The Problem of Localizing the Southern Border of the Middle Izh Dialects of the Udmurt Language: Phonetic and Dialectological Analysis

This study reports a small but fully transcribed database of spontaneous English speech spoken by Korean learners of English. The spontaneous speech was gathered under a naturalistic setting, using a problem-solving task (called the Diapix task from Van Engen et al., 2010) involving two talkers. Using the database, we examined whether the communicative characteristics of Korean users’ English speech differ depending on the language background of the conversation partners with whom the Korean users interact in a given discourse. For this, we focused on examining how efficiently the Korean talkers communicated with their conversation partners by considering three primary measures, namely (i) how fast they completed the dialogue task, (ii) how balanced the conversation was, and (iii) how many types of English words they used. The data showed that for all three measures the native language background of the interlocutor with whom a Korean learner of English interacts in a dialogue affects the speech characteristics of the Korean learner of English. Discussions of the current results and implications of them are provided.

The paper discusses the phonetic and semantic features of the desiderative mood markers in the Laskino subdialect of the Narym dialect of the Selkup language. Consideration is also given to the cognates of the desiderative suffix -ndȥ(V)- as markers of imperfective and future tense that are not clearly separated in synchrony. The study reveals the distinction between the use of the derivational and inflectional suffix -ndȥ(V)-. The reason for this distinction is that imperfective verbs consistently indicate the imperfective aspect. However, the aspectual relationship of the verb in the future tense and desiderative mood depends on the aspect of the verb stem. Additionally, suffixes seem to retain partially the meaning of imperfectivity in inflection. Most examples in the Laskino subdialect have the suffix -ndȥ(V)- used to convey desire, with the indicator -l(e)- mainly expressing the future tense. The discussion also focuses on the distribution of the suffix -ndȥ(V)- as a marker of the imperfective/future tense/desiderative in the Southern and Central dialects. In Southern dialects, the suffix -ndȥ(V)- is primarily utilized to convey the future tense. In Central dialects, the suffix -ndȥ(V)- serves to express desire and indicate the peripheral future tense, while the suffix -l(e)- is the main marker of the future tense. The identification of the suffix -(e)ndȥ(V)- as an indicator of imperfectivity in the Southern and Central dialects (excluding the Sondrovo subdialects, where it was absent) demonstrated a relatively limited occurrence, suggesting its peripheral usage.

Spontaneous speech is produced in chunks called intonation units (IUs). IUs are defined by a set of prosodic cues and presumably occur in all human languages. Recent work has shown that across different grammatical and sociocultural conditions IUs form rhythms of ∼1 unit per second. Linguistic theory suggests that IUs pace the flow of information in the discourse. As a result, IUs provide a promising and hitherto unexplored theoretical framework for studying the neural mechanisms of communication. In this article, we identify a neural response unique to the boundary defined by the IU. We measured the EEG of human participants (of either sex), who listened to different speakers recounting an emotional life event. We analyzed the speech stimuli linguistically and modeled the EEG response at word offset using a GLM approach. We find that the EEG response to IU-final words differs from the response to IU-nonfinal words even when equating acoustic boundary strength. Finally, we relate our findings to the body of research on rhythmic brain mechanisms in speech processing. We study the unique contribution of IUs and acoustic boundary strength in predicting delta-band EEG. This analysis suggests that IU-related neural activity, which is tightly linked to the classic Closure Positive Shift (CPS), could be a time-locked component that captures the previously characterized delta-band neural speech tracking.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Linguistic communication is central to human experience, and its neural underpinnings are a topic of much research in recent years. Neuroscientific research has benefited from studying human behavior in naturalistic settings, an endeavor that requires explicit models of complex behavior. Usage-based linguistic theory suggests that spoken language is prosodically structured in intonation units. We reveal that the neural system is attuned to intonation units by explicitly modeling their impact on the EEG response beyond mere acoustics. To our understanding, this is the first time this is demonstrated in spontaneous speech under naturalistic conditions and under a theoretical framework that connects the prosodic chunking of speech, on the one hand, with the flow of information during communication, on the other.

