pronounced as /notice/L-vocalization, in linguistics, is a process by which a lateral approximant sound such as pronounced as /link/, or, perhaps more often, velarized pronounced as /link/, is replaced by a vowel or a semivowel.
There are two types of l-vocalization:
Examples of L-vocalization can be found in many West Germanic languages, including English, Scots, Dutch, and some German dialects.
L-vocalization has occurred, since Early Modern English, in certain -al- and -ol- sequences before coronal or velar consonants, or at the end of a word or morpheme. In those sequences, pronounced as //al// became pronounced as //awl// and diphthonged to pronounced as //ɑul//, while pronounced as //ɔl// became pronounced as //ɔwl// and diphthonged to pronounced as //ɔul//.[1]
At the end of a word or morpheme, it produced all, ball, call, control, droll, extol, fall, gall, hall, knoll, mall, pall, poll, roll, scroll, small, squall, stall, stroll, swollen, tall, thrall, toll, troll and wall. The word shall did not follow this trend, and remains pronounced as //ˈʃæl// today.
Before coronal consonants, it produced Alderney, alter, bald, balderdash, bold, cold, false, falter, fold, gold, halt, hold, malt, molten, mould/mold, old, palsy, salt, shoulder (earlier sholder), smolder, told, wald, Walter and wold (in the sense of "tract of land"). As with shall, the word shalt did not follow the trend and remains pronounced as //ˈʃælt// today.
Before pronounced as //k//, it produced balk, caulk/calk, chalk, Dundalk, falcon, folk, Polk, stalk, talk, walk and yolk.
Words like fault and vault did not undergo L-vocalization but rather L-restoration. They had previously been L-vocalized independently in Old French and lacked the pronounced as //l// in Middle English but had it restored by Early Modern English. The word falcon existed simultaneously as homonyms fauco(u)n and falcon in Middle English. The word moult/molt never originally had pronounced as //l// to begin with and instead derived from Middle English mout and related etymologically to mutate; the pronounced as //l// joined the word intrusively.
L-vocalization established a pattern that would influence the spelling pronunciations of some relatively more recent loanwords like Balt, Malta, polder, waltz and Yalta. It also influenced English spelling reform efforts, explaining the American English mold and molt as opposed to the traditional mould and moult.
However, certain words of more recent origin or coining do not exhibit the change and retain short vowels, including Al, alcohol, bal, Cal, calcium, doll, gal, Hal, mal-, Moll, pal, Poll, Sal, talc, and Val.
While in most circumstances L-vocalization stopped there, it continued in -alk and -olk words, with the pronounced as //l// disappearing entirely in most accents (with the notable exception of Hiberno-English). The change caused pronounced as //ɑulk// to become pronounced as //ɑuk//, and pronounced as //ɔulk// to become pronounced as //ɔuk//. Even outside Ireland, some of these words have more than one pronunciation that retains the pronounced as //l// sound, especially in American English where spelling pronunciations caused partial or full reversal of L-vocalization in a handful of cases:
The Great Vowel Shift changed L-vocalized diphthongs to their present pronunciations, with pronounced as //ɑu// becoming the monophthong pronounced as //ɔː//, and pronounced as //ɔu// raising to pronounced as //ou//.
The loss of pronounced as //l// in words spelt with -alf, -alm, -alve and -olm did not involve L-vocalization in the same sense, but rather the elision of the consonant and usually the compensatory lengthening of the vowel.
More extensive L-vocalization is a notable feature of certain dialects of English, including Cockney, Estuary English, New York English, New Zealand English, Pittsburgh English, Philadelphia English and Australian English, in which an pronounced as //l// sound occurring at the end of a word (but usually not when the next word begins with a vowel and is pronounced without a pause) or before a consonant is pronounced as some sort of close back vocoid: pronounced as /[w]/, pronounced as /[o]/ or pronounced as /[ʊ]/. The resulting sound may not always be rounded. The precise phonetic quality varies. It can be heard occasionally in the dialect of the English East Midlands, where words ending in -old can be pronounced pronounced as //oʊd//. K. M. Petyt (1985) noted this feature in the traditional dialect of West Yorkshire but said it has died out.[2] However, in recent decades, l-vocalization has been spreading outwards from London and the southeast;[3] [4] John C. Wells argued that it is probable that it will become the standard pronunciation in England over the next one hundred years,[5] which Petyt criticised in a book review.[6]
For some speakers of the General American accent, pronounced as //l// before pronounced as //f v// (sometimes also before pronounced as //s z//) may be pronounced as pronounced as /[ɤ̯]/.
