scholarly journals The timing of pre-nuclear pitch accents in Persian

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-329
Author(s):  
Vahid Sadeghi
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Stress Conditions ◽  
Word Boundary ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Phonetic Realization ◽  
Pitch Accents

This paper examines the phonetic realization of rising pre-nuclear pitch accents in Persian. In a first experiment, the alignment of f0 valleys and peaks in pre-nuclear pitch accents was analyzed in controlled speech materials as a function of the syllable structure (open vs. closed) and vowel type (short vs. long) of the accented syllable. The results revealed that in words with antepenultimate stress, both the L and the H tones are anchored to specific segmental landmarks irrespective of syllable structure or vowel type. In particular, the L is consistently aligned with the onset of the accented syllable, and the H is placed with similar consistency in the vicinity of the first post-accentual vowel. In a second experiment, the variability in the timing and scaling of L valleys and H peaks was examined as a function of the proximity of the word boundary and of the following accent. The results revealed that while the alignment of the L was unaffected by changes in stress conditions, H peaks were significantly retracted as the syllable approached the end of the word. However, the proximity of the following accent did not produce a significant effect on H alignment. In addition, no significant differences were found on L and H scaling in different stress or tonal crowding conditions. Overall, the results contribute to a growing body of evidence that in the absence of upcoming prosodic pressure, the alignment of pitch targets is specified relative to segmental positions. A comparison between these findings and empirical findings from other languages reveals fine phonetic differences of segmental anchoring that are less likely to be interpreted in terms of distinct association-based phonological representations, and suggests that some aspects of segmental anchoring need to be explained in terms of continuous language-specific alignment rules.

scholarly journals The syllable in Kuki-Chin

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-308
Author(s):  
Samson Lotven ◽  
Kelly Berkson ◽  
James C. Wamsley ◽  
Jillian Danaher ◽  
Kenneth Van Bik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Online Version ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Link Type ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
Structure Simplification ◽  
Phonetic Realization

AbstractThe Kuki-Chin group of the Tibeto-Burman language family consists of upwards of 50 languages spoken mainly in western Myanmar, predominantly in Chin State and in neighboring areas of India and Bangladesh (Simons & Fennig (eds.). 2019. Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 21st edn. Dallas Texas: SIL International. Online version. http://www.ethnologue.com/). In the many daughter languages of Proto–Kuki-Chin, syllable structure simplification has yielded a synchronic situation in which individual languages are spread along a cline ranging from more conservative languages, some with complex onsets and vowel length distinctions, to more innovative languages, some with no coda consonants at all. The distribution and phonetic realization of these features vary across the Kuki-Chin group, raising a number of relevant questions about the underlying phonological representations of the Kuki-Chin syllable. This paper surveys representative structures from a variety of Kuki-Chin languages in order to highlight issues in syllable structure across these little-studied languages. In doing so, we aim to both unify observations on Kuki-Chin phonology related to the syllable, and to propose research that will further elucidate its structures.

scholarly journals Paradigmatic enhancement of stem vowels in regular English inflected verb forms

Morphology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-199
Author(s):  
Fabian Tomaschek ◽  
Benjamin V. Tucker ◽  
Michael Ramscar ◽  
R. Harald Baayen
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Phonetic Realization

AbstractMany theories of word structure in linguistics and morphological processing in cognitive psychology are grounded in a compositional perspective on the (mental) lexicon in which complex words are built up during speech production from sublexical elements such as morphemes, stems, and exponents. When combined with the hypothesis that storage in the lexicon is restricted to the irregular, the prediction follows that properties specific to regular inflected words cannot co-determine the phonetic realization of these inflected words. This study shows that the stem vowels of regular English inflected verb forms that are more frequent in their paradigm are produced with more enhanced articulatory gestures in the midsaggital plane, challenging compositional models of lexical processing. The effect of paradigmatic probability dovetails well with the Paradigmatic Enhancement Hypothesis and is consistent with a growing body of research indicating that the whole is more than its parts.

