Prosodic Structure in Child French : evidence for the Foot

There is disagreement in the literature on whether French has stress and on whether it has a foot projection. The disagreement stems from the observation that French is unusual in that the phrase rather than the word is the domain of stress assignment, there is optional initial stress in addition to obligatory final stress, and there are rampant violations of word minimality. In view of these observations, this paper examines the outputs of a child learner of Québec French in an attempt to determine the conclusions she has arrived at concerning the status of the foot in the language being acquired. It is demonstrated that, in spite of the challenge that the facts of the target language present, from the onset of production, the child's outputs are compatible with standard views on prosodic structure. Word minimality effects, the distribution of final lengthening, the emergence of word-final consonants, and the organisation of functional material into prosodic structure are all examined. The paper also provides a preliminary analysis of stress in target French which is, to the greatest extent possible, consistent with standard views on prosodic structure

Are children’s grammars rogue grammars? Glide substitution in branching onsets

Dans cet article nous traitons de l’existence d’un stade consonne + glide lors de l’acquisition des attaques doubles, quand le glide remplace systématiquement la liquide dans les clusters consonne + liquide. Il est généralement envisagé dans la littérature que ces productions consonne + glide sont des attaques branchantes alors que de telles syllabifications ne sont attestées dans les grammaires adultes que si l’on trouve simultanément consonne + liquide en attaque branchante. D’autres possibilités de syllabification du glide sont ici discutées et l’analyse proposée est que le glide n’a pas à ce stade d’ancrage prosodique. A partir de là, nous démontrons que le type de représentation proposée a des parallèles dans les grammaires adultes.This paper focuses on the consonant+glide (CG) stage in children’s realization of branching onsets, the point in development when the liquid in target CL clusters is realized as a glide. In works where the representation of derived CG clusters is discussed, it is assumed that they are branching onsets. The result, however, is that the only branching onsets in the child’s system are CG in shape and this type of system appears to be unattested in adult grammars. In light of this, several alternative syllabifications for how the glide is syllabified are considered. All are rejected in favour of the position that the glide is not prosodically affiliated at the CG stage. Formal parallels for this type of representation in adult grammars are provided

In some Languages, /s/ is a Vowel

In clusters, /s/ fails to respect the phonotactic constraints of other obstruents; for example, /s/+stop, the optimal sC cluster, does not involve rising sonority. In research that adopts an articulated view of the syllable, the behaviour of /s/ has been captured through assigning it some special status, for example, as an appendix in sC clusters. No proposal along these lines contests the position that /s/ is an obstruent. However, what makes /s/ different from other obstruents is that, like a vowel, it has robust internal cues for place and manner, which ensures its perceptibility, even when adjacent to stops. This paper examines /s/ in Blackfoot (Algonquian), which goes well beyond the appendix-like behaviour this segment shows in other languages. We propose that this is because Blackfoot /s/ is a vowel: it can be underlyingly non-moraic (akin to a glide), monomoraic or bimoraic. Depending on its position in the string, moraic /s/ will surface as a syllable head and/or coda, sometimes with links to preceding or following onsets as well. None of this, we argue, has to be stipulated: combined with ordinary constraints on syllabification (place, sonority and hiatus), the segmental context in which /s/ occurs determines its realization

Overriding default interpretations through prosody: Depictive predicates in Brazilian Portuguese

In Brazilian Portuguese, depictive predicates can have ambiguous readings: the attribute can either refer to the subject (high attachment; HA) or the object (low attachment; LA) of the sentence. Previous studies have found that LA is the default interpretation for ambiguous depictive predicates (e.g., Magalhães & Maia 2006, Fonseca & Magalhães 2007), and that speakers use different acoustic cues to signal HA. However, these studies found several mismatches between speakers' intended intonation and listeners' interpretations. We conducted a judgement task and a production task to determine which acoustic cues are used by native speakers to arrive at HA interpretation. The results for the judgement task indicate that HA interpretation is favored by pause before attribute (which can be combined with another cue in the attribute). In the production task, speakers can also signal HA by putting a pause before the attribute (which can be combined with another cue in the object). However, some of the participants did not use any acoustic cue to signal HA, which suggests that some speakers arrive at a HA interpretation only through context, not prosody

Small bowel obstruction: a recurrence of melanoma during the second trimester of pregnancy

