On the basis of spontaneous Dutch and English conversations betweennative speakers of Dutch, the present paper investigates how native speakersof Dutch acquire the laryngeal phonology of English. The laryngeal systemsin Dutch and English are significantly different: whereas voiceless stops inEnglish are aspirated in certain environments, they are unaspirated in Dutch.Moreover, phonologically voiced stops are often phonetically voiceless inEnglish, in contrast to Dutch, where they are usually prevoiced. Because theinformants have a different dialectal background in Dutch, the study alsofocuses on the extent to which the informants transfer the voice assimilationsof their Dutch regiolect into their English speech.
