連日 /l/ について話題にしている．RP での /l/ の異音の1つ「暗い [ɫ]」は，英語史上，先行する母音に対して主に質的な影響を与え続けてきた．また，そのように先行母音に影響を与えた後に，当の [ɫ] が母音化して消えていくことも珍しくなかった．現にこれは現代の RP や Estuary English でも多かれ少なかれ生じている過程でもある．Cruttenden (203) より，暗い [ɫ] の先行母音への影響と，それ自身の母音化・消失についての箇所を引用する．

The velarization of [ɫ] often has the effect of retracting and lowering slightly the articulation of a preceding front vowel, e.g. feel, fill, fell, canal; in the case of /iː/+[ɫ], a central glide between the vowel and [ɫ] is often noticeable, and the [ɪ] element of [eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ] tends to be obscured, e.g. in pail, pile, oil. /uː/ before [ɫ] tends to be more monophthongal and nearer to C[u].

Variations in the quality of the back vowel resonance associated with [ɫ] are, however, to be found among RP speakers, with a range extending from [ö], [ʊ], or [ɤ] to [ɔ̈]or [ʌ̈]; lip positions, too, vary from neutral to loose rounding. In some speech, notably that of London and the surrounding areas, the tongue-tip contact for [ɫ] is omitted, this allophone of /l/ being realized as a vowel (vocoid) in the region of [ö] with weak lip-rounding or as [ɤ] with neutral or weakly spread lips, thus sell [seö] or [seɤ], fall [fɔö] or [fɔɤ], table [ˈtæɪbö] or [ˈtæɪbɤ]. In such speech, the lowering of /iː/ and /uː/ before [ö] is so marked that meal, mill, and pool, pull, may become homophonous or distinguished merely by the length of the central syllabic vowel element, i.e. [mɪˑö] vs [mɪö], [pʊˑö] vs [pʊ;ö] . . .

　関連する話題は，「#2027. イングランドで拡がる miuk の発音」 ([2014-11-14-1]) でも触れた．また，「#3947. 子音群における l の脱落」 ([2020-02-16-1]) とも合わせて，l は周囲の音にも影響を与えるし，自分自身も消失しやすいという特徴がある点で，英語史上の音変化のキープレーヤーといってもよいのである．

　・ Cruttenden, Alan. Gimson's Pronunciation of English. 6th ed. New York: OUP, 2001.

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