Phonological Analysis Research Articles

Umlaut in Jerusalem Domari

This study conducts a phonetic and phonological analysis of the umlaut phenomenon within the gender system of Jerusalem Domari. Using descriptive research and acoustic analysis of recordings, the study establishes several key findings: A contrast is observed in the integration of pre‑Arabic loanwords (Persian, Kurdish, Turkish) with Indo‑Aryan native words, which follow the umlaut rules, whereas the loanwords from Arabic, the most recent contact language, do not. A clear phonemic distinction is identified between the two open vowels, [a(ː)] and [ɑ(ː)], in pre‑Arabic words, while these vowels exhibit allophonic values in the Arabic loanwords.

Contrastive feature hierarchies and Germanic phonology

Abstract I discuss an analysis of changes in the Scandinavian runic alphabet, or futhark, by Jørgen Rischel (1966). Rischel’s article accounts for some puzzling changes in the futhark by employing contrastive feature hierarchies represented as branching trees. Feature hierarchies can be traced back to the work of Roman Jakobson and his colleagues. They enjoyed a brief period of prominence in the 1950s and 1960s, but then disappeared from mainstream phonological theory. However, they were employed in a number of interesting studies of Germanic and other languages whose insights we can still profit from today. The goal of this paper is to bring attention to this largely forgotten approach to phonological analysis, and to spell out the principles that underlie it.

Phonological Analysis of Syllabic Changes of Arabic Loan Verbs

The original form of a language is often changed when the language is borrowed into the target language. In Malay, one of the changes that can be observed is the reduction of syllable segments. The change results from integrating and adapting the source language to the target language for native-like adaptation. Therefore, this study investigates the reduction of syllable segments and phonological changes of syllable segments in Arabic loan verbs. The reduction of syllable segments refers to a segmental reduction in the first, second or third syllable. The phonological change of the syllable segment refers to the sound change that occurs when the syllable segment is reduced. This study uses Arabic loan verbs in Kamus Dewan Perdana as research data. The collected data was transcribed and 30 Arabic loanwords were found to have syllable segment reduction. The data is then analysed using the theory of sound change to determine the phonological changes that occur in the syllable segments in the Arabic loanwords. The study results show that there are 3 types of segmental reduction located in the first syllable, 26 verbs in the second syllable and 3 verbs in the third syllable. In addition, the study's results also show that phonological changes for syllable segments in Arabic loanwords occur through vowel adaptation, neutralization and scramble. These changes generally take the form of vowel adjustments that shorten the vowel sound of the original Arabic spelling, which accounts for most of the sound changes in syllable segment reduction.

Revisiting Kabardian Phonology: A Syllabic Analysis

This paper provides an autosegmental analysis of phonological alternations in Kabardian, an Abhkaz-Adyghean language. It illustrates how several phonological re-write rules, postulated in Colarusso’s (1992) phonological analysis of Kabardian which, in some cases, lacks adequate explanation, may be uniformly reinterpreted as instances of mapping between the segmental tier and the skeletal tier in an autosegmental approach. In doing so, this paper illustrates a case where the skeletal make-up of a language may be dominant over underlying segments and be crucial in determining the output forms of a language, a process which may be translated into high-ranking constraints under a constraint-based framework. This paper, therefore, provides a more economical and explanatorily adequate analysis of Kabardian phonological alternations.

Consonantal Variation of Hindi-Urdu Loanwords in Standard English: A Phonological Analysis

This study delves into the intricate phonological transformations that transpire when Hindi-Urdu loanwords are integrated into the English lexicon. Through a meticulous curation and analysis of a corpus comprising Hindi-Urdu loanwords in English, this research scrutinizes the nuanced consonantal changes that arise from the linguistic exchange between these languages. With a particular focus on the interplay between Hindi-Urdu consonantal sounds and English phonological structures, the study examines processes such as deaspiration, deretroflexion, and deuvularization, and other relevant phonetic adjustments to provide a comprehensive insight into how Standard English phonological norms impact the interpretation and articulation of Hindi-Urdu consonants within loanwords.

