Pronunciation issue

<<Is it possible that I pronounce even "light" with the dark L?>>

Yes, it's actually quite possible. There's a ton of Americans who pronounce all their L's pretty much the same way. ;-)

Then I think that must be it, because I notice no great difference as hard as I try.

Now I really want to hear the clear L. I wonder, would I immediately be able to tell the difference? Is that distinct? I'm thinking the answer would be no as I've never noticed a difference in my way, versus other's.

A clear L has a light, weak sound to it, and the dark L has a hard, strong sound to it. That's the only way I can describe it.

Thanks for your examples on your vowels and syllabification, Lazar.

<<Now I really want to know the difference between the clear L and the dark L. I've asked this before, but the idea is not clear in my head. Does this mean I pronounce all three with one or the other? The dark L I am guessing?>>

Well to use a non-English example, I'm sure you're familiar with the Italian /l/, which is not dark. You surely produce a dark l in the English word "alter" but I'm sure you produce a different one in the corresponding Italian word. But the question is, is your /l/ in, say, English "life" more like the Italian /l/ a bit or does it sound exactly the same as the /l/ you have in "alter?"

I probably have some degree of velarization in most of my /l/s but I mark postvocalic ones as dark (very velarized) since for me they are noticeably darker than the ones in initial position.

<<Hmm... For me, "freely" and "really" have different vowels, as well as different L's. (I'm a Californian, BTW.)>>

Yeah, same here. My /l/ in "really" is invariably dark while the one in "freely" is less so. Also, "really"'s vowel is the same as the one in "Philly" while "freely"'s vowel is the same as the one in "freebie." Thus, I have:

"really" ["r\I5i]
"freely" ["fr\ili]

After much reading, I've decided that I do have the clear /l/ and dark /l/, but that my clear /l/ is very close to the dark one. I found a link at home last night with audio on how words would sound with the dark /l/ where the clear /l/ should be and vice versa.

When the dark /l/ was where the clear /l/ should be, it did not sound all that strange to me, just a bit on the "heavy" side. However when the clear /l/ was where the dark /l/ is normally, it sounded so foreign to me.

I can't find the link now, but will post it when I return home.

Here are my versions of the aforementioned examples; in the initially mentioned cases, each pair rhymes:

Taylor ["t_he:.L\R=]
trailer ["tS_hr\e:.L\R=]

polar ["p_ho:.L\R=]
stroller ["StSr\o:.L\R=]

haily ["he:.L\i:]
Haley ["he:.L\i:]

I also do not have any syllabification in:

trailer ["tS_hr\e:.L\R=]
polar ["p_ho:.L\R=]
feeling ["fi:.L\I~:N]
ruler ["Ru:.L\R=]

Also note that I have no kind of syllabification in:

howler ["ha:U.L\R=]
smiling ["smaI.L\I~:N]
oily ["o:I.L\i:]

but also note:

howl ["ha:U.M] (careful ["ha:U.L\=])
smail ["sma:I.M] (careful ["sma:I.L\=]) but also ["sma:L\]
oil ["o:I.M] (careful ["o:I.L\=])

Note that I have the rhyming pairs:

freely ["fr\i:.L\i:]
really ["Ri:.L\i:] (but also ["RI:.L\i:])

daily ["de:.L\i:]
haily ["he:.L\i:]

However, I really do not have two distinct non-syllabic allophones of my lateral phoneme, as the two main allophones I do have, [L\] and [M\], are primarily in free variation even though [L\] is more likely be favored prevocalically than in other positions.

That should be "of my lateral phoneme which are not primarily in free variation".

Travis, in layman's terms for the relatively uninitiated into the wonderful world of linguistics? ;)

I have the same rhyming pairs as you do. What L do you use? I am not clear as to what the clear /l/ vs the dark /l/ are represented as in transcriptions. Kirk's trancriptions and your transcriptions look very different to me.

And what is "syllabification"?

