3,557 research outputs found

    The weight of phonetic substance in the structure of sound inventories

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    In the research field initiated by Lindblom & Liljencrants in 1972, we illustrate the possibility of giving substance to phonology, predicting the structure of phonological systems with nonphonological principles, be they listener-oriented (perceptual contrast and stability) or speaker-oriented (articulatory contrast and economy). We proposed for vowel systems the Dispersion-Focalisation Theory (Schwartz et al., 1997b). With the DFT, we can predict vowel systems using two competing perceptual constraints weighted with two parameters, respectively λ and α. The first one aims at increasing auditory distances between vowel spectra (dispersion), the second one aims at increasing the perceptual salience of each spectrum through formant proximities (focalisation). We also introduced new variants based on research in physics - namely, phase space (λ,α) and polymorphism of a given phase, or superstructures in phonological organisations (VallĂ©e et al., 1999) which allow us to generate 85.6% of 342 UPSID systems from 3- to 7-vowel qualities. No similar theory for consonants seems to exist yet. Therefore we present in detail a typology of consonants, and then suggest ways to explain plosive vs. fricative and voiceless vs. voiced consonants predominances by i) comparing them with language acquisition data at the babbling stage and looking at the capacity to acquire relatively different linguistic systems in relation with the main degrees of freedom of the articulators; ii) showing that the places “preferred” for each manner are at least partly conditioned by the morphological constraints that facilitate or complicate, make possible or impossible the needed articulatory gestures, e.g. the complexity of the articulatory control for voicing and the aerodynamics of fricatives. A rather strict coordination between the glottis and the oral constriction is needed to produce acceptable voiced fricatives (Mawass et al., 2000). We determine that the region where the combinations of Ag (glottal area) and Ac (constriction area) values results in a balance between the voice and noise components is indeed very narrow. We thus demonstrate that some of the main tendencies in the phonological vowel and consonant structures of the world’s languages can be explained partly by sensorimotor constraints, and argue that actually phonology can take part in a theory of Perception-for-Action-Control

    Phonological Development in the Early Speech of an Indonesian-German Bilingual Child

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    Current research in bilingual children’s language development with one language dominant has shown that one linguistic system can affect the other. This is called Crosslinguistic Influence (CLI). This paper explores whether CLI is experienced by a bilingual child raised in two typologically distinct languages in terms of phonological development. It uses data from the study of a child simultaneously acquiring Indonesian and German between the ages of 12 months - 20 months, with Indonesian as the dominant language. The sound segments developed by the child showed universal tendencies, with the appearance of bilabials prior to alveolar sounds, followed by velar sounds. The sounds were produced mostly in the form of stops, nasals and glides. Three phonological processes were displayed by the child: substitution, assimilation and syllable structures. The front rounded vowel [ʏ], which exists in German but not in the Indonesian sound system, was systematically replaced by the palatal approximant [j]. This approximant exists in the Indonesian sound system but not in the German phonemic inventory. This provides evidence that, in terms of phonological development, the child experienced CLI, but only for certain sound transfers

    An examination of oral articulation of vowel nasality in the light of the independent effects of nasalization on vowel quality

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    In this paper, a summary is given of an experimental technique to address a known issue in research on the independent effects of nasalization on vowel acoustics: given that the separate transfer functions associated with the oral and nasal cavities are merged in the acoustic signal, the task of teasing apart the respective effects of the two cavities seems to be an intractable problem. The results obtained from the method reveal that the independent effects of nasalization on the acoustic vowel space are: F1-raising for high vowels, F1-lowering for non-high vowels, and F2-lowering for non-front vowels. The results from previous articulatory research performed by the author on the production of vowel nasality in French, Hindi, and English are discussed in the light of these independent effects of nasalization on vowel quality

