Gorman, Emily and Kirkham, Sam and Strycharczuk, Patrycja (2025) Spatial and temporal variation in speech planning: Evidence from laterals. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
![[thumbnail of 2025gormanPhD]](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/style/images/fileicons/text.png)
Abstract
This thesis explores the relationship between spatial and temporal variation in English laterals in order to test predictions of the coupled oscillator model of speech timing. Electro-magnetic articulography data is used to examine spatial and temporal properties of laterals from two British English dialects which differ in degree of /l/ darkening, an Onset Lightening dialect: Standard Southern British English, and and Onset Darkening dialect: Lancashire English. This thesis explores how dialect-mediated spatial differences in laterals affect patterns of lateral cluster timing. This design allows for a systematic, within-language exploration of the effects of /l/ darkening on speech timing. Results find laterals to differ spatially across dialects, but not temporally in measures of /l/ cluster timing and inter-gestural timing. In this way, temporal stability in /l/ is found to be invariant to spatial differences. Further analyses reveal systematic dialectal differences in the velocity of the tongue body gesture of /l/ to facilitate this pattern. Implications of these results are discussed within the framework of Articulatory Phonology and the coupled oscillator model of speech timing. Specifically, results support a feed-forward model, whereby coupling relations are invariant to spatial properties.