>>I am curious about what you said about lateral consonants, Travis. Are you trying to say dark L is disappearing where you are? If so, what is it being replaced by? Is it at all similar to how, for instance, "milk" tends to be pronounced by Londoners?<<
Yes, my dialect is losing lateral consonants, has already lost the dark 'l' [5], and has long since lost the light 'l' [l], which was replaced altogether by the dark 'l' [5] before it, too, was lost. They are being replaced by [M\], [M_^], and [M], and due to rounding assimilation as [U_^] and [U] as well. In careful speech I do tend to retain a lateral in morpheme-initial positions, which is something like [L\] or [M\L\], but such is not exactly stable in nature, and tends to easily become [M\] in less careful speech. Most other people here are also like that, in that they can pronounce a lateral consonant in such positions when they really try to, usually to try to emphasize the particular phoneme /l/ so as to help people understand them, but most of time their speech has very weak laterals if they have them at all.
[M\] tends to be found for prevocalic and intervocalic /l/, including across word boundaries, particularly in more careful speech. [M_^] tends to be found for non-morpheme-initial prevocalic and intervocalic /l/ in less careful speech and postvocalic /l/ in practically all but the most careful speech. [M] is found for syllabic /l/, but when such is followed by another vowel such tends to often show up as [MM\], particularly in more careful speech. However, when postvocalic and intervocalic /l/ follow a rounded vowel they are realized as [U_^] instead, and when syllabic /l/ follows /w/ it becomes [U].
There are some complexities to such, though, because [M_^] and [U_^] from postvocalic /l/ tend to be very strongly backed in nature in more careful speech, but in less careful speech they tend to be fronted somewhat to positions more like that of [o] and [u] in my dialect, especially in the case of the sequence /old/. This has had the result of [o] and [oU_^] becoming distinctive in my dialect (as earlier Late New English [oU_^] became [o] in my dialect previously), especially in the case of /od/ versus /old/ in informal speech, where the two become quite close together but remain distinctive.
Yes, my dialect is losing lateral consonants, has already lost the dark 'l' [5], and has long since lost the light 'l' [l], which was replaced altogether by the dark 'l' [5] before it, too, was lost. They are being replaced by [M\], [M_^], and [M], and due to rounding assimilation as [U_^] and [U] as well. In careful speech I do tend to retain a lateral in morpheme-initial positions, which is something like [L\] or [M\L\], but such is not exactly stable in nature, and tends to easily become [M\] in less careful speech. Most other people here are also like that, in that they can pronounce a lateral consonant in such positions when they really try to, usually to try to emphasize the particular phoneme /l/ so as to help people understand them, but most of time their speech has very weak laterals if they have them at all.
[M\] tends to be found for prevocalic and intervocalic /l/, including across word boundaries, particularly in more careful speech. [M_^] tends to be found for non-morpheme-initial prevocalic and intervocalic /l/ in less careful speech and postvocalic /l/ in practically all but the most careful speech. [M] is found for syllabic /l/, but when such is followed by another vowel such tends to often show up as [MM\], particularly in more careful speech. However, when postvocalic and intervocalic /l/ follow a rounded vowel they are realized as [U_^] instead, and when syllabic /l/ follows /w/ it becomes [U].
There are some complexities to such, though, because [M_^] and [U_^] from postvocalic /l/ tend to be very strongly backed in nature in more careful speech, but in less careful speech they tend to be fronted somewhat to positions more like that of [o] and [u] in my dialect, especially in the case of the sequence /old/. This has had the result of [o] and [oU_^] becoming distinctive in my dialect (as earlier Late New English [oU_^] became [o] in my dialect previously), especially in the case of /od/ versus /old/ in informal speech, where the two become quite close together but remain distinctive.