Here is the link I was talking about: http://www.indiana.edu/~hlw/PhonProcess/accents.html

Just search for the word "dark". You should find yourself in a section called "Allophonic differences"

To illustrate the difference in /l/s I made a couple recordings of my own. The first is of me in my natural accent and the second is one of me imitating something vaguely RPish. I'm not claiming to be Meryl Streep with my British imitation but the point was to contrast two different dialects regarding distribution of dark and light l.

Me (natural):

http://media.putfile.com/kirklwords

Me (imitating):

http://media.putfile.com/kirklwords2

Really—she’s a really nice girl
Freely—She talked about the matter freely.
Love—We always love hearing tales of Hal’s life.

If you listen my /l/ is lighter in the RP-imitation one for "really" "love" and "life" than what I use in my natural one. My own initial /l/ may have some co-articulated velarization but it's still not as dark as postvocalic instances of it, however.

>>And what is "syllabification"?<<

I misworded my post, as I meant to say "trisyllabification" or "syllabification as three syllables" there. What syllabification itself is is the process of breaking down a series of intermediate values at the phonological level into actual discrete syllables.

>>Really—she’s a really nice girl
Freely—She talked about the matter freely.
Love—We always love hearing tales of Hal’s life.

If you listen my /l/ is lighter in the RP-imitation one for "really" "love" and "life" than what I use in my natural one. My own initial /l/ may have some co-articulated velarization but it's still not as dark as postvocalic instances of it, however.<<

Actually, now that I look into it closer, I might have a very slight dark-light distinction of some sort, as the phones in "really" and "freely" don't seem to be quite identical, even though I cannot easily characterize it myself, especially since I have neither the "normal" light or dark 'l's to begin with. It seems that in careful speech "freely" might have slightly greater alveolar coarticulation than "really" whereas "really" seems to be more strongly velar, even though the point of articulation for both is specifically velar. That is, when both aren't simply realized with [M\], which I would do in less-than-careful speech.

Of course, I don't have a true clear "light 'l'", that is, [l], which is something I myself associate with German more than with any English dialect I actually have much contact with.

<<And what is "syllabification"?>>

In that context a syllabified consonant is a consonant which has the characteristics of a vowel (thus constituting a whole syllable) but isn't. One example is the /n/ in "mitten" as most North Americans say it. There's not actually a second vowel there but an /n/ acting as a syllable. Same thing can happen to /l/ or other consonants such as /m/ and /N/ in normal fast speech. Some examples of words with syllabic consonants in English:

shovel
whittle

ridden
gotten

something > sumpm
problem > probm
bread and butter > breb 'm butter

hot and greasy > hot 'n(g) greasy
eat and go > eat 'n(g) go

Some treat rhotic-colored vowels as syllabic /r/ but this is not universally accepted. However, if that is the case, then words like "world" "rural" or "whirl" for rhotic speakers have no vowels but just syllabic consonants.

If you listen to me pronouncing the words I've mentioned (and ignore spelling) you might be able to tell there's no vowel preceding the syllabic consonants--not even schwa.

http://media.putfile.com/syllabicconsonants

Bringing it back to the original topic of the thread, syllabic /l/ in English is always a dark l (which you may notice listening to my recordings or simply saying them yourself).

I wish I had a PC. I'm on a mac and I can never use the putfile site.

I think I do understand the difference between the light and dark /l/. I do indeed use the light /l/ in Italian, but I had never conciously realized this until I listened closely. This type of "l" sounds foreign to me, thus why I use it.

>>Some treat rhotic-colored vowels as syllabic /r/ but this is not universally accepted. However, if that is the case, then words like "world" "rural" or "whirl" for rhotic speakers have no vowels but just syllabic consonants.<<

This probably depends on the dialect in question. For instance, in my dialect I seem to just have the syllabic [R=], as such is practically identical to my [R] in other positions besides being syllabic and often having a slight bit of alveolar coarticulation. On the other hand, General American at least seems to have what would actually be a rhotic-colored vowel, as such seems to be some kind of low-mid central vowel which happens to be somehow rhotic-colored.