Fundamental frequency (F₀) correlates of the Swedish tonal word accents, ‘grave’ and ‘acute’, were studied in spontaneous speech produced by 3 male speakers of Central Standard Swedish. The grave accent was invariably marked by an F₀ fall on the primary stress syllable, while the corresponding F₀ contour in acute words seemed to be predictable from sentence-level intonation. The latter observation, which could not be tested on the basis of spontaneous speech data, was confirmed in a companion paper in which a controlled speech material was analysed. In combination, the two papers corroborate the view that an F₀ fall is a positive phonetic feature of the grave accent, while the acute accent constitutes the unmarked member of the contrast. They also illustrate the methodological advantage of using complementary spontaneous and controlled speech materials.

The issue of processing and understanding spontaneous speech interests speech engineers and linguists, because spontaneous speech is the most natural and the most frequent form of language used for communication. However, the lack of well-defined databases of spontaneous speech prohibits the scale and the depth of spontaneous speech research to a great extent. By using the methodology of corpus linguistics, this paper shows that linguistic theories can be examined, approved or disproved by quantitative empirical analyses. The studies introduced in this paper contain a pioneering work on corpus-based analyses of syllable contractions in spontaneous Mandarin by construing spontaneous Mandarin database incorporated with linguistic considerations into the spontaneous speech phenomena. Corpus-based results presented in this paper not only confirm characteristics of syllable contraction with respect to Chinese phonology, but also provide new insights into lexical factors that influence the production of syllable contractions.

In modern philology, studies based on textual analysis of bywords taken from Ivan Franko’s famous work “Galician-Ruthenian folk bywords” occupy a prominent place. M. Paziakstates, “Franko’s research takes an important place in the culture, it is both the result of work of previous scientists and the basis on which new scientifi c research will grow promoting further revival ofUkrainian people and culture” Ivan Franko’s microtexts “Galician-Ruthenian folk bywords” have already been the object of linguistic studies in which Boyko dialect language peculiarities have been found. However, in the preface to the third volume the author states that bywords were recordedat 477 districts of eastern Galicia and Bukovina. According to our calculations, Ivan Franko in ethnic regions of Pokuttia and Hutsulshchyna collected the second largest bywords that can be found in a book. The subject of our research is phonetic and morphological features of hutsul-pokuttian dialects, their static and dynamic characteristics, which are shown in Ivan Franko’s paremias that were written down more than 100 years ago. Thus, this is the first time that the above-mentioned bywords have been under study and this fact enhances the actuality and scientifi c novelty of our work. Among hutsul phonetic features described in the book the most successively is shown the usage of a vowel [е] which is close to [и] after [j] in place of Slavic [а] in a word [йик]. Similarly, there was described the softness of proto-slavic sibilants [ч’], [ж’], [ш’], which is used nowadays. In addition, among hutsul and pokuttia bywords we can notice the pronunciation of an unstressed sound [и] in place of old Ukrainian. Almost consistently, the pronunciation of the sound [і] in the prefi x. In general, there was an analysis of 14 phonetic features. As to peculiarities of consonantism, we can notice the hardening of the fi nal consonant [ц] in a suffi x - цький, hard pronunciation of [р] both in a middle and at the end of the word. This is a peculiar feature of other galician dialects. Sometimes we can fi nd such things as prosthesis and epenthesis that is the covering of the vowel at the beginning or in the middle of a word. In addition to phonetic features, paremias are rich inarchaic morphological and grammatical features of studied dialects. Successively referred historical ending- и in genitive, dative andlocative cases of a noun of the third class; in dative and locative cases of a noun of the fi rst and the second class. Historical endings can be observed in other cases. In paremias texts, one can fi nd galician forms of adjectives, pronouns, adverbs. However, the most signifi cant part is given to verbs. We can come across the hard pronunciation of the fi nal –и in the 3d person singular of the second conjugation and in the 3d person plural of the fi rst and the second conjugations. There is also preservation of old Ukrainian form of the past tense (the so-called perfect); archaic analytical forms of the future tense with the prepositive.

