Laterals in simplex vs. complex syllable codas: a comparison of four languages

English dark /l/ in coda clusters has been shown to exhibit nonlocal coordination patterns (i.e., vowel shortening when going from singleton to complex codas -e.g., gull-gulp).The unpredicted organization has been attributed to the articulatory complexity and timing of the coda dark /l/.The present study further investigates this issue by analyzing coda coordination patterns as a function of /l/ darkness in Russian, English, Romanian and Georgian, four languages that differ in the gestural synergies of the coda lateral.The acoustic analysis shows that while predictions on coda coordination patterns based on the gestural composition of the /l/ are confirmed for Russian, English and Romanian, they are not confirmed in the case of Georgian.