Consonant quality and vocalization

Both /r/ and /l/ are devoiced in stressed onset position when preceded by a voiceless plosive. In this position, /l/ is usually pronounced [ɬ], though /r/ is not consistently fricated. Devoicing following voiceless fricatives (in words like free, flea, slide, shrimp) is much less marked, and may be absent. We find fricative /r/ after both /t/ and /d/, voiceless in the first case, voiced in the second, e.g. in train and drain.

Like RP, New Zealand English has clearly different allophones of /l/ in onset and in coda position. In onset position we usually find a slightly velarized lateral, [I^ɤ]. In coda position there is variation between a ‘darker’ lateral, perhaps [I^ʔ], and a vowel of variable quality. This vocalized /l/ may merge with the preceding vowel (and recall that the number of contrasts before /l/ is diminished) to form a diphthong, or it may form a disyllabic sequence. Some typical outcomes are transcribed below.

One of the results of this is that most New Zealand speakers do not have a dental allophone of /l/, since the places where dental allophones arise in other varieties are precisely those where there is a vowel in New Zealand English.

Following /θ/, /r/ is variably realized as [ɾ] in words like through, three.