Phoneme Combinations Research Articles

Syllabification in Optimality Theory

This paper examined syllabification in the Sokoto dialect of Fulfulde within the framework of Optimality Theory. The theory employed constraint-based rather than rule-based notations in the analysis of the grammar of languages. This study focused on the Sokoto dialect of Fulfulde in view of the number of dialects of the language spoken across West Africa. Using field-based data, the analysis revealed the salient syllabification requirements of Fulfulde. Findings showed that the syllables of the Sokoto dialect of Fulfulde require onsets and nuclei as obligatory elements. Syllable onsets in the dialect are maximally composed of a single consonant as complex onsets are prohibited. Codas are optional and may be simple or complex. A restriction placed on coda consonants is that except half of geminates, only sonorants are allowed, although in word-final positions, [ŋ], a sonorant, is not attested. These outcomes demonstrated the extent of conformity of Sokoto Fulfulde syllables with the markedness constraints governing syllable structure and the Syllable Contact Law. Further findings indicated that although syllabification in languages is grounded in the sonority of segments vis-à-vis the restrictions that languages place on phoneme combinations, the sonority scale, as presently designed does not adequately handle syllabification in this dialect; calling for an all-inclusive sonority scale.

Call combination in African forest elephants Loxodonta cyclotis.

Syntax, the combination of meaning-devoid phonemes into meaningful words, which in turn are combined in structurally and semantically complex sentences, is fundamental to the unlimited expressiveness of human languages. Studying the functions of call combinations in non-human species provides insights into the evolution of such syntactic capabilities. Here, we investigated the combination of high amplitude broadband calls with low frequency rumble vocalizations in a highly social species, the African forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis. Rumbles play an integral role in coordinating social interactions by transmitting socially relevant information, including individual identity. By contrast, broadband calls, such as roars, are thought to function as signals of distress and urgency as they are typically produced in situations of high emotional intensity. Functional changes associated with the combination of these calls remain little understood. We found that call combinations were produced by all age-sex classes but were most prevalent in immature individuals. We found that rumbles used singularly occurred in all five investigated social contexts, whereas single broadband calls were restricted to two resource-related contexts. Call combinations also occurred in all five contexts, suggesting an increase in the functional use of broadband calls when combined with rumbles, analogous to the generativity brought about through syntax in human speech. Moreover, combining calls appeared to lead to functional shifts towards high-stake contexts. Call combinations were more likely in competition contexts compared to single rumbles, and more likely in separation contexts compared to single broadband calls. We suggest that call combination in forest elephants may aide to reduce message ambiguity in high-stake situation by simultaneously communicating distress and individual identity, which may be critical to secure access to resources, reduce the risk of injury and to reunite with or recruit the support of the family group.

Abstract processing of syllabic structures in early infancy

Syllables are one of the fundamental building blocks of early language acquisition. From birth onwards, infants preferentially segment, process and represent the speech into syllable-sized units, raising the question of what type of computations infants are able to perform on these perceptual units. Syllables are abstract units structured in a way that allows grouping phonemes into sequences. The goal of this research was to investigate 4-to-5-month-old infants' ability to encode the internal structure of syllables, at a target age when the language system is not yet specialized on the sounds and the phonotactics of native languages. We conducted two experiments in which infants were first familiarized to lists of syllables implementing either CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) or CCV (consonant-consonant-vowel) structures, then presented with new syllables implementing both structures at test. Experiments differ in the degree of phonological similarity between the materials used at familiarization and test. Results show that infants were able to differentiate syllabic structures at test, even when test syllables were implemented by combinations of phonemes that infants did not hear before. Only infants familiarized with CVC syllables discriminated the structures at test, pointing to a processing advantage for CVC over CCV structures. This research shows that, in addition to preferentially processing the speech into syllable-sized units, during the first months of life, infants are also capable of performing fine-grained computations within such units.

Clusters and series consonants of the Kaur language (phonological analysis)

