What question did this study set out to answer?

This research aims to explore how the Serbian laterals /l/ and /ʎ/ vary in production based on their position and surrounding vowels.

May 31, 2026Open Access

The contrast and positional/contextual variation in Serbian laterals

Key Points

This research aims to explore how the Serbian laterals /l/ and /ʎ/ vary in production based on their position and surrounding vowels.
Used electropalatography to analyze the articulation of Serbian laterals
Collected data from four speakers producing laterals in different utterance positions and next to various vowels
Focused on articulatory and acoustic differences between /l/ and /ʎ/.
Both laterals were well-differentiated in articulation and acoustics, confirming previous literature findings
The lateral /l/ was more susceptible to coarticulation from high vowels, particularly /i/
Both laterals exhibited stability across utterance positions, but /ʎ/ was less affected by vowel context.

Abstract

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.

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