The Impact of Semantic Memory Loss on Phonological Representations

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karalyn Patterson ◽  
Naida Graham ◽  
John R. Hodges
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Word Comprehension ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Immediate Serial Recall ◽  
Phonological Word ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Unknown Words ◽  
The Impact

Three patients with semantic dementia, involving progressive deterioration of semantic memory, performed immediate serial recall of short sequences of familiar words. On the basis of their performance in other tasks of word comprehension and production, the stimuli were selected individually for each patient as either known or unknown words. All patients showed a marked advantage in recall of known as compared to familiar but now unknown words. Errors consisted primarily of incorrect combinations of correct phoneme sequences in the stimulus string, with a large number of errors preserving onsethime syllable structure (e.g., mint, rug reproduced as “rint, mug”). Discussion focuses on the implication of these errors for the structure of phonological representations, and in particular on a hypothesis that meaning plays a crucial role in binding the elements of phonological word forms.

Proto-Indo-European ‘laryngeals’ were vocalic

Diachronica ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elinor Reynolds ◽  
Paula West ◽  
John S. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Nous Avons ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Nous Proposons ◽  
Modern View ◽  
Phonetic Realization ◽  
Original Classification

SUMMARY We have argued that the ‘laryngeals’ reconstructed for PIE were vocalic in nature. This is in line with Saussure’s original classification of the ‘laryngeals’ as vowels but runs counter to the prevalent modern view that they were fricatives. According to the ‘vocalic’ hypothesis that we propose, the ‘laryngeals’ formed a subsystem of the PIE vowel inventory, and were characterized by metrical weakness. This analysis draws upon contemporary phonological understanding of the interaction between a segment’s position within syllable structure and its phonetic realization. The hypothesis allows phonetically plausible accounts to be formulated for each of the observed developments in the daughter languages. Moreover, it is more credible from a typological perspective than any of the proposals involving fricatives. RÉSUMÉ Nous avons soutenu que les ‘laryngales’ reconstruites pour le proto-indo-européen étaient de forme vocalique. Ceci est en accord avec l’hypothèse de Saussure où les ‘laryngales’ étaient classées voyelles mais va à l’encontre de l’opinion moderne qu’elles étaient fricatives. Selon l’hypothèse ‘vocalique’ que nous proposons les ‘laryngales’ formaient un sous-système de l’inventaire vocalique proto-indo-européen characterisé par la faiblesse metrique. Cette analyse fait appel à la compréhension phonologique contemporaine de l’interaction entre la position d’un segment dans la syllabe et sa réalisation phonétique. Cette hypothèse permet des explications raisonnables pour chaque développement observé dans les langues filles. D’ailleurs, dans une perspective typologique cette hypothèse est plus croyable que les systèmes qui utilisent les fricatives. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Unserer Auffassung nach waren Laryngale, die für das Urindogermanische rekonstruiert worden sind, vokalischer Natur. Diese Auffassung stimmt mit Saussures ursprünglicher Klassifikation, nach der Laryngale Vokale sind, überein, widerspricht aber der gegenwärtig vorherrschenden Annahme, nach der es sich um Frikative handelt. Gemäß der hier vorgestellten Hypothese bildeten die Laryngale eine Unterklasse der urindogermanischen Vokale, und zeichneten sich durch metrische Schwäche aus. Dieser Analyse liegt ein gegenwärtig postuliertes phonologisches Verständnis der Wechselwirkung zwischen der Lage eines Segmentes innerhalb der Silbenstruktur und seiner phonetischen Realisierung zugrunde. Auf der Basis dieser Hypothese können phonetisch plausible Entwicklungen in den Tochtersprachen erklärt werden. Desweiteren erscheint der hier vorgestellte Ansatz auch von einem typologischen Ansatz überzeugender als andere, die für Frikative argumentieren.

scholarly journals The representation of syllable structure in HPSG

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Tseng
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Word Boundary ◽  
Abstract Representation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Separate Part