The phonotactic system is one of the interesting phonological systems to explain because it is the system that regulates the existence, abilities, and inability of phoneme combinations of a language. To that end, this article describes the Kaur language phonotactic system which includes (1) the cluster phonotactic system and (2) the consonant series phonotactic system. The data in this study were sourced from six key informants who were domiciled in Kaur Regency (Bengkulu Province) with the criteria of being between 50-65 years old, native Kaur tribe, never left their native area, mastered Kaur language and culture well, and communicative. Data was collected through interviews and recording devices. Data were analyzed to determine the cluster and consonant series with the help of a speech analyzer. The results showed that in Kaur language (KL) there are 14 clusters (/pl/, /bl/, /gl/, /mp/, /mb/, /nt/, /nd/, /st/, /ɲc/, /ɲɟ/, /ɲcl/, /ŋk/, /ŋg/, /ŋgl/) and 21 series: /mp, mb, nt, nd, ns, ɲc, ɲɟ, ŋk, ŋg, ŋs, ʕb, ʕt, ʕd, ʕc, ʕk, ʕs, sk, st, ʔm, ʔ-ʕ, ʔ-mp/. In KL there is a unique consonant vowel sequence (homorgan consonant series). There are three rules if-then to explain the cluster of KL and five rules if-then to explain the series of KL consonants. KL has a unique phonotactic system so that this study contributes to the development of KL.

PHONOSEMANTIC FEATURES OF FEMINIST TEXTS MODERN GERMAN PROSE

The article investigates the phonosemantic features of D. Krien's feminist novel "Die Liebe im Ernstfall" in order to establish the symbolic meanings of the initial consonant phonemes encountered in this text. We analysed the theoretical and methodological basis of contemporary German prose and highlighted the typical labelled features of the feminist literature genre (female authors, female protagonists, subtle authorial humour, hard women's fates, struggle for equal rights, fluidity, etc.) and compared them with the text under study. Based on the opinions of expert critics, the plot, idea, purpose of the novel, and our own reading experience, we argue that D. Krien's novel Die Liebe im Ernstfall meets all the features of a women's novel and contains five separate chapters dedicated to each individual heroine and her difficult life path. D. Krien presents the readers with a veiled problem of women's relationships in society and their relations with men, and also points out the inequality of rights in the modern world. Therefore, the paper investigates the functioning of phonemes in the feminist text Die Liebe im Ernstfall by means of a continuous sample and uses the descriptive method and component-statistical methods, namely the chi-square method and the coefficient of mutual conjugation, to establish the symbolic meanings of the initial phoneme combinations. We processed 5056 units of phonemic vocabulary and published the results of the most frequently used words. We have practically established that the most frequently used vocabulary in the novel belongs to the phoneme systems ∫t-, ∫p-,kl-, kr-, gr-, pr-, tr-, ∫r-, and we have also highlighted adjectives of negative perception, colour adjectives, abstract nouns and nouns of negative meaning. In the course of the study of the novel, we found that the modern feminist text by D. Krien "Die Liebe im Ernstfall" is characterised by the minor tone of the phonemic vocabulary used, which contains the leading phoneme [∫] and [r] in the second or third position and a "negative" emotional impact on the reader, the reliability of the results obtained was confirmed by the statistically significant chi-square criterion and the coefficient of mutual conjugation.

ЗАКОНОМІРНОСТІ СПОЛУЧУВАНОСТІ ФОНЕМ У ДВОФОНЕМНИХ СЛОВАХ СУЧАСНОЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ЛІТЕРАТУРНОЇ МОВИ

У статті на матеріалі „Великого зведеного орфографічного словника сучасної української лексики ” проаналізовано склад двофонемних слів в українській мові та сполучувальні можливості окремих фонем у двофонемних словах, побудувано моделі двофонемних слів сучасної української літературної мови. З’ясовано, що у сучасній українській мові серед двокомпонентних моделей із першим компонентом голосною фонемою характерними є такі поєднання елементів у двофонемній дистрибутивній структурі із першою голосною фонемою як „голосна + щілинна” (18) та „голосна + напіввідкрита” (12), а серед двокомпонентних моделей із першим компонентом приголосною фонемою характерними є такі поєднання елементів у двофонемній дистрибутивній структурі із першою приголосною фонемою: „щілинна + голосна” (22), „ напіввідкрита + голосна” (14), „зімкнуто-проривна + голосна” (13). Такі дистрибутивні структури двох фонем не є типовими для сучасної української мови.

O propunere de adaptare pentru limba română a unei probe de fluență verbală fonematică (testul de asociere orală controlată a cuvintelor – COWAT)

Verbal fluency is an indicator of good cognitive functioning. The Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) is part of the examination tools in neuropsychology. For English there are stratified standards by age and background (Tombaugh, Kozak, & Rees, 1999). The phonemic combinations used are F-A-S, C-T-L or P-R-W. These combinations are not specific to the Romanian language. This study proposes a way to identify phonemes that could be specific to the Romanian language for an adapted version of the COWAT test.

