Stressed Syllables Research Articles

A distributional analysis of vowel quantity in a corpus of Latin texts

Abstract The paper examines the relationship between vowel quantity, syllable structure and lexical stress in Latin through a quantitative analysis carried out on a corpus of literary texts taken from Cicero’s Epistulae ad familiares and Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis. Each word of the corpus was split into syllables and phonemes. Then, the corpus was annotated with phonological and prosodic information pertaining to vowel length, syllable structure, stress and word length. Finally, the data collected were analyzed at different levels. The results are discussed in light of the findings of a previous analysis carried out on dictionary entries, confirming a close correlation between syllable structure and lexical stress, since the great majority of stressed syllables are heavy both in the literary corpus and in the dictionary. Moreover, long vowels are more frequently found in open and stressed syllables, particularly in paroxytones. The data suggest that the process leading to the loss of vowel quantity was already active (at least in some strata of Roman society) in the Latin of the Classical age, since a prosodic template similar to that occurring in many Romance developments emerges even in literary Latin texts.

Sensitivity to syllable stress regularities in externally but not self-triggered speech in Dutch.

Several theories of predictive processing propose reduced sensory and neural responses to anticipated events. Support comes from magnetoencephalography/electroencephalography (M/EEG) studies, showing reduced auditory N1 and P2 responses to self-generated compared to externally generated events, or when the timing and form of stimuli are more predictable. The current study examined the sensitivity of N1 and P2 responses to statistical speech regularities. We employed a motor-to-auditory paradigm comparing event-related potential (ERP) responses to externally and self-triggered pseudowords. Participants were presented with a cue indicating which button to press (motor-auditory condition) or which pseudoword would be presented (auditory-only condition). Stimuli consisted of the participant's own voice uttering pseudowords that varied in phonotactic probability and syllable stress. We expected to see N1 and P2 suppression for self-triggered stimuli, with greater suppression effects for more predictable features such as high phonotactic probability and first-syllable stress in pseudowords. In a temporal principal component analysis (PCA), we observed an interaction between syllable stress and condition for the N1, where second-syllable stress items elicited a larger N1 than first-syllable stress items, but only for externally generated stimuli. We further observed an effect of syllable stress on the P2, where first-syllable stress items elicited a larger P2. Strikingly, we did not observe motor-induced suppression for self-triggered stimuli for either the N1 or P2 component, likely due to the temporal predictability of the stimulus onset in both conditions. Taking into account previous findings, the current results suggest that sensitivity to syllable stress regularities depends on task demands.

VOCALISM OF THE FIRST PRESTRESSED SYLLABLEAFTER PALATALIZED CONSONANTS IN 17-TH CENTURY KOSTROMA DIALECTS

The article considers a new data of the 17 century Kostroma business style documents. Based on it, we come to a conclusion about a history of the fi rst prestressed syllable vocalism aft er palatalized consonants in North Russian Kostroma dialects, as well as discover its relationship with the stressed syllable phenomena. The results obtained are then compared with the modern dialects data in the territory considered. It turns out that in Kostroma dialects the tendency to non-high vowel neutralization in the sound [e] in the first prestressed syllable between palatalthized consonants started to take shape as early as the 17 century, which is evidenced by letter substitutions in this position. The manuscript data confirms the previous conclusions about the formation of the North Russian dialectal landscape and clarifi es the dating of the ‘ekanye’ emergence in a position before palatalized consonants. Parallelism of the phenomena in the fi rst prestressed syllable aft er palatalized consonants with the phenomena present in the stressed syllable was still present in th17 century Kostroma dialects, but nowadays it is lost in Kostroma dialects with ‘ekanye’ in the fi rst prestressed syllable in a position before palatalized or velarized consonants.

Prominence and intonation in Singapore English

Previous work on Singapore English prosody has focused largely on establishing the acoustic correlates of lexical stress and examining where the language falls within a rhythm-class typology. Little attention, however, has been paid to how lexical prominence, if present, interacts with phrasal prominence. In this study, we examine the extent to which f0 realizations vary across lexical items with differing stress patterns, while taking into account that prosodic phrasing requirements necessitate an f0 rise to the phrase-final syllable. We show that across target types of varying stress placement, syllable length, and constituency, f0 realizations are highly consistent, involving a rise from the start of the target word or phrase which culminates with a peak on the phrase-final syllable. The location of lexical prominence is the primary influence on the scaling of f0 across the entire target, with stress-initial targets having a higher mean f0. Exploratory analysis of duration and intensity measures further corroborates the prominence-lending nature of the phrase-final syllable, with some evidence for marking of prominence on non-final lexically stressed syllables. The findings support the primarily post-lexical role that f0 plays in marking phrase edges, instead of lexical heads, in Singapore English, in line with a previously proposed AM model of Singapore English intonation. The implications of these findings for the study of prosodic typology and sociolinguistic variation in Singapore English are also discussed.

Exploring the effect of stress on gestural coordination

In this study, I examined stress in speech production within the framework of Articulatory Phonology. Specifically, I tested the hypothesis that stress could be analyzed as a prosodic gesture. Using articulatory data from an English corpus, I found that the CV lag–the gestural lag between a consonant and a vowel–of stressed syllables is significantly larger in terms of both duration and proportion than that of unstressed syllables. I also found that stressed consonant and vowel gestures are longer than unstressed ones. These findings seem to suggest that stress could be analyzed as a prosodic gesture. Moreover, my study reveals a source of variation in CV coordination, which can inform other kinematic studies.

Comparative Analysis of Phonetic Systems of the Russian, French and Chinese Languages

This choice of this material for comparison - the phonetic systems of three languages: Russian, French and Chinese - is due to the fact that in the process of teaching the Russian language to foreign students, teachers face the need to work with a multilingual audience, which may include speakers of different and often unrelated languages while the formation of phonetic skills is an indispensable condition for adequate verbal communication and successful verbal communication in general. It was these circumstances that led to the choice of three languages for comparative analysis. The main purpose of such a comparison is the possibility of predicting possible interference errors in the speech of foreigners at the phonetic level. Comparative analysis revealed that, despite the colossal structural difference between French and Chinese, there are many points of contact, on the basis of which it is quite realistic to predict common pronunciation errors for French and Chinese audiences. As a result of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that similar features of the phonetic systems of French and Chinese, leading to interference errors, can be due to the belonging of both languages to the vocal type. Problems related to the rules of positional changes associated with the consonantism characteristic of the Russian language are also common to speakers of French and Chinese. When comparing the rhythmic and intonational features of the three languages, it becomes obvious that in this aspect, the speakers of French and Chinese are also characterized by common typical mistakes: the lack of reduction of unstressed vowels, the incorrect allocation of a stressed syllable, and the indistinguishability of intonational structures. The relevance of the study is due to the need to develop nationally-oriented courses in phonetics, which would allow to correctly build work on the localization and prevention of interference errors in the speech of foreign students in a multilingual audience.

VOCALISM OF THE FIRST PRESTRESSED SYLLABLE AFTER PALATALIZED CONSONANTS IN 17TH CENTURY KOSTROMA DIALECTS

The article considers a new data of the 17th century Kostroma business style documents. Based on it, we come to a conclusion about a history of the first prestressed syllable vocalism after palatalized consonants in North Russian Kostroma dialects, as well as discover its relationship with the stressed syllable phenomena. Th e results obtained are then compared with the modern dialects data in the territory considered. It turns out that in Kostroma dialects the tendency to non-high vowel neutralization in the sound [e] in the fi rst prestressed syllable between palatalized consonants started to take shape as early as the 17th century, which is evidenced by letter substitutions in this position. The manuscript data confirms the previous conclusions about the formation of the North Russian dialectal landscape and clarifi es the dating of the ‘ekanye’ emergence in a position before palatalized consonants. Parallelism of the phenomena in the first prestressed syllable aft er palatalized consonants with the phenomena present in the stressed syllable was still present in 17th century Kostroma dialects, but nowadays it is lost in Kostroma dialects with ‘ekanye’ in the first prestressed syllable in a position before palatalized or velarized consonants.

Accentuation types of noun word forms in Old Persian

The article deals with the problems of accentuation types of noun word forms in Old Persian. The materials from Old Persian glossaries were used to form the register with 202 noun word forms in volume. Using traditional methodology that is accepted in Iranian comparative linguistics the author distributed available lexicon to seven accentuation types, each of them consisting of noun word forms with a stressed syllable of the same quality. In addition, some word forms that show unusual accentuation patterns because of the etymological uncertainty, sporadic appearance or possible orthographical mistakes in original cuneiform texts were referred to a separate accentuation type. According to the position of the stressed syllable in a noun word form every accentuation type was divided into accentuation models, the total number of which is 20 units. The author gives a special linguistic commentary within each accentuation type that explains the conditions of the functioning and diachronic evolution of its type. In addition, this paper shows accentuation influence on morphology and morphophonology of Old Persian nouns. Besides Old Persian lexicon, the article deals with Avestan and Pahlavi noun word forms, which are closely related to Old Persian. The use of lexicon of related languages assists in more accurate diachronic analysis of accentuation processes and better demonstrates Indo-European lingual universals within the Old Persian lexicon.

