Variable Pitch Realization of Unparsed Moras in Suzhou Chinese: Evaluation Through F0 Trajectory Simulation and Classification

This study aims to tease apart two proposals regarding the phonetic realization of toneless TBUs: that they are realized with default (often L) tones (Yip 2002; Zhang 2016), or that they stay without phonological tones and surface as interpolated pitch between tonal targets (Pierrehumbert & Beckman 1988; Zhang et al. 2019). The original fieldwork data of toneless moras in Suzhou Chinese (Northern Wu) demonstrated considerable variation in toneless realization, both across- and within-speaker. Assessed by the simulation & classification framework of Shaw and Kawahara (2018), some speakers more frequently used interpolation between tones (e.g., high level between Hs, low rising between L and H), while others realized the toneless mora with a relatively low pitch regardless of the tonal context. In addition, tonal contexts also affected how toneless moras were realized, with more interpolation when the toneless moras were surrounded by two Hs, and more default L insertion when the mora was preceded by L and followed by H. There was no unified way of toneless realization in Suzhou, much like a model of probablistic/variable phonological process would predict (Coetzee & Pater 2011; Coetzee & Kawahara 2013)

Extending the Autosegmental Input Strictly Local Framework: Metrical Dominance and Floating Tones

This paper extends the empirical coverage of the Autosegmental Input Strictly Local (A-ISL) framework (Chandlee and Jardine, 2019) by analyzing three tonal processes: floating tone suffixation in Cantonese, metrical dominance effect in Shanghai Chinese, and a combination of floating tones and metrical dominance in Suzhou Chinese. I show both the adequacy and inadequacy of the current A-ISL framework: it locally resolves some tonal processes that are otherwise non-local (Shanghai), but fails to account for other empirical data due to a lack of tonal membership specification (Suzhou). With the addition of a morphological affiliation tier, I propose an analysis for the Suzhou data. The paper contributes to our typological knowledge of computational locality and autosegmental phonological representations

Moraic Footing in Suzhou Chinese: Evidence from Toneless Moras

The current study provides additional phonetic data for the light-initial sandhi patterns in Suzhou Chinese, illustrating a context-sensitive pitch alternation that is not present after heavy-initial forms, and has not been attested in other neighboring Northern Wu varieties either. I propose that such pitch alternation is due to interpolation effects on toneless prosodic constituents, here toneless moras. A binary trochee built directly on moras yields an unparsed (i.e. toneless) final mora in light-heavy disyllables, accounting for the pitch patterns on the surface. Such an analysis is not only empirically adequate, but also echoes the cross-linguistic structural observation that a foot head lighter in weight than the dependent is generally dispreferred (Head-Dependent Asymmetry; cf. Dresher and van der Hulst 1998)

Urbanisation et urbanisme des petites villes en Chine

543 p. : bibliogr., carte, photo.After a period of an intensive urbanization in the territory of China, an outstanding phenomenon appears: five great metropolises (four situated in the eastern part of Chine) and about a hundred of "millionaire" cities experience a strong growing, but we hardly feel the development of the small towns.Could these small towns participate in the development of the rural space and absorb a part of rural emigration to the metropolises? The 10th Five-Year Plan for National Economy and Social Development (2001-2005) has taken into account this perspective and carried out a series of orientations in order to promote a rapid development of these small towns in China.This thesis not only emphasizes such opposite tendency but also analyses the heavy heritage which hinders their increasing. Through some monographs after the careful investigation, it reaches the two component parts about the evolution of the small towns:- one side, the position of the small towns in the organization of the territory for explain how their development can solve some problems in the region with a little urbanization and slow down the tendency of the urban concentration in the coastal megapole;- the other side, how to requalify of the "urban tissue" of the small towns by the urbanization to increase their attractivity and competitivity.Á la suite d'une période d'intense urbanisation du territoire de la République populaire de Chine, qui s'est matérialisée par une forte croissance des 5 grandes mégalopoles (Shangai, Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou) mais également de centaines de villes millionnaires, l'enjeu du développement des petites villes commence à être perçu. Peuvent-elles devenir des acteurs du développement des espaces ruraux, contenir l'exode rural vers les métropoles ? C'est à cette fin que le Xème plan quinquennal (2001-2005) pour l'économie nationale donne des orientations en faveur de l'essor des petites villes.S'appuyant sur des enquêtes réalisées dans les petites villes chinoises, ce travail tente de les catégoriser afin de déterminer la place qu'elles occupent dans l'organisation et l'économie du territoire ; le rôle qu'elles jouent dans le développement de régions faiblement urbanisées peut contribuer à freiner la concentration urbaine dans les mégalopoles du littoral oriental. L'auteur analyse également la manière dont l'urbanisation des petites villes chinoises constitue un facteur de requalification des tissus urbains des petites villes favorisant leur attractivité et leur compétitivité