Veronica Forrest-Thomson’s ABC of Atoms: Poetry, Knowledge, Technique

Veronica Forrest-Thomson’s verse was animated by the way different lexical, graphic, and phonemic combinations could be constructed to unlock different orders of semantic meaning. As she writes in Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry (1978), ‘[t]he microscope of technical detail makes possible the telescope of thematic synthesis’ – an analogy she drew from atomic science to suggest that minute changes at the atomic level of poetic writing can radically alter the entire meaning of a poem.1 Forrest-Thomson described herself as having a ‘consuming passion for science’, often speaking about her interests in mathematics, physics, and the nature of scientific rationality more broadly.2 Although these topics can seem peripheral to Poetic Artifice, she had, only a few years earlier, completed a Ph.D. thesis at Girton College, Cambridge, on ‘the use of science by twentieth-century poets’. In the same year that she completed her Ph.D., she also...

Crowning, rotating, and emanating hierophanies with elevatio aspect in wayside shrines

Abstract My aim in this paper is to investigate the variants of directionality implied in visual hieratic texts as religious markers in the sacrosphere, which are substantially expressed in the form of a wayside shrine/cross. The methodological underpinnings for this project rely on the proposed semiotactics (cf. Haładewicz-Grzelak): the investigative perspective modeled after phonotactics – a branch of phonology investigating the restrictions on and the possibilities of phoneme combinations in languages (cf. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2011). The study draws on digital documentation of wayside shrines, crosses, and sacrality markers on houses collected by the author in various European countries (2009–2021), focusing in particular on the material collected in the area of present Slovakia, Ukraine, Austria, Slovenia, and the region of the Beskid Mountains in Poland. It shows how bodily hexis is inscribed into the phenomenology of a wayside shrine through particular types of hierophanic dynamics. The study also focuses on the aspect of headedness and markedness in the nano-structure of a sign, surfacing as directionality in the conceptualization of the religious sphere by particular communities.

PHONEME DISTRIBUTION IN A TATAR TEXT: A QUANTITATIVE APPROACH

Along with the qualitative description of phonemes which is presented in Tatar grammars, their quantitative description is often required. Such a research should be performed on a sufficient volume of text data which would contain lexical items in their natural surroundings and reflect basic regularities of the language system. This paper analyzes the distribution of phonemes and phoneme combinations in the story by Amirkhan Yeniki “Äytelmägän vasɪyät” (“The unspoken testament”). The research material was the text converted to a phonologically relevant form. The absolute and relative frequencies (using the quantiles of the standard normal distribution) are provided for each of the 34 phonemes distinguished in the text. The approach to data normalization (z-statistics) is based on information about both the number of phonemes depending on their position (wordinitial, wordfinal or wordmedial), and the total number of occurrences of each phoneme in the text; this allows us to retain information about positional features of low frequency phonemes and to find individual tendencies for each cell in the contingency table. The deviation of the z-statistics from the quantiles of the standard normal distribution (-1.96, 1.96) indicates the character of phoneme sequences in the language. It is shown that for the absolute majority of Tatar phonemes, the z-statistics are far beyond the interval (-1.96, 1.96), with the exception of borrowed phonemes |ц| and |щ|, as well as the low-frequency phoneme |ж|, which indicates the random nature of the distribution of these phonemes in Tatar. The syntagmatic component of the phonological system, just like the inventory of phonemes, is unique for each language, so without such study the phonological description would be incomplete. That is why a special section examines Tatar phoneme sequences using the example of two and three phoneme combinations. Since there is often a gap in grammar books between the descriptions of the phonological and morphological levels, quantitative information on phonemes is complemented with grammatical interpretation; in particular, the author shows that high frequency combinations of phonemes are associated with affixes and stems, which is determined by the agglutinative structure of the Tatar language.

Parkinson’s Disease Detection Using Smartphone Recorded Phonemes in Real World Conditions

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a multi-symptom neurodegenerative disease. There are no biomarkers; the diagnosis and monitoring of the disease progression require clinical and functional symptom observation. Voice impairment is an early symptom of PD, and computerized analysis of voice has been proposed for early detection and monitoring of the disease. However, there is poor reproducibility of many studies, which is attributed to the experimental data having been collected under controlled conditions. To overcome the limitations of earlier works, this study has investigated three sustained phonemes: /a/, /o/, and /m/, which were recorded using an iOS-based smartphone from 72 participants (36 people with PD and 36 healthy) in a typical clinical setting. A number of signal features were obtained, statistically investigated, and ranked to identify the suitable feature sets. These were classified using machine learning models. The results show that a combination of phonemes /a/+/o/+/m/ was most suited to differentiate the voice of PD people from healthy control participants, with an average accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 100%, 100%, 100%, respectively, using leave-one-out validation. The findings of this study could assist in the clinical assessments and remote telehealth monitoring for people with parkinsonian dysarthria using smartphones.

