Phonemic Inventory Research Articles

Voiceless sonorants—phonemes or underlying clusters?*

This paper examines the phenomenon of voiceless sonorants in Kokota (Oceanic, Solomon Islands). The phonemic status of these phones is examined in terms of the question—are they underlyingly phonemes, or the result of the synchronic surface coalescence of underlying /h/ plus sonorant clusters? The relevant data from Kokota are presented, then two alternative models are briefly described—underlying voiceless sonorant phonemes in Iaai, and the surface coalescence of CC sequences in Lenakel.1 Evidence from within Kokota is then examined in an attempt to determine which model Kokota best fits. The paper concludes that these Kokota phones represent underlying voiceless sonorant phonemes, giving the language a consonant phoneme inventory in which every voiced phoneme has a voiceless counterpart.

Spoken word recognition by non-native listeners

While the ability to perceive novel phoneme contrasts is necessary for accurate spoken word recognition by non-native listeners, it is likely that novel phoneme perception functions in a linguistically meaningful manner only once the contrast in question signals a known lexical contrast. In other words, knowledge of the sound-based structure of the target language lexicon is just as important for non-native speech perception as experience with the structure of the target language phoneme inventory. In order to understand non-native speech perception fully, there is a need to investigate recognition of word-sized units by non-native listeners using stimulus materials that are well controlled in terms of the sound-based structure of the target language lexicon. Accordingly, how non-native listeners recognize English words under conditions known to affect spoken word recognition by native English listeners was investigated. Results showed that the ability to take advantage of consistent surface phonetic information, such as a consistent talker across items, is a perceptual skill that transfers easily from first to second language perception. However, non-native listeners had particular difficulty with words that are easily confused with other similar sounding words, suggesting that non-native word recognition may be compromised when fine phonetic discrimation at the segmental level is required.

Glottalization in Nuu-chah-nulth in Optimality Theory

Nootka and Ditidaht (Nuu-chap-nulth), which belong to the Southern Wakashan branch of the Wakashan language family, exhibit complex properties with respect to glottalization. Although they have the same phoneme inventory, these two sister languages have different results in glottalization depending on manners of articulation of the affected consonant. Also, their glottalization is sensitive to morphological categories. The triggering factor of glottalization is a suffix with a glottal in its initial position, and the aspects of glottalization are different depending on the morphological category of the suffix in question, lexical or grammatical. These two properties in terms of glottalization in Nuu-chah-nulth: language variation and interaction between phonology and morphology, will he treated in Optimality Theory in this paper.

In Defense of Dempwolff: Austronesian Diphthongs Once Again

In the six decades since Otto Dempwolff published the third and final volume of his foundation-laying Vergleichende Lautlehre des austronesischen Wortschatzes (1934-38), objections have been raised against various features of his Uraustronesisch, a reconstructed language equivalent to what is now called ProtoMalayo-Polynesian (PMP). Some of these objections appear in the early work of Isidore Dyen, who corrected fundamental problems in Dempwolff's reconstruction of the laryngeals and advocated a more practical orthography. During the I970s and I98os, John Wolff proposed that scholars jettison certain of Dempwolff's consonant distinctions, most notably Proto-Austronesian (PAN) *r, *d, *c, *z, *g, and *T (summarized in Wolff I988). Despite these proposed modifications of the consonant system, until now the vowels and diphthongs have remained essentially beyond reproach.' Clynes (1997:347), however, has recently argued against the reconstruction of diphthongs in the phoneme inventory of Proto-Austronesian: They have an extremely restricted distribution, being posited to have occurred only in absolute morpheme-final position-in for example PMP *lakaw 'walk, go', *balay 'public building', PAN *baliw 'moiety', *babuy 'pig'.... The putative diphthongs are moreover unusual: they differ in structure both from the generally accepted notion of a diphthong, and also from other interpretations, such as that of the U.S. structuralist tradition.... Indeed if they do exist, they constitute a complex segment not to my knowledge reported elsewhere in the phonological literature.2

