Il Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico nel sardo medievale

Centuries of language contact with Italo-Romance varieties have strongly affected the Italo-Albanian dialects in many respects. The following study focuses on loan words (MAT loans), on the one hand, with regard to their integration into the Italo-Albanian sound system and, on the other hand, with regard to the morphological integration of verbs into the historically given system. As for the sound level, especially geminates and laterals are prone to deviations from simple phonetic integration, with the laterals being characterised by a considerable interdialectal and intradialectal variation. Moreover, the study shows that the results of the originally phonetic type of integration were dynamised over time when the donor language changed from the local dialect to Italian, thus resulting in a purely analogical way of integrating newer borrowings. Consequently, Italian loanwords, until recently, have continued to be integrated with (assumed) dialectal characteristics, which make it often difficult to assign the borrowings to a specific period. A similar phenomenon is observed with respect to the morphological integration of verbs in some dialects, where the dialectal merger of infinitive classes is transferred to Italian loan verbs. However, the integration of loan verbs follows different regional principles, whereby a group of dialects from southern Apulia via northern Basilicata to Campania is characterised by the preservation of the original integration mechanism based on the shortened infinitive with the ending class in -oɲ.

A phonological process is called an assimilation if, as a result of its application, two or more segments in a form agree in their value for some phonological feature(s) or feature class(es). Assimilation processes can be roughly divided into two types, local and long-distance. Local assimilations obtain between strictly adjacent segments, such as between the consonants in a consonant cluster. Long-distance assimilations obtain between segments that are not (necessarily) adjacent, such as between consonants across a vowel. The focus of the present chapter is on local assimilation, and in particular on a set of issues that arise in the formal analysis of processes of local assimilation within Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 2004). See Archangeli and Pulleyblank Ch.15 for discussion of long-distance vowel and consonant assimilation. Two cases of assimilation in American English are discussed in (1) below. In (1a) are examples of place assimilation, whereby a nasal is made to agree in place of articulation features with a following consonant. In (1b) are examples of voicing assimilation, whereby an obstruent is made to agree in voicing with an adjacent (in this case, preceding) consonant.

This event-related potential (ERP) study examines the influence of dialectal competence differences (merged vs. unmerged dialect group) on cross-dialectal comprehension between Southern German dialects. It focuses on the question as to whether certain dialect phonemes (//, //), which are attributed to different lexemes in two dialect areas (Central Bavarian, Bavarian-Alemannic transition zone) evoke increased neural costs during sentence processing. In this context, the phonological and semantic processing of lexemes is compared in three types of potentially problematic communication settings (misunderstanding, incomprehension, allophonic variation = potential comprehension). For this purpose, an oddball design including whole sentences was combined with a semantic rating task. Listeners from the unmerged Central Bavarian dialect area heard sentences including either native or non-native lexemes from the merged neighboring dialect. These had to be evaluated with regard to their context acceptability. The main difference between the lexemes can be attributed to the fact that they have different meanings in the respective dialect areas or are non-existent in the linguistic competence of the Central Bavarians. The results provide evidence for the fact that non-native lexemes containing the //-diphthong lead to enhanced neural costs during sentence processing. The ERP results show a biphasic pattern (N2b/N400, LPC) for non-existent lexemes (incomprehension) as well as for semantically incongruous lexemes (misunderstanding), reflecting an early error detection mechanism and enhanced costs for semantic integration and evaluation. In contrast, allophonic // deviations show reduced negativities and no LPC, indexing an unproblematic categorization and evaluation process. In the light of these results, an observed change of // to // in the Bavarian-Alemannic transition zone can be interpreted as a facilitation strategy of cross-dialectal comprehension to reduce both misunderstandings as well as neural costs in processing, which might be interpreted as the initial trigger for this particular phoneme change.

