Phonological Elements Research Articles

Mandailing Phonological Variation in Mandailing Natal Regency

This article attempted to discuss about Mandailing phonological variation in Mandailing Natal Regency. As observation points, this study was determined 21 villages from all districts in Mandailing Natal and the data were analyzed by using dialectometri application. The objectives of the study were to describe the phonological variation of Mandailing language, the distribution maps and line isogloss on phonological elements of Mandailing language and the grouping of dialect on phonology based dialectometri method. To calculate the dialectometri vocabulary has been done by calculating all of the vocabulary per field of meaning which amounts to 800 glosses. However, the phonological dialectometri not be counted per field of meaning because of the differences can be found in several fields of meaning. Thus, the calculation should be done phonological dialectometri overall meaning of the phonological changes, the difference in phonological distance at Mandailing language totaled 105 glosses.

Linking usage and grammar: Generative phonology, exemplar theory, and variable rules

Rule- and usage-based models in phonology are difficult to reconcile: ‘rule’-based approaches (including generative and optimality models) rely on abstraction and seek to account for regularity and generality. Usage-based models, like exemplar theory, rely on concrete representations, eschewing abstraction; they typically seek to account for lexically differentiated phonological phenomena, including variability, gradience and probabilistic properties. An alternative that incorporates both generative productivity and quantitative precision is the “variable rule” (VR) model of sociolinguistic variation. VR preserves advantages of rule-based models, including abstraction and the capacity to represent categorical processes. But VR resolves many limitations of these formalisms using probabilistic quantification: any phonological process or constraint may be associated with a probability, which permits the treatment of variation and gradience. This paper cites evidence from variation in speech style, child language, and reanalysis across the life span showing that speakers have both discrete abstract and nondiscrete, variable elements of phonology. Variable processes provide a nondeterministic but recoverable link between these different representations.

Langue parlée: norme et variations ed. by Hélène Huot

as religious vocabulary in selected novels published during the eighteenth, nineteenth , and twentieth centuries; strategies for treating a relatively smaller corpus, namely the writings of Rimbaud; and an extension of previous comparisons of Proust and Giraudoux. Since each chapter is the product of a previously published article, the reader can explore them in any order. It would also be possible, in some cases, to identify a single type of analysis across chapters; this task would be somewhat difficult, however, given the lack of an index. Nonetheless, the variety of texts analyzed and the wide range of methodological and analytical strategies provide the reader with an enormous amount of valuable information at the intersection of literary studies and corpus linguistics. Although many technical terms are explained, this volume will mainly be accessible to faculty and advanced graduate students, especially those with a working knowledge of statistical terminology and procedures. University of North Texas Lawrence Williams HUOT, HÉLÈNE, éd. Langue parlée: norme et variations. Revue Française de Linguistique Appliquée XVII-1. Amsterdam: De Werelt, 2012. ISSN 1386-1204. Pp. 143. 30 a. The concepts of norm and variation, which prove to be remarkably challenging and potentially divisive, are found repeatedly as variants of titles of works about spoken language. Given this trend and this particular volume’s conventional cover, the reader may be surprised to discover such valuable and original contributions to this domain of research. Admittedly, in this journal’s second volume addressing “le thème de l’oral” (5), there is an underlying call to reconsider and redefine norms based on access to and analysis of varieties. An alternative subtitle of this eight-article publication, however, could very well be: how is corpus -based research changing what we know about language? The volume begins with three exceptionally clear and informative articles containing descriptions of large-scale corpora, notably available to researchers on the Internet, and a couple of examples of associated research: Eychenne and Laks’s work on Phonologie du français contemporain (PFC), followed by an article on its English-language counterpart Phonologie de l’anglais contemporain (PAC) by Durand and Przewozny, and then Gadet and others on the Corpus international écologique de la langue française (CIEL-F). Together with the corpus-driven work by Detey and Racine on pedagogical pronunciation norms and Adda-Decker and others on liaison, these five contributions are well suited to be in the same volume, with each containing specific references to at least one of the other projects. Although the corpus programs mentioned above offer potential avenues for analyses in syntax, discourse, and sociolinguistics, the volume is overall unbalanced in terms of its primary focus on elements of phonology, predominantly investigating topics such as pronunciation, liaison, stress placement, and so on. There are two notable exceptions to this orientation. The aforementioned CIEL-F article presents several syntactic applications of the corpus, and Blondeau’s article examines morpho-syntactic variation in Montreal French. The latter, with one of the most direct and succinct accounts of the problematic concept of la norme, investigates a hypothesis of language change using a longitudinal corpus. A diachronic leitmotif of this volume connects Blondeau’s work with the significant study by Boula de Mareüil and others on the variation of French journalistic 1010 FRENCH REVIEW 86.5 prosody from 1940–97. The impassioned article by Gil Fernandez constitutes an exception to the direct focus on language corpora but articulately supports the need to put an end to the research/application dichotomy. This ardent, pedagogically -minded work is a befitting companion to the aforementioned article by Detey and Racine that looks to redefine norms used for didactic purposes in français langue étrangère, regarding both input and output according to findings from corpus data. Course directors, applied linguists, applied phonetics instructors, and foreign language education specialists are apt to find this volume particularly useful and even inspiring. Furthermore, the articles serve as a valuable compilation of resources expandable beyond the phonological level for researchers of elements of spoken (French) language. As a whole, it is not entirely accessible to the uninitiated in linguistics due to the linguistic jargon and detail in the...