Does the articulatory modulation function encode stress?

The articulatory modulation function, a signal quantifying global change in vocal tract posture over time, is highly rhythmic, with limited variability within and across speakers. It is unclear, however, if the stability and periodicity of this signal, whose peaks (“pulses”) occur at a frequency of ∼8 Hz, is partially driven by quasi-oscillatory linguistic phenomena such as lexical stress patterning. In the present study, articulatory point-tracking data (XRMB) of connected speech for multiple subjects is used to assess the effect of linguistic stress on the spatiotemporal patterning of the vocal tract modulation function to determine if the patterning of acoustic vowel onsets—both stressed and in general—is encoded in the length of modulation function’s inter-pulse intervals and/or in the magnitude (velocity) of the pulses. The results show no correlation between inter-pulse intervals and stress. However, stress is encoded as higher velocity magnitudes in the pulses immediately following acoustic vowel onsets in stressed syllables (compared to unstressed ones)and additionally encoded in higher magnitude than the immediately preceding pulse. While the temporal stability of the modulation function does not appear to be related to the general regularity of stressed syllables in English, the signal does retain linguistic stress information in modulation pulse magnitude.

The acoustics of the alignment of focus prosody and lexical stress: A production study of native speakers and second language learners of English

In English, the tonal target of a pitch accent is aligned with lexical stress. Therefore, the phonetic realization of contrastive focus prosody, phonologically marked by a H*/L + H* pitch accent, is expected to vary depending on the stress pattern of the focused word. This study explored acoustic effects of the alignment of lexical stress and focus prosody and examined how it is learned by Korean learners of English, whose first language lacks lexical stress. Ten native English speakers (L1) and 19 Korean learners of English (L2) participated in a read-aloud task, in which they produced nine trisyllabic words with primary stress on one of the three syllables with contrastive focus (e.g., Animal, vaNILla, engiNEER). For each syllable, three acoustic measures were extracted: the height of pitch peak, periodic energy mass, and the direction of pitch movements (Albert et al., 2021; Cangemi et al., 2019). Results revealed that the height of pitch peak, a conventional measure of both lexical stress and contrastive focus, did not properly demonstrate their alignment. Instead, the stressed syllable of the focused words was marked by its overall prominence (mass) or the direction of pitch movements, depending on the stress pattern. The L2 speakers’ productions were similar to the L1 productions, but there were indications of an influence of their L1 prosody and English proficiency. [This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2022S1A5A8052482).]

An Acoustic Investigation of Primary and Secondary Lexical Stress of Urdu

This paper investigated acoustic correlates of primary and secondary stress in Urdu language. Urdu is not a sufficiently researched language in the context of lexical stress. A few researches (Mehrotra, 1965; Hussain, 1997; Nair, 1999; Mumtaz, 2014, and Qurrat-Ul-Ain & Mahmood (2017) discussed stress in Urdu/Hindi language. Perhaps, Qurrat-Ul-Ain & Mahmood (2017) study is the first to phonetically document the presence of secondary stress in Urdu using the cue of duration. The present study focused on the four popular acoustic cues of lexical stress to see how Urdu lexical stress (primary as well as secondary) behaves against these cues. The stimuli of the study consist of six tri-syllabic words (embedded with low-back-long vowel /a:/ in all syllables) uttered by nine female Urdu speakers from Lahore. Four popular stress cues (duration, vowel quality, pitch, and intensity) have been analyzed to see their correlation with Urdu lexical stress. The analysis reveals three levels of lexical stress: primary, secondary, and unstressed. Vowel duration is the strongest cue to correlate with the levels of stress in Urdu while stressed segments prone to have higher values of intensity. Overall, a trend of lower F0 and higher formant values could be seen against stressed syllables. The study, however, needs to be expanded further by using words having other vowel sounds. Moreover, the phenomenon of word final lengthening can be taken into account in the potential researches.

