Vocale Incerta, Vocale Aperta

url for Conference program.Ogni toscano si comporta di fronte a una parola a lui nuova, come si nota p. es. nella lettura del latino, scegliendo costantamente, e inconsciamente, il timbro aperto, secondo il principio che il Migliorini ha condensato nella formula «vocale incerta, vocale aperta»…è il processo a cui vien sottoposto ogni vocabolo importato o adattato da altri linguaggi. (Franceschi 1965:1-3

Notes on Syllable Structure in Three Arabic Dialects

Cet article examine quelques alternances très productives dans trois dialectes de l’arabe moderne : levantin, bani-hassan (bédouin) et soudanais. La première partie de l’article élabore une distinction entre « syllabes de base » (CV, CVV, CVC) et « syllabes marginales » (CVCC, CVVC). Il est suggéré que les syllabes de base sont érigées dans la phonologie lexicale alors que les syllabes maginales sont construites dans la composante postlexicale. La deuxième partie de l’article propose une analyse de wasla (« l’enjambement »). Nous démontrons, en outre, que le fait d’établir une distinction entre le niveau segmental et le niveau du squelette permet d’expliquer plusieurs aspects de ce phénomène.This paper examines a number of pervasive syllable-based alternations in three modern Arabic dialects: Levantine, Bani-Hassan (Bedouin) and Sudanese. The first part develops a distinction between core (CV, CVV, CVC) and marginal (CVCC, CVVC) syllables. It is argued that core syllables are constructed in the lexical phonology while marginal syllables are built postlexically. The second part of the paper develops an analysis of wasla ("joining"). It is shown how drawing a distinction between the segmental and skeletal tiers helps to explain several properties of this otherwise puzzling phenomenon

Loanword Phonology and Enhancement

With the development of a “constraints and repair” approach to phonological computation, the field has seen a renewed interest in loanword adaptation. The task of the adapter is to make the loan conform to the segmental, phonotactic, and prosodic structure of the recipient (L1) language while preserving as much information as possible from the donor (L2) language. The balance between these often conflicting demands is insightfully expressed by a constraint-based model of phonology such as Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004) with its key notions of markedness and faithfulness constraints

Cantonese Loanwords : Conflicting Faithfulness in VC Rime Constraints

This paper focuses on the ways in which English loanwords are brought into line with four phonotactic constraints that restrict the possible combinations of nuclear vowels and coda consonants in Cantonese Chinese. It is found that three of the four constraints are strictly enforced in loans. Repairs change either the vowel or the coda consonant. Parallel to Mandarin, changes in vowel height features ([high], [ATR]) as opposed to changes in vowel backness are employed. Coda consonant changes obey a dorsal > coronal > labial faithfulness hierarchy that mirrors the typology of coda mergers discovered by Chen (1973) for many Chinese dialects. While changes in both the vowel and coda consonant occur, on-line adaptations favor changing the coda and preserving the vowel and suggest that the relative phonetic salience of the nuclear vowel to the coda consonant still plays a role in these adaptations.Aquest article se centra en la manera com els anglicismes del xinès cantonès conflueixen en l'adaptació a través de quatre condicions fonotàctiques que restringeixen les combinacions possibles de vocals i de consonants a la rima. Tres d'aquestes quatre condicions són estrictament inevitables. L'arranjament fa canviar la vocal del nucli o la consonant de la coda. Tal com passa en mandarí, s'utilitzen canvis en els trets d'altura de les vocals ([alt], [AA]) com a oposició als canvis en el tret de posterioritat. Els canvis en les consonants de la coda obeeixen una jerarquia de fidelitat dorsal > coronal > labial que reflecteix la tipologia de reducció o simplificació de codes descoberta per Chen (1973) per a molts dialectes xinesos. Encara que es produeixin canvis en la vocal i en la consonant de la coda, les adaptacions directes afavoreixen els canvis en la coda però no en la vocal. Això suggereix que la prominència relativa de la vocal del nucli respecte a la consonant de la coda encara juga un paper important en aquestes adaptacions

Pitch Accent in Korean

Typologically, pitch-accent languages stand between stress languages like Spanish and tone languages like Shona, and share properties of both. In a stress language typically just one syllable per word is accented and bears the major stress (cf. Spanish sábana ‘sheet’, sabána ‘plain’, Panamá). In a tone language the number of distinctions grows geometrically with the size of the word. So in Shona, which contrasts high vs. low tone, trisyllabic words have eight possible pitch patterns. In a canonical pitch-accent language such as Japanese, just one syllable (or mora) per word is singled out as distinctive, as in Spanish. But each syllable in the word is assigned a high or low tone (as in Shona); however, this assignment is predictable based on the location of the accented syllableKeywords: tonal accent, diachrony, phonetic realization, compounds, phonological phrases, loanwords, frequency, reconstructio

Phonotactics of Gender in Mandarin Given Names: Patterns and Constraints

In this paper, we investigate the phonotactic patterns that correlate with gender in given names for Mandarin Chinese, a language that is phonotactically quite different from English. We find that many of the phonological predictors for gender in English trend in the same direction for Mandarin. We also compare the phonotactic grammars of Mandarin female and male given names obtained from Maximum-Entropy phonotactic learning models, and find that certain low acoustic frequency sounds that imply largeness according to the Frequency-Code Hypothesis are penalized for female names, while higher acoustic frequency sounds that imply smallness according to the Frequency-Code Hypothesis are not marked in the grammar for male names