The article deals with the analysis of the geographical toponymic lexicon existing among the Moksha-Mordovian population of the village of Staraya Binaradka in the Krasnoyarsk district of the Samara region. The Moksha-Mordovia geographical toponymic lexicon is characterized by a significant variety even in the dialects of neighboring settlements. It is shown that the formation of a geographical cluster of toponymic vocabulary in the dialects of the Moksha-Mordovian language is primarily influenced by the following factors: local phonetic, morphological and accentual features of the dialect; the historical and modern ethno-linguistic environment of the carriers of the studied dialect; natural and geographical conditions of the environment of the territory of residence of the carriers of the studied dialect. The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of the starobinaradsky geographical terminology area close to the Moksha-Mordvin dialects. Special attention is paid to the bakhilovsky dialect of the Moksha-Mordovian language, as it is known from archival materials that a significant part of the Mordovian population of the Staraya Binaradka was made up of immigrants from the village of Bakhilovo on the left Bank of the Volga river in the first half of the 18th century. The novelty of the research consists in the fact that up to the present time, the geographical toponymy vocabulary of the starobinskoe dialect of the Moksha-Mordvin language has not been introduced into the scientific circulation and has not been analyzed in the context of toponymic research. The study is based on field materials of the author.

Geographical vocabulary existing in ethno-linguistic environment, has a significant impact on the formation of its toponymic nomenclature. This influence is manifested both in the form of toponymic formants and in the basics of geographical names originating from this ethno-linguistic environment. The relevance of this work is definted by the fact that until now geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect of the Moksha-Mordovian language, as well as other Samara-Bends dialects, was not the subject of special study, and was not introduced into academic and research circulation. The purpose of this article is description and lexico-semantic and etymological analysis of geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect of the Moksha-Mordovian language. General theoretical and methodological basis of the research was made up of the works of Russian and international researchers on the toponymy and dialectology of the Mordovian languages. Vocabulary data is based on the materials of field research that the author conducted in the village Tornovoe of the Volga district of the Samara region during the field-work in 2017 and 2018. The main methods of linguistic research are descriptive and comparative methods. They were used in the collection and analysis of linguistic material. The results of the study showed that the geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect of the Moksha-Mordovian language fully reflects all the phonetic and accentual features of this dialect. It was also revealed that there is a fundamental difference between the composition of geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect and the same vocabulary of the neighboring dialects of the Moksha-Mordvin language, Shelehmetsky and Bahilovsky. A significant part of the geographical vocabulary in tthe Tornovsky dialect is borrowed from the Russian and Turkic Kipchak languages which reflects ethnolinguistic history of its speakers.

How well do persons who show discrimination loss for speech perceive the different phonetic features, i.e., consonant voicing, place and manner of articulation, and vowel features? Would the pattern of feature perception be radically different between groups of listeners with different amounts and frequency contours of hearing loss? We present preliminary answers to these questions based on group confusion matrices of the responses to a speech perception test given to 99 impaired listeners. Results show that the feature of place of consonant articulation is heard more poorly than the features of voicing and low-frequency continuance, over a rather wide range of listener groups. Groups formed according to frequency contour of hearing loss showed some significant, but relatively small, differences in feature reception.

Speakers cross-linguistically associate non-words that have round vowels, such as /buba/, with round shapes, and non-words without round vowels, such as /kike/, with spiky shapes (e.g. Kohler 1947). While this link has been attributed to cognitive associations between rounded vowel sounds and images of rounded lips, stimuli have conflated vowel roundness with other phonetic features that may also contribute to the correspondence. In this study, 200 listeners matched abstract objects with nonsense words that systematically varied by vowel frontness, consonant place of articulation, and consonant voicing. Listeners are significantly more likely to select a spiky shape over a round shape when given words with voiceless consonants, alveolar consonants, and front vowels; combinations of these features strengthen the effect. These findings are corroborated in the realm of real-world objects. 102 participants were more likely to name a rounded member of a real-world object class when hearing a word containing non-front vowels than when hearing a word containing front vowels. Further, two- versus three-dimensional object roundness influences the strength of this association. This study provides an empirically and phonetically refined perspective on the paradigm, demonstrating the benefit of considering both detailed phonetic correlates and refined object properties in work on sound symbolism.