    Towards an empirical and typological exploration of the sonority of nasal vowels

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    Ce mĂ©moire est une Ă©tude phonologique et phonĂ©tique visant Ă  ordonner les voyelles nasales en fonction de leur degrĂ© en sonoritĂ©. Jusqu'Ă  prĂ©sent, la sonoritĂ© des voyelles nasales n’a pas Ă©tĂ© abordĂ©e dans la littĂ©rature phonologique et phonĂ©tique; ainsi, cette Ă©tude vise Ă  combler cette lacune de la recherche en menant une Ă©tude typologique et expĂ©rimentale des diffĂ©rentes qualitĂ©s des voyelles nasales. La premiĂšre partie du mĂ©moire comprend un examen du comportement et de la distribution des voyelles nasales dans les langues du monde afin d'Ă©lucider leur place dans l’échelle de sonoritĂ©. La partie typologique montre que, dans trois des langues Ă©tudiĂ©es, seules les voyelles nasales hautes subissent des processus phonologiques comme l’harmonie nasale et la rĂ©duction vocalique tandis que, dans deux des langues Ă©tudiĂ©es, seule la voyelle nasale basse subit des processus phonologiques comme le changement vocalique dĂ©placement de la voyelle et l’attraction de l’accent. La deuxiĂšme partie est une expĂ©rience nasomĂ©trique dans laquelle l’intensitĂ© des voyelles nasales et orales est mesurĂ©e. L’analyse d’intensitĂ© permet de dĂ©terminer le niveau de sonoritĂ© de chaque voyelle nasale car l’intensitĂ© est considĂ©rĂ©e comme le corrĂ©lat physique le plus saillant de la sonoritĂ©. L'analyse statistique descriptive effectuĂ©e sur l'ensemble des donnĂ©es des voyelles organisĂ©es selon leur hauteur (c'est-Ă -dire haute, mi-haute, mi-basse ou basse) et leur type (nasal ou oral) montre que [a] est la voyelle orale la plus haute en intensitĂ© relatif. Quant aux voyelles nasales, [Ä©] est la plus Ă©levĂ©e en intensitĂ©. Ainsi, suite Ă  l’analyse statistique infĂ©rentielle, nous avons Ă©tabli une Ă©chelle permettant de classer les voyelles orales et nasales en fonction de leur intensitĂ©.This thesis is a phonological and phonetic study to classify nasal vowels according to their rank in sonority. To date, the sonority of nasal vowels has not been covered in the phonology and phonetics literature; thus, this study aims to fill that research gap through conducting a typological and experimental investigation of different qualities of nasal vowels. The first part of this thesis includes an examination of the behaviour and the distribution of nasal vowels in the world’s languages to elucidate the place of nasal vowels in sonority hierarchy. The typological part of this study shows that, in three selected languages, only high nasal vowels undergo phonological processes such as nasal harmony and vowel reduction while, in two other selected languages, only the low nasal vowel undergoes phonological processes like vowel shift and attraction of stress. The second part of this study presents the findings of a nasometric experiment in which the intensity of nasal vowels and oral vowels is measured. Analysing intensity helps to determine the level of sonority of each nasal vowel, because intensity is considered the most salient physical correlate of sonority. The descriptive statistical analysis performed on the data set of vowels organized according to height (i.e., high, mid-high, mid-low, and low) and type (nasal or oral) shows that, [a] is the highest in relative intensity. As for nasal vowels, [Ä©] is the highest in intensity. Thus, according to the inferential statistical analysis, we established a scale that classifies oral and nasal vowels according to their intensity

    Dschang syllable structure

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    The syllable structure of Dschang is interesting for a variety of reasons. Most notable is the aspiration which can appear on most consonant types, including voiced stops. I shall argue that aspiration is best viewed as moraic, contributing to the weight of a syllable. An understanding of the syllable structure also gives valuable insights into the phonemic inventory and the distributional asymmetries, and helps to explain some curious morphophonemic vowel alternations in the imperative construction

    Contrastive phonological analysis of French and Mandinka

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    Pedagogical challenges in teaching French phonemics to American students

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    Within the teaching of foreign languages, little space is given to the teaching of pronunciation. Nowadays, grammar and the structure of the language remain the focus, yet a communicative classroom is what teachers are looking for. So why is the production of foreign sounds barely taken into account if the expectation is for students to be able to express themselves in the target language and be understood by native speakers? The purpose of this study was to show the challenges of teaching French phonemics to American students learning French as a second language. Findings revealed that the two languages have many speech sounds -or phonemes- in common, but some Standard French phonemes do not exist in American English and are a source of difficulties for American students. Information for the writing of this thesis were collected in different linguistic reviews as well as through the readings of many books dealing with the field of American English and Standard French phonemics, phonetics and phonology. After a comparison of American English and Standard French phonemes and allophones, difficulties of Standard French pronunciation are stated with some tips on how to correct mispronunciation of French phonemes by native speakers of American English. However, if learning how to produce separate sounds correctly is one important and necessary step in the acquisition of a foreign language, putting sounds together and producing a sentence with the correct intonation pattern is another one, which is even more omitted in the foreign language classroom. Therefore, the importance of the teaching of Standard French stress, rhythm, and intonation is also explained. Recommendations for a change in the teaching of foreign languages are offered, so that more emphasis canbe put on the acquisition of French phonemics in the classroom

    Categorical Nasal Vowel Acquisition in L2 French Learners

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    On the role of oral configurations in European Portuguese nasal vowels

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    The characterisation of nasal vowels is not only a question ofstudying velar aperture. Recent work shows that oropharyngeal articulatory adjustments enhance the acoustics of nasal couplingor, at least, magnify differences between oral/nasal vowel congeners. Despite preliminary studies on the oral configurations of nasal vowels, for European Portuguese, a quantitative analysis is missing, particularly one to be applied systematically to a desirably large number of speakers. The main objective ofthis study is to adapt and extend previous methodological advances for the analysis of MRI data to further investigate: howvelar changes affect oral configurations; the changes to the articulators and constrictions when compared with oral counteparts; and the closest oral counterpart. High framerate RT-MRIimages (50fps) are automatically processed to extract the vocal tract contours and the position/configuration for the different articulators. These data are processed by evolving a quantitative articulatory analysis framework, previously proposed by the authors, extended to include information regarding constrictions (degree and place) and nasal port. For this study, while the analysis of data for more speakers is ongoing, we considered a set of two EP native speakers and addressed the study of oral and nasal vowels mainly in the context of stop consonants
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