The Production and Perception of the Epenthetic Vowel in Stop and Continuant Clusters in English: An Analysis of Vowel-Insertion Among English L2 Speakers.

Este trabajo de fin de grado consiste en un análisis de la producción y la percepción de los golpes epentéticos en la adquisición del inglés (L2) por parte de hablantes de español. Nuestro objetivo principal es estudiar el proceso mediante el cual aparece una epéntesis vocálica en la pronunciación de los españoles, rompiendo las construcciones consonánticas del inglés. Nos centraremos en los momentos de adición de una vocal ante la constricción o ‘cluster’ C (posición X). Asumiendo que las vocales epentéticas son un proceso de reparación o una “domesticación” del lenguaje, llevaremos a cabo varios experimentos para caracterizar un tipo de epéntesis específica que denominaremos epéntesis vocálica intrusiva. Finalmente, investigaremos más a fondo a través de la recogida de datos y del análisis si existe alguna condición contextual (cognitiva o articulatoria) que favorezca la incorporación de la epéntesis.This study investigates the production and perception of epenthetic stops in Spanish speakers’ acquisition of English (L2). Our main goal is to study the process by which a vowel epenthesis arises in the pronunciation of Spanish speakers, breaking English CV constructions. We will focus on vowel sound additions in different words containing the initial C cluster (X position). Starting from the assumption that epenthetic vowels are a production-based repair process or language “domestication”, we carried out several experiments to characterize a specific type of epenthesis that we will refer to as intrusive vowel epenthesis. Finally, we will further investigate through data collection and analysis if there are any contextual conditions (cognitive or articulatory constraints) which promote the epenthesis incorporation.Departamento de Filología InglesaGrado en Estudios Inglese

Epenthesis and vowel intrusion in Central Dhofari Mehri

The paper discusses epenthesis and vowel intrusion in the Central Dhofari variety of Mehri, one of six endangered Modern South Arabian languages indigenous to southern Arabia. Mehri is spoken by members of the Mahrah tribe in southern Oman, eastern Yemen, parts of southern and eastern Saudi Arabia and in communities in parts of the Gulf and East Africa. The estimated number of Mehri speakers is between 100,000–180,000. Following Hall (2006), this study distinguishes between two types of inserted vowels: epenthetic vowels, which repair illicit syllable structures, and intrusive vowels, which transition between consonants. The paper examines how the properties of epenthetic and intrusive vowels as proposed by Hall relate to Mehri

Tonal placement in Tashlhiyt: How an intonation system accommodates to adverse phonological environments

In most languages, words contain vowels, elements of high intensity with rich harmonic structure, enabling the  perceptual retrieval of pitch. By contrast, in Tashlhiyt, a Berber language, words can be composed entirely of voiceless segments. When an utterance consists of such words, the phonetic opportunity for the execution of intonational pitch movements is exceptionally limited. This book explores in a series of production and perception experiments how these typologically rare phonotactic patterns interact with intonational aspects of linguistic structure. It turns out that Tashlhiyt allows for a tremendously flexible placement of tonal events. Observed intonational structures can be conceived of as different solutions to a functional dilemma: The requirement to realise meaningful pitch movements in certain positions and the extent to which segments lend themselves to a clear manifestation of these pitch movements

Tonal placement in Tashlhiyt: How an intonation system accommodates to adverse phonological environments

In most languages, words contain vowels, elements of high intensity with rich harmonic structure, enabling the  perceptual retrieval of pitch. By contrast, in Tashlhiyt, a Berber language, words can be composed entirely of voiceless segments. When an utterance consists of such words, the phonetic opportunity for the execution of intonational pitch movements is exceptionally limited. This book explores in a series of production and perception experiments how these typologically rare phonotactic patterns interact with intonational aspects of linguistic structure. It turns out that Tashlhiyt allows for a tremendously flexible placement of tonal events. Observed intonational structures can be conceived of as different solutions to a functional dilemma: The requirement to realise meaningful pitch movements in certain positions and the extent to which segments lend themselves to a clear manifestation of these pitch movements

Tonal placement in Tashlhiyt: How an intonation system accommodates to adverse phonological environments