The Phonosemantics of the Sibilant Sounds of the Arabic and English Languages

Understanding the general meaning of phonemes and their combinations helps to guess the meaning of unknown words intuitively. The aim of this paper is to examine a group of Arabic as well as English phoneme combinations as examples to prove they have some specific common meaning, a so-called DNA that can be traced in all given words. Thus, a group of selected words were chosen from the Holy Qur'an whose language represents the Classical Arabic variety. It has been assumed that the relationship between phonemes and what they signify is non-arbitrary. It is determined that certain consonant combinations retain their meanings. Thus, upon closer examination, words that are not similar to one another but which have identical consonant phonemes combinations bear an element of meaning which is absent in words not containing such combinations.

THE PHONOSEMANTIC FEATURES OF PUBLICISTIC TEXTS (ON THE BASIS OF SPEECHES OF GERMAN-SPEAKING POLITICIANS)

The research is based on the analysis of phonemic combinations – the study of initial consonant combinations in German with a single method taking into account all the basic parameters of phonosemantics. The language sounds are connected to the non-sound imagery. The consciousness of speakers reflects the objectively existing patterns in a sound system of the language. Not only the reflections but also the facts of the speakers’ consciousness are significant for the research. The paper is dedicated to the research of the German phonemic word combinations (e.g. phonesthemes [bl-], [br-], [dr-], [fl-], [fr-], [gl-], [gn-]…, the total number is 29 units), and the material of the research is speeches of German politicians (Angela Merkel and Joachim Gauck) and Austrian politicians (Alexander Van der Bellen and Heinz Fischer). For the research, a sample of 30 speeches of each politician, which embraced different topics, was conducted. The total number of the word usage was determined in every speech. The speeches bring up such subjects, which make an average citizen anxious, as “war”, “economics”, “culture” and “politics”. The detected phonemic vocabulary was initially processed in separate speeches, and then this same phonemic vocabulary was processed in accordance with the topic to which a certain speech belongs. Then, speeches according to their subject, idea, and influence on a listener were grouped in relation to their emotional and connotative perception on the scale of "evaluation". They were divided into positive, negative and neutral. In the study, it was discovered which exactly the phonetic vocabulary is considered to be either positive or negative, and how it affects the perception of speech in general. It was also determined which phonesthemes are more commonly used in publicistic texts.

A Heterogeneity Comparison Based on Data Analyses of Topological and Informational Entropy about the Form of Phonemic Combinations in Korean and English Characters

A Heterogeneity Comparison Based on Data Analyses of Topological and Informational Entropy about the Form of Phonemic Combinations in Korean and English Characters

Perubahan Fonologis Bahasa Gaul dalam Percakapan Whatsapp Kelompok Siswa Kelas 9 MTs Muhammadiyah 05 Kemusu

The study entitled "Phonological Changes in Slang in Conversations Whatsapp Groups of 9th Grade Students Muhammadiyah 05 Kemusu” aims to analyze the field of phonological studies in slang. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method that produces descriptive data in the form of written or oral words from people and observable behavior. The data source of this research is the form of Whatsapp group chat. The object in this study is slang. The subjects chosen are 9th grade students of MTs Muhammadiyah 05 Kemusu. The data analysis technique uses data reduction, data presentation, and verification. The results of the study show that (a) there is a form of slang; (b) there are 50 forms of slang which are transcribed in phonetic and phonemic forms; (c) there are 9 phonological traits in slang which are classified based on changes in consonant phoneme, vocal, mixed, combination of phonemes, anaphylaxis or phoneme addition, contraction or shortening, acronym, metathesis, and diphthongized or semivowel; and (d) the causes of the use of slang language are friendship, prestige, age, gender, and technological development

Probabilistic Phonotactics as a Cue for Recognizing Spoken Cantonese Words in Speech.

Previous experimental psycholinguistic studies suggested that the probabilistic phonotactics information might likely to hint the locations of word boundaries in continuous speech and hence posed an interesting solution to the empirical question on how we recognize/segment individual spoken word in speech. We investigated this issue by using Cantonese language as a testing case in the present study. A word-spotting task was used in which listeners were instructed to spot any Cantonese word from a series of nonsense sound sequences. We found that it was easier for the native Cantonese listeners to spot the target word in the nonsense sound sequences with high transitional probability phoneme combinations than those with low transitional probability phoneme combinations. These results concluded that native Cantonese listeners did make use of the transitional probability information to recognize the spoken word in speech.

