Asymmetries in the intonation system of the tonal dialect of Maastricht Limburgish

The lexical tone and intonation contrasts in the Limburgish dialect of Maastricht are remarkable in a number of ways. While a falling pitch contour on an IP-medial syllable signals a non-declarative intonation, on an IP-final syllable it signals a declarative intonation. In addition, although there is a binary tone contrast (Accent 1 vs. Accent 2) and four nuclear intonation contours, only three intonation contours exist for nuclear syllables with Accent 2, while in IP-final position only two intonation contours exist for nuclear syllables with Accent 1, so that the full set of four intonation contours is only observable in IP-medial nuclear syllables with Accent 1. The context-dependent function of the pitch fall and the asymmetries are explained by a grammar in which the OCP is enforced absolutely, and the number of tones per syllable is restricted to two, unless the three tones each represent a different morpheme: OCP, Realise.orph≫#TTT.

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Relationships between structural and acoustic properties of maternal talk and children’s early word recognition

First Language ◽

10.1177/0142723717714946 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 37 (6) ◽

pp. 612-629 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Chiara Suttora ◽

Nicoletta Salerni ◽

Paola Zanchi ◽

Laura Zampini ◽

Maria Spinelli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Word Recognition ◽

Acoustic Properties ◽

Final Position ◽

Syntactic Complexity ◽

High Pitch ◽

Acoustic Characteristics ◽

Child Interaction ◽

Speech Features ◽

Final Syllable ◽

Listening Task

This study aimed to investigate specific associations between structural and acoustic characteristics of infant-directed (ID) speech and word recognition. Thirty Italian-acquiring children and their mothers were tested when the children were 1;3. Children’s word recognition was measured with the looking-while-listening task. Maternal ID speech was recorded during a mother–child interaction session and analyzed in terms of amount of speech, lexical and syntactic complexity, positional salience of nouns and verbs, high pitch and variation, and temporal characteristics. The analyses revealed that final syllable length positively predicts children’s accuracy in word recognition whereas the use of verbs in the utterance-final position has an adverse effect on children’s performance. Several of the expected associations between ID speech features and children’s word recognition skills, however, were not significant. Taken together, these findings suggest that only specific structural and acoustic properties of ID speech can facilitate word recognition in children, thereby fostering their ability to extrapolate sound patterns from the stream and map them with their referents.

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Context-dependent function of a conserved translational regulatory module

Development ◽

10.1242/dev.070128 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 139 (8) ◽

pp. 1509-1521 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Q. Liu ◽

C. Stumpf ◽

C. Thomas ◽

M. Wickens ◽

E. S. Haag

Keyword(s):

Dependent Function ◽

Regulatory Module ◽

Context Dependent

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Language contact and prosodic change in Slavic and Baltic

Diachronica ◽

10.1075/dia.16038.pro ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 35 (4) ◽

pp. 552-580

Author(s):

Tijmen Pronk

Keyword(s):

Initial Stress ◽

Language Contact ◽

Underlying Mechanism ◽

Target Language ◽

Pitch Contour ◽

Prosodic Word ◽

Initial Syllable ◽

Pitch Contours ◽

Final Syllable ◽

Types Of Change

Abstract This paper discusses several Slavic and Baltic dialects which have undergone stress shifts as a result of language contact. Two types of change are discussed: (1) stress retractions from the final syllable onto the initial syllable of a prosodic word, and (2) the rise of fixed stress replacing earlier free stress. It is argued that in all cases discussed in the paper, contact with a language with fixed initial stress caused a stress shift. Examples from Croatian and Lithuanian demonstrate that pitch contours played an important role in these shifts. The results of the shifts are not always identical, but the underlying mechanism is the same in each of these cases: the lexical pitch contour of the donor language was imposed on the target language, thereby introducing constraints on the position of stress in the target language. It is argued that a similar mechanism operated in West Slavic, where languages with free stress introduced fixed stress on the initial or penultimate syllable due to contact with German and possibly Hungarian.

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Tunes and Tones: Music, Language, and Inhibitory Control

Journal of Cognition and Culture ◽

10.1163/15685373-12340022 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (1-2) ◽

pp. 104-123

Author(s):

Robert E. Graham ◽

Usha Lakshmanan

Keyword(s):

Inhibitory Control ◽

Pitch Contour ◽

Musical Experience ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Cognitive Mechanisms ◽