Templates as affixation of segment-sized units: the case of Southern Sierra Miwok

<p>In this paper, I argue that certain templatic effects in Southern Sierra Miwok (SSM) follow from affixation of moras and underspecified segments. Such an analysis avoids the assumptions of syllabified X-Slots in the representation of morphemes that previous analyses for SSM argue for (Sloan 1991). In contrast, my optimalitytheoretic analysis predicts the templatic restrictions over whole strings of segments through the affixation of segment-sized phonological elements.</p>

Fictionalising orality: introduction

Fictional texts display traces of orality to a greater or lesser extent. As argued in a great deal of scholarly work on stylistics, whatever the precise characteristics of the textual representation of orality may be, for interactive talk in fiction to be understood, it must be interpretable in terms of the same rules of discourse that govern everyday verbal interaction. That is not to say that fictional dialogue is in any sense the same as real speech. Fictional dialogue, except in experimental works, is seldom a recording of actual spoken language. Indeed, it has been pointed out by Page (1988:7–11) that textual representations of real-life speech in accurate detail would strike readers as unacceptable in written texts, which necessarily lack the detailed rendering of both the contextual and the phonological elements that carry much of the information and significance conveyed by real speech. Page formulated the ‘central dilemma’ of fictionalising orality as being that:

Typology of rhythm reconsidered: an SLA perspective

Abstract This paper offers an analysis of various typologies of speech rhythm with a Second Language Acquisition (SLA) perspective. The notion of isochrony and the enduring stress- and syllable-time theory are shown to be perception-, rather than production-, related. Duration-centered statistical approaches are found to measure phonotactics rather than establish a functional typology. It is further argued that no existing rhythmic typology can be recognized as efficiently organizing data to enable grouping and comparison of languages, a highly coveted tool in SLA. The outline of an SLA relevant classification, taking into account phonological elements and phonetic processes, is sketched.

The Role of Left Occipitotemporal Cortex in Reading: Reconciling Stimulus, Task, and Lexicality Effects

Although the left posterior occipitotemporal sulcus (pOTS) has been called a visual word form area, debate persists over the selectivity of this region for reading relative to general nonorthographic visual object processing. We used high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging to study left pOTS responses to combinatorial orthographic and object shape information. Participants performed naming and visual discrimination tasks designed to encourage or suppress phonological encoding. During the naming task, all participants showed subregions within left pOTS that were more sensitive to combinatorial orthographic information than to object information. This difference disappeared, however, when phonological processing demands were removed. Responses were stronger to pseudowords than to words, but this effect also disappeared when phonological processing demands were removed. Subregions within the left pOTS are preferentially activated when visual input must be mapped to a phonological representation (i.e., a name) and particularly when component parts of the visual input must be mapped to corresponding phonological elements (consonant or vowel phonemes). Results indicate a specialized role for subregions within the left pOTS in the isomorphic mapping of familiar combinatorial visual patterns to phonological forms. This process distinguishes reading from picture naming and accounts for a wide range of previously reported stimulus and task effects in left pOTS.

Rindo com os Juruna

In this paper some reflections about juruna texts humor are presented. The comic and the pun, the linguistic humor, that uses here phonological elements and semantic approximations, are analyzed.