Background Speech sound disorder is a communication disorder in which children have persistent difficulty saying words or sounds correctly. It refers to any difficulty or combination of difficulties with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds and speech segments. Aim of the Work to construct an Arabic auditory bombardment therapy program and measure its effectiveness in treatment of functional speech sound disorder. Subjects and Methods This study was applied on 60 participants divided into 2 groups (30 for each group) with age ranging from 3-5 years diagnosed with functional speech sound disorder with or without language disorders, attending at the Phoniatrics outpatient clinic in Ain Shams University Hospitals. The test for identification of phonological processes was applied on 60 patients with speech sound disorder selected to participate in this study. These were divided in to 2 groups (Group (1) received only the conventional therapy while group (2) received auditory bombardment in addition to the conventional therapy for 3 months) and the test was repeated again after therapy. Results Group (2) showed high significant difference (improvement) in consonant assimilation, voicing change, final consonant deletion, palatal fronting, gliding, lateralization and glottal replacement while group (1) showed high significant difference (improvement) in syllable deletion and partial cluster reduction. Conclusion The present study showed that application of auditory bombardment therapy program in addition to conventional therapy has high significant improvement than conventional therapy alone.

This paper investigated Lukabaras verbal nominals.The specific aim was to analyse the alterations verbs in Lukabaras undergo to form nouns. Accordingly, the study explained the morphological and phonological constraints involved in the formation of such items. The study adopted a descriptive design. A sample of 40 lexical items was picked through purposive sampling technique for analysis. In view of this, the items that featured in this study were typically nouns formed from verbs. The findings of this study revealed that certain Lukabaras nominals derived from verbs exhibited morpho phonemic processes. As such the study concluded that the formation of Lukabaras verbal nominals involved affixation, consonant assimilation and vowel gliding.

This article reviews and exemplifies the theory of the life cycle of phonological processes and illustrates how diachronic phonological changes can be accounted for in a stratal/cyclic model of phonology. The life cycle captures the fact that sound change operates in orderly stages and that phonological processes become increasing integrated with morphosyntactic structure as they age. Phonological rules also often display different rates of application across a given dialect continuum. Thus, the developmental phases that a phonological innovation goes through in its life cycle define a template of language change; and these stages of change reflect synchronic patterns of microtypological variation.

In this paper I will first explore the issues centering around the evolution of the interrogative word 物 as a common source into its modern descendants mak 7 and other forms in Hakka. In contrast to the more uniform form in Southern Min, varieties of Hakka boast more variants such as mak 7 , maʔ 7 and man 3 . Such a variation can be accounted for in terms of minor regional difference as well as types of phonological process. The retention of the bilabial nasal initial of the word 物 as a reflex of the Middle Chinese 微 phonological category in Hakka lends support to the thesis of lexical diffusion that sound change is not phonologically independent but rather bears the result of interaction with lexicon. Second, on the basis of earlier Hakka texts I will examine the patterns in the distribution of the modern reflex of 物 often written as a demotic word 乜 in its capacity of a variable as a component of the complex interrogative words ‘what’, ‘who’ (=what person) and ‘why’ (=do what kind) or universal quantifiers in Hakka. The finding of the patterns of the Hakka interrogative word will be brought to bear on the patterns of its precursor in Early Modern Chinese colloquial texts. Close attention will be paid to the interaction of inherent lexical properties of the interrogative word and the grammatical constructions in which it occurs. Last of all, an attempt is made to survey the distribution and evolution of the Hakka-related 物-based interrogative word in other dialectal areas.

The paper looks at the phonological development of the Záhorie dialects in the context of historical phonological processes in Slovak and Czech. The Záhorie dialect group is the westernmost dialect of Slovak and many of its traits show a similarity with Czech. Old residual traits are either shared by Czech and West Slovak dialects (*ort, *olt > rot-, lot; *s’ > š; *dl, *tl) or correspond to Czech dialects (*jь- > je-; length for the acute). On the subject of innovations, which are also important in determining genetic affiliation, the Záhorie dialect shows a similarity with the Czech development as well. It was affected by probably the oldest Czech innovation (*dj > z), which was later neutralised by the restructuring of the morphonological system of alternations in assibilation conditions, i.e. the ď > dz change. The Záhorie dialect was also affect-ed by the Proto-Czech depalatalisations, diphthongisations, and in part by the Old Czech umlaut ä > ě, which is, however, the most consistent for  in internal syllables. Some phonological indicators suggest that the *r’ assibilation might have taken place in the Záhorie dialect as well. The most recent change connecting the Záhorie dialect to Czech dialects was the monophthongisation, after which the development of the Záhorie dialect group approaches the Slovak diasystem. The Záhorie dialect there-fore started its development as a dialect of Czech, subsequently gravitating toward the Slovak development, and hence it can with complete justification be considered as a transitional Czech-Slovak dialect.