220 Reviews quantificationof foreignisms, youth language, and coprolalic and pornolalic elements, suggests that, while some generic beliefs about the fiction ofthe 1990s (such as a pervasiveness of spoken Italian forms) are true, others are not supported by a close investigation: the use of youth slang, for example, is not as widespread as many be? lieve it to be. Although important at the level of linguistic analysis, Berisso's essay fails short of drawing significant conclusions about his findings. The closing essay by Renello, 'The Mediatic Body ofthe Cannibale Literature', is an ideal development of La Porta's considerations on the artificiality of the violence narrated by the 'scrittori cannibali'. Renello argues that Italian pulp fiction reduces horror to a narrative game that has lost the power and the intention to terrify.His analysis of short stories by Ammaniti and Nove reveals how these writers operate multiple levels of linguistic mediation and media stratification, a strategy that denies any realistic access to their texts. Renello's essay introduces the English translations of three short stories, which ap? pear in the appendix of the book. These convincing versions (carried out by Francesca Mordini and edited by Lucamante) of Niccolo Ammaniti and Luisa Brancaccio's 'Evening Jaunt/Seratina', Aldo Nove's 'The World of Love/Il mondo dell'amore' (the two stories discussed by Renello), and Daniele Luttazzi's 'Little Red Ridinghood /Cappuccetto Splatter', will, one hopes, broaden the readership of the new Ita? lian narrative, encouraging the study of these and other 1990s authors in academic programmes of Italian, comparative, and contemporary literature all over the world. Victoria University of Wellington Claudia Bernardi Phonological Theory and the Dialects ofItaly. Ed. by Lori Repetti. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 212) Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 2000. x + 301 pp. ?94. This volume is an important contribution to Italian phonology and to phonological theory. In the words ofthe editor (pp. 4-5), the book's goal is to show that 'Generative Phonology [. . .] can be particularly helpful in better understanding precisely those areas that the traditional method has focused on, including language change, language variation, and language typology' That is not obvious to me, but, be that as it may, it is not crucial for a volume that has much more to offerthan a mechanical adaptation of generative theories to Italian dialectology. As the authors' theoretical backgrounds are far from monolithic, their theoretical interests often go far beyond generativism. The book is carefully planned, with a well-balanced contribution in terms of both phenomena and dialectal areas. Misprints are few, though shaded boxes are always missing (e.g. on p. 240). There are still many intriguing facts in Italian dialectology, and, obviously, phono? logical theory may help in interpreting them. The most striking phenomena of Italian dialects (raddoppiamento, vowel weakening, syllable structure changes) recur as leitmotifs , giving us the chance to compare radically differentinterpretations of the same problems: stress patterns (Giovanna Marotta, 'Oxytone Infinitives in the Dialect of Pisa', Lori Repetti, 'Stress Stability under Cliticization and the Prosodic Status of Romance Clitics'); vowel weakening (Naomi Nagy, 'Stress and Schwa in Faetar', Francesco D'Introno and Rosemary Weston, 'Vowel Alternation, Vowel/Consonant Assimilation and OCP Effects in a Barese Dialect', Andrea Calabrese, 'The Feature [Advanced Tongue Root] and Vowel Fronting in Romance'), vowel epenthesis (JeanPierre Montreuil, 'Sonority and Derived Clusters in Rhaeto-Romance and GalloItalic ', Michele Loporcaro, 'Stress Stability under Cliticization and the Prosodic Effect of Romance Clitics'), consonant clusters (Jean-Pierre Montreuil and Lori MLRy 98.1, 2003 221 Repetti, both using sonority differential?but only Repetti (p. 276) gives credit to Vennemann for the idea: Theo Vennemann, Preference Laws for Syllable Structure (Berlin: Mouton), 1988), raddoppiamentosintattico (Naomi Nagy and Barbara E. Bullock , 'Consonant Gemination in Neapolitan'?basically a translation into optimality theory of earlier analyses), vowel quantity (Marco Baroni and Laura Vanelli, 'The Relationship between Vowel Length and Consonantal Voicing in Friulian', John Hajek , 'How Many Moras? Overlength and Maximal Moraicity in Italy', Pilar Prieto i Vives, 'Vowel Lengthening in Milanese'). Only two ofthe basic subjects are analysed by a single author. Calabrese deals with the 'peculiar' phenomenon of vowel fronting in Altamura (Bari): /u, o/> [y,0]. He seems to be unaware ofthe...

