Open Syllables Research Articles

Italo‐Romance Metaphony and the Tuscan Diphthongs

AbstractThe historical causes of general so‐called ‘opening’ diphthongization of proto‐Romance low mid vowels in stressed open syllables are an enduring matter of dispute in historical Romance phonology, the two principal positions being that the diphthongs originate in the assimilatory process of metaphony conditioned by following unstressed vowels, or that they are a matter of ‘spontaneous’ diphthongization associated with lengthening of the vowels. Most recent scholarship on the subject has tended to favour the latter view. This study, focusing on Tuscan (and thereby on Italian), reasserts the case for the former interpretation, critically reviewing older arguments and adducing new ones to show that the details of Tuscan open syllable diphtongization are significantly correlated with a metaphonic origin, despite claims to the contrary. In particular, I argue that the restriction of the generalized diphthongs to open syllables reflects the early conditions of metaphony, and that the occasional absence of the diphthongs in Tuscan systematically presupposes the historical absence of a metaphonizing environment. In conclusion, I reflect on the significance of my claims both for general Romance historical morphology and, particularly, for the place of Tuscan among the Italo‐Romance dialects. The data also show how morphological analogy may play a significant role in the diffusion of the effects of sound change.

Type frequency influences phonological generalizations: Eliminating stressed open syllables with short vowels in West Germanic

A pivotal process in the loss of phonological quantity in West Germanic languages is what is traditionally known as Open Syllable Lengthening. Existing accounts have found no explanation for why languages such as English apply this change in less than 50% of the relevant cases. This paper presents the results of a corpus investigation of four West Germanic languages showing that whether Open Syllable Lengthening occurs in more than 50% of predicted cases correlates with the ratio of closed syllables with short vowels to open syllables with long vowels. We interpret this as the result of frequency effects that have markedly shaped the application of Open Syllable Lengthening in West Germanic. This has implications for phonological change in general, as well as for the relationship between stress and syllable structure in West Germanic languages.*

Chapter 10. Phonology: Pre-Slavic and Common Slavic Vowels and Diphthongs

<p><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now that you have learned about morphology and syntax, you are ready for phonology – the study of sound systems. Phonology is the topic of this and the following three chapters. We start with vowels and diphthongs in the Pre-Slavic and Common Slavic periods. You will learn how the difference between short and long vowels disappeared, and how a number of sound laws created a special type of syllables called “open syllables”. In addition, this chapter gives you the answer to a number of questions about Modern Russian. Why are there no words beginning with the letter ы in Contemporary Standard Russian? Why is ‘city’ represented as град in Leningrad and Stalingrad, but город in Novgorod? Why does the letter н show up in the inflected forms of nouns like имя and время (cf. nominative singular имя vs. genitive singular име<strong>н</strong>и)?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: medium;">Click on the links below to learn more!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: medium;"><a href="/index.php/SapEdu/article/downloadSuppFile/3500/135" target="_blank">10.4 Open syllables </a> - licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC-BY 4.0</a><a href="/index.php/SapEdu/article/downloadSuppFile/3500/135" target="_blank"><br /></a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>

Reflections of Church Slavonic – Croatian diglossia on the Baška tablet: a new contribution concerning its language and linguistic layers

he paper discusses the linguistic layers of the Glagolitic text of the Baska tablet (cca. 1100 AD), which is considered the oldest textual monument of Croatian language and literature. This text is placed in a wider sociohistorical (1.1) and linguistic context (1.2, 1.3). Following a brief description of the Baska Tablet and a review of the most important literature (2.1), our discussion turns to the question of the tablet’s foundational linguistic layer (Old Croatian or Church Slavonic) and the thesis concerning the Croatian Church Slavonic language of the text. The argumentation for this thesis is considered and disputed. It is impossible to determine with complete certainty which linguistic data from the text belongs to either of these two Slavic languages, since the basic lexis of both Old Croatian and Church Slavonic is Proto-Slavic in origin. It is possible to identify only some exclusive characteristics of one idiom or the other in the text, and Church Slavonicisms in this highly stylised epigraphic text are stylistically relevant (2.2). The arguments put forth to support the thesis that the language of the text is Croatian Church Slavonic are unacceptable, since the law of open syllables did not hold in the time of the Baska tablet (which uses traditional Glagolitic orthography), and the writing and pronunciation of the phonemes yat and schwa in the early 12th century cannot be considered criteria for differentiating linguistic layers, since the value of these phonemes overlap in both the Old Croatian and Croatian Church Slavonic languages. A potential interpretation of Latin influence in the inscription of some names in the text is provided at the end of the work (2.3). A separate chapter (3) consists of a discussion on two processes (Croatisation and Church-Slavonicisation) and concludes, considering that the text of the Baska tablet was composed as a legal text with specific literary characteristics, that the language used on the Baska tablet is a Church-Slavonicised vernacular, although a classification of linguistic data can only say with certainty that it is a Church Slavonic-Cakavian written hybrid.

