Chapter 13 - Phonetics and Phonology

Abstract

This chapter focuses on topics of theoretical interest since 1990 in the realm of phonetics and phonology, especially various aspects of prosody. Phonological and phonetic studies of aphasia are evaluated with respect to issues of neural representation of speech and language. The traditional dichotomy between anterior and posterior syndromes has been challenged in recent years. In speech production, deficits at the phonological level are discussed in relation to psycholinguistic models of speech production, phonological features, underspecification, markedness, syllable structure, and sonority. Segmental deficits at the phonetic level are discussed primarily in relation to temporal parameters of consonants and vowels, segmental coarticulation, and speaking rate effects. The data challenge the traditional view that articulatory implementation deficits are circumscribed to anterior lesions, planning deficits to posterior lesions. Hemispheric specialization is assessed for linguistic aspects of prosody and brought to bear on a number of competing hypotheses. Production deficits are examined for phonemic stress, contrastive stress, lexical tones, tonal coarticulation, intonation, and foreign accent syndrome. The bulk of the evidence suggests minimal involvement of the right hemisphere in mediating linguistic prosody. In speech perception, the role of phonology in lexical access is highlighted as are breakdowns in stress, tone, and intonation.