Abstract
Acoustic and auditive observations are reported for Slovak consonants l (in non-syllabic position not followed by e, i, í in spelling) and ľ (orthographically represented by the letter ľ), for which the IPA uses the symbols /l/ and /ʎ/. The laterals were produced by 20 news-readers of Rádio Slovensko and by V. Záborský (a traditional model of good pronunciation), and analyzed in terms of two indicators of softness (clarity)/hardness (darkness, velarization): F2-F1 and F1/F2. Acoustic and auditive analyses revealed that the majority of the selected indicators are suited for the leveling (normalization) of gender differences in the production of l and ľ. Individual genders can therefore be analyzed jointly. It has further been determined that there are significant differences in the realization of l and ľ in the speech of individual speakers, and at least two types of l and ľ can be identified in the selected sample. Normalization by means of the modified Lobanov z-score transformation makes the samples of the individual speakers so homogeneous, that not only physiological, but also sociolinguistic variation disappears. Finally, the comparison of the laterals in the speech of news-readers and V. Záborský showed no significant differences in the production of l and ľ.