PROSES FONOLOGIS DALAM PENGADOPSIAN KATA BAHASA INDONESIA KE DALAM BAHASA CIA CIA DI KABUPATEN BUTON, SULAWESI TENGGARA

This paper discusses the adoption of several phonological processes in Indonesian words into Ciacia in Buton, Southeast Sulawesi province. Ciacia language which is one of the languages with the most speakers in mainland Buton Kingdom in its development are adopting some Indonesian words. Adoption of words in Indonesian as compared to most other areas of the language word. This is due to ethnic mixing Ciacia just used both languages in daily life. In adopting Indonesian words into Ciacia many who have phonological processes. Phonological processes are most commonly found is the addition and removal of noise at the end of the word. The word has been adopted into the language Ciacia always be words with open syllables. This is caused by the language Ciacia unknown words with closed syllables.

Korean and Japanese as Chinese-Characters Cultural Spheres

Korea and Japan belong to Chinese-characters cultural spheres. In the time of Han Dynasty and thereafter, tributary states connected with the monarchy of Chinese Kingdom and its surrounding countries. They imported Chinese state regulations, accepted and developed many thoughts and cultures by bringing in Chinese characters of Chinese classics. However, there have been some different points in the treatment of Chinese characters in each nation. The Korean modern writing system does not use Chinese characters in general, while on the contrary in Japanese, there is a tendency to increase the number of regularly-used Chinese characters, for example in the official list of jōyō kanji 常用漢字 announced by the Ministry of Education, with the latest increase in 2010. Therefore, it is necessary to observe more about some aspects of the languages to know why this different treatment occurred. The oldest Korean document is the History of the Three Kingdoms, Samguk Sagi 『三国史記』 that contains geographical proper names. The Buyeo-Kingdom languages were recorded there, including place names. It is no doubt that the use of Chinese characters of Silla have significantly affected Goguryeo and Paekche. The Silla and Buyeo-Kingdom languages have closed syllables with a consonant at the end of each syllable, while in Japanese, the syllables end with vowels as open syllables. There are further phonological characteristics as well. This article discusses how each language encountered Chinese characters, and how they related to their specific languages, and also how Chinese characters particularly reflected syllable structures of different languages. It can be said that the use of Chinese characters in proper names estranged the futures of Korean and Japanese in history. Focus is laid on the history of Korean and Japanese through Chinese characters, with their falsely similar language dispositions.

»Alle 600 Jahre kam der deutsche Geist sozusagen wieder dran.«

AbstractTheodor Vennemann’s hypothesis 1995 proposing an impact of prosodic change on German versification has not been taken enough into consideration by literary historians up to this day. The best evidence of this impact can be found in the usage of masculine dissyllabic ending in Middle High German strophes, which is provable occasionally till the fourteenth century, but obliterated gradually in the different dialects of the ›theodisc‹ area already since the twelfth century in different speed, but not always according to the very speed linguists found out for the lengthening of short vowels in the open syllable. But the crash of the MHG versification postulated by Vennemann is quite confirmed. Replacing it with the Latin-Romance principle of counting syllables does not help really, but causes only confusion until the reform of versification combines it with strict alternation of lift and dip. Only this new beginning permits, but not earlier than during the eighteenth century, again a blossom of verse poetry as at the end of the twelfth century.