Rytinių šiaurės žemaičių fonologinė sistema: mitai ir tikrovė

The North-Eastern Žemaitian phonology: MythS and reality Summary It has been commonly believed that the North-eastern Žemaitian dialects form a specific border dialect with their unique characteristics of vocalism and prosody. The purpose of the research is to separate facts from assumptions and to dispel myths concerning the stress retraction, the secondary stress, the contrast of phonemes / i / : / ẹ / and / u / : / ọ / at the end of the word and et cetera, in other words, to identify the phonological elements, examine their interrelationship and give an exhaustive description of the phonological system of the dialect employing instrumental and statistical methods. The findings from the instrumental and statistical research have lead to the following conclusions: 1. The shifted secondary stress is regularly used in long endings containing a long vowel or a pure diphthong. In the south-western part of the dialect the secondary stress is not realized in long endings, containing a semi-diphthong (i.e., a vowel + sonorant cluster). This tendency can be observed throughout the whole area of the dialect. 2. When the stress is retracted to the beginning of the word, the secondary stress is preserved consistently. 3. A more consistent retraction of stress from acute final syllables is observed only in ā and ē stems of present and past tense forms in the first and second person singular. From the diachronic point of view, this is a new morphological phenomenon. 4. The distinctive accent contrast is realized in long stressed syllables; it is neutralized in the endings in which the archiprosodeme is represented by the acute. In the retracted-stress syllables the contrast of accents is consistently maintained only in the north-eastern part of the dialect. 5. The contrast of phonemes / i / : / ẹ / and / u / : / ọ / is systematically realized at the end of a word. In the stem this contrast is neutralized: the realization of high or mid-open phonemes depends upon the vocalism of the following syllable (the regressive assimilation of vowels). 6. The phonological vowel system of the dialect consists of 14 phonemes: / i · , u · , ie , uo , ( ẹ· ), ( ọ · ) ( e · ), a · , i , u , ẹ , ọ , ( e ), a /. The long / ẹ· / and / ọ · / belong to the periphery of the system. The open front phonemes / e · /, / e / are not found in the system of vowels of the south-eastern fringe of the dialect.

Reduced phase locking to slow amplitude modulation in adults with dyslexia: An MEG study

Perception of speech at multiple temporal scales is important for the efficient extraction of meaningful phonological elements. Individuals with developmental dyslexia have difficulty in the accurate neural representation of phonological aspects of speech, across languages. Recently, it was proposed that these difficulties might arise in part because of impaired phase locking to the slower modulations in the speech signal (<10 Hz), which would affect syllabic parsing and segmentation of the speech stream (the "temporal sampling" hypothesis, Goswami, 2011). Here we measured MEG responses to different rates of amplitude modulated white noise in adults with and without dyslexia. In line with the temporal sampling hypothesis, different patterns of phase locking to amplitude modulation at the delta rate of 2 Hz were found when comparing participants with dyslexia to typically-reading participants. Typical readers exhibited better phase locking to slow modulations in right auditory cortex, whereas adults with dyslexia showed more bilateral phase locking. The results suggest that oscillatory phase locking mechanisms for slower temporal modulations are atypical in developmental dyslexia.

Disambiguating Yorùbá tones: At the interface between syntax, morphology, phonology and phonetics

This paper considers a particular type of tonal behavior in Yorùbá with the goal of testing whether syntactic and phonological domains converge or diverge. We consider two types of syntactically conditioned phonological rules: (i) the appearance of phonological elements not present lexically (epenthesis/insertion), (ii) the loss of phonological elements (deletion). These types of rules are often tightly interconnected as the (apparent) loss of one element may involve the appearance of some other element. The cases we consider here involve two Yorùbá tone rules whose surface effect is to change a lexically specified tone (or tone sequence). One of the rules is syntactically conditioned in that it applies across a phrasal boundary; the other rule is morphologically conditioned in that it applies within the word/X 0 domain. The two tone rules are conditioned by two distinct domains, namely syntax (the phrasal domain) versus morphology (the word-level domain). We will demonstrate that a consideration of two independent well-formedness conditions—syntactic inclusiveness and phonological structure preservation—leads us to entertain the possibility that the outputs of tone rules will be distinct from one another according to whether they apply across a phrasal domain (i.e. are syntactically conditioned) or whether they apply within a word (i.e. are morphologically conditioned).