Finding patterns and learning words: Infant phonotactic knowledge is associated with vocabulary size

Native language statistical regularities about allowable phoneme combinations (i.e., phonotactic patterns) may provide learners with cues to support word learning. The current research investigated the association between infants’ native language phonotactic knowledge and their word learning progress, as measured by vocabulary size. In the experiment, 19-month-old infants listened to a corpus of nonce words that contained novel phonotactic patterns. All words began with “illegal” consonant clusters that cannot occur in native (English) words. The rationale for the task was that infants with fragile phonotactic knowledge should exhibit stronger learning of the novel illegal phonotactic patterns than infants with robust phonotactic knowledge. We found that infants with smaller vocabularies showed stronger phonotactic learning than infants with larger vocabularies even after accounting for general cognition. We propose that learning about native language structure may promote vocabulary development by providing a foundation for word learning; infants with smaller vocabularies may have weaker support from phonotactics than infants with larger vocabularies. Furthermore, stored vocabulary knowledge may promote the detection of phonotactic patterns even during infancy.

Phonaesthemes and sound symbolism in Swedish brand names

This study examines the prevalence of sound symbolism in Swedish brand names. A general principle of brand name design is that effective names should be distinctive, recognizable, easy to pronounce and meaningful. Much money is invested in designing powerful brand names, where the emotional impact of the names on consumers is also relevant and it is important to avoid negative connotations. Customers prefer brand names, which say something about the product, as this reduces product uncertainty (Klink, 2001). Therefore, consumers might prefer sound symbolic names. It has been shown that people associate the sounds of the nonsense words maluma and takete with round and angular shapes, respectively. By extension, more complex shapes and textures might activate words containing certain sounds. This study focuses on semantic dimensions expected to be relevant to product names, such as mobility, consistency, texture and shape. These dimensions are related to the senses of sight, hearing and touch and are also interesting from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Cross-modal assessment and priming experiments with pictures and written words were performed and the results analysed in relation to brand name databases and to sound symbolic sound combinations in Swedish (Abelin, 1999). The results show that brand names virtually never contain pejorative, i.e. depreciatory, consonant clusters, and that certain sounds and sound combinations are overrepresented in certain content categories. Assessment tests show correlations between pictured objects and phoneme combinations in newly created words (non-words). The priming experiment shows that object images prime newly created words as expected, based on the presence of compatible consonant clusters.

Categorical phonotactic knowledge filters second language input, but probabilistic phonotactic knowledge can still be acquired.

Probabilistic phonotactic knowledge facilitates perception, but categorical phonotactic illegality can cause misperceptions, especially of non-native phoneme combinations. If misperceptions induced by first language (L1) knowledge filter second language input, access to second language (L2) probabilistic phonotactics is potentially blocked for L2 acquisition. The facilitatory effects of L2 probabilistic phonotactics and categorical filtering effects of L1 phonotactics were compared and contrasted in a series of cross-modal priming experiments. Dutch native listeners and L1 Spanish and Japanese learners of Dutch had to perform a lexical decision task on Dutch words that started with /sC/ clusters that were of different degrees of probabilistic wellformedness in Dutch but illegal in Spanish and Japanese. Versions of target words with Spanish illegality resolving epenthesis in the clusters primed the Spanish group, showing an L1 filter; a similar effect was not found for the Japanese group. In addition, words with wellformed /sC/ clusters were recognised faster, showing a positive effect on processing of probabilistic wellformedness. However, Spanish learners with higher proficiency were facilitated to a greater extent by wellformed but epenthesised clusters, showing that although probabilistic learning occurs in spite of the L1 filter, the acquired probabilistic knowledge is still affected by L1 categorical knowledge. Categorical phonotactic and probabilistic knowledge are of a different nature and interact in acquisition.

Sleep Underpins the Plasticity of Language Production

The constraints that govern acceptable phoneme combinations in speech perception and production have considerable plasticity. We addressed whether sleep influences the acquisition of new constraints and their integration into the speech-production system. Participants repeated sequences of syllables in which two phonemes were artificially restricted to syllable onset or syllable coda, depending on the vowel in that sequence. After 48 sequences, participants either had a 90-min nap or remained awake. Participants then repeated 96 sequences so implicit constraint learning could be examined, and then were tested for constraint generalization in a forced-choice task. The sleep group, but not the wake group, produced speech errors at test that were consistent with restrictions on the placement of phonemes in training. Furthermore, only the sleep group generalized their learning to new materials. Polysomnography data showed that implicit constraint learning was associated with slow-wave sleep. These results show that sleep facilitates the integration of new linguistic knowledge with existing production constraints. These data have relevance for systems-consolidation models of sleep.