This paper proposes a representation for syllable structure in HPSG, building on previous work by Bird and Klein (1994), Höhle (1999), and Crysmann (2002). Instead of mapping segments into a a separate part of the sign where syllables are represented structurally, information about syllabification is encoded directly in the list of segments, the core of the PHONOLOGY value. Higher level prosodic phenomena can operate on a more abstract representation of the sequence of syllables derived from the syllabified segments list. The approach is illustrated with analyses of some word-boundary phenomena conditioned by syllable structure in French.

scholarly journals Vowel Elision in Ikhin, an Edoid Language in South-south Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-361
Author(s):  
Opoola Bolanle T. ◽  
Olaide Oladimeji
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Word Boundary ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Its Analysis

In this paper, attention is on the basic factors that come into force in determining whether or not vowel will elide and which of the V1 and V2 in a sequence should disappear in any environment. This paper also examines the phonological, morphological and syntactic reasons behind vowel elision as a syllable structure process in Ikhin language. As in the case of related African languages that have been previously described by various scholars, this paper presents how vowel elision works in Ikhin and the problems arising from its analysis. In this study, the focus is on the explanation and analysis of factors such as boundary, morpheme structure and vowel quality which actually determine whether or not elision should take place in Ikhin. Apart from factors such as vowel quality and boundary, one other factor with respect to elision or glide formation is the syllable structure of the verbs and nouns in Ikhin. Ikhin nouns are either disyllabic i.e. V(C)V or trisyllabic, etc. It is argued that the operation of vowel elision is blocked in disyllabic nouns as /i/, /o/ and /u/ form glides when either of them occurs as V1 whereas vowel elision rather than glide formation takes place in trisyllabic nouns. The study concludes based on data not previously discussed in the language that elision is driven by syllable-based and syntactic-based analyses and that a major strategy of discouraging vowel cluster in Ikhin is vowel elision because the syllable structure of the language prohibits cluster of vowels within word or across word boundary.

scholarly journals Pitch Accent in Korean

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiyuki Ito ◽  
Michael J. Kenstowicz
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
High Tone ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Initial Syllable ◽  
Pitch Pattern ◽  
Pitch Patterns ◽  
Low Tone ◽  
Phonetic Realization ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
Middle 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 ‘Panama’). In a tone language, the number of distinctions grows geometrically with the size of the word. So in Shona, which contrasts high versus 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. 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 syllable. The Korean dialects spoken in the southeast Kyengsang and northeast Hamkyeng regions retain the pitch-accent distinctions that developed by the period of Middle Korean (15th–16th centuries). For example, in Hamkyeng a three-syllable word can have one of four possible pitch patterns, which are assigned by rules that refer to the accented syllable. The accented syllable has a high tone, and following syllables have low tones. Then the high tone of the accented syllable spreads up to the initial syllable, which is low. Thus, /MUcike/ ‘rainbow’ is realized as high-low-low, /aCImi/ ‘aunt’ is realized as low-high-low, and /menaRI/ ‘parsley’ is realized as low-high-high. An atonic word such as /cintallɛ/ ‘azalea’ has the same low-high-high pitch pattern as ‘parsley’ when realized alone. But the two types are distinguished when combined with a particle such as /MAN/ ‘only’ that bears an underlying accent: /menaRI+MAN/ ‘only parsely’ is realized as low-high-high-low while /cintallɛ+MAN/ ‘only azelea’ is realized as low-high-high-high. This difference can be explained by saying that the underlying accent on the particle is deleted if the stem bears an accent. The result is that only one syllable per word may bear an accent (similar to Spanish). On the other hand, since the accent is realized with pitch distinctions, tonal assimilation rules are prevalent in pitch-accent languages. This article begins with a description of the Middle Korean pitch-accent system and its evolution into the modern dialects, with a focus on Kyengsang. Alternative synchronic analyses of the accentual alternations that arise when a stem is combined with inflectional particles are then considered. The discussion proceeds to the phonetic realization of the contrasting accents, their realizations in compounds and phrases, and the adaptation of loanwords. The final sections treat the lexical restructuring and variable distribution of the pitch accents and their emergence from predictable word-final accent in an earlier stage of Proto-Korean.

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