Multi-Agent Simulation of Emergence of Schwa Deletion Pattern in Hindi

Recently, there has been a revival of interest in multi-agent simulation techniques for exploring the nature of language change. However, a lack of appropriate validation of simulation experiments against real language data often calls into question the general applicability of these methods in modeling realistic language change. We try to address this issue here by making an attempt to model the phenomenon of schwa deletion in Hindi through a multi-agent simulation framework. The pattern of Hindi schwa deletion and its diachronic nature are well studied, not only out of general linguistic inquiry, but also to facilitate Hindi grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, which is a preprocessing step to text-to-speech synthesis. We show that under certain conditions, the schwa deletion pattern observed in modern Hindi emerges in the system from an initial state of no deletion. The simulation framework described in this work can be extended to model other phonological changes as well.Language Change, Linguistic Agent, Language Game, Multi-Agent Simulation, Schwa Deletion

The phonetics and phonology of retroflexes : Fonetiek en fonologie van retroflexen (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands)

At the outset of this dissertation one might pose the question why retroflex consonants should still be of interest for phonetics and for phonological theory since ample work on this segmental class already exists. Bhat (1973) conducted a quite extensive study on retroflexion that treated the geographical spread of this class, some phonological processes its members can undergo, and the phonetic motivation for these processes. Furthermore, several phonological representations of retroflexes have been proposed in the framework of Feature Geometry, as in work by Sagey (1986), Pulleyblank (1989), Gnanadesikan (1993), and Clements (2001). Most recently, Steriade (1995, 2001) has discussed the perceptual cues of retroflexes and has argued that the distribution of these cues can account for the phonotactic restrictions on retroflexes and their assimilatory behaviour. Purely phonetically oriented studies such as Dixit (1990) and Simonsen, Moen & Cowen (2000) have shown the large articulatory variation that can be found for retroflexes and hint at the insufficiency of existing definitions

The phonetics and phonology of retroflexes

This dissertation investigates the phonetic realization and phonological behaviour of the class of retroflexes, i.e. sounds that are articulated with the tongue tip or the underside of the tongue tip against the postalveolar or palatal region. On the basis of four articulatory properties, a new definition of retroflexes is proposed. These properties are apicality, posteriority, sublingual cavity, and retraction; the latter is shown to imply that retroflexes are incompatible with secondary palatalization. The phonetic section gives an overview of the factors responsible for the large articulatory variation of retroflexes and discusses putative counterexamples of palatalized retroflexes. In addition, it describes the acoustic realization of retroflexes and proposes the common characteristic of a low third fomant. The phonological section discusses processes involving retroflexes from a large number of typologically diverse languages. These processes are shown to be grounded in the similar articulatory and acoustic properties of the retroflex class. Furthermore, this section gives a phonological analysis of the processes involving retroflexes in an Optimally Theoretic framework with underlying perceptual representations, based on Boersma s Functional Phonology. Evidence is presented for the non-universality of the retroflex class, and for the non-necessity of innate phonological features. This study is of interest to phonologists and phoneticians, especially to those working on the phonetics-phonology interface

Theoretical historical phonology : a unified account of consonant lenition and vowel reduction in English within the framework of element and optimality theory

PhD ThesisThis thesis is intended to provide a unified and coherent theoretical analysis of phonological weakening processes of vowels and consonants in English within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). The analysis of weakening phenomena may vary according to the theory you adopt and the language you choose, but in this thesis, vowel reduction and consonant lenition in English will be explored in a constraint-based approach. In addition, most importantly, I seek to show which generalisations can equally be applied to both consonant lenition and vowel reduction in terms of a phonological theory. The key questions to be investigated in this thesis are as follows. 1) How do we represent phonological weakening phenomena in terms of segmental features or elements? 2) How can these representational elements be integrated into the constraint ranking and evaluation mechanisms in Optimality Theory? 3) Do the historical data such as the initial fricative voicing and vowel reduction in Old and Middle English give us any insight in this regard? There seems to be a similarity between consonant lenition and vowel reduction in terms of their phonological behaviour. For instance, both consonant lenition and vowel reduction can be treated as loss of some element or reduction of complexity in Element Theory (e.g. Harris 1994). This is an interesting point of my PhD project because this kind of representational approach to weakening phenomena has rarely been applied in Optimality Theoretic analysis. Therefore, what is intended to do in this thesis is that melodic representation will be used for modelling weakening phenomena within the framework of Optimality Theory. iv In this regard, I suggest a combined theoretic account of weakening phenomena involving the combination of two approaches namely Element Theory and Optimality Theory, which differentiates this account from previous analyses. I argue that the constraint *COMPLEX[Element], where ‘element’ refers to one of the primitives of Element Theory, plays a central role in analysing phonological weakening processes in this thesis. In addition, it will be shown throughout the thesis that these processes can be accounted for within the constraint interaction between positional faithfulness constraints such as IDENT[Element] and the integrated constraint *COMPLEX[Element] which I propose in this thesis

North East Indian linguistics 6

The papers for this volume were initially presented at the sixth and seventh meetings of the North East Indian Linguistics Society, held in Guwahati, India, in 2011 and 2012. As with previous conferences, these meetings were held at the Don Bosco Institute in Guwahati, Assam, and hosted in collaboration with Gauhati University. The present collection of papers are testament to the ongoing interest in North East India and continued success and growth in the community of North East Indian linguists. As in previous volumes, all the papers here were reviewed by leading international specialists in the relevant subfields. This volume, in particular, highlights the recent research of many scholars from the region. Out of eleven contributions, eight are from North East Indian scholars themselves. This book therefore brightly shines light on the work being done by North East Indian linguists on the languages of their own region. The remaining contributions are authored by international scholars from Australia, Singapore, Germany/USA, and Nepal

Non-myopic nasal spreading in Saraiki

Saraiki manifests asymmetric bidirectional nasal spreading. Regressive nasal spreading is sequential and myopic. It is triggered by a nasal and applies iteratively leftwards, unless it encounters a blocker. Vowels and approximants are targets, while liquids and obstruents are blockers. Progressive nasal spreading, by contrast, is non-myopic and categorical – it must apply to all segments in its domain. It only activates if there are suitable targets to the right edge of the domain. It does not activate at all, if there is a blocker ahead, even if that blocker is non-contiguous to the trigger, counter-intuitively showing a sour grapes effect. An element-based representational account is offered, warranting a rethinking of the typology of harmony systems