Levelling and Rule Restructuring in Old English Adjectives

The distribution of short low vowels in West Saxon Old English adjectives cannot be explained entirely by levelling of surface forms and does not reflect lengthening in open syllables. A combination of levelling and rule restructuring is needed to account for the observed pattern.

Syncope, syllabic consonant formation, and the distribution of stressed vowels in English

Post-tonic synope in English (Received Pronunciation) optionally deletes a schwa between a stressed and an unstressed vowel (gén(e)ral), but it cannot apply if the vowel following the schwa is stressed (gén*(e)ràte), or if no vowel follows (hápp*(e)n). Syncope is thus triggered by a metrical lapse of unstressed vowels. In addition, short stressed vowels cannot occur in an open syllable in English (Stress-to-Weight), except when preceding a single consonant and a vowel. Hammond (1997a) analyses such seemingly open stressed syllables in words likegén(e)ralas closed by a virtual geminate. I argue that post-tonic syncope can be understood as another means of satisfying the Stress-to-Weight requirement, closing the stressed syllable in a different way, at the same time avoiding a metrical lapse. In addition, surprisingly, English post-tonic syncope is sensitive to the quality of the flanking consonants: the consonant following the alternating vowel must be a sonorant which is more sonorous than the consonant preceding it (dél*(i)cate, cól*(o)ny). These are the same conditions as those applying to syllabic consonant formation, which can be regarded as a stage preceding syncope, explaining the melodic restrictions. I analyse the interplay of different forces in Stratal Optimality Theory, employing Government Phonological representations.

Alphabetism and the science of reading: from the perspective of the akshara languages.

Alphabetism and the science of reading: from the perspective of the akshara languages.

Language of Poetries Balada Orang-Orang Tercinta, Empat Kumpulan Sajak, Blues Untuk Bonnie, and Sajak-Sajak Sepatu Tua Written By W.S. Rendra (A Stylistic Study)

This research used the descriptive qualitative method to analyze as detailed as possible the data related to the use of language of the poetries as stated in the objectives of this research. The data of the research were analyzed by using the semiotic structural method with hermeneutics. The results of the research are the distinctiveness of the use of language, namely: (1) the phonemic integrations such as alliteration, assonation, euphony, cacophony, phonemic symbol, and rhyme found in the poetries of W.S. Rendra produce a beautiful rhythm and support a certain atmosphere. Alliteration, assonation, euphony, cacophony, phonemic symbol, and rhyme are only found in several lines or couplets. The patterns of phonemic integration of rhyme found in the research are those which are free or are not fixed. The beginning rhyme occurs due to the iterations of words or lines. In addition, the middle and end rhymes occur because they follow the end phonemes of the former lines. The realization of alliteration, assonantion, euphony, cacophony, phonemic symbol occurs linearly in one line or many lines in one couplet. The pattern of alliteration always occur not only at the beginning syllables but also at the end syllables, but that of assonation always occurs in the open syllable. In addition to plosive, sibilant, and lateral sounds, in the poetries of W.S. Rendra are nasal sounds also found. The realization of the beginning, middle, and end rhymes do not always occur in the couplets, but in some parts of them. Furthermore, in the poetries of W.S. Rendra there are not fixed patterns as found in old poetries. The vocabulary employed in the poetries of W.S. Rendra is dominated with daily Indonesian vocabulary. In addition, some items of vocabulary found refer to names of places, names of figures, and addressing words. Most of the dictions are poetic, which consist of dictions with natural reality objects, private/special dictions, and general dictions to support literary devices. In terms of denotation and connotation, the poetries of W.S. Rendra use many connotative words and a small portion of denotative words, but this still makes them easy to understand. The images frequently occurring in the poetries of W.S. Rendra are visual and motion ones. The former have an effect that their meanings are more concrete and the fantasy images become clearer and more detailed. Meanwhile, the latter are more dominant so that the poetries become more alive and dynamic. Other images such as smell, audio, and taste are also present although the number is not dominant. The figurative languages found in the poetries of W.S. Rendra include simile, epic simile, metaphor, and allegory. The most dominant ones are implicit metaphor and simile. The presence of the figurative languages makes the poetries prismatic in nature (emitting meanings very much). The stylistics frequently occurring in the poetries of W.S. Rendra are repetition, climax, and anti climax as well in addition to a small portion of other stylistics. The dominant stylistic is repetition, and this makes the poetries look rhythmic, and give emphasis on the ideas intended by the poet. In addition, the use of the repetition stylistic specially varied with climax, anti climax, and other stylistics makes the poetries look fresher, not boring, beautiful, and interesting. The anaphoric repetition dominating the poetries of W.S. Rendra makes them more rhytmic at the beginning lines and also emphasizes the meanings of the words repeated at the beginning lines. Visually, the poetries of W.S. Rendra are presented in couplets consisting of a number of lines which is not fixed. Some couplets with two lines through more than ten lines are found. Even, there are several poetries which are not assembled in couplets, but in lines that are arranged into one couplet from the beginning to the end of the couplet. The typography of the poetries is not arranged in certain configurations, but their lines are neatly arranged with left align. This makes the expression of ideas with language becomes smooth and flowing. The most special and prominent aspect found in the poetries of W.S. Rendra is the presence of enjambments. Nearly in all of his poetries occur enjambments. Even, there are several couplets which only consist of one sentence so that there occur many enjambments. This results in tensions and accentuates the following lines so that they are interesting to be followed in the next lines.

