Synchronised and non‐synchronised articulation of Polish nasals ą and ę in child and adult speech

Nasals are highly frequent sounds in the Polish language. It is believed that their articulation is mainly dependent on surrounding segments. The standard register of Polish language contains two different patterns of articulation of nasalised sounds, so called: synchronised and non-synchronised. This study attempts to show that surrounding consonants have different impact on the way of nasals articulation among adults and children. The acoustic methodology was applied in order to verify the hypothesis about differences in asynchronous articulation of nasals ą, ę in CVC and CV clusters in front of stops and affricatives; and synchronic articulation before fricatives among children and adults. Nasalised sounds were investigated on the basis of utterances of two children (3;9, 10;1) and compared with similar segments of adult speech excerpted from SpokesWeb CLARIN database

A comparative study of vowels’ F1 and F2 values in frequent English loanwords in Polish and Russian languages

The paper presents results of an investigation of F1 and F2 formants values in English loanwords uttered by Polish and Russian native speakers during spontaneous speech. Ten participants with an equal level of English language proficiency took part in the experiment. Their stimulated conversation was recorded and English loanwords were extracted from the recordings to investigate the vowels’ formants, by means of the Praat software. The F1 and F2 analysis points out that a relationship between the frequency of loanwords’ occurrence and the similarity to pronunciation of language of origin exists. Corpus data were used to find the comparable frequencies of English loanwords’ occurrence in Polish and Russian

How native speakers of Croatian understand other Slavic languages? Visual World Paradigm eye–tracking experiment

Ovaj rad predstavlja rezultate istraživanja čiji je cilj bio ispitivanje i razumijevanje rečenica na srodnim slavenskim jezicima od strane izvornih govornika hrvatskoga jezika metodom praćenja pokreta očiju. Budući da nitko od sudionika nije studirao prevoditeljski smjer ili slavensku lingvistiku, studija ilustrira učinke pasivne višejezičnosti. Sudionici su bili izloženi slušnim podražajima na bugarskom, češkom, poljskom i ruskom jeziku, popraćenim vizualnim prikazima. Analiza anticipacijskih pokreta očiju pokazala je kako izvorni govornici hrvatskoga jezika, slušajući rečenice na drugom slavenskom jeziku, usmjeravaju svoju pozornost na referentne objekte čim prepoznaju predikat rečenice. Nadalje, rezultati pokazuju značajno razumijevanje poljskog jezika kod izvornih govornika hrvatskoga jezika. Ovo istraživanje pruža dokaze o učincima utemeljenim na Shannonovoj teoriji informacije u pasivnoj višejezičnosti te raspravlja o ulozi fonetske sličnosti između percipiranog podražaja i njegovog ekvivalenta u mentalnom leksikonu slušatelja.Speakers of closely related languages have a clear privilege when communicating with one another over speakers of typologically and genetically distant languages. They can use their L1s and conduct a relatively fluent conversation. Such a multilingual interaction is referred to as ‘intercomprehension’. The Slavic language family is a good example for testing intercomprehension due to extensive language contact and well documented historical development of each member of the language family. In this paper, we present an experiment in the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) to shed light on the factors facilitating and impeding mutual intelligibility. In a multilingual communication, speech comprehension depends on a degree of similarity between the languages and contextual (un)expectedness of elements coming from a closely related language. To quantify the first factor, we analyze the surface phonetic resemblance between the equivalents of cognate predicates across the Slavic languages; To address the question of stimulus (un)expectedness, we adopt a methodology of information theory. In this study, native speakers of Croatian are exposed to Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, and Russian sentences. Their task is to listen to foreign audio samples and watch the pictures referring to simple SVO–type sentences. We hypothesize that gaze anticipation effect measured on a visual field presenting a direct object is driven by the information theoretic notion of surprisal and phonetic similarity between the predicates in Croatian and a language of exposure. A strong intercomprehension effect was observed for Croatian native speakers listening to Polish sentences. The results of the eye–tracking experiment shed light on visually enhanced processing of closely related languages. The outcomes of this study contribute to the debate about the factors moderating mutual intelligibility among Slavic speakers

O początkach badań dialektologicznych Południowej Słowiańszczyzny 120 lat po projekcie Milana Rešetara

 On the origins of dialectological research into South Slavic languages, 120 years since Milan Rešetar’sprojectPaper presents the brief history of the first investigations into South Slavic dialects. It contains the Polish translation of Rešetar’s questionnaire “Pitanja ogovoru prostoga naroda” published in 1897, with some comments on methodology. The author presents the investigated dialectic phenom­ena in the field of phonetics, morphology and syntax based on afew responses. Some lexical charac­teristics of speech at the time are also explored. The instructions are compared with the contemporary approach to dialectological research. Other comments on the pioneer research are presented from the perspective of diachronic dialectology.O počecima dijalektoloških istraživanjakod južnih Slavena povodom 120 godišnjice Rešetarovog projektaRad predstavlja kratku povijest prvih dijalektoloških istraživanja kod južnih Slavena. On sadrži ipoljski prijevod Rešetarovoga upitnika Pitanja ogovoru prostoga naroda objavljenog 1897 s meto­dološkim komentarima. Na osnovu nekoliko odgovora, autor donosi istražene dijalektološke pojave na području fonetike, morfologije isintakse. Također, navodi ineka leksička obilježja ondašnjeg govora. Upute su uspoređene isa suvremenom metodologijom dijalektoloških istraživanja. Navede­ni su idrugi komentari opionirskom istraživanju uperspektivi dijakronijske dijalektologije. On the origins of dialectological research into South Slavic languages, 120 years since Milan Rešetar’sprojectPaper presents the brief history of the first investigations into South Slavic dialects. It contains the Polish translation of Rešetar’s questionnaire “Pitanja ogovoru prostoga naroda” published in 1897, with some comments on methodology. The author presents the investigated dialectic phenom­ena in the field of phonetics, morphology and syntax based on afew responses. Some lexical charac­teristics of speech at the time are also explored. The instructions are compared with the contemporary approach to dialectological research. Other comments on the pioneer research are presented from the perspective of diachronic dialectology.O počecima dijalektoloških istraživanjakod južnih Slavena povodom 120 godišnjice Rešetarovog projektaRad predstavlja kratku povijest prvih dijalektoloških istraživanja kod južnih Slavena. On sadrži ipoljski prijevod Rešetarovoga upitnika Pitanja ogovoru prostoga naroda objavljenog 1897 s meto­dološkim komentarima. Na osnovu nekoliko odgovora, autor donosi istražene dijalektološke pojave na području fonetike, morfologije isintakse. Također, navodi ineka leksička obilježja ondašnjeg govora. Upute su uspoređene isa suvremenom metodologijom dijalektoloških istraživanja. Navede­ni su idrugi komentari opionirskom istraživanju uperspektivi dijakronijske dijalektologije

Slavic idiomatic expressions: Translation tasks

Cross-lingual intelligibility of Slavic multiword expressions - translation task

BIRDSONG AND ONOMATOPOEIA. POLISH ONOMATOPOEIC PHRASES IMITATING THE SOUNDS OF Bubo bubo AND Carduelis spinus SPECIES

The article presents an analysis of the acoustic features of birdsong particular to the Bubo bubo and Carduelis spinus species and a comparison of those features and lexicalized Polish onomatopoeic phrases. Measurements applied in the investigation are the formant structure, RMS and pitch contour. The study focuses on the transient state of signal in order to verify the appropriateness of initial segments within conventional Polish onomatopoeic phrases. The hypothesis of similar frequencies reflected by the vocalic segments within the frame of oneunit is verified by means of spectrographic pictures. Some examples of Hungarian onomatopoeic phrases are given in the comparative perspective

О ПЕВАЊУ ПТИЦА И ОНОМАТОПЕЈСКИМ ИЗРАЗИМА. ПОЉСКИ ОНОМАТОПЕЈСКИ ИЗРАЗИ КОЈИ ОПОНАШАЈУ ЗВУКОВЕ ПТИЦА ВРСТЕ Bubo bubo И Carduelis spinus

The article presents an analysis of the acoustic features of birdsong particular to the Bubo bubo and Carduelis spinus species and a comparison of those features and lexicalized Polish onomatopoeic phrases. Measurements applied in the investigation are the formant structure, RMS and pitch contour. The study focuses on the transient state of signal in order to verify the appropriateness of initial segments within conventional Polish onomatopoeic phrases. The hypothesis of similar frequencies reflected by the vocalic segments within the frame of oneunit is verified by means of spectrographic pictures. Some examples of Hungarian onomatopoeic phrases are given in the comparative perspective