The paper focuses on the quantitative and qualitative features of the variants of unstressed variables /i:/, /u:/, /e:/, /o:/, /æ:/ and /a:/ in spontaneous broadcast media as compared with spontaneous Vilnius speech. The research also explores how the variants of the variables are located on the spectrum, whether the speaker’s type (his linguistic education) has any impact on the length and tenseness of the variants.The research was conducted using for acoustic analysis the sound analysis program PRAAT. The informants were six Vilnius city dwellers and six radio and TV hosts. The data of the Vilnius city dwellers’ speech drew on targeted sampling from the database “Vilnius speaking”. The hosts were chosen from a representative Corpus of Broadcast Media. The empirical data consists of 840 variants of unstressed variables /i:/, /u:/, /e:/, /o:/, /æ:/ and /a:/, equally selected from each speaker’s spontaneous speech.The survey has revealed that the quantitative and qualitative features of the variants of unstressed variables /i:/, /u:/, /e:/, /o:/, /æ:/ and /a:/ used in the hostsʼ spontaneous speech are very similar to those used by spontaneously speaking Vilnius city dwellers. This leads to a conclusion that Vilnius speech is more firmly entrenched in the prestigious public discourse (broadcast media) than the codified standard language. In our speech community Vilnius speech may function as a model of exemplary pronunciation, thus strengthening the role of Vilnius speech in public discourse and at the same time weakening the positions of standardisation ideology. The investigation has confirmed that phonetic features traditionally assigned to Vilnius speech are erroneously associated only with private discourse and speakers of low social status; however, these features inevitably gain their highest value when used in broadcast media.

The aim of the article is to present contemporary Belarusian dialects in south-eastern Lithuania (in the Šalčininkai region), which have not been the subject of comprehensive linguistic research so far. The basis of the analysis is mainly the author’s own materials and materials taped by other dialectologists. The structure of these Belarusian dialects (selected features in phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and phraseology) as well as the sociolinguistic aspect of their use in a multilingual environment are demonstrated in the article. The analysis of the collected material shows that the structure of Belarusian dialects in the study area is well-preserved. Belarusian dialectologists regard the Belarusian dialect in the Vilnius Region as a south-western dialect, which should be described in detail. In the statements of interlocutors, one can note the phonetic, morphological and syntactic features typical of: the south-eastern dialect, the Central Belarusian dialect, the Grodno-Baranovichy group of the south-western dialects and the two so-called dialectal zones: western and north-western. On the one hand, it is a territory shaped by two dialectal massifs and one dialect group, on the other hand, it has been influenced by Baltic and Polish for hundreds of years. Particularly noteworthy is the lexis. Decades of coexistence of Belarusians, Lithuanians and Poles on this territory contributed to the fact that in Belarusian dialects there are numerous borrowings from Lithuanian and Polish (and their dialects).

This article deals with the frequency of the use of English and Arabic loanwords in the central Kurdish dialect. Whereas a dramatic increase in the frequency of use of English loanwords was witnessed most notably in 2005 and 2011 in response to political and economic changes in Kurdish society, this was not the case with the frequency of Arabic loanwords reduced gradually following 1992 when Arabic ceased being used as an official language in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (K.R.I.). In particular, I examine the period from 2003 to 2013 as an important era due to a series of radical changes in socio-political domains in Kurdish society that resulted in a considerable number of borrowings in the representation of political notions but also because of the Kurdish and English languages intense contact. This article will further look at phonological changes of English loanwords over a period of time as a consequence of language contact. The diachronic analysis suggests that in some cases Kurdish writers have been motivated by their desire to use a form closer to English than Arabic. Methodologically, the study is based on a systematic research of political articles published in the Xebat newspaper. Finally, the article deals with the process of orthographic adaptation of the loanwords. The results indicates that the majority of these loanwords are adapted to the structure of this dialect of the Kurdish language.