Phonological Analysis Of Arabic Diphthongs In Defective Verbs

The Arabic diphthongs have two sounds, which are /aɪ/ and /aʊ/, each in its nouns and weak verbs. This study analyzes phonological rules related to Arabic diphthongs and syllable segmentation among Arabic diphthongs. Qualitative methods are applied in this research, and the content analysis is conducted using Chomsky and Halle’s phonological rules (1968) and Crowley's (1987) theory to analyze all data. The data are collected from the Arabic dictionary called Mu’jam Taşrīf al-`af’āl al-‘arabiyyah and the data are then divided into two categories, namely sound /w/ and /y/. The study observes that the Arabic diphthong sounds are found in nouns and defective verbs with suffixes other than /a/, /t/, and /w/. The study finds that in Arabic, diphthong sounds are deleted in defective verbs when the suffix consists of two phonemes. These sounds transform into long vowel sounds upon adding/a/, indicating the third-person singular male in the past tense. The suffixes /t/ and /w/ similarly convert the diphthong to a primary vowel. This study concludes that phonological changes occur more frequently in Arabic defective verbs than in nouns, following specific rules. Additionally, syllable segments change when the glide sounds forming diphthongs are deleted.

French liaison is allomorphy, not allophony: evidence from lexical statistics

The exact nature of French liaison as a phonological or morphological alternation is still debated. Under the phonological analysis, liaison is allophony: liaison consonants are special phonemes that alternate between a consonant allophone and zero (e.g., [t] ∼ ∅), the zero allophone being derived from the consonant phoneme through deletion (/t/ → ∅). Under the morphological analysis, liaison is allomorphy: liaison words have two underlyingly listed allomorphs, a consonant-final allomorph and a shorter allomorph that lacks this consonant (e.g., grand ‘great’ /gʁɑ̃t, gʁɑ̃/). This paper uses evidence from lexical statistics to arbitrate between these two analyses. The form without liaison consonant (and with deletion, under the phonological analysis) has been found in previous research to become less likely with increasing lexical frequency. The paper shows that this is problematic for the phonological analysis of French liaison, as deletion typically applies more frequently in high-frequency words across languages. The paper further shows, using evidence from a large lexical database, that words involved in liaison alternations generally have lower type frequency but higher token frequency than non-liaison words when phonotactic and morphological effects on lexical frequency are controlled for. This result is in line with the predictions of the morphological analysis, as allomorphy typically involves a relatively small number of words that occur frequently. Due to its empirical nature, this argument constitutes to date one of the strongest arguments in favor of the morphological analysis.

Jacobson’s Distinctive Features and the Analysis of assimilation in Kurdish Bahdini local dialect

Distinctive Features are generally used to describe the smallest units of sound in both phonetic and phonological analyses which aims to differentiate between the meaning of one word and another in a certain language. The topic of distinctive features has always caught the interest of phonologists and many schoolars used these features as the smallest units of sounds in order to describe sound features in all human languages. This research is an attempt to represent the distinctive features of Kurdish language, as well as to explain assimilation through Jacobson,s Distinctive Features in order to reach some phonological rules in Kurdish language. Samples are taken and analysed from revels written by speakers from the center of Duhok in order to represent the distinctive features of the sounds which affect the adjacent sounds, as well as creating the rules of the sounds which affect each other. Jacobson’s features are mainly based on a acoustic description of sounds. The most important hypotheses of this research show that this theory meets the following requisitions: Distinctive Features (DFs) can describe a natural class of sounds. They can also describe the distinctions of sounds in all languages of the world and these features can be defined phonological. In conolusion it is clear that in Bahdini local dialect, The changes often affect the sound which carries the feature (±voiced) of stop and fricative sounds in general, and upon the feature (+voiced) of fricative in novel particularly.

Phonological assessment for Greek (PAel) test: Reliability and validity in 4-to 6-year-old preschool children

ABSTRACT Single-word phonological tests are widely used for detecting children at risk for Speech Sound Disorders (SSDs). However, specific conceptual and operational criteria should be evaluated to ensure that these assessments are valid and reliable and can serve as diagnostic tools. The current study aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of the screener of a phonological Greek instrument, named the Phonological Assessment for Greek (PAel) comparing the phonological performance of typically developing (TD) children and children with SSDs, aged 4 to 6 years. The participants were 20 TD children and 40 children with SSDs. All participants completed the screener of PAel, the 70-word list of the standardised Test of Phonetic and Phonological Development (TPPD), and a language test, namely the Action Picture Test. Participants who scored below the 25th percentile on the language test were excluded. Phonological analysis revealed that PAel has high content validity. The participants who had received a diagnosis of SSDs presented restricted consonant and cluster inventories and significantly lower whole-word match levels in comparison to their TD peers. The overall Spearman’s correlation coefficients between PAel and TPPD were 0.611 for TD children (p < 0.001) and 0.875 for children with SSDs (p < 0.001), indicating good criterion validity. The tool demonstrated strong test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability with Spearman values exceeding 0.85, and Intra-class correlation coefficients over 0.90. Overall, the results suggest that PAel has satisfactory reliability and validity and can be used as an assessment tool to detect children at risk for SSDs.

Phonological Analysis of Errors in the Realization of Consonant Cluster System Encountered by Koro Ashe ESL Learners

Phonological Analysis of Errors in the Realization of Consonant Cluster System Encountered by Koro Ashe ESL Learners

.Phonological Analysis of Intonation in Selected American Movies

وفقا ل (سبمسون 2004:6) فان علم الأصوات هو دراسة أصوات الكلام التي تنقل نغمة المعنى وتوصيل المعنى في مواقف سياقية معينة فان التنغيم هو التنوع في نبرة الصوت أثناء الكلام. تم اختيار الفيلمين ملفيسنت والسيدة داوتفاير.لإظهار التنغيم بشكل مختلف. تظهر النغمة في كلا الفيلمين معان مختلفة في مواقف مختلفة. كل فيلم له نوعه ونوع التشويق الخاص به لذلك يتم قياس التنغيم باستخدام برنامج (برات) الذي يصف درجة الصوت بشكل دقيق في المواقف وبالتالي يظهر التنغيم في نظام (برات) المعاني في الأفلام في سياقات ومواقف معينة. يسعى هذا البحث الى تحقيق الأهداف التالية: 1. التحقق من التنغيم في بعض المقتطفات من الأفلام الأمريكية المختارة. 2- يصف مقاصد كل نغمة صاعدة وهبوطية في المقتطفات. 3- إنتاج الصفات الصوتية والخطابية والنفسية المتضمنة في هذه النغمات. لتحقيق الأهداف المذكورة أعلاه تم إنتاج الفرضيات التالية: 1. استخدام استراتيجيات صوتية مختلفة من قبل صانعي الأفلام لاستخدام التنغيم. تشير الفرضيات المذكورة أعلاه الى المواقف النفسية التي يمر بها الممثل اثناء الكلام بما يتوافق مع تمثيلات المواقف. الاجراءات 2. تُستخدم الاستراتيجيات المذكورة أعلاه للاشارة إلى المواقف النفسية للممثلين المتوافقة مع التمثيلات الظرفية. استخدمت الإجراءات التالية للفرضيات المذكورة أعلاه: (1) اظهار التنغيم باستخدام برنامج (برات) الذي يسهل وصف الميزات الصوتية. (2) إنتاج مصطلحات التنغيم لبيان التأثيرات الخطابية والنفسية والصوتية المحددة وفقًا لتحليل مقتطفات قليلة من الأفلام المذكورة أعلاه. نستنتج مما سبق أن الفرضيات المذكورة أعلاه صحيحة لأن هذا الاستنتاج يوضح أن التنغيم يلعب دورًا محوريًا في كلا الفلمين لإنتاج حالة نفسية معينة ومعان معينة في سياق معين يوضحه التنغيم المذكور وبذلك يختلف التنغيم المستخدم في كلا الفيلمين من حيث انواع الافلام والسياقات والوظائف والأهداف والمعاني. مصطلحات مفتاحية التنغيم النغمة الاهتزازية برنامج (برات) الصوتي معلومات صوتية التأثير التواصلي

Shared and task-specific brain functional differences across multiple tasks in children with developmental dyslexia