In Cockney, Estuary English, New Zealand English and Australian English, l-vocalization can be accompanied by phonemic mergers of vowels before the vocalized pronounced as //l//, so that real, reel and rill, which are distinct in most dialects of English, are homophones as pronounced as /[ɹɪw]/.
Graham Shorrocks noted extensive L-vocalisation in the dialect of Bolton, Greater Manchester, and commented, "many, perhaps, associate such a quality more with Southern dialects, than with Lancashire/Greater Manchester."[7]
In the accent of Bristol, syllabic pronounced as //l// can be vocalized to pronounced as //o//, resulting in pronunciations like pronounced as //ˈbɒto// (for bottle). By hypercorrection, however, some words originally ending in pronounced as //o// were given an pronounced as //l//: the original name of Bristol was Bristow, but this has been altered by hypercorrection to Bristol. In Plymouth L-vocalisation is also found, but without turning into the Bristol L afterwards.
African-American English dialects may have L-vocalization as well. However, in these dialects, it may be omitted altogether: fool becomes pronounced as /[fuː]/. Some English speakers from San Francisco, particularly those of Asian ancestry, also vocalize or omit pronounced as //l//.[8]
In colloquial varieties of modern standard German, including the northern Missingsch, there is a moderate tendency to vocalise coda pronounced as //l// into pronounced as //ɪ̯//, especially in casual speech. This is most commonly found before pronounced as //ç// in words like welche ("which") or solche ("such"), which merges with Seuche ("disease"). To a lesser degree, the same may also occur before other dorsal and labial consonants.
A similar but far more regular development exists in many dialects of Austro-Bavarian, including Munich and Vienna. Here, etymological pronounced as //l// in the coda is vocalised into i or y in all cases.For example, Standard German German: viel ("much") corresponds to vui in Bavarian and vü in Viennese.
In most varieties of the Bernese dialect of Swiss German, historical pronounced as //l// in coda position has become pronounced as /[w]/ and historical pronounced as //lː// (only occurring intervocalically) has become pronounced as /[wː]/, whereas intervocalic pronounced as //l// persists. The absence of vocalization was one of the distinctive features of the now-uncommon upper-class variety. It is still missing from dialects spoken in the Bernese Highlands and, historically, in the Schwarzenburg area. For example, the Bernese German name of the city of Biel is pronounced pronounced as /gsw/.
This type of vocalization of pronounced as //l//, such as pronounced as /gsw/ for Salz, is recently spreading into many Western Swiss German dialects, centred around Emmental.
In early 15th century Middle Scots pronounced as //al// (except, usually, intervocalically and before pronounced as //d//), pronounced as //ol// and often pronounced as //ul// changed to pronounced as //au//, pronounced as //ou// and pronounced as //uː//. For example, English, Middle (1100-1500);: all changed to Scots: aw, English, Middle (1100-1500);: colt to Scots: cowt, English, Middle (1100-1500);: ful to Scots: fou (full) and the rare exception English, Middle (1100-1500);: hald to Scots: haud (hold).
In early Middle Dutch, pronounced as //ul//, pronounced as //ol// and pronounced as //al// merged and vocalised to pronounced as //ou// before a dental consonant (pronounced as //d// or pronounced as //t//):
The combination pronounced as //yl//, which was derived from pronounced as //ol// or pronounced as //ul// through umlaut, was not affected by the change, which resulted in alternations that still survive in modern Dutch:
Ablaut variations of the same root also caused alternations, with some forms preserving the pronounced as //l// and others losing it:
Analogy has caused it to be restored in some cases, however:
Many speakers of the northern accents of Dutch realize pronounced as //l// in the syllable coda as a strongly pharyngealized vowel pronounced as /[ɤ̯ˤ]/.
In pre-Modern French, pronounced as /[l]/ vocalized to pronounced as /[u]/ in certain positions:
By another sound change, diphthongs resulting from L-vocalization were simplified to monophthongs:
In early Italian, pronounced as //l// vocalized between a preceding consonant and a following vowel to pronounced as //j//: Latin Latin: florem > Italian Italian: fiore, Latin Latin: clavem > Italian Italian: chiave.
Neapolitan shows a pattern similar to French, as pronounced as /[l]/ is vocalized, especially after pronounced as /[a]/. For example, vulgar Latin Latin: altu > Neapolitan: àutə; Latin: alter > Neapolitan: àutə; Italian: calza > Neapolitan: cauzétta (with diminutive suffix). In many areas the vocalized pronounced as /[l]/ has evolved further into a syllabic pronounced as /[v]/, thus Neapolitan: àvətə, Neapolitan: cavəzetta.