The Surfeit of the Stimulus: Analytic Biases Filter Lexical Statistics in Turkish Laryngeal Alternations

In an experimental task with novel words, we find that some lexical statistical regularities of Turkish phonotactics are productively extended in nonce words, while others are not. In particular, while laryngeal alternation rates in the lexicon can be predicted by the place of articulation of the stem-final stop, by word-length, and by the preceding vowel quality, this laryngeal alternation is only productively conditioned by place of articulation and word-length. Speakers’ responses in a novel word task demonstrate that although they are attuned to the place of articulation and size effects, they ignore preceding vowels, even though the lexicon contains this information in abundance. We interpret this finding as evidence that speakers distinguish between phonologically motivated generalizations and accidental generalizations. We propose that universal grammar (UG), a set of analytic biases, acts as a filter on the generalizations that humans can make: UG contains information about possible and impossible interactions between phonological elements. Omnivorous statistical models that do not have information about possible interactions incorrectly reproduce accidental generalizations, thus failing to model speakers’ behavior.*

INTEGRATING SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS IN DESIGNING SYLLABUS FOR ELT CLASSROOM

To communicate effectively language learners need to become proficient in using the semantic, syntactic, lexical, morphological and phonological elements of the language being learnt. They also need to understand its pragmatics use. Accounting those requirements, the focus of ELT should have tended on grammatical, thematic, and functional approaches to syllabus design. A theory of language that is in line with this is Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL can support the communicative language teaching in some extents. Firstly, this theory focuses on meaning and how language operates to make meaning at text level. In other words, it goes beyond traditional approaches’ learning of isolated rules of exemplified in decontextualized sentences. Another good point to take SFL in ELT is that this theory stresses how meanings are made or negotiated in actual communication with other people. It is focused on real language use in authentic situations. Thirdly, this theory is really ‘communicative’ in the extent that it explores language based on its use in context. It takes into account three factors that relate to the context in which the language is being used: FIELD (what is being talked), TENOR (who is talking, and what is the relationship between them), and MODE (mode: spoken or written). These three factors are the realization of what to do to be able to communicate well. What is also important is that it considers the social purpose of the language as well. It is mediated in the so called as GENRE. In Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the primary objective is to provide language learners with the information practice and much of the experience needed to meet the communication needs in the second or foreign language. This article discusses the relation between SFL and CLT in the iumplementation of syllabus design for ELT classroom. It is doubtful whether anyone will ever come up with a perfect syllabus for ELT, the one that will ensure success with every kind of learner in every kind of context. It is difficult, if not impossible, to have a nationally uniformed syllabus of ELT. Learning and teaching contexts are too varied in terms of class size, resources, exposure to the target language outside the classroom, and many others. The basic principle is that the materials should be presented gradually, given in a communicative context, in an integrative, not discrete, way.

Preventing perseveration in language production

This paper investigates the effect of the repetition of phonological elements on accuracy in spontaneous language production. Using a corpus of naturalistic speech errors, it is shown that repetition of a whole segment doubles the error rate on the second token (a perseveratory effect), for onset consonants, vowels, and coda consonants; the effect is present (at a reduced magnitude) in the speech of young children. Repetition also leads to an increased error rate on the first token (an anticipatory effect), but only for word-initial consonants and only for adults. Repetition of subsegmental features has an effect only for word-initial consonants and only perseveratorily. There are no effects of repetition of larger units (e.g., syllable onsets) or for general segmental similarity. It is argued that the effect is largely due to mechanisms designed to prevent perseveration (by e.g., shifting average activation values downward), and affects early-accessed information (whole segments; onset consonants) more than later-accessed information (subsegmental features; vowels and coda consonants).

Lexical coherence in short-term memory: Strategic reconstruction or “semantic glue”?

This study explores the foundation of lexical/semantic phoneme binding effects in verbal short-term memory (STM). The immediate serial recall of pure lists of words and nonwords was compared with the recall of mixed lists that had either a predictable, alternating structure (e.g., wnwnwn) or an unpredictable structure (i.e., the serial positions of the words/nonwords could not be known in advance). The study provides evidence for two separate mechanisms by which long-term linguistic knowledge contributes to STM. First, there was evidence for automatic lexical/semantic binding effects that were independent of knowledge of lexical status. The nonwords in both types of mixed list damaged word recall and encouraged the phonological elements of words to migrate. In both alternating and unpredictable mixed lists, the phonemes of words were more likely than the phonemes of nonwords to be recalled together as a coherent item, suggesting that lexical/semantic knowledge encourages the phonological elements of words to emerge together in immediate serial recall, even when lexical status is unknown. Secondly, there was evidence for "strategic redintegration", which was dependent on prior knowledge of the lexical status of the items in mixed lists. When participants recalled items that they knew to be words in advance, they were able to use this knowledge to constrain their responses so that they were more likely to be lexically appropriate. These findings motivate modifications to current theories of the interaction between linguistic knowledge and verbal short-term memory.