In most languages, words contain vowels, elements of high intensity with rich harmonic structure, enabling the  perceptual retrieval of pitch. By contrast, in Tashlhiyt, a Berber language, words can be composed entirely of voiceless segments. When an utterance consists of such words, the phonetic opportunity for the execution of intonational pitch movements is exceptionally limited. This book explores in a series of production and perception experiments how these typologically rare phonotactic patterns interact with intonational aspects of linguistic structure. It turns out that Tashlhiyt allows for a tremendously flexible placement of tonal events. Observed intonational structures can be conceived of as different solutions to a functional dilemma: The requirement to realise meaningful pitch movements in certain positions and the extent to which segments lend themselves to a clear manifestation of these pitch movements

Tonal placement in Tashlhiyt

In most languages, words contain vowels, elements of high intensity with rich harmonic structure, enabling the perceptual retrieval of pitch. By contrast, in Tashlhiyt, a Berber language, words can be composed entirely of voiceless segments. When an utterance consists of such words, the phonetic opportunity for the execution of intonational pitch movements is exceptionally limited. This book explores in a series of production and perception experiments how these typologically rare phonotactic patterns interact with intonational aspects of linguistic structure. It turns out that Tashlhiyt allows for a tremendously flexible placement of tonal events. Observed intonational structures can be conceived of as different solutions to a functional dilemma: The requirement to realise meaningful pitch movements in certain positions and the extent to which segments lend themselves to a clear manifestation of these pitch movements

The acquisition of english initial /s/ clusters by biazilian EFL learners

Dissertação (Mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Pos-Graduação em Letras-InglesAnálise da produção dos encontros consonantais da língua inglesa iniciados pelo segmento /s/ em vários contextos fonológicos por estudantes brasileiros da língua inglesa. Seis alunos do curso extra-curricular de inglês da UFSC leram em voz alta frases que continham encontros consonantais iniciais iniciados pelo segmento /s/ em contextos controlados. Os resultados revelaram que o grau de desvio da estrutura silábica universal CV, a Condição da Estrutura Silábica (SSC), e a Lei do Contato Silábico (SCL), nao foram suficiente para predizer o grau de dificuldade encontrado na produção destes encontros consonantais. Pelo contrário, a transferência da assimilaçao de sonorização da língua materna e as relações de marcação resultantes dos onsets do tipo /s/-nasal e /s/-liquído, em relação aos onsets do tipo /s/-oclusivo e também as relações de marcação em relação a sonorização no contexto, foram consideradas as variáveis mais cruciais a afetar o índice de epêntese

Tonal placement in Tashlhiyt: How an intonation system accommodates to adverse phonological environments

In most languages, words contain vowels, elements of high intensity with rich harmonic structure, enabling the  perceptual retrieval of pitch. By contrast, in Tashlhiyt, a Berber language, words can be composed entirely of voiceless segments. When an utterance consists of such words, the phonetic opportunity for the execution of intonational pitch movements is exceptionally limited. This book explores in a series of production and perception experiments how these typologically rare phonotactic patterns interact with intonational aspects of linguistic structure. It turns out that Tashlhiyt allows for a tremendously flexible placement of tonal events. Observed intonational structures can be conceived of as different solutions to a functional dilemma: The requirement to realise meaningful pitch movements in certain positions and the extent to which segments lend themselves to a clear manifestation of these pitch movements

The Sound Patterns of Kachok in the Context of Bahnaric and North-Bahnaric Studies

This dissertation presents a description of the sound patterns of Kachok, Austroasiatic language spoken in northeastern Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. The language is spoken by approximately 3000 people and is considered endangered (Simons & Fennig, 2018). Kachok is undocumented, and this dissertation is the first attempt to describe the language and its sound patterns. The goals of this dissertation are twofold: to contribute to linguistics and the science of phonetics and phonological typology, as well as increase the body of work on Austro-Asiatic languages, and to create resources for the Kachok language, culture, and people that have the potential to outlive the language itself. This dissertation describes the segmental phonology of Kachok, and then presents a new prosodic model of the sesquisyllable, a phenomenon prevalent in Southeast Asian languages