West Iberian languages such as Spanish and Portuguese had similar changes to those of French, but they were less common: Latin Latin: alter became autro and later Spanish; Castilian: otro (Spanish) or Portuguese: outro (Portuguese), while Latin: caldus remained Spanish; Castilian: caldo, and there were also some less regular shifts, like Latin: vultur to Spanish; Castilian: buitre (Spanish) or Portuguese: abutre (Portuguese).
In Portuguese, historical pronounced as /[ɫ]/ (pronounced as //l// in the syllable coda) has become pronounced as /[u̯ ~ ʊ̯]/ for most Brazilian dialects, and it is common in rural communities of Alto Minho and Madeira. For those dialects, the words Portuguese: mau (adjective, "bad") and Portuguese: mal (adverb, "poorly", "badly") are homophones and both pronounced as pronounced as /[ˈmaw]/~pronounced as /[ˈmaʊ]/, while standard European Portuguese prescribes pronounced as /[ˈmaɫ]/. The pair is distinguished only by the antonyms (Portuguese: bom pronounced as /[ˈbõ]/~pronounced as /[ˈbõw]/ and Portuguese: bem pronounced as /[ˈbẽj]/).
In Standard Serbo-Croatian, historical pronounced as //l// in coda position has become pronounced as //o// and is now so spelled at all times in Serbian and most often in Croatian. For example, the native name of Belgrade is Be'''o'''grad (Croatia also has a town of Bi'''o'''grad). However, in some final positions and in nouns only, Croatian keeps the pronounced as //l// by analogy with other forms: Croatian: stol, Croatian: vol, Croatian: sol vs. Serbian Serbian: sto, Serbian: vo, Serbian: so (meaning "table", "ox" and "salt" respectively). This does not apply to adjectives (topao) or past participles of verbs (stigao), which are the same in Standard Croatian as in Standard Serbian.
In Slovene, historical coda pronounced as //l// is still spelled as Slovenian: l but almost always pronounced as pronounced as /[w]/.
In Bulgarian, young people often pronounce the L of the standard language as pronounced as /[w]/, especially in an informal context. For example, pronunciations that could be transcribed as pronounced as /[ˈmawko]/ occur instead of standard pronounced as /[ˈmalko]/ or pronounced as /[ˈmaɫko]/ ('a little').
See also: Ł–l merger. In Polish and Sorbian languages, almost all historical pronounced as //ɫ// have become pronounced as //w//, even in word-initial and inter-vocalic positions. For example, Polish: mały ("small" in both Polish and Sorbian) is pronounced by most speakers as pronounced as /pl/ (compare Russian Russian: малый pronounced as /ru/). The pronounced as /[w]/ pronunciation, called wałczenie in Polish, dates back to the 16th century, first appearing among the lower classes. It was considered an uncultured accent until the mid-20th century, when the stigma gradually began to fade. As of the 21st century, pronounced as /[ɫ]/ is still used by some speakers of eastern Polish dialects, especially in Belarus and Lithuania, as well as in Polish-Czech and Polish-Slovak contact dialects in southern Poland.[9]
In Ukrainian and Belarusian, in the syllable coda, historical pronounced as //ɫ// has become pronounced as /[w]/ (written (в) in Ukrainian and (ў) in Belarusian, now commonly analyzed as coda allophone of pronounced as //ʋ//–pronounced as //v//). For example, the Ukrainian and Belarusian word for "wolf" is Ukrainian: вовк pronounced as /[ʋɔwk]/ and Belarusian: воўк pronounced as /[vowk]/ as opposed to Russian Russian: вoлк pronounced as /[voɫk]/. The same happens in the past tense of verbs: Russian Russian: дал pronounced as /[daɫ]/, Ukrainian Ukrainian: дав pronounced as /[daw]/, Belarusian Ukrainian: даў pronounced as /[daw]/ "gave". The pronounced as //ɫ// is kept at the end of nouns (Russian and Belarusian Russian: стoл pronounced as /[stoɫ]/, Ukrainian Russian: стіл pronounced as /[stiɫ]/ "table") and before suffixes (before historical (ъ) in the word middle): Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian Russian: палка pronounced as /[ˈpaɫka]/ "stick".
Proto-Uralic *l was vocalized to *j in several positions in the Proto-Samoyed language. Several modern Uralic languages also exhibit l-vocalization: