Gemination Strategies in L1 And English Pronunciation of Polish Learners

Polish is a language where true geminates appear and the occurrence of a double consonant letter in spelling corresponds with double or at least prolonged consonant articulation regardless of the morphological structure of the word. The above principle also concerns most borrowings, such as the English word ‘hobby’, for instance. In English, true geminates do not occur and a morpheme-internal double consonant letter is only a fairly reliable indication of the way the preceding vowel should be pronounced. This discrepancy may lead to negative transfer in Polish learners of English. Our recent research of native Polish speech (Rojczyk and Porzuczek, in press) generally confirmed the results reported by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996), among others, who found geminates to be 1.5-3 times longer than singletons. In our study we investigate the influence of double consonant letters on L1 and English pronunciation of Polish learners. They read trochaic family names containing intervocalic . Each name is preceded by a first name suggesting the nationality (Polish, English, German or Italian) of the person mentioned. By placing each tested item in a Polish and an English semantically and rhythmically equivalent sentences (This is .../To jest...), we measure the level of consonant length variation with respect to the language in which the potential geminates appear, the language context and the learning experience of the students. In this way we collect evidence and formulate observations concerning the learners’ awareness of the status of geminates in various languages and the probability of transfer in EFL learning

The Mechanism of Fluid Resistance

The mechanism of fluid resistance within the limit of the square law is presented. It was concluded that the investigations should be extended and completed in two directions, namely: by an investigation of stable vortex configurations in space, and by considering the perfect fluid as the limiting case of a viscous fluid and then limiting the law of vortex of formation with the condition that only those fluid particles which were in contact with the surface of the body can receive rotation

Derived environment effects: A representational approach

Derived environment effects involve either overapplication or underapplication of phonological rules in phonological or morphological environments. This paper focuses on underapplication effects in both phonological and morphological environments, which are treated as resulting from representational differences between derived and non-derived environments at the appropriate level. The Government and Dependency Phonology notions of head and dependent are utilised to this end. Thus, phonologically derived environment effects result from melodic structure that differentiates branching from immediate dominance relations between elements, allowing phonological processes to target a segment of one melodic configuration to the exclusion of another. Morphologically derived environment effects, on the other hand, involve representational differences at the constituent structure level, corresponding to the fact that morphological effects are a result of junctural or morpheme-integrity effects. In the latter case, head-dependent relations are defined as holding over domains, thereby differentiating affixal from non-affixal material, while in the former junctural effects the representational difference is defined at the CV tier, with phonological processes being sensitive to the presence of empty V and C positions. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

System wokaliczny dialektu kurpiowskiego

Niniejszy artykuł omawia system samogłoskowy dialektu kurpiowskiego. Przedstawione dane pochodzą z prowadzonych przeze mnie badań terenowych na Kurpiach w okresie ostatnich ośmiu lat. Artykuł dowodzi, że system wokaliczny kurpiowszczyzny jest znacznie bogatszy od systemu wokalicznego języka ogólnopolskiego i obejmuje dziesięć samogłosek będących segmentami kontrastywnymi w fonologicznej strukturze głębokiej. Charakter alofoniczny mają jedynie dwie samogłoski średnie i to tylko w kontekście przed spółgłoskami nosowymi. Samogłoski te da się opisać za pomocą bezwyjątkowych reguł dystrybucyjnych, które określam jako reguły ścieśnienia i cofnięcia. Przedstawione w artykule generalizacje opisowe są poddane analizie fonologicznej w ramach teorii optymalności.This article presents the vowel system of Kurpian, a dialect of Polish spoken in northern Poland. The data come from the fieldwork that I conducted in Kurpia over a period of many years. Kurpian has a much richer system of vowel contrasts than Standard Polish, with three high vowels, five mid vowels and two low vowels. While in most contexts these vowels are contrastive, there are also contexts in which they can be derived by general processes of Kurpian. Two such processes are discussed here: Nasal Tensing and Nasal Backing. They are analysed in terms of Optimality Theory

Ścieśnienia końcowe w dialekcie kurpiowskim

Niniejszy artykuł omawia występowanie samogłosek ścieśnionych w systemie deklinacyjnym dialektu kurpiowskiego. Przedstawione wyniki oparte są na przeprowadzonych przeze mnie badaniach materiałowych we wsiach środkowego pasa regionu kurpiowskiego i dotyczą alternacji pomiędzy samogłoskami nieścieśnionymi a ścieśnionymi. Ścieśnienia zachodzą w końcowej sylabie rzeczowników przed spółgłoską dźwięczną, która może być albo obstruentem albo sonorantem. Analiza opisowych reguł przedstawiona jest w ramach derywacyjnej teorii optymalności.This article investigates the occurrence of tense vowels in Kurpian and reports on the results of my fieldwork conducted in the villages of central Kurpia. The article looks at declensional paradigms of nouns and concludes that lax vowels alternate with tense vowels when they are followed by a voiced consonant (an obstruent or a sonorant) at the end of the word. The descriptive generalizations are analysed formally in terms of Derivational Optimality Theory, a framework that is well equipped to handle the opacity unveiled by the Kurpian data

The Competitive Behaviors of Small Retailers: Examining the Strategies of Local Merchants in Rural America

Mass merchandisers, discount  chain  stores,  category  killers,  and e-commerce  are  changing the retail industry through innovations in marketing and service. Driven by increased competition and discriminating  customers,  small,  local  retailers  are  searching for  ways  to gain and sustain competitive advantage. This study examines the competitive behaviors and performances of 236 retailers located in rural Nebraska. The findings indicate that retailers which adopted competitive behaviors with a goal of low cost/low price leadership were most successful. However, retailers using a combination or value-oriented strategy were also successful. Retailers which adopted competitive behaviors that constitute solely a differentiation strategy and those which had no clearly defined strategy were the worst performers. These findings suggest that in order to achieve competitive advantage,  rural retailers should follow a value-oriented strategy, being effective at both cost reduction and competitive pricing  while  offering  unique products  and services

Neutralization in Aztec Phonology – the Case of Classical Nahuatl Nasals

This article investigates nasal assimilation in Classical Nahuatl. The distribution of nasal consonants is shown to be the result of coda neutralization. It is argued that generalizations made for root and word level are disproportionate and cannot be explained through the means of rule-based phonology. It is shown that the process responsible for nasal distribution can only be accounted for by introducing derivational levels in Optimality Theor