المشاكل التي يواجهها الناطقون بالإنجليزية عند قراءة القرآن الكريم: عرضها ومعالجتها

In this article, I conducted research on the similarities and differences between consonants and vowels of both Arabic and English, so that it may help teachers of the Quran in English- speaking countries, for example, the United Kingdom. I explored the translation of very difficult terms used in tajweed such as قلقلة which is in the phonetics of English “consonant release” if this term is literally translated to the native speaker by saying that it is the giving of movement to a sound in the place of articulationمخرج they will not understand it. Similarly, I explored the terms the place of articulation and manner of articulation for مخرج and صفة consecutively, homorganic for مشترك المخرج from the books of phonetics. If the Arabic terms are translated in this way, for example, the exit of sound it will be difficult for the students to understand. We usually find in the books that some consonants like ج، ذال ، وزاء are equivalent to Z , th, and ز sound , but I added the condition that they must be between two voiced sounds like vowels. For example, I concluded that ذال is like “th” in “within”, because in other contexts they become devoiced and resemble ث، س and چ. Dark L of English was judged as equal to لام مفخمة and it was made clear that if the teachers of Quranic recitation translate it to dignified L or honored L the native students will not understand them. It was suggested to the teachers to obverse the كاف sound in the reading of the students when it is in the stressed syllables such as "كلّا، "كالوا"so that aspiration after كاف is checked, because such kind of aspiration does not exist in Arabic. Similarly, when نون ساكن occurs before كاف in words like “إن كنتم" English speakers are liable to add ng sound (like that in “bank” of English) before كاف. The article has covered much information, the most important of which has been put forth in the summary also.

Словесний наголос в українській та німецькій мовах: міжмовні співвідношення

Nowadays typological studies of related and unrelated languages are becoming of great importance. Appealing to historic, comparatively-synchronous, contrastive parallels of several languages opens up the possibility of highlighting the certain features of their historical and cultural development. Scientific research studies of such kind help to clarify the universal, common and distinctive features of comparative languages, as well as to substantiate the uniqueness of every language as a national phenomenon. Important for contrastive phonetics is the study of super-segmental means, in particular prosodic means, that is stress and intonation. In comparative linguistics to identify the peculiarities of stress in comparative languages can be used such criteria: nature of stress, the place of stress in a word, quality of stress and function of stress. These criteria were taken in to account in our research because they give quite objective data for achieving the goal. This article is devoted to the comparative study of verbal stress in the Ukrainian and German languages. The object of our study is verbal stress in the Ukrainian and German languages, which distinguishes and differs a word from the speech flow – the basic unit of the language mechanism of a particular language. There is considered the means of distinguishing the stressed syllable, the ratio of longitude and stress of a vowel sound, the place of stress in a word, functions of word stress. The main regularities of the accent norm of parts of speech in the Ukrainian and German languages. In the course of study, we came to the conclusion that in the Ukrainian and German languages the stressed syllable is characterized by dynamism, duration and expressiveness of timbre, that is dynamic stress is typical for both languages. Both languages have different place of stress in the word. With some apprehension, it can be considered a fixed accent in the German language, where the first sellable is mainly stressed (there are some rare exception, so it cannot be called a typical feature). In the Ukrainian language the accent is diverse and mobile, there are certain patterns of accent norm of parts of speech. Such free dynamic stress has a significative function, it distinguishes the grammatical forms of lexeme and the meaning of words. However, In the German language, in cases where the accent is free, the significative function is also used. In both compared languages we can find a side accent in addition to the main accent. Complex words have such accent. In the Ukrainian language the side stress is the first and the main stress is the second; in the German language, the main stress is the first and the side stress is the second. Common for all types of stress is the culminative function (design of word through the allocation of its prosodic center). Mobile stress has a significative (word-distinguishing) function.

THE PRODUCTION OF HIGH BACK VOWELS: A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF AMERICAN ENGLISH AND STANDARD SERBIAN

This paper reports on the findings of a contrastive study of American English high back vowels /u, ʊ/ and Serbian vowel /u/ produced by ten male native speakers of Serbian. Previous research (Marković 2009a; Bjekić, Čubrović 2021; Čubrović 2019, 2017; Dančetović, Nešić 2017) has indicated that the differences in quality between the English high back vowels /u/ and /ʊ/ are often poorly detected by Serbian speakers. Therefore, the overall aim of the present research is to observe the acoustic properties of high back vowels in the given languages, so as to determine whether or not our subjects can adequately produce the L2 vowels with respect to both quality and quantity, and whether they can differentiate them from their L1 categories. The research subjects were first instructed to read a set of 13 monosyllabic English words representing the high back vowels /u, ʊ/ in different phonetic environments. The second task called for the subjects to read a set of 13 Serbian words representing the vowel /u/ in short and long stressed syllables. The collected speech samples were then analyzed acoustically using Praat, version 6.2.13 (Boersma, Weenink 2022). The statistical analysis of the acoustic measurements was performed using R, version 4.2.1 (R Development Core Team 2022). The results suggest that, in terms of quantity, in the speech of Serbian students, the lax vowel, in particular, bears more resemblance to the subjects’ L1 category, rather than the targeted vowel. The analysis of the formant data indicates that, although our subjects’ L2 categories differ from those of native speakers, the quality of GA high back vowels our subjects produce does not reflect the quality of their L1 categories.