Background: The incidence of melanoma is on the rise in the United States and is particularly prevalent among women of childbearing age. Obtaining a complete history and understanding the unpredictable behavior of melanoma is essential to make the diagnosis of recurrent disease during pregnancy. Case: A 35-year-old G2P1 at 23 weeks and 1 days’ gestation with a remote history of (treated) cutaneous melanoma underwent an exploratory laparotomy for small bowel obstruction. Pathology was consistent with recurrent metastatic melanoma. Conclusion: Metastatic melanoma diagnosed during pregnancy is rare. There are no guidelines on how or when to proceed with treatment of metastatic disease or delivery of the fetus. Immunotherapy is changing the management of melanoma and is extending life expectancy. The significant survival benefits for mother with immunotherapy may outweigh the risks of preterm delivery for the baby

What motivates high vowel deletion in Québec French: Foot structure or tonal profile?

Previous studies have argued that high vowel deletion (HVD) in Québec French is constrained by iterative iambic footing (Guzzo, Goad & Garcia 2016, Garcia, Goad & Guzzo 2017; see also Verluyten 1982), since it preferentially applies in even-numbered syllables from the right edge of the word. In this paper, we compare this hypothesis with an alternative hypothesis: HVD is constrained by the optionally-realized phrase-initial H tone (Jun & Fougeron 2000, Thibault & Ouellet 1996). We report on a judgement task in which two- and four-syllable nouns with HVD in the initial syllable are placed in phrases of different profiles (No determiner, Determiner + noun, Determiner + adjective + noun). If tonal profile plays a role in HVD, HVD in four-syllable nouns in phrases where the noun is in isolation or preceded by a determiner alone should be dispreferred, since the initial syllable of the noun is assigned the optional H tone in these contexts. Our results do not confirm this: HVD is favored in four-syllable nouns over two-syllable nouns, regardless of phrase type. We explain this finding by expanding our previous proposal: HVD is regulated by foot structure, but is dispreferred when it targets the head foot (where the obligatory phrase-final prominence is realized)

Footing is Not Always about Stress: Formalizing Variable High Vowel Deletion in Québec French

The existence of foot structure in (Québec) French is disputed, since the only position of obligatory prominence in the language is the right edge of the phonological phrase. In this paper, we propose that a segmental process, namely, high vowel deletion (HVD), supports the existence of iterative iambic footing in Québec French. We report on a judgement task with auditorily-presented stimuli in which native speakers judged whether words with and without HVD sounded natural. The results show that (i) HVD is preferred in even-numbered syllables from the right word edge, (ii) HVD is preferred when the resulting consonantal cluster mirrors an ill-formed branching onset, and (iii) although non-deletion is overall preferred to deletion, deletion is preferred in one context: when the target vowel is at a suffix boundary and in foot-dependent positions.

Asymmetries in L2 functional morphology: The Korean learner of English

Variability in the production of L2 functional morphology has long been recognised as a pervasive and entrenched characteristic of interlanguage development. As Trenkic (2007, p. 292) suggests, a potentially fruitful way of identifying the sources of this behaviour is to compare the rates at which a given morpheme (e.g., past tense) is omitted, substituted or oversupplied in two (or more) distinct contexts. The present thesis adds to earlier work exploring certain patterns of this type, while also seeking to address some of the main limitations of these studies. Using a combined elicited-imitation and story-recall task adapted from Snape (2006), I examine the production of various types of functional morpheme by Korean learners of English. Three experiments were conducted. In the first of these, I predicted asymmetries in the omission or substitution of definite articles in first- and second-mention DPs based on the effects of non-target form-meaning relationships plus communicative redundancy. The second experiment examined past tense, agreement and plural morphology, and investigated the claim that differences in stem length and (for tense inflection only) verb class would give rise to contrasting patterns of inflectional omission. The third experiment focused on various kinds of QP, and manipulated the effects of contrasts in quantifier type and syntactic structure on the omission of plural inflection in these phrases. The predictions of experiment 1 were not supported, while those of experiment 2 were not supported for tense inflection; however, I am able to suggest reasons for these unexpected results. The overall results of the thesis confirm that by systematically investigating asymmetries in the production of a given functional morpheme, we stand to gain an insight into the underlying causes of L2 variability

Postpartum contraception acceptance and readiness study

Determine the optimal time to discuss and formulate a plan for postpartum contraception. Determine factors associated with uptake of and adherence to chosen postpartum contraception plan