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Publicly Available Published by De Gruyter Mouton November 21, 2012

The phonetics and phonology of Dutch mid vowels before /l/

  • Bert Botma EMAIL logo , Koen Sebregts and Dick Smakman
From the journal Laboratory Phonology

Abstract

This paper addresses the claim that Dutch /l/ triggers laxing of preceding tense mid vowels (/e ø o/), and that this leads to a phonetic length contrast between tense and lax vowels, e.g., tense speel [spɪːɫ] ‘play’ vs. lax spil [spɪɫ] ‘pivot’. The production experiment reported in this paper shows that this claim is incorrect. We find instead that /l/ triggers retraction of both tense and lax mid vowels, which leads neither to complete neutralization of quality nor to complete neutralization of length.


Department of English Language and Culture, LUCL, Leiden University

Published Online: 2012-11-21
Published in Print: 2012-10-26

©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston

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