Restricting the Power of Cophonologies: A Representational Solution to Stem Allomorphy in Uspanteko

In Uspanteko, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala, certain possessive prefixes lead to variation in stress and pitch accent and can sometimes trigger vowel length alternations or consonant deletion in roots. We argue that this complex pattern of stem allomorphy can be successfully analyzed within a morpheme-based model of morphology given two assumptions: i. underlying representations can contain metrical templates (e.g. Saba Kirchner 2013, Iosad 2016, Köhnlein 2016, 2019 for recent proposals); ii. pitch-accent contrasts in Uspanteko are a surface exponent of a difference between trochaic (falling tone) and iambic feet (level tone), as proposed in Köhnlein (2019). We claim that our analysis is more restrictive than an earlier account by Bennett & Henderson (2013; henceforth B&H), who divide relevant items into several nominal cophonologies. In analyzing non-concatenative exponence as an epiphenomenon of metrical affixation, our approach is in line with principles of Generalized Non-Linear Affixation (e.g. Bermúdez-Otero 2012, Trommer & Zimmermann 2014)

Model-based Reinforcement Learning with a Hamiltonian Canonical ODE Network

Model-based reinforcement learning usually suffers from a high sample complexity in training the world model, especially for the environments with complex dynamics. To make the training for general physical environments more efficient, we introduce Hamiltonian canonical ordinary differential equations into the learning process, which inspires a novel model of neural ordinary differential auto-encoder (NODA). NODA can model the physical world by nature and is flexible to impose Hamiltonian mechanics (e.g., the dimension of the physical equations) which can further accelerate training of the environment models. It can consequentially empower an RL agent with the robust extrapolation using a small amount of samples as well as the guarantee on the physical plausibility. Theoretically, we prove that NODA has uniform bounds for multi-step transition errors and value errors under certain conditions. Extensive experiments show that NODA can learn the environment dynamics effectively with a high sample efficiency, making it possible to facilitate reinforcement learning agents at the early stage

Sparse general non-negative matrix factorization based on left semi-tensor product

The dimension reduction of large scale high-dimensional data is a challenging task, especially the dimension reduction of face data and the accuracy increment of face recognition in the large scale face recognition system, which may cause large storage space and long recognition time. In order to further reduce the recognition time and the storage space in the large scale face recognition systems, on the basis of the general non-negative matrix factorization based on left semi-tensor (GNMFL) without dimension matching constraints proposed in our previous work, we propose a sparse GNMFL/L (SGNMFL/L) to decompose a large number of face data sets in the large scale face recognition systems, which makes the decomposed base matrix sparser and suppresses the decomposed coefficient matrix. Therefore, the dimension of the basis matrix and the coefficient matrix can be further reduced. Two sets of experiments are conducted to show the effectiveness of the proposed SGNMFL/L on two databases. The experiments are mainly designed to verify the effects of two hyper-parameters on the sparseness of basis matrix factorized by SGNMFL/L, compare the performance of the conventional NMF, sparse NMF (SNMF), GNMFL, and the proposed SGNMFL/L in terms of storage space and time efficiency, and compare their face recognition accuracies with different noises. Both the theoretical derivation and the experimental results show that the proposed SGNMF/L can effectively save the storage space and reduce the computation time while achieving high recognition accuracy and has strong robustness