This article examines the nominal inflectional system of a group of Asia Minor Greek dialects (Dawkins,), which developed, in parallel with the fusional inflectional system, an agglutinative one due to language contact with Turkish. We argue that the ‘old’ fusional ending or the theme vowel was reanalyzed as part of the nominal stem. This novel structure was actualized by means of two competing options: in some dialects, the reanalysis was actualized transparently in all inflectional forms rendering an agglutinative pattern of inflection, whereas in dialects with limited agglutination the actualization took the form of a special type of vowel assimilation. More specifically, as part of the nominal stem, the ‘old’ theme vowel signals its merge with the root by allowing it to absorbsomeorallof its features. Formally, the phonological process is treated as an instance ofindirect licensing(Walker 2011), according to which the theme vowel acts as a trigger due to its privileged position as a segment of the categorizern, i.e. the head of the stem.

Reviewed by: The syllable in Optimality Theory Marc Pierce Caroline Féry and Ruben van de Vijver, eds. The syllable in Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. Pp. ix + 415. $100.00. (hardcover). This book contains 14 thematic chapters addressing various syllable-related issues from an Optimality Theory (OT) perspective, as well as an introductory overview. As the limitations of this forum preclude an exhaustive discussion of each analysis, I shall instead briefly outline the contents of the volume and then offer some general discussion. The first section consists of an introductory "Overview" by the editors. This chapter first sketches the role of the syllable in phonology and then examines its treatment within OT. The editors suggest that OT is particularly well-suited to capture the typology of the syllable (a claim accepted even by some opponents of OT, e.g., McMahon 2000). An overview of the contents of the book is then given. The second part, "Syllable Structure and Prosodic Structure", contains four papers. John J. McCarthy's "Sympathy, cumulativity, and the Duke-of-York gambit" examines Duke-of-York (DY) derivations (Pullum 1976), that is, derivations which "have the general form A → B → A, where underlying A passes through a B stage before returning to surface A again" (p. 24), within OT. McCarthy argues that there are two different types of such derivations, "vacuous" and "feeding"; in the first type, the B stage is motivated solely by "theory-internal assumptions of strict serialism" (p. 24), while in the second type, the B stage is "crucial for conditioning some further process" (p. 24). McCarthy reviews the evidence for a number of vacuous DY derivations, and concludes that such derivations are not problematic for OT, as they are "an expected consequence of the core premises of OT, constraint ranking and constraint violation under domination" (p. 32). As to feeding DY derivations, McCarthy contends that they do not exist, and that better analyses are available for any putative feeding DY derivations. In McCarthy's view, the problem of opacity in OT is best resolved by means of Sympathy Theory (McCarthy 1999), and the chapter concludes with an eloquent review of the applications of Sympathy Theory to opacity. The second paper in this section is "The Controversy over Geminates and Syllable Weight", by Stuart Davis, which takes up the problem of the representation of geminate consonants: are they consonants that are underlyingly moraic, or consonants underlyingly linked to two root nodes, or consonants linked to two skeletal slots? Based largely on the behaviour of geminates in Sinhala, Davis argues that geminates are underlyingly moraic, and suggests that alternative views of geminates fail to account for the Sinhalese material. Davis then discusses evidence from other languages, which has been raised in support of alternative views of geminates, and he concludes that this evidence does not in fact conclusively support alternative views. The next paper in this section is "The syllable as a unit of prosodic organization in Japanese", by Haruo Kubozono. While Japanese is normally considered a [End Page 75] mora language, rather than a syllable language, Kubozono argues persuasively that a number of phonological phenomena in Japanese, including mother-child language, emphatic mimetics, and the truncation of loanwords, can best be accounted for in terms of the syllable. Kubozono therefore concludes that "the syllable is no less indispensable than the mora is in Japanese" (p. 118). The final paper in this section is "Prosodic weight", by Draga Zec, which takes up the problem of describing syllable weight. Zec argues that "syllable weight in terms of mora count is the sole weight mechanism associated with the syllable as a prosodic constituent" (p. 123), but that higher level prosodic constituents like the foot and the prosodic word can "impose their own minimal sonority thresholds" (p. 124). Data from English, Mordvin, Old Church Slavonic, and Asheninca are adduced in support of Zec's claims. The third part, "Nonmoraic syllables and syllable edges", begins with Paul Kiparsky's "Syllables and moras in Arabic"; a more extensive treatment of this data can be found in Kiparsky (forthcoming). This chapter focuses on syllable-based phenomena in three groups of Arabic dialects (VC-dialects, C-dialects, and CV...