Fonética y fonología actual del español By Francesco D'Introno (review)

BOOK NOTICES Fonética y fonología actual del español. By Francesco D'Introno, Enrique del Teso, and Rosemary Weston. Madrid: Cátedra, 1995. Pp. 478. This thorough and technical treatise, in Spanish, is on the phonetics and phonology ofSpanish as well as on contemporary phonological theory generally. The first chapter, 'La fonética en los estudios del lenguaje' (11-137), runs the gamut from a review ofNewtonian physics through acoustic, auditory, and articulatory phonetics. Details along the way include the geometry of vector quantities (14, n. 1), kinds of sound spectrogram equipment (59-62), chemistry of different inner-ear fluids (66), and much more. Equal thoroughness is granted to the treatment of acoustic and articulatory phonetics in spite ofthe latter's perhaps greater accessibility to the general reader's intuition . The second chapter, 'Fonemas y alófonos del espa ñol' (139-313), includes not only presentation of the structuralist phonemic inventory but also detailed treatments of topics such as secondary stress (169-73) and glide fortition (241-58). The chapter generally follows Tomás Navarro Tomás's Manual de pronunciación española (12th edn., Madrid: CSIC, 1965), both in theoretical approach and in the choice of dialect for description, namely educated Madrilenian speech. The third and final chapter, 'Fonología generativa ', devotes subsections to SPE (315-48), autosegmental (348-84), CV (384-96), lexical (397-99), and 'nonderivational' (i.e. optimality theory , 442-61) phonologies. It also includes up-to-date surveys of work on Spanish syllable structure (400-10) and stress (41 1-36). Intonation is reviewed briefly (131-35, 436-42). The SPE framework and its successor theories are each introduced organically , i.e. with clear rationales as to what existing theoretical inadequacies they were intended to remedy. Ch. 3 differs from Chs. 1 and 2 in giving more frequent citations of sources in the literature, and—especially after the SPE section—the discussion is more about current phonological theory than about that theory as applied to Spanish. While linguists such as James Harris and William Cressey have produced entire treatments of Spanish phonology ostensibly in the SPE framework, no such broad studies for this language have yet appeared under the successor theories. The text is supported graphically by diagrams, spectrograms, and tables. The bibliography (463-68) cites some 115 titles. Self-reference includes a subject index (469-71) and a finely-dissected table of contents (473-78). Although highly technical in subject matter, the book is written with clarity and consideration for the neophyte reader. Invisible phenomena are explained by analogies to familiar experiences: the vibration of complex sound waves is compared to a column of elastic balls bouncing one on top ofanother; autosegmental tiers are imagined like notebook pages radiating at different angles from their spiral binding; and so on. My only complaint is about the fatigue of reading closely-spaced lines of 11-point type on an off-white stock. A larger print and/or a brighter white paper would have been easier on the eyes. [Steven Lee Hartman, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale .] More Englishes: New studies in varieties of English 1988-1994. By Manfred Görlach. (Varieties of English around the world, G13.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia : John Benjamins, 1995. Pp. 276. $49.00. Manfred Görlach's editorship of the journal English World-Wide (EWW) and the series Varieties of English around the world as well as his own research have made him a prominent name within English studies. This collection brings together eight of his more recent articles, several of which have appeared elsewhere in slightly different form: Four are reprinted outright, with three from his own tenure at EWW. The 'reprinted' nature of this fine volume raises the question of who can really afford to buy such a relatively expensive book when many of the individual articles may be found elsewhere. But concerns of this nature are usually offset by the convenience of having the articles collected in one accessible source, and this is certainly the case here. All things considered, this collection of papers will interest researchers whose work falls across the areas ofsociolinguistics, applied linguistics, creóle studies, and dialectology. The book is divided into eight chapters...

On the Proto-Austronesian "Diphthongs"

Arguments are presented against the reconstruction of diphthongs in the phoneme inventory of Proto-Austronesian. The synchronic and diachronic evidence indicates that the elements previously characterized in this way are better analyzed as sequences of two independently reconstructed phonemes, a vowel followed by a consonant. With the elimination of this phonological class, a simpler PAN phoneme inventory than that previously posited is obtained

The Genesis of a Language: The Formation and Development of Korlai Portuguese

Korlai Portuguese (KP), a Portuguese-based creole only recently discovered by linguists, originated around 1520 on the west coast of India. Initially isolated from its Hindu and Muslim neighbors by social and religious barriers, the small Korlai community lost virtually all Portuguese contact as well after 1740. This volume is the first-ever comprehensive treatment of the formation, linguistic components, and rapidly changing situation of this exotic creole. The product of ten years of research, Korlai Creole Portuguese provides an exciting, in-depth diachronic look at a language that is now showing the strain of intense cultural pressure from the surrounding Marathi-speaking population. Framed in Thomason and Kaufman’s 1988 model of contact-induced language change, the author’s analysis is enriched by numerous comparisons with sister creoles, apart from medieval Portuguese and Marathi. This book contrastively examines the following areas: phonemic inventories, phonological processes, stress assignment, syllable structure, paradigm restructuring, paradigm use, lexicon, word formation, semantic borrowing, loan translations, grammatical relation marking, pre- and postnominal modification, negation, subject and object deletion, embedding, and word order.

The historical development of retroflex consonants in Indo-Aryan

In the development of Indo-Aryan the palatoalveolar sibilant < became retroflex s by a context-free sound change. While most scholars assume this development, no satisfactory explanation for its occurrence has been proposed. The present study is an attempt to account for why s became s: the claim will be made that this context-free sound change occurred as a repair mechanism to avoid a phonemic inventory that is otherwise unattested in natural languages.

Phonological Treatment Efficacy and Developmental Norms

The efficacy of teaching sounds in developmental sequence as defined by age norms was evaluated in two independent investigations. Study I was a within-subject evaluation using an alternating treatments design, with three children each receiving treatment on one early-acquired and one later-acquired phoneme relative to chronological age. Study II was an across-subject evaluation involving six children in a staggered multiple baseline paradigm, whereby three subjects were each taught one early-acquired sound and three other subjects were taught one later-acquired sound relative to chronological age. Phonological change was measured on probes of sounds excluded from each child's phonemic inventory. General results indicated that: (a) quantitatively, change in treated phonemes and manner classes was equivocal following treatment of early-acquired and later-acquired phonemes; (b) qualitatively, the onset of change was immediate following treatment of later-acquired phonemes, but delayed following treatment of early-acquired phonemes; and (c) treatment of later-acquired phonemes led to system-wide changes in untreated sound classes, whereas treatment of early-acquired phonemes did not. These findings were considered relative to clinical intervention and theories of phonological acquisition.

Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts

James E. Hoch's Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period is a work of major importance for scholars both of Semitic and Egyptian. This review essay summarizes the book's presentation of the data, discusses the analyses derived from a detailed study of the data, and suggests ways in which the work can be utilized in future research. Hoch's most important contribution is the conclusion that the phonemic inventory of Canaanite included twentyseven to twenty-nine phonemes, far more than is usually reconstructed.

An experimental test of phonemic cyclicity.

Laryngeal-supralaryngeal cyclicity has been put forth as an acquisition principle that describes expansion of the phonemic inventory as a bivalent cycle with alternations between the elaboration of laryngeal and supralaryngeal properties of the system (Gierut, 1994). This study evaluated experimentally the claims of the principle by manipulating the domain of the cycle and the phase relationship of the cycle as independent variables, and by monitoring longitudinally the order of emergent phonemic distinctions in the sound systems of seven children with phonological delays (aged 3;4 to 5;8) as the dependent variable. Three general findings emerged: (1) the course of acquisition for all children was consistent with cyclicity; (2) there were no differences in phonemic acquisition between children taught a laryngeal as opposed to a supralaryngeal distinction; and (3) children taught out-of-phase with the cycle evidenced greater phonemic expansion than those taught in-phase with the cycle.