When cognition kicks in: Working memory and speech understanding in noise

Perceptual load and cognitive load can be separately manipulated and dissociated in their effects on speech understanding in noise. The Ease of Language Understanding model assumes a theoretical position where perceptual task characteristics interact with the individual's implicit capacities to extract the phonological elements of speech. Phonological precision and speed of lexical access are important determinants for listening in adverse conditions. If there are mismatches between the phonological elements perceived and phonological representations in long-term memory, explicit working memory (WM)-related capacities will be continually invoked to reconstruct and infer the contents of the ongoing discourse. Whether this induces a high cognitive load or not will in turn depend on the individual's storage and processing capacities in WM. Data suggest that modulated noise maskers may serve as triggers for speech maskers and therefore induce a WM, explicit mode of processing. Individuals with high WM capacity benefit more than low WM-capacity individuals from fast amplitude compression at low or negative input speech-to-noise ratios. The general conclusion is that there is an overarching interaction between the focal purpose of processing in the primary listening task and the extent to which a secondary, distracting task taps into these processes.

An Autosegmental-Metrical Investigation of Intonation in People with Parkinson's Disease

This study investigates the intonation in the read speech of two males with hypokinetic dysarthria resulting from idiopathic Parkinson's disease and compares them with two age-matched male controls. The investigation was carried out within the autosegmental-metrical framework (AM), which analyzes intonational contours as a sequence of abstract, discrete pitch targets (high or low tones) and permits analysis on two levels: the intonational phonology and its phonetic realisation. Despite its potential for revealing patterns of disordered usage, the AM approach has seldom been deployed in the analysis of disordered speech, and has never been used to investigate the intonation patterns of people with Parkinson's disease.Results showed that there were no differences between the participants with parkinsonian dysarthria and the healthy controls in the inventory of pitch accents and boundary tones (i.e., the phonological elements of intonation). Both groups used the same range of pitch accent types and boundary tones. However, there were differences in the phonetic realization of them. In particular, the speakers with parkinsonian dysarthria on average produced shorter intermediate and intonational phrases, used fewer pitch accents per intonational phrase, and had a narrower pitch range. Furthermore, their boundary tones did not always coincide with syntactic boundaries.The finding of preserved categorical elements of intonation suggests that the abstract representations of intonation are unaffected in these participants with parkinsonian dysarthria. However, the findings of problems with the distribution and phonetic realization suggests that there may be a disruption in the instantiation of those abstract representations either at the initial planning level or at the level of phonetic implementation.

Event-related potential markers of expectation violation in an artificial grammar learning task

To investigate the neural correlates of artificial grammar learning, we recorded the electroencephalogram while experimental participants listened to phonological sequences. We compared event-related potential responses to expectancy violations in two participant conditions; training and a no-training control group. During the test phase, participants in both types of training heard ill-formed sequences. This allowed us to explore the relationship among expectancy violations because of three aspects of a stimulus: physical characteristics, the mental representation of the vocabulary of an artificial grammar, and learned patterns of sequential regularities. Unexpected phonological elements in the test sequences elicited N2b/Pb components. Difference waveforms demonstrated that training had a significant effect on the event-related potential response to deviant items.

オノマトペの音韻要素が拘束する把持動作の量的・質的パラメータ

オノマトペの音韻要素が拘束する把持動作の量的・質的パラメータ

Addressing phonological questions with ultrasound

Ultrasound can be used to address unresolved questions in phonological theory. To date, some studies have shown that results from ultrasound imaging can shed light on how differences in phonological elements are implemented. Phenomena that have been investigated include transitional schwa, vowel coalescence, and transparent vowels. A study of consonant cluster phonotactics is presented as an example of how ultrasound methodology can be used to examine phonological issues. Five English speakers presented with phonotactically illegal non‐words (e.g., /zgomu/) typically repaired these sequences with vowel insertion (e.g., [z▒gomu]). Using ultrasound imaging, the production of these words is compared to legal sequences that are articulatorily similar, such as succumb and scum to assess the nature of the schwa found between /z/ and the following consonant. Results indicate that for some speakers, production of schwa in /zC/ sequences is not consistent with the phonological epenthesis of a schwa. Instead, speakers appear to be failing to sufficiently overlap the consonant gestures.