BOOK NOTICES 207 allows himself to stray into those distracting ad hominem arguments that seem to be the bane of linguistic philosophers.) In this seventh essay, though, Pateman finally grapples with his real problem: how can language be reproduced by individuals so that we can be sure it is language ? The answer, as he argues earlier, can only be discovered if we intertwine linguistic theory with philosophical theory. In order, the essays deal with the following topics: ( 1) the argument over whether linguistics is a science (Pateman thinks that, among other things, linguistics is a science); (2) the philosophy of science as an aid in understanding historical linguistics; (3) defining concepts of language —something natural, something abstract, a name given to something that native speakers say is theirs, a social set of conventions that are linguistic facts, or a social set of conventions that are not linguistic facts (Pateman thinks the last is closest to being true); (4) using 'realism' to integrate nativist linguistic theories (Chomsky ) with sociolinguistic theories; (5) allowing psychologists to be included in this whole language quest; (6) setting up the behaviorists against the cognitivists (in spite of the title, 'Wittgensteinians and Chomskyans', P presents a well-balanced argument with little name-calling .); and (7) a detailed account of the concept of 'conventions' in language—as in 'language is a set of conventions'. [Scott Baird, Trinity University.] Vokalquantität und qualität im Deutschen. By Karl Heinz Ramers . (Linguistische Arbeiten, 213.) Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1988. Pp. ix, 251. DM93.00. In this book, his 1987 Cologne dissertation, Ramers's goal is to answer the following two poorly-conceived questions: What is the nature of the qualitative difference between (the members of) the seven vowel pairs exemplified in the German word pairs bieten-.bitten, Hüte: Hütte, Beef.Bett, Höhle.Hölle, Mus -.muß, wohne.Wonne, and Bahn.Bannl And which sound feature, quantity or quality, is the relevant or distinctive feature in the vowel system of German? Seemingly groping for the structuralist 's phonetic vs. phonemic features, R pursues answers to his questions by surveying prior phonological literature and analyzing the results of his own experiments at Cologne's Institute for Phonetics. After posing the questions (1-6), R devotes the rest of the introductory first chapter to a survey of literature on the depiction of vowel systems (7-50). The second chapter examines literature on the 'distinctive feature in the German vowel system' (51-158), and the third presents R's 'auditory or acoustic' analysis of the results of his own phonetic experiments in German vowel realization (159-216). The fourth and last chapter contains his conclusions (217-28). Some seven appendices (229-40) and a bibliography (241-51) follow the body of the dissertation. Germanists will know that the best structural answers to R's questions concerning the German vowel system can be derived from William G. Moulton's The sounds of English and German (1962): one difference between the members of the seven German vowel pairs lies in the phonetic feature 'centrality' (my term). Another difference, distinctive for the German vowel system, lies in the phonemic feature 'tension' (again my term). R rejects structural answers to his questions, but is unable to give satisfactory new answers of his own. By the time he comes to his concluding chapter, he has embraced a contorted vocalic system underlying a phonetic representation of eight long and short vowel pairs, three of which have a step-up tongue height (Beet -.bitten, Höhle: Hütte, wohne: muß)—an absurd contortion whose wrongheadedness Ramers all but concedes. [B. J. Koekkoek, State University ofNew York at Buffalo.] Interpretationen aus dem Rigveda. By Hans Schmeja. (Innsbrücker Beitr äge zur Kulturwissenschaft, Sonderheft 61.) Innsbruck: AMOE, 1987. Pp. 45 + 4 foldout tables. öS 210. This little book, which belongs more in the realm of literary analysis than linguistics per se, consists of the author's interpretations of three Rigvedic hymns: 1.1 (to Agni), 1.32 (to Indra), and X. 119 (a monologue of one exhilarated by Soma). In the first instance, the author considers German translations by Karl Geldner, Klaus Mylius, and Paul Thieme, concluding that Thieme's rendition...