Making a Zapotec Dictionary

Making a Zapotee Dictionary Pamela Munro San Lucas Quiavini Zapotee (SLQZ) is a language with several thousand speakers ofall ages in the town ofSan Lucas Quiavini, Oaxaca, Mexico. With my collaborator Felipe Lopez, I have been involved for two years in studying this previously undescribed language of the Zapotecan family,1 through traditional linguistic fieldwork and the analysis of narratives about immigration experiences collected in Los Angeles (where about a quarter of the speakers now live) and in Oaxaca. In the course of this work, we have assembled a dictionary that currently contains over 4,000 entries in Zapotee with English and Spanish translations (Munro and Lopez, and others, in preparation), a draft of which will be published along with the edited narratives (Lopez and Munro, eds., in preparation). Making the dictionary has required a number of difficult aesthetic and analytical decisions with broad implications for the construction of other dictionaries, particularly those for other languages of the Americas. In this paper, I will briefly discuss four general questions that we have confronted in this project: • How should the language be written? • What form of an inflected word should be selected as the main entry in the dictionary? Zapotecan is a family ofa number ofmutually unintelligible languages, each of which is generally referred to as "Zapotee." There is no consensus on how many separate Zapotee languages exist; a conservative estimate is four (Terrence Kaufman, personal communication), but other varieties of the Valley group, which includes SLQZ, show considerable diversity in all areas of grammar. Apparentiy the most similar Zapotee language to SLQZ that has been described is San Juan Guelavía Zapotee (Jones and Knudson 1977), but this language appears to differ from SLQZ in terms of phoneme inventory and the lexicon, at least. 132Pamela Munro • How should main entries in the dictionary be translated? • How should syntactic information be encoded in dictionary entries? Each ofthese questions is important for many dictionaries, if not for most. In discussing how we have dealt with these questions for SLQZ, I will consider examples from several other languages, citing dictionaries of American Indian languages I have worked on or with (as well as other work) in addressing these questions. In addition, I will refer to standard orthographies (or spelling systems) of a number of languages without making reference to particular dictionaries. How should the language be written? One of the most important issues in preparing a dictionary is choosing the orthography or spelling system to be used. For languages with an established orthography, there usually seems to be only one option ,2 but few American Indian languages have standard orthographies, so almost every dictionary project must begin with decisions about spelling. There are two basic principles for developing an adequate phonetic orthography: ( 1 ) Each letter or letter combination in the system should represent the same sound each time it is used, according to the pronunciation rules of the language. (In other words, if a learner who knows the rules sees a new word, he should be able to pronounce it correctly without further assistance.) (2) Each occurrence of the same sound of the language should be spelled the same. (In other words, if a learner who knows the rules hears a new word, he should be able to spell it correcdy without further assistance.) These are non-trivial, and the caveat "according to the pronunciation rules ofthe language" is important. No one can guess how to implement an unfamiliar orthography without learning its pronunciation rules. 2Even for languages with well-established orthographies, like that ofEnglish, this is often less ofa fixed choice than it might at first seem. For instance, in my work compiling dictionaries ofUCLA student slang (undertaken with the members of several undergraduate classes: Munro and others 1991; Ali and others 1993), such issues as that of how to spell words in which final -ing is universally pronounced as if it is spelled -in have occasioned heated discussion. ____________________Making a Zapotee Dictionary_________________^33 (This is true of familiar European languages as well as unfamiliar American Indian ones, of course. For instance, the letter j represents completely different sounds in Spanish, French, German, and English. No one can be sure how to...