Open Syllable Shortening in Bernese German

Open Syllable Shortening in Bernese German

Open Syllable Shortening in Bernese German

Open Syllable Shortening in Bernese German

Individual differences in the perception of fundamental frequency scaling in American English speech

Although most participants (N = 62) in an F0 scaling experiment judged open syllables (day) as higher in pitch than closed syllable tokens (dane, dave) with the same F0 contour, a subset did not. Results indicate that, in general, listeners perceptually discount F0 over coda regions when judging overall F0 level, and the degree of discount is related to the (lack of) sonority in the coda: day tokens are judged significantly higher than dane tokens which are judged significantly higher than dave tokens with the same F0 contour (dane-dave p < 0.001, dane-day p < 0.01). However, individual differences are observed: ten listeners showed no significant differences in the perception of F0 levels between the three types of tokens. On the other hand, a contrasting subset of ten subjects demonstrated highly significant differences (p< 0.001). The remaining 42 subjects behaved similarly to the entire subject pool with only slightly less significant differences between dane and day F0 level judgments (p < 0.05). Therefore, for about 16% of subjects, the F0 over the coda is not discounted in judging F0 level. These individual responses in F0 scaling perception mirror differences found in the Frequency Following Response (e.g., [1]) and could indicate individual differences in F0 processing.

BEBERAPA CATATAN TENTANG FONOLOGI BAHASA KAMORORAGAM AI’AOWE

This study aims to describe the phonological aspects of the Ai’aowe variety in the Kamoro language as one of the Papuan languages in Mimika Regency. It employed the qualitative descriptive method using the structural approach. The findings are as follows. First, the Ai’aowe variety in the Kamoro language has more vowels than consonants. There are ten vowels, namely /i/, /ii/, /e/, /ee/, /a/, /aa/, /u/, /uu/, /o/, /oo/ and eight consonants, namely /p/, /m/, /t/, /n/, /r/, /w/, /y/, /?/. Second, in this language there are only open syllables, so that there are only two types of syllable patterns, namely V and CV. The stress falls on the final syllable. Third, in the morphophonemic process, a verbal change is influenced by the person, tense, and aspect, making a word longer with more syllables. Fourth, the Ai’aowe variety in the Kamoro language is influenced by outside languages, including Indonesian, so that there is a tendency for nonnative phonemes to exist.