Different tasks have been used in examining the neural functional differences associated with developmental dyslexia (DD), and consequently, different findings have been reported. However, very few studies have systematically compared multiple tasks in understanding what specific task differences each brain region is associated with. In this study, we employed an auditory rhyming task, a visual rhyming task, and a visual spelling task, in order to investigate shared and task-specific neural differences in Chinese children with DD. First, we found that children with DD had reduced activation in the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) only in the two rhyming tasks, suggesting impaired phonological analysis. Children with DD showed functional differences in the right lingual gyrus/inferior occipital gyrus only in the two visual tasks, suggesting deficiency in their visuo-orthographic processing. Moreover, children with DD showed reduced activation in the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus and increased activation in the right precentral gyrus across all of the three tasks, suggesting neural signatures of DD in Chinese. In summary, our study successfully separated brain regions associated with differences in orthographic processing, phonological processing, and general lexical processing in DD. It advances our understanding about the neural mechanisms of DD.

Automatic intonational contour clustering in Patwin

This study uses automated methods from Contour Clustering (Kaland 2021) to identify seven common intonational patterns in Patwin, an understudied Wintuan language of Northern California that survives via archival recordings. Only two phonetic or phonological analyses currently exist for Patwin (Lawyer 2015, 2021). This study finds that all seven contours suggested by Contour Clustering are attested in word-list elicitation, demonstrating a remarkable diversity of intonational types. In so doing, this study challenges claims made in Shafer (1961) that Patwin has lexical tone. Though the results are generally successful, Contour Clustering is not robust to the effects of poor recording quality on pitch tracking and subsequent cluster assignment. In general, this study indicates that using automated methods in tandem with a more phonologically grounded method of analysis such as PaToBI (Silverman et al. 1992; Björklund 2024) is fruitful for facilitating working with large amounts of archival data. This study adds to our limited understanding of Wintuan intonation, suggesting new intonation types for future investigation.

A phonological analysis of the onset velar nasal merger in Hong Kong Cantonese

This paper provides a phonological analysis of the onset /ŋ/ ↔ /∅/ merger in Hong Kong Cantonese (HKC). What is particularly challenging for a formal analysis here is that the insertion and deletion of [ŋ] can occur in the same environment, since a sound normally does not allow two contrasting operations in the same environment (McCarthy 2003). The current study employs an analysis using a probabilistic constraint-based grammar (Goldwater et al. 2003), by proposing that [ŋ] is a placeless consonant at the onset position. Thus, [ŋ] is inserted placelessly and gets its place from the following vowel. Insertion of other sounds can thus be excluded by penalizing place insertion.

Revisiting the nature and the context of T4 alternations: insights from disyllabic, trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic word/digit productions in Taiwan Mandarin.

The tone values of a Tone 4 (T4) syllable are conventionally assumed to change from '51' to '53' when the syllable is followed by another T4 syllable in Mandarin Chinese. Literature focusing on T4 alternation is still inconclusive regarding the contexts for the alternations and whether the phenomenon should be better categorized as tone sandhi (i.e.,represented as an abstract phonological rule in mental grammar) or tonal coarticulation (i.e.,a natural articulation phenomenon at the phonetic level). The current study probes into these issues by focusing on disyllabic pseudowords, right-branching trisyllabic words as well as unstructured trisyllabic and quadrisyllabic digits. Productions from a total of 148 participants were collected and fundamental frequency (f0) contours, vowel lengths and f0 slopes were included in the analysis. The results from the experiments supported the tonal coarticulation view and showed that the trigger for the alternations was the high-onset tones following T4. Implications to the phonological analysis on tonal alternations in Mandarin Chinese are discussed.

A Stratal Phonological Analysis of Stem-Level and Word-Level Effects in Old French Compensatory Vowel Lengthening upon Coda /s/ Deletion

A Stratal Phonological Analysis of Stem-Level and Word-Level Effects in Old French Compensatory Vowel Lengthening upon Coda /s/ Deletion

A Comparative Analysis of Declarative Sentences in the Spontaneous Speech of Two Puerto Rican Communities