This study investigates Differential Object Marking (DOM) in Italian speakers from two dialectal areas–North and South Italy–learning Spanish. Southern Italo-Romance varieties exhibit a DOM system through a-marking, like Spanish, whereas the Northern varieties, like Standard Italian, only allow DOM with pronouns. Given the structural differences and similarities among these typologically close languages, we ask whether a stigmatized oral regional variety has the potential to transfer in the acquisition of additional languages. Participants (n = 103) completed an acceptability judgment task (AJT) and an oral production task testing DOM in [±animate, ±definite] DP contexts. The results revealed differences modulated by proficiency in the written AJT that moderately favored the Northern learners and in the oral production task that favored the Southern learners. These findings suggest that low-prestige varieties may not have the full potential to transfer at early stages of acquisition due to their inhibition in formal contexts, but that they can emerge in less formal tasks. We argue that current theoretical models that prioritize linguistic proximity as the primary source of transfer at initial stages of L3 acquisition are unable to capture revealing patterns from understudied sociolinguistic contexts that bring new light to the study of multilingualism.

In the context of comparing linguistic profiles across neurodevelopmental disorders, Down syndrome (DS) has captured growing attention for its uneven profile. Although specific weaknesses in grammatical and phonological processing have been reported, research evidence on phonological development remains scarce, particularly beyond early childhood. The purpose of this study was to explore the phonological profiles of children and adolescents with Down syndrome. The profiles were based on the frequency and relative proportion of the processes observed by classes, and they were compared to those of typically developing preschool children of similar verbal age. A complementary goal was to assess the effect of two different methods of elicitation: a test of articulation and spontaneous speech sampling. Finally, intergroup and intragroup differences in full match percentages between three positions at syllable-level (complex onset, medial coda, and final coda) were assessed. The results of the present study confirmed that the frequency of phonological processes in children and adolescents with DS is atypically high and is above what is expected for lexical age and at the same level as grammatical age. Highly increased frequency of processes, consistent in all kinds of processes and positions at the syllable-level, and asynchronous with verbal age and mental age suggest atypical developmental trajectories of phonological development in the Down syndrome population.

