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• L The usual symbol for low in tone and intonation analyses.
• L* The symbol used for a low pitch accent in autosegmental metrical representations of intonation. The asterisk indicates that the low tone is associated to the accented syllable itself. This is also true when the symbol is used as part of a bitonal accent such as L*+H^-. See Pierrehumbert for more information.
• L% The symbol used for a low boundary tone in autosegmental metrical representations of intonation. See Pierrehumbert for more information.
• Labial [ˈleɪbjəl] Involving the lips as articulators. Also the name of a binary feature, often abbreviated to [lab], with the same meaning. [+lab] sounds include bilabials, labiodentals, labial-velars and rounded vowels.
• Labialisation [ˌleɪbjəlaɪˈzeɪʃn] (adj. labialised [ˈleɪbjəlaɪzd] ) The name of a secondary articulation where the primary articulation is accompanied by simultaneous lip rounding. Labialisation may be the result of co-articulation, as in English when the lip position of a rounded vowel or [w] is anticipated in the articulation of a preceding consonant, for example the first consonant in the word twin. A second possibility is that labialisation is contrastive for a language. This is most common with back articulations such as velar and uvular. The following example of a contrast between a plain and a labialised uvular plosive is from Kwakiutl, a language spoken in Canada: [qeˈsa] (coiling) [qʷeˈsa] (peeling).
• Labial-palatal The name of a double articulation where there are simultaneous strictures of equal rank at the lips and between the front of the tongue and the hard palate. Example: the second consonant in the French word lui (him) [lɥi].
• Labial-velar The name of a double articulation where there are simultaneous strictures of equal rank at the lips and between the back of the tongue and the soft palate. Example: [w].
• Labiodental  The name of a place of articulation. The active articulator is the lower lip and the passive articulator is the upper front teeth. Examples of labiodental sounds: [f v].
• Labiovelar The same as labial-velar.
• Laminal [ˈlæmɪnəl] Made with the blade of the tongue (rather than the tip) as the the active articulator.
• Laminar flow [ˈlæmɪnə] See airflow.
• Laryngograph [ləˈrɪŋgəgrɑ:f] An electronic device for monitoring and analysing the vibratory activity of the vocal folds. It operates by passing a weak electric current between two electrodes placed externally on either side of the speaker's neck at the level of the thyroid cartilage. The electrical impedance of the neck is measured by the device. As this impedance varies as the vocal folds vibrate, the output of the device is a signal analogous to the degree of vocal fold contact at a given instant. This waveform of impedance against time is known as Lx. Lx may be further processed to derive information about the duration of the period of vocal fold vibration (Tx) and to measure instantaneous fundamental frequency (Fx).
• Larynx [ˈlærɪŋks] Commonly called the voice-box. The larynx is an organ made of cartilage, muscle and connective tissue. It is situated at the lower end of the pharynx and is suspended from the hyoid bone by a system of muscles. Immediately below the larynx and continuous with it is the trachea or windpipe. The main cartilages of the larynx are the thyroid, cricoid and arytenoids.
• Lateral [ˈlætərəl] An aspect of the manner of articulation of consonants. Also a binary feature, often abbreviated to [lat]. [+lat] sounds are produced with one or both tongue rims lowered and with a complete obstruction on the mid-line of the vocal tract. The airstream is allowed to escape over the lowered tongue rims. Lateral articulations include approximants such as [l ɫL], fricatives such as [ɬ ɮ] and the click [||].
• Lateral release A type of plosive release where the compressed air is released by lowering the side(s) of the tongue rather than removing the closure on the mid-line of the vocal tract. Lateral release is most common when plosives precede homorganic lateral segments, as in the English words little and middle. The diacritic often used to represent lateral release is a small raised l following the plosive symbol as in [t^l].
• Lax See tense.
• Leading tone See bitonal accent.
• Lect  An accent in the sense of a variety of pronunciation. The term lect is used to mean an accent without regard to its individuating or social connotations. Lect is also used in a number of combinations such as idiolect [ˈɪdiəʊlekt], meaning the speech characteristics of an individual, sociolect [ˈsəʊsiəʊlekt], the characteristics displayed by a particular social group. Other terms are acrolect [ˈækrəʊlekt], mesolect [ˈmiːzəʊlekt] and basilect [ˈbæzɪlekt], which denote accents at the high, middle and low ends of a hierarchy of prestige.
• Lenis [ˈliːnɪs] An adjective applied to obstruent sounds produced with low muscle tension and normally voiced. The term contrasts with fortis which describes obstruents which are produced with high muscle tension and which are normally voiceless. The terms are not uncontroversial and were originally introduced to get round the difficulty of describing devoiced obstruents, which may phonologically be classed as voiced in a particular language, but which may lose some or all of their voicing, but still remain distinct from the voiceless class. Thus, one may speak of a "devoiced lenis" consonant. Very often the terms are used as (near-)synonyms for voiced and voiceless.
• Lenition [lɪˈnɪʃn] A phonological process which weakens sounds along the following strength hierarchy (> = 'stronger than'): plosive>fricative>approximant>vowel>[h]>zero. The change from voiceless to voiced is also viewed as lenition. An example from Welsh: mam  [mam] (=mother), y fam  [ə vam] (=the mother) The opposite is fortition
• Lexical incidence A possible feature of the difference between two accents of a language. Lexical incidence differences involve the occurrence of different phonemes in the same word in the two accents in question and do not necessarily have implications for the phonological systems of the two accents, nor for the phonetic realisation of the phonemes in question. An example of a lexical incidence difference between northern and southern accents of English involves words such as pass, laugh, bath. In many northern accents these contain the vowel phoneme /æ/, whereas in the south the vowel is usually /ɑː/. Both accents have both phonemes, /æ/ in gas, mass, for instance and /ɑː/ in father.
• Lexical item (1) A word (2) A word such as a noun, main verb, adjective, or adverb. In this sense lexical item is contrasted with grammatical item (pronoun, preposition, conjunction, auxiliary verb, modal verb). The main use of the term in this sense is in the specification of unmarked and marked tonicity. In English at least unmarked tonicity, apart from in a few exceptional grammatical structures, has the nucleus on the final lexical item in the word group.
• Lexical phonology A theory of phonology which stresses the importance of regularities in word-formation and the interaction between phonology and morphology.  One of the major concepts of lexical phonology is the recognition of two different types of phonological rule.  These are (1) lexical rules and (2) post-lexical rules.  Lexical rules have the following characteristics (amongst others):

