The contrast and positional/contextual variation in Serbian laterals

Abstract This study uses electropalatography to investigate the production of Serbian laterals /l/ and /ʎ/ focusing on their place of articulation difference and susceptibility to variation as a function of utterance position and vowel context. Data obtained from four speakers producing these sounds utterance-initially, medially intervocalically, and finally and next to /a/, /i/, and /u/. The two consonants were found to be well-differentiated both in terms of their articulation (the front-back location of the closure and dorsopalatal side contact) and acoustics (F2–F1 difference), largely confirming previous observations in the literature. Both laterals showed relative stability across positions, and so did /ʎ/ across vowel contexts. /l/, on the other hand, was more susceptible to coarticulation from high vowels (notably /i/), especially in medial position. In general, its phonetic quality and behavior appeared to be intermediate between the typical clear and dark categories of /l/. The results are discussed in the context of positional and contextual variation of similar sounds in other languages and the cross-linguistic typology of laterals.