Stylistic Analysis on Selected Literary works of Alicia Tan-Gonzales

This study looked into the stylistic analysis of the selected literary works of Alicia Tan-Gonzales. Specifically, this study analyzed three of her Hiligaynon literary works using frameworks for stylistic analysis. Using descriptive research design, this study examined phonetic structures and figures of replacement in the poem, Sentensya (Sentence); semantic structures and stylistic deviations in the short story, Mga Luha Para Kay Tatay Jose (Tears for Papa Jose); and turn-taking patterns and topic control that determined power and politeness strategies in the play, Pinustahan Nga Gugma (Betting Love). The stylistic analysis of the poem reveals that (1) for phonetic structures, the rhythmical description and effect of the syllables depended on the divisions of the word structure and grammatical structure; (2) for metrical structures in the poem, unstressed syllables were predominantly used rather than stressed syllables; and (3) for figures of replacement, the significant use of metonymy gave the poem an exaggerated impact. The stylistic analysis of the short story shows that (1) semantic structures based on emotive meaning disclosed the inner mind of the characters; (2) expressive meanings exposed the negative emotional state of the characters; (3) evaluative meanings depicted the characteristics and choices of a strong family woman in society; and (4) as to the reduction on sentence constructions, nominative sentences and ellipsis were evident in the short story, while simple repetition was present, indicating redundancy of sentence construction. The stylistic analysis of the play indicates that (1) the characterizations of different strong women made intuitive descriptions of power based on turn-taking patterns and topic control, although they may not be true in all circumstances in the conversations; and (2) politeness strategies were evident in the play, with positive politeness strategies as the most frequently used, followed by bald on-record, negative politeness, and off-record. Based on the overall results of the study, an instructional module in teaching Stylistics was designed to help students understand the literary style of Alicia Tan-Gonzales in fashioning her selected literary pieces, as well as styles of other literary writers.

A Preliminary Analysis on the Correlates of Stress and Tones in Mizo

Stress is the property of a language to exhibit prominence or distinction in one or more syllables in a given domain. The existence of word stress has not been suitably explored in previous acoustic studies of the Mizo language, which is a tonal language of the Kuki-Chin sub-category in Tibeto-Burman language families. In this study, we attempt to analyze word stress on disyllabic target words, specifically in three lexical categories— adjectives, nouns, and verbs . Utterances of the target words are recorded in isolated setting (out of focus) and in sentence frames (in focus). First, averages of features, namely— duration, intensity, F0, formants , and spectral tilt , are extracted and investigated for identification of stressed and unstressed syllables on a total of 2,880 samples. Next, the interaction of word stress on the four tones of Mizo is investigated. While it is found that H-tone is generally stressed, inferences are made that stressed syllables are not unique to a specific tone. Third, significance of the selected features are validated using a two-tailed paired sample t -test. Our analysis indicates that the mean differences in duration, intensity, and F0 of the stressed and unstressed syllables are significant across the lexical categories at p < 0.05. Next, validations on the significance of the mean differences are carried out using Cohen’s d effect size and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient ( r ). Finally, three machine learning models—Support Vector Machines (SVM), Naive Baye’s, and Ensemble learning methods (AdaBoost and Boosted Aggregation), are used to identify stressed and unstressed syllables associated with tones in Mizo. Discriminating differences, especially in disyllabic verbs , are observed between stressed vs. unstressed syllables. Conclusions are drawn that duration is a strong and robust cue for acoustic correlates of stress, while intensity is a medium cue for stress and F0 a weak cue for stress.

