I just posted the following to the LINGUIST list. Anybody have any
thoughts on this?
Karen Chung
I just watched a video interview by Bill Maher with author Stephen King
on Amazon's new "Fishbowl" program (http://www.amazon.com/), and was
surprised to hear King use a uvular nasal tap for some of his /l/
sounds. I call it a tap because you can hear a kind of clicking saliva
sound as the back of the tongue quickly pulls away from the uvula. At
first I thought it was a problem with the file or transmission, but it
occurs many times, though there are also many "normal" /l/s.
The following are examples of where the uvular nasal tap /l/ appears.
Almost all are prevocalic clear /l/s, though at least one appears in the
dark /l/ position, i.e. _all_, though this could be because of linking
to _himself_ with a dropped /h/. Some could be dark or clear /l/, as in
_persona*l*ity_ :
"You're *l*ike, well, what can I do, you know?"
"But, you know, I ran into a *l*ady in the supermarket one time..."
"Not *l*iterally, no."
"I don't read any of your stuff because I don't *l*ike to be scared."
"And she said, 'No, I *l*iked that, you didn't write that.'"
"I had _Pet Cemetery_ in the drawer for a *l*ong while..."
"I wrote him a *l*etter..."
"*L*ook, I burn my own CDs..."
"When you *l*ook into the abyss, the abyss *l*ooks back into you."
"One of the things that we've *l*earned..."
"When you're *l*istening to the Net..."
"a *l*ot of people *l*istening"
"I think George is *l*istening to you and your dea*l*er..."
"...don't come out of a real happy persona*l*ity..."
"...that had told (normal dark /l/ in "told") these *l*ies"
"...he's doing this a*ll* himself (normal dark /l/ in "himself")
"alcoho*l*ics and drugs addicts *l*ie..."
"they *l*ie for practice,...he'll *l*ie about the time just to keep in
practice..."
"It didn't surprise me that he was *l*ying..."
"Oprah would kinda *l*ike..."
"Once you find out an alcoholic's *l*ied about one thing..."
"...probably a *l*ot of it's *l*ies."
Most but not all of the "normal" /l/s I heard are dark /l/s:
"Oh, Bi*ll* Maher, be funny!"
"They say, 'Are you rea*ll*y a scary guy?'..."
"Sure, I've got the heart of a sma*ll* boy, I keep it in a jar on my desk."
"I did this thing ca*ll*ed, ah, _The Shawshank Redemption_..."
"There rea*ll*y aren't."
"...too horrib*l*e..."
"I pub*l*ished it, and it was a huge success."
"See, *l*isten to them."
"They ca*ll*ed me a technophobe."
"I'm on the first program of 'Fishbow*l*..."
"When you open your ce*ll*phone and make a ca*ll*..."
"Not that you HAVE a dea*l*er..."
"Strict*l*y for medicina*l* purposes."
"Oh, be*l*ieve me..."
"She be*l*ieved it."
"Most of the fee*l*ing of it was rea*l*..."
"Any kind of art comes out of a conf*l*icted ("personality", with uvular
nasal /l/)"
Has anybody run into anything like this before? Or this is a very
personal quirk of Stephen King? I'd be interested in hearing what others
think about this.
Karen Chung
http://ccms.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/
http://lists.topica.com/lists/phonetics/
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