This paper applies the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) model of intonation phonology and the Spanish Tones and Break Indices (Sp_ToBI) annotation conventions to compare the intonational contours of declarative sentences in two varieties of Puerto Rican Spanish: (1) San Juan Spanish, spoken in the capital city of San Juan, and (2) Loíza Spanish, an Afro-Hispanic vernacular spoken in Loíza. The geographical proximity between these two municipalities entails constant contact within a shared linguistic space. However, speakers from San Juan perceive Loíza as a municipality that has its own peculiar way of speaking. The acoustic and phonological analysis was carried out with PRAAT to verify whether pitch accents coincide in the spontaneous speech of the two analyzed varieties. The data we examined contain an overall predominance of the bitonal pitch accents L*+H and L+&lt;H* in San Juan Spanish, and L+H* in Loíza Spanish. Findings show both similarities and differences within the two speech communities, as well as with intonational patterns in other (Afro-)Hispanic varieties. These results provide new information on spontaneous declarative intonation in (Afro-)Puerto Rican Spanish by offering a new perspective on the origin of a set of the prosodic phenomena found in these two varieties.

Broad and fine acoustic categories in bod, bond, bald, and bard: A step toward acoustic phonology

Acoustics is central to the study of speech communication, but it is conspicuously under-represented in abstract representations of speech. Many flavors of phonological analysis tend toward articulatory descriptions, and transcriptions focus on strings of articulatory actions. All this is despite acoustics being easier to measure than articulation with current technology. The present study explores basic concepts for an acoustic phonology, with two types of postulated categories: broad and fine. Resonant, turbulent, transient, and occludent types of sounds comprise the broad categories, as general methods of filtering the speech source. Fine categories are conceptualized as specific types of acoustic actions within a broad category. These acoustic actions are goal-oriented, as for achieving a particular acoustic effect like the presence of antiformants or a lowered F2 or F3. However, these actions are not explicitly restricted to manipulating traditional phonetic features like formants. By default, fine categories are assumed to be produced in parallel when possible, yielding overlap effects like anticipatory nasalization, lateralization, and rhotacization. These concepts are explored in a microanalysis of bod, bond, bald, and bard from the speaker in the Massive Auditory Lexical Decision data set, with an eye to seeding the ground for a future acoustic phonology.

The Definite Article am- [ʔam-] of Jazani Arabic: An Autosegmental Analysis

A decent number of studies have discussed phonological or morphological aspects of the definite article in Standard or Classical Arabic. However, only a few have described the definite article in Southern Arabic dialects. Arabic consonants are divided into two categories based on how they affect the definite article al- [ʔal-]. Fourteen consonants with the [+coronal] feature cause assimilation, whereas the remaining consonants with [-coronal] do not. This process raises the question of whether this is also the case with the definite article [ʔam-] of the Southern dialect Jazani Arabic. Thus, one goal of this study was to examine whether assimilation occurs in the first place with [ʔam-]. If so, does it assimilate to consonants with specific features? Does it fully or partially assimilate to other consonants? Does directionality play a role in assimilation? Enlightened by autosegmental phonology and feature geometry, this study presents a novel dataset and a non-linear phonological analysis of Jazani [ʔam-] via linking or delinking features. Results showed that [ʔam-] completely assimilated and caused geminates when followed by [m] and partially assimilated when followed by [b] or [w] but never after [-labial] sounds. Assimilation occurred progressively or regressively based on the sonority hierarchy of the consonants. In addition, assimilation only occurred across morphological boundaries and never within one morpheme.

A Phonological Analysis of Nouns Borrowed by Fulfulde from Hausa

This study is an aspect of the phonological analysis of words borrowed by Fulfulde from Hausa. The main objective of this research is: to identify the phonological features of words borrowed from Hausa; This study employs a qualitative research method, the research respondents are selected from the students of Fulfulde Department, Federal College of Education, Yola. The analysis reveals that Fulfulde employs strategies in adopting Hausa loanwords: vowel lengthening, consonant and vowel deletion, and insertion. The study finds that: Hausa /z/ changes to [ʤ] and /ʃ/ to [s] following the absence of the corresponding Hausa sounds in the consonant inventory of the Fulfulde dialects under investigation. Similarly, because oral stops are prenasalised in Fulfulde, sounds such as /b/, /d/ and /ɡ/ become [mb], [nd], and [ɳɡ] respectively. The findings of the research have implications for the expansion and growth of the language as the research discusses phonological modifications which loanwords undergo to help the language develop its vocabulary.