EPG treatment of sibilants in two Cantonese‐speaking children with cleft palate

ABSTRACT Children with disordered speech patterns have particular difficulties with fricatives and affricates, and it is also well documented that these segments are vulnerable in children with cleft palate (Grunwell, Sell &amp; Harding, 1993). This is the case for both English‐speaking and Cantonese‐speaking children. The sibilant system in Cantonese differs from English in several ways: there are no voiced cognates, the affricates are alveolar, and there are only five sibilant segments in the system (/f/, /s/ /ts/ /tsh/ and /h/). We hypothesised that teaching the fricative (grooving) feature first, using electropalatography (EPG), would result in phonetic mastery of the affricate, since all of the features of the affricate would then be available to the child (alveolar/alveopalatal place, stopping plus grooving). The purpose of the study was to explore the efficacy of EPG as a treatment tool, to examine the rate and route of sibilant learning, and to examine the nature of affricates.The subjects were two Cantonese‐speaking children with repaired cleft palate, aged 5;8 and 7;8. Hearing was normal. The speech and language assessment included an oral motor examination, a story retell, an articulation test, and the Cantonese Electropalatography Protocol. The subjects were fitted with acrylic palates embedded with 62 silver electrodes, and habituated to them in situ until they were comfortable, prior to data collection. The assessment was audio‐ and video‐recorded and was completed within 1 1/2 hours.Perceptual analysis of whole‐word transcriptions were completed to construct the phonetic and phonemic inventories for each child. Electropalatographic data were analysed for the critical feature of frication (location and width of grooving) and those for affricates (place and amount of maximum constriction for the plosive, and features of grooving at the moment of release on to the fricative).Therapy included a combination of traditional and instrumental techniques. The children attended eight treatment sessions, each of 60 minutes' duration.Some cross‐linguistic differences were noted: these children maintained the feature of frication by bilabial fricatives. Both children made rapid progress from /s/ in isolation to /s/ in story retell and generalised the feature of frication to affricate. However, neither child achieved a normal template for [s]. The patterns for post‐treatment affricates showed that the location of the plosive component of the affricate was dependent on the location of the fricative, which was similar to the singleton [s].The rate and route of change seen in these children's speech patterns may further our understanding of the nature of affricates, their developmental route, and the difficulty they pose for children with speech disorders. These findings were used to explore five theories: motor theory (Fletcher, 1989); a coarticulation theory (Gibbons &amp; Hardcastle, 1994); a frequency theory (Gibbon &amp; Hardcastle, 1994); a matrix configuration theory (Manuel, 1990), and a sensory/feedback theory (Bzoch, 1979). The feedback theory and the matrix configuration theory were supported. The findings have implications for the description and treatment of speech disorders.

Segment transfer: a consequence of a dynamic system

This article presents the foundations of the Feature Competition Model (FCM) of segment transfer. The FCM is a proposal to explain how L2 sounds are mapped on to L1 phonological categories. Like previous analyses on segment transfer, the FCM assumes that not all features are of the same prominence in a given phonemic inventory and that feature prominence can be determined through underspecification. Unlike previous analyses, the FCM adopts a dynamic approach to phonology, one which assumes that fea tures do not have discrete values, rather ones which are continuous, of greater or lesser prominence in an inventory. A specific metric for calculat ing prominence is given, and hypotheses for three L1-L2 contexts are gener ated and tested. The results of an experiment suggest that the metric has predictive power, but that certain refinements of the formula are necessary. Finally, implications the FCM has for our understanding of developing L2 speech patterns are discussed.

Linguistic perspectives on the Romance languages Ed. by William J. Ashby, Marianne Mithun, Giorgio Perissinotto, and Eduardo Raposo (review)