Tone Language ◽

Cognitive Benefits ◽

Pitch Contours ◽

English Speaking ◽

Stroop Tasks

Abstract A debate is underway regarding the perceptual and cognitive benefits of bilingualism and musical experience. This study contributes to the debate by investigating auditory inhibitory control in English-speaking monolingual musicians, non-musicians, tone language bilinguals, and non-tone language bilinguals. We predicted that musicians and tone language bilinguals would demonstrate enhanced processing relative to monolinguals and other bilinguals. Groups of monolinguals (N = 22), monolingual musicians (N = 19), non-tone language bilinguals (N = 20) and tone language bilinguals (N = 18) were compared on auditory Stroop tasks to assess domain-transferable processing benefits (e.g. auditory inhibitory control) resulting from potentially shared underlying cognitive mechanisms (Patel, 2003; Bialystok & DePape, 2009). In one task, participants heard the words “high” and “low” presented in high or low pitches, and responded regarding the pitch of the stimuli as quickly as possible. In another task, participants heard the words “rise” or “fall” presented in rising or falling pitch contours, and responded regarding the contour of the stimuli as quickly as possible. Results suggest transferable auditory inhibitory control benefits for musicians across pitch and contour processing, but any possible enhanced processing for speakers of tone languages may be task-dependent, as lexical tone activation may interfere with pitch contour processing.

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Intonation in Palenquero

Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages ◽

10.1075/jpcl.23.1.02hua ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 1-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 40

Author(s):

José Ignacio Hualde ◽

Armin Schwegler

Keyword(s):

Final Section ◽

Equatorial Guinea ◽

Strong Tendency ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Stressed Syllable ◽

Word Level ◽

Caribbean Spanish ◽

History Of ◽

Final Syllable ◽

Published Research

The least understood aspect of Palenquero phonology is its intonational system. This is a serious gap, as it is precisely in the realm of prosody that the most striking phonological differences between Palenquero and (Caribbean) Spanish are apparent. Although several authors have speculated that African influence may be at the source of Palenquero’s peculiar intonation, to date published research offers no detailed information about the intonation of the creole. The goal of this study is to remedy this situation. Here we identify several specific intonational features where conservative (or older-generation) Palenquero differs from (Caribbean) Spanish. One of these features is a strong tendency to use invariant word-level contours, with a H tone on the stressed syllable and L tones on unstressed syllables, in all sentential contexts, including prenuclear positions. A second feature that we have identified is the use of a sustained phrase-final high or mid level contour in declaratives accented on the final syllable, and a long fall in declaratives accented on the penult. The final section addresses the issue of the possible origin of these intonational features. We point out similarities with Equatorial Guinea Spanish and conclude that, at some point in the history of Palenquero, the Spanish prosodic system was interpreted as involving lexical tone, in conformity with claims in the literature regarding several Atlantic creoles.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Intracellular location and cell context-dependent function of protein kinase D.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.1016389.200660 ◽

2003 ◽

Author(s):

Steve Ward

Keyword(s):

Protein Kinase ◽

Protein Kinase D ◽

Intracellular Location ◽

Dependent Function ◽

Context Dependent

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Intracellular Location and Cell Context-Dependent Function of Protein Kinase D

Immunity ◽

10.1016/s1074-7613(03)00260-7 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 491-501 ◽

Cited By ~ 72

Author(s):

Ulrica Marklund ◽

Kurt Lightfoot ◽

Doreen Cantrell

Keyword(s):

Protein Kinase ◽

Protein Kinase D ◽

Intracellular Location ◽

Dependent Function ◽

Context Dependent

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The Language-specific Use of Fundamental Frequency Rise in Segmentation of an Artificial Language: Evidence from Listeners of Taiwanese Southern Min

Language and Speech ◽

10.1177/0023830919886604 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 002383091988660

Author(s):

Shu-chen Ou ◽

Zhe-chen Guo

Keyword(s):

Language Learning ◽

Fundamental Frequency ◽

Inhibitory Effect ◽

Artificial Language ◽

Lexical Tone ◽

Prosodic Features ◽

Segmentation Strategy ◽

Southern Min ◽

Final Syllable ◽

Taiwanese Southern Min

Experience with native-language prosody encourages language-specific strategies for speech segmentation. Conflicting findings from previous research suggest that these strategies may not be abstracted away from the acoustic manifestation of prosodic features in the native speech. Using the artificial language learning paradigm, the current study explores this possibility in connection with listeners of a lexical tone language called Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM). In TSM, the only rising lexical tone occurs almost only on the final syllable of the language’s tone sandhi domain and is phonetically associated with final lengthening. Based on these observations, Experiment I examined what constituted a sufficient finality cue for use by TSM listeners to support segmentation: (a) final fundamental frequency (F0) rise only; or (b) final F0 rise conjoined with final lengthening. The results showed that segmentation was inhibited by the former cue but facilitated by the latter. Experiment II showed that the facilitation cannot be attributed entirely to final lengthening, as a null effect was found when final lengthening was the sole prosodic cue to segmentation. It is thus assumed that acoustic details as fine-grained as the lengthening of the rising tone are involved in the modulation of the segmentation strategy whereby TSM listeners perceive F0 rise as signaling finality. The inhibitory effect of final F0 rise alone found in Experiment I motivated Experiment III, which revealed that initial F0 rise in the absence of lengthening cues improved TSM listeners’ segmentation. It is speculated that such use of initial F0 rise might reflect a cross-linguistic segmentation solution.

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