• they operate within words, but not across word boundaries
• they are prone to exceptions
• they need morphological information
• they are not blocked by pauses

Post-lexical rules, on the other hand:

• operate both within words and across word boundaries
• are exception-free
• need only syntactic information, or no grammatical information at all
• may be blocked by pauses

For further information visit this page.

• Lexical rule See Lexical Phonology above.  An example of a lexical rule is Tri-syllabic Laxing in English
• Lexical stress See stress.
• Lexical tone The use of pitch level or pitch configuration to distinguish one lexical item from another. An example of a lexical tone language is Modern Standard Chinese, which, at the surface phonetic level at least, has four distinctive tonal patterns: Tone 1: high level, Tone 2: high rising, Tone 3: low falling-rising, Tone 4: high falling. These are exemplified in the following words:[¹ma] = mother, [²ma] = hemp, [³ma] = horse, [⁴ma] = to scold.
• Liaison [liˈeɪzɒn] Also called linking or sandhi.  The situation where words have a different form depending on whether they are immediately followed by a vowel or not.  A good example of a language with different liaison forms is French.  For instance,  vous (= you) is pronounced [vuz]  when a vowel follows, but [vu] elsewhere. In English, the main type of liaison occurs in non-rhotic accents and involves the insertion of /r/.  See linking /r/ and intrusive /r/. Another type of liaison in some, but not all, varieties of English affects a small number of words which have different vowels in their two forms. The words do to and you are often pronounced [də tə jə] when not followed by a vowel, but are  [duː tuː juː] or [dʊ tʊ jʊ] or [du tu ju] when a vowel follows.  Similarly, the consonant liaison form of the is usually [ðə], whereas the vowel liaison form is [ðiː] or [ðɪ] or [ði].
• Lingual [ˈlɪŋɡwəl] Involving some part of the tongue as an articulator.
• Linguolabial [ˌlɪŋɡwəʊˈleɪbjəl] The name of a place of articulation. The active articulator is the tip of the tongue and the passive articulator is the upper lip. This type of articulation is very rare, but linguolabial stops, fricatives and nasals have been reported for the languages Vao and Tangoa, both spoken in Vanuatu.
• Linking See liaison.
• Linking /r/ A connected speech feature of non-rhotic accents of English which involves words which end orthographically in r or re. In such accents, /r/ is only pronounced when followed directly by a vowel. Thus a words like far and more are pronounced without /r/, except when the following word begins with a vowel, as in phrases like far away and more ice. Across word boundaries, linking /r/ is optional, but very frequent. Word-internally the linking /r/ is obligatory, as in soaring. See also intrusive /r/.
• Lip reading See speech reading.
• Liquid A term used to refer to l and r sounds.
• Locus [ˈləʊkəs] The frequency from which formant transitions for a particular place of articulation appear to originate. For instance, the F2 transition from an alveolar consonant into a following [ɑ] vowel is flat or slightly falling. The F2 transition for an alveolar before a [i] vowel is rising. This is because F2 for the latter vowel is much higher in frequency. The origin of the transition is from the same frequency in each case. The locus frequency for place of articulation is as follows: bilabial<alveolar<velar.
• Logogram [ˈlɒɡəʊɡræm] (adj. loɡoɡraphic [ˌlɒɡəʊˈɡræfɪk]) A symbol which represents a word or morpheme without attempting to represent either the pronunciation or the meaning of the item.  Symbols such as = % $ £ & are examples.
• Loudness A perceptual attribute of a sound which enables the hearer to locate the sound on a scale from loud to soft. The loudness of a sound is connected to (but distinct from) the sound's intensity. Loudness is measured in phons.
• Low The name of a binary feature. Often abbreviated to [lo]. [+lo] sounds are articulated with the body of the tongue lowered from a notional neutral position as for the vowel [e]. Vowels such as [a ɑ] are specified as [+lo].
• Lowering The replacement of a vowel by an opener vowel.  An example is Early Modern English lock which had [ɔ]. This has been lowered to [ɒ] in some accents of later Modern English.
• Low fall The name of a nuclear tone in many analyses of English intonation. The pitch characteristics are as follows: the pitch contour starts at around the middle of the speaker's range and falls rapidly to a low pitch, any following tail syllables being low and relatively level in pitch. See O'Connor & Arnold for more information.
• Low rise The name of a nuclear tone in many analyses of English intonation. The pitch characteristics are as follows: the pitch contour starts close tothe bottom of the speaker's range and rises to around mid pitch. If the nucleus is followed by syllables in the tail, the pitch on the nuclear syllable itself is low and relatively level. The tail syllables form a rising sequence. See O'Connor & Arnold for more information.
• Lx See laryngograph.
• Lyman's law [ˈlaɪmən] See Rendaku.