BOOK NOTICES Yir-Yoront lexicon: Sketch and dictionary of an Australian language. By Barry Alpher. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991. Pp. xi, 795. DM 298.00. Alpher's Ph.D. dissertation on the phonology and grammar of Yir-Yoront—with the engaging title Son ofergative (Cornell, 1973)—is the most thorough and respected description of a language from the Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland. The first hundred pages of the present volume recapitulate the main points of the thesis, as improved and revised during five more field trips between 1974 and 1988. The phonemic inventory is typical for an Australian language, with six stops and nasals (including two apical and two laminai series), three laterals, two rhotics, and two semivowels. There are six vowels (the standard five plus schwa) and a glottal stop. While other languages of the Cape York Peninsula have undergone initial dropping, Yir-Yoront has truncated the ends of words. What were case endings may have dropped, having left a trace through assimilation and the like. Thus, forms of the noun 'blood' have developed as follows: absolutive kamu > kam, ergative kamu-nggu > kumu, and dative kamu-gu > kumu (II). The morphophonemic rules, which ran to 88 pages in the original thesis , are here condensed into nine pages. Nouns and interrogatives follow an absolutive -ergative system of inflection, while pronouns show a nominative-accusative pattern. Singular pronouns have distinct accusative and dative forms, but these fall together for nonsingulars . The ablative case also covers 'aversive' function (e.g. ? was afraid of the dog'), something that is often accorded a separate case form in Australian languages (29). Nonsingular pronouns have a Distributive Plural form, e.g. ngunnguwl 'you(pl.) and 1, acting separately', created from the regular plural (ngopol 'you(pl.) and G) by lenition, ablaut, and reduplication (37). Adjectives function like common nouns in inflection and in syntactic properties, but A is able to put forward five structural and semantic criteria to define a subclass of Adjectives, a most perspicuous and useful analysis. Like other languages of its area, Yir-Yoront has a set of generic nouns which often occur in an NP with a specific noun; A discusses about 20 of them (72-77). He has a detailed and insightful analysis of the kinship system (189-203) and of the way kin terms are grouped together on the basis of a common sign language correspondent, the latter also referring to a body part—e.g. 'shin' for various sibling terms and father's father ; 'arm' for father, father's sister, and male's child. He also gives 45 words (ten ofthem verbs) in the respect register which is used with, or in speaking about, or in the presence of certain relatives and states the one-to-many correspondences between respect style and ordinary language words (103-7). All this is a preliminary to the dictionary (125-694), which is certainly the fullest and most informative dictionary produced for any Australian language. A simply provides all of the information anyone could possibly require: form, alternative forms, any irregular inflections , word class, transitivity and conjugation class for verbs, the appropriate generic term for nouns, all the different senses (written in clear English), and a number of well-chosen examples , mostly taken from texts. (One hopes that A will also be publishing a volume of texts.) There are also most useful notes on etymology, and cognates in other Australian languages. The 'index' is an adequate finder list of English words (695-787). There are always points of analysis with which one disagrees and some etymologies that could be improved (e.g., I'd prefer to relate YirYoront pirri 'emu' (45 1 ) to Dyirbal kapirri rather than, as Alpher does, to Guugu Yimidhirr purriwi ). But these are minor matters, and insignificant given the strength of this work. Certain types of words are not generally used in academic reviews, among them 'magnificent'. But this dictionary simply is a magnificent achievement . [R. M.W. Dixon. Australian National University.] Linguistic perspectives on the Romance languages. Ed. by William J. Ashby, Marianne Mithun, Giorgio Perissinotto, and Eduardo Raposo. (Current issues in linguistic theory, 103.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia : John Benjamins, 1993. Pp. xxii, 404. 593 594 LANGUAGE...

Phonemic structures of delayed phonological systems

The phonemic inventories of 30 children (aged 3;4-5;7) with phonological delays were examined in terms of featural distinctions in order to address universal vs. individual accounts of acquisition. Phonetic inventories of these same children were also identified for comparison purposes. Across children, four hierarchical and implicationally related types of phonemic inventory were identified. The typology uniquely captured common distinctions maintained by all children, and at the same time, allowed for individual differences in the specific phonemic composition of each system. These cross-sectional results have theoretical implications for the longitudinal course of phonemic acquisition. In particular, children appear to have a number of linguistic choices that relate to the course, the specifics, and the mechanism of change in acquisition.