676 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 74, NUMBER 3 (1998) absolute duration of the plosive and the duration of the vowel relative to the VC dyad—correlate with perception; and (2) that when absolute vowel duration is taken into account, stimuli are reliably differentiated according to plosive duration or F-value (188). Yet since the relative duration of V to C suffices for identification/perception of the quality of C for the words in Ws sample, measures such as absolute duration of C and relative duration of V and C in a dyad are superfluous (195). In the final chapter W relates his findings to Kohler's universalist model of a lenis/fortis distinction based on a concept of consonantal power and on constant duration of VC dyads based on V complementarity with (longer) fortis or (shorter) lenis C. W all too briefly concludes that his findings do not support Köhler's model, in fact render reliance on the power feature for the lenis/ fortis distinction superfluous. Substantial appendices (including questionnaires and histograms for perceptual test items) allow the reader to reexamine much of the data and methodology. The work ends with a short bibliography. Limited sample size prevents this study from being definitive, which the work does not claim to be. However , it may, as it intends, inspire more thorough examinations of the lenis/fortis distinction by indicating fruitful directions for future research efforts. [Désirée Baron, University ofMichigan.] Natural phonology: The state of the art. Ed. by Bernhard Hurch and Richard A. Rhodes. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996. Pp. xii, 348. Cloth DM 168.00. This collection is divided into theoretical and descriptive sections plus an introduction by the editors (vi-xii) and a commentary, 'Natural phono(morpho )logy: A view from the outside' (1-38), by Rajendra Singh. Newcomers to natural phonology (NP) should start with the introduction and Wolfgang U. Dressler's 'Principles of naturalness in phonology and across components' (41-51). However , all the papers are accessible to anyone with average phonological training since NP does not make use of arcane notation or theoretical concepts. Nearly all the data cited are from European languages . Originated by David Stampe in the 1970s, the central idea of NP is that languages differ in the extent to which they suppress 'universal' phonological processes. This has obvious affinities with the currently popular view that languages differ in their ranking of 'universal' constraints. However, this collection dates from a conference which took place back in 1990, so comparisons with optimality theory must be supplied by the reader. Several of the papers deal with the syllable. Katarzyna Dztubalska-Kolaczyk ('Natural phonology without the syllable', 53-72) wants to replace syllables with beats. Marianne Kilani-Schoch ('Syllable and foot in French clipping', 135-52) and Elke Ronneberger-Sibold ('Preferred sound shapes of new roots: On some phonotactic and prosodie properties of shortenings in German and French', 261-92) illustrate and attempt to explain the distribution of open and closed syllables in clippings such as manif 'demonstration' and Fundi 'fundamentalist Green'. Michèle Loporcaro ('On the analysis of geminates in Standard Italian and Italian dialects', 153-87) argues persuasively that even 'true' geminates must be divided between codas and onsets rather than assigned entirely to onsets. Especially interesting is Eva Mayerthaler's exploration of 'syllable-timing' versus 'stress-timing' ('Stress, syllables and segments: Their interplay in an Italian dialect continuum', 201-21); she argues that this distinction is really a matter of whether the contrast between successive segments or that between successive syllables is optimized. Stress and its segmental effects are considered by Liliana Madelska and Wolfgang U. Dressier ('Postlexical stress processes and their segmental consequences illustrated with Polish and Czech', 189-200), Richard A. Rhodes ('English reduced vowels and the nature of phonological processes', 239-59), and Bernhard Hurch ('Accentuations', 73-96), who argues that primary word accent has priority over foot structure, so that it is a mistake to see primary stress merely as a matter of which foot heads the word. Other articles are by Carmen Pensado ('Portuguese secondary nasal vowels and phonological representations', 223-37), Julián Méndez DosuNA ('Can weakening processes start in initial position? The case of...

Resistance to syncope in certain data from Arabic dialects motivated the proposal for antigemination as a function of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP). More recent revisions to the OCP as being operative in this phonological process have claimed that the non-application of syncope is due to homophony avoidance or resistance to paradigm collapse. The present analysis considers the importance of the morphosemantic properties of the forms which block syncope. The approach seeks to unify the targets of resistance to syncope (Forms II and III) in the discussion of gemination as encoding plurality. The cross-linguistic implications for the claims made here is that phonological processes will be prohibited from applying if their application results in morphosemantic information being jeopardised. This study investigates the problem of antigemination in certain Arabic dialects. I put forward the view that any proposal for the occurrence of antigemination should not be purely formally driven within an isolated phonological framework, but should also address a systematic study into the morphosemantic properties of the particular forms. This is dependent on acknowledging that there is a morphosemantic association between the verbal forms II and III, with particular reference to the reduplicative structure exhibited by geminate consonants and lengthened vowels. While this paper is not meant to be an exhaustive account of the morphosemantic or morphosyntactic properties of the Arabic verbs, I try to highlight the issue that considerations on these properties are dependent for an explanation of antigemination.

English speakers are sensitive to phonetic length [Pickett and Decker (1960)] but do not maintain a phonemic length contrast [Hayes (2002)]. This study examines English speakers’ ability to discriminate and identify intervocalic consonant length in Finnish non-words. The consonants were manipulated for length and half of the participants were given brief written instruction regarding the Finnish length contrast. In an AX discrimination task, participants responded to increasing contrast ratio gradiently; however, the instructed group performed significantly better than the uninstructed group. Proficiency in any second language aids contrast detection in those receiving no instruction. In a forced-choice identification task, participants showed no evidence of boundary effects; however, the instructed group performed significantly more like native Finnish controls. Again, second language proficiency aids in consonant length detection. The present results indicate that information about and attention to a novel contrast, along with second language experience, aid processing in novice listeners. Given that learners can eventually maintain native-like contrasts, these factors may be influential in the initial formation of L2 phonological representations and support phonetic level of processing [Werker and Tees (1984)], intermediate to non-linguistic acoustic processing and phonemic processing, at which acoustic duration becomes a phonetically relevant cue.