit jarring to me, like almonds are something they learned about from reading and didn't grow up buying or eating.
I've only heard one person NOT pronounce the /l/ in almond in the States, and he's from California. Course, he pronounced it /æmənd/, which just made the difference stand out even more.
Yeah. I don't pronounce a /l/ in "calm", "psalm", "balm" and "palm", but I do have /l/ in "almond". It seems common for Americans to have /l/ in "almond" even if they don't use in words like "calm" and "palm".

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Re: Something interesting about West Coast American English

Post by Fooge »

Sumelic wrote:As far as I know, the historical development in standard English is as follows:
  • /l/ lost in -alk words resulting in /ɔːk/, which makes sense if we assume it was some kind of vocalization of /l/ to [w] in this context that occured before the change of [au] (=[aw]) to /ɔː/. (I don't know if we actually have evidence indicating that this is exactly how this change occurred.)
  • /l/ lost in -alm words resulting in, for some reason, /ɑːm/. Maybe it's related to the historical variation in BrEng between /ɑː/, /ɔː/, /æ/ and /eɪ/ before nasals in words from French, like aunt, haunt, grand and chamber. I don't know how old /ɔm/ pronunciations are in American English; I suspect that they mostly represent a development that's more recent than the BrEng/AmEng split, but I could be wrong about that. With regard to non-final -lm-, "salmon", which comes from French, seems to be a case of early l-reintroduction like "fault" etc, but I don't know the details, and "almond" likewise seems to have been variable in French.
  • /l/ lost in "calf", "half", leading to /ɑː/ in (most varieties of?) BrEng but /æ/ in AmEng. This seems related to the trap-bath split, but it's unclear to me in what way: it could be that the pronunciation with /æ/ is older and this was broadened in BrEng because of the phonetic context, or it could be that the pronunciation with /ɑ/ is older and this was shortened to /æ/ in AmEng because of the rarity of the sequence /ɑf/ in other words, and the association of the sequence /ɑf/ with bath-type pronunciations. Maybe compare "laugh" where as far as I know the development was along the lines of /laux/ > [lauxʷ] > [laxʷ] > [laf], with subsequent /af/ > /ɑːf/ in BrEng (in contrast, "cough" has a short vowel in BrEng but /ɔ/ in non-cot-caught-merged AmEng).
I assume "calve" and "halve" are mainly patterned after "calf" and "half".

The common modern American English /ɑlm/, /ɔlm/ pronunciations are I'm pretty sure due to re-introduction of /l/ and possible coloring by it. Maybe /l/ was actually retained all along in some American English accents, but that seems a bit unlikely to me unless anyone knows of some evidence of this.

I don't think there is anything historical that sets "psalm" apart from "palm" etc. Influence from "psalter" may have made reintroduction of /l/ in "psalm" more probable than in other words. John Walker IIRC argues for using /ælm/ in words derived from "-alm" words like palmistry, palmate, calmative (I don't remember if these are the exact examples he gives). This doesn't require the synchronic presence of /l/ in the original word any more than the use of /mn/ in words like hymnal, damnation implies that /mn/ is present in "hymn" and "damn".
The word "falcon" was once pronounced "fawkin" then the /l/ got restored by spelling pronunciation.

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