Korean to English articulatory mapping: Palatometric and acoustic data

Second language (L2) learners are thought to substitute phonemes from their first language for L2 sounds, at least during the early stages of learning. Palatometric data, coupled with acoustic data, can illuminate some details of cross-language articulatory mapping. The purpose of this study was to examine the articulation of some English consonants by a native speaker of Korean. Measures such as anterior/posterior placement were examined for eight repetitions of 14 English initial consonants (/θ, hooked schwa, f, v, s, z, t, d, l, n, r, ∫, t∫, dyog/) combined with each of three vowels (/i, a, u/). Results for the English consonants were compared with results for eight repetitions of Korean consonants (including three dental stops, two dental fricatives, three affricates, one dental nasal, and one liquid) combined with each of the same vowels. Most sounds not present in the Korean phoneme inventory (/f, v, γ, hooked schwa, r/) were produced with English-like articulation. Some English sounds that are perceptually similar to sounds in Korean were often produced with Korean-like articulation but were less consistent in placement than their Korean counterparts.

The Slovene Dialect of Resia: San Giorgio

The study contains a synchronical description of the San Giorgio variety of the Slovene dialect spoken in the Resia valley (Val Resia/Rezijanska dolina) situated in north-eastern Italy. The following linguistic levels are analysed: phonology, morphonology and morphology. Apart from this some remarks on syntax and a lexicon have been included. The first chapter contains an overview of existing descriptive publications on Resian. Taking this overview as a starting point the choice of exactly the San Giorgio variety as the topic of this study is accounted for and the need for not only phonological, but also morphological analysis is made pointed out. The chapter further contains information on the native speakers whose speech is analysed and on the various methods used to obtain the dialect material. In the second chapter the phoneme inventory is presented, along with information on realisations, (optional) neutralisations and sandhi phenomena. Notwithstanding the considerable amount of phonetic detail given, the first and foremost aim of this chapter remains the quest for phonological oppositions and their functioning. In the third chapter the morphonological alternations that occur in the substantive, adjective and verb categories are being treated. Instead of dividing this information over the respective chapters on these categories, the alternations are presented together in a separate chapter, because some of the more frequent of them occur in all these word classes. However, through a classification by accent classes alternations concerning the location of stress are treated together with the word class they occur in. The third through seventh chapter inclusive contain the morphology of the substantive (chapter 4), the adjective (chapter 5), the pronoun, the numeral and the article (chapter 6) and the verb (chapter 7), respectively. In each chapter, together with an inventory of the attested desinences, an overview is given of rare desinences, of irregular declinations/conjugations and of the distribution of alternative desinences.

Does Kiswahili have diphthongs: interpreting foreign sounds in African languages

Kiswahili, the most widespread language in Eastern and Central Africa, has borrowed very extensively from foreign languages. One of the consequences of this heavy borrowing has been the adoption of diphthong-like sounds which have posed both descriptive and theoretical problems, given that traditionally the Kiswahili phoneme inventory has no complex vowels. In this article the problem is discussed in the light of the phonetic realities of the sounds and the role they play in the phonological system of the language. Several possible interpretations are presented and discussed. Finally, a solution based on the current autosegmental framework, is proposed.

Relating formant variability to vowel constriction features extracted from pellet positions.

Quantal theory claims that sounds which are common in phoneme inventories, such as [i] and [a], are articulated in vocal tract regions where acoustic patterns are relatively insensitive to variation in constriction location. Perkell and Nelson [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 77, 1889–1895 (1985)] tested this claim using a principal components analysis of x-ray microbeam data. As predicted, tongue pellets showed most positional variation in an axis parallel to the hard palate in [i] and to the pharynx wall in [a]. An earlier replicative study using [i], [a], and three other vowels [Ahalt etal., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 1871 (1991)] showed that pellet data are more easily interpreted in terms of relative variation in constriction location and degree if they are transformed nonlinearly into a coordinate space where x and y values express location along and distance from the opposing wall of the vocal tract. The present study examined the relationship between formant values and pellet positions in this transformed space, and found some support for quantal theory. In particular, all good correlations involved positional variation in the y dimension for pellets near the constriction. [Work supported by the NSF.]