How we speak when we speak to a beat: The influence of temporal coupling on phonetic enhancement

Stressed syllables in languages which have them tend to show two interesting properties: They show patterns of phonetic ‘enhancement’ at the articulatory and acoustic levels, and they also show coordinative properties. They typically play a key role in coordinating speech with co-speech gesture, in coordination with a musical beat, and in other sensorimotor synchronization tasks such as speech-coordinated beat tapping and metronome timing. While various phonological theories have considered stress from both of these perspectives, there is as yet no clear explanation as to how these properties relate to one another. The present work tests the hypothesis that aspects of phonetic enhancement may in fact be driven by coordination itself by observing how phonetic patterns produced by speakers of two prosodically-distinct languages—English and Medʉmba (Grassfields Bantu)—vary as a function of timing relations with an imaginary metronome beat. Results indicate that production of syllables in time (versus on the ‘offbeat’) with the imaginary beat led to increased duration and first formant frequency—two widely observed correlates of syllable stress—for speakers of both languages. These results support the idea that some patterns of phonetic enhancement may have their roots in coordinative practices. 

Emotionality in Verbal Intercultural Communication

The article is devoted to intercultural communication at the level of sounding speech, the parameters of which actively influence the communication situation. When carrying out intercultural communication, it is necessary to be informed about the parameters of sounding foreign language speech in the emotional aspect. Speech parameters can give additional shades or meanings to an utterance, including those opposed to the meaning of the linguistic units that make it up. To express emotional states, each language has a set of national-specific means capable of coloring an utterance regardless of its lexical content. National – specific features of a neutral style of speech determine its emotional perception by native speakers of another language. Differential signs of communicative types of utterances carry important information about the completed or progressive nature of the utterance, which may require the inclusion of lexical means during interpretation. The analysis is carried out at the level of rhythmic parameters and melodic signs (characteristics of the main stressed syllables) on the material of three languages: Russian, German, Spanish. Comparative studies in the communicative aspect are becoming relevant. However, in setting goals, the ignoring of the regularities of the sounding reality continues, which is largely facilitated by the insufficiently developed mechanism for studying this phenomenon. In the situation of intercultural oral communication, the parameters of the sounding speech actively influence the communication situation. This area is little described from the point of view of intercultural dialogue. Experimental data confirm the propositions put forward about the emotional nature of the perception of foreign language speech. At the same time, two aspects can be distinguished: 1. the signs of emotionally colored foreign language speech can be perceived with different, sometimes opposite emotional meanings; 2. violations of the systemic linguistic signs of foreign-sounding speech, primarily the differential signs of intonations responsible for characterizing the communicative types of utterance (completeness, interrogativeness, progrediency), are perceived in an emotional way.

중국어 不와 一의 변조 고찰 — 4음절어 중심으로

This study considered the tone sandhi pattern of Chinese and error patterns of Koreans in Chinese BU and YI tone sandhi.BR First, both Chinese and Koreans have more difficulty in Yi tone sandhi than in BU tone sandhi. Second, the structure of BU+A+BU+B and YI+A+YI+B were same in form, but the duration showed difference according to the meaning of YI and the position of the syllable. Third, although BU has two syllables as its prosody unit, when it is uttered within in four syllables, BU is basically a weak syllable and most of the time it becomes even weaker, so it also has four syllables as its prosody unit in actual speech. Fourth, in actual speech, YI becomes a stressed syllable of a two-syllable prosody word so no tone sandhi occurs in the second and fourth syllables. Fifth, tone sandhi has no influence on duration. Sixth, Koreans showed an assimilation phenomenon that tones of BU and YI became as same as a tone of back syllable as a tone sandhi error type.

Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?

The place of priegaidė ‘syllable intonation’ in the phonological system of Lithuanian remains uncertain; so does its typological peculiarity. The article aims to discover the specific nature of this phonological feature taking into consideration the opposition between phonemic (inflectional) and syllabemic (isolating) language types. Phonetically similar prosodic means in these languages show noticeable functional differences determined by the structure of the meaningful units they belong to. Inflectional languages develop a system of suprasegmental phonological features, which integrate parts of their normally composite units, whereas isolating languages usually do with monosyllabic words (naturally, without stress) and monolithic morphemes with tones as distinctive features. Standard Lithuanian has priegaidė only on the stressed syllables, therefore its system can be called polyaccentual (not polytonic), i. e. possessing several types of accent. The dialects, however, show examples of relevant priegaidė besides syllables with primary stress. In this, more general, system priegaidė functions as a suprasegmental feature of a morpheme (exposed to fading in weak positions). The traditional differentiation of syllables according to priegaidė is secondary: a syllable provides conditions for the realization of priegaidė, but being part of the plane of expression, not connected with meaning, the syllable itself does not need differentiation.