Vowel pronunciation in open syllables in spontaneously spoken Standard Dutch: Exploring a phonological constraint in a listening task

According to the Bimoraic Constraint (Kager 1989) and the Minimal Rhyme Constraint (Booij 1995), Dutch syllables by default end in either a tense vowel or a lax vowel followed by a consonant. Syllables ending in a lax vowel do not meet the phonological requirements of a felicitous syllable. The present paper reports on a listening task in which this phonological constraint is explored. Three linguists were asked to categorize 3984 vowels in open syllables in bisyllabic Dutch words with two full vowels (e.g., gl o baal [glo'bal] ‘global’, dict ee [dɪk'te] ‘dictation’). The source words originated from spontaneously spoken Standard Dutch by 80 Flemish and 80 Dutch teachers of Dutch. The main variables of this study were stress (stressed vs. unstressed syllables), relative position in the word (first vs. second syllable), vowel (/a/-/e/-/i/-/o/) and country (Flanders vs. the Netherlands). The present study did not find conclusive empirical evidence for the phonological constraint at issue. In other words, it was not unusual for Dutch syllables to end in a lax vowel. As expected, vowels in stressed syllables are labeled as tense more often than their unstressed counterparts. More lax realizations were found in the first syllable than in the second, and Flemish vowels were more often categorized as lax than Dutch vowels. The vowel with the lowest tense-score was /a/.

Is bilingual babbling language-specific? Some evidence from a case study of Spanish–English dual acquisition

This paper contributes to current investigations of the nature of babbling in infants raised bilingually by analyzing the babbling of a child raised in a Spanish–English environment. Examination of syllable structure shows the expected preponderance of open syllables in both language contexts while other phenomena point to important differences dependent on language context. While some of the differences relate to general features of the input languages, others coincide with individual features of the parents’ input. These results offer some evidence of distinct babbling according to language context and suggest a possible influence of the type of input.

Rethinking assessment measures of phonological development and their application in bilingual acquisition

This article discusses the measurements for phonological and prosodic development put forward in Ingram [Ingram, D. (2002). The measurement of whole-word productions. Journal of Child Language, 29, 713–733.], while at the same time expanding the crucial measures, phonological mean length of utterance (PMLU) and proportion of whole-word proximity (PWP). The goal of the expansion is to accommodate a wider set of phenomena, specifically those related to bilingual acquisition of languages with different categories (e.g. closed syllables in German and open syllables in Spanish). Data from three monolingual Spanish children and from three bilingual German--Spanish children are presented as illustration of the modified measurements: expanded PMLU of features (ePMLU-F), expanded PMLU of syllables (ePMLU-S) and expanded PWP (ePWP). By means of measuring both features and prosodic positions, the expanded measurements do better justice to the various aspects of child phonology. Nonetheless, an important goal of this article is to stimulate discussion in order to bring our state-of-the-art closer to descriptive adequacy.

Struktur Fonologis Nama Orang Minangkabau

Name of the Minangkabaunese has its own characteristics which can be recognized through the phonological structure. This article describes the number of word length Minangkabau name, the number of syllables, and the nature of each syllable of the name. There are three methods and research techniques used in this study: providing data, data analysis, and presentation of analysis results. Based on the number, the phonological structures of the Minangkabaunese names have two tendencies. First, people over 43 years old tend to consist of 1 (one) word name. In contrast, less than 44 years old tend to consist of two words name. Based on the number of syllables, the Minangkabaunese names also have two tendencies. First, over 43 years old the name tends to consist of three (3) syllables followed by a name consisting of 2 (two) syllables. The name of the Minangkabau people under 44 years are more varied, there consist of 2 to 5 syllables, some of them consisting of 6 to 7 syllables. Furthermore, the long name is not found Minangkabau consisting of one syllable and exceeds 7 syllables. Finally, based on the nature, there are two properties of syllables in the Minangkabaunese name which are closed syllables and open syllables.

Apprenants hispanophones de FLE et accentuation en français

The aim of this research is to examine whether Spanish speakers transfer some accentual acoustic properties from Spanish to French L2. Native Spanish learners of French and native speakers of French were instructed to read French sentences that contained a trisyllabic pseudoword ending with an open syllable (e.g. poutila) or closed syllable (e.g. poutilar). In half of the sentences, the pseudoword was a noun in a stressed position, while in the other half it was an adjective in an unstressed position. Acoustic analyses (duration, F0 and amplitude) were performed on the three vowels of the pseudoword, as well as on the first vowel following the pseudoword. Results showed that Spanish speakers have acquired the knowledge that, contrary to Spanish, stress is fixed in French (on the last syllable), but not that stress is realized at the accentual phrase level rather than at the word level as in Spanish.