Templates as the interaction of recursive word structure and prosodic well-formedness

Phonology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ara Guekguezian
Keyword(s):  
Word Structure ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
Templatic Morphology ◽  
Special Apparatus ◽  
Whole Word

Templatic morphology involves the appearance of a fixed shape on a morpheme in a specific morphological context. This paper makes two claims: the morphological context of a template is syntactically cyclic, resulting in recursive prosodic word structure, and the shape of a template results from prosodic well-formedness conditions on the internal prosodic word. Templatic morphology in Chukchansi Yokuts illustrates these claims: affixes that trigger templates transfer the root to the phonology before other material is transferred, so that the root forms a prosodic word which is internal to the whole word. Roots with one underlying vowel are augmented to meet a disyllabic minimality requirement on prosodic words; the resulting disyllable forms a light–heavy iamb, to optimally satisfy Chukchansi parsing requirements. Templatic morphology falls out from the predictable interaction of the syntax–phonology interface and general phonological properties of a language, and needs no special apparatus or diacritics.

Psycholinguistic Approaches to Morphology: Theoretical Issues

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina L. Gagné
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Morphological Priming ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Whole Word ◽  
Theoretical Issues

Psycholinguistics is the study of how language is acquired, represented, and used by the human mind; it draws on knowledge about both language and cognitive processes. A central topic of debate in psycholinguistics concerns the balance between storage and processing. This debate is especially evident in research concerning morphology, which is the study of word structure, and several theoretical issues have arisen concerning the question of how (or whether) morphology is represented and what function morphology serves in the processing of complex words. Five theoretical approaches have emerged that differ substantially in the emphasis placed on the role of morphemic representations during the processing of morphologically complex words. The first approach minimizes processing by positing that all words, even morphologically complex ones, are stored and recognized as whole units, without the use of morphemic representations. The second approach posits that words are represented and processed in terms of morphemic units. The third approach is a mixture of the first two approaches and posits that a whole-access route and decomposition route operate in parallel. A fourth approach posits that both whole word representations and morphemic representations are used, and that these two types of information interact. A fifth approach proposes that morphology is not explicitly represented, but rather, emerges from the co-activation of orthographic/phonological representations and semantic representations. These competing approaches have been evaluated using a wide variety of empirical methods examining, for example, morphological priming, the role of constituent and word frequency, and the role of morphemic position. For the most part, the evidence points to the involvement of morphological representations during the processing of complex words. However, the specific way in which these representations are used is not yet fully known.

scholarly journals Function Words at the Interface: A Two-Tier Approach

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 197
Author(s):  
Tina Bögel
Keyword(s):  
Hand Function ◽  
Function Word ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Mapping Algorithms ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Prosodic Word ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Focus Structure ◽  
Prosodic Structures ◽  
The One

The distinction between function words and content words poses a challenge to theories of the syntax–prosody interface. On the one hand, function words are “ignored” by the mapping algorithms; that is, function words are not mapped to prosodic words. On the other hand, there are numerous accounts of function words which form prosodic words and can even be analysed as heads of larger prosodic units. Furthermore, function words seem to be a driving factor for the formation of prosodic structures in that they can largely be held accountable for the non-isomorphism between syntactic and prosodic constituency. This paper discusses these challenges with a focus on a particular function word, and the first-person nominative pronoun in Swabian, a Southern German dialect. By means of two corpus studies, it is shown that the pronoun occurs in two forms, the prosodic word [i:] and the enclitic [ə]. Depending on clause position and focus structure, the forms occur in complementary distribution. Occurrences of n-insertion allow for the establishment of a recursive prosodic word structure at the level of the phonological module. The findings support a new proposal in the form of a two-tier mapping approach to the interface between syntax and prosody.

Templatic Morphology (Clippings, Word-and-Pattern)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Outi Bat-El
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Class Iii ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
Templatic Morphology ◽  
Semitic Morphology ◽  
Invariant Shape

This article introduces two phenomena that are studied within the domain of templatic morphology—clippings and word-and-pattern morphology, where the latter is usually associated with Semitic morphology. In both cases, the words are of invariant shape, sharing a prosodic structure defined in terms of number of syllables. This prosodic template, being the core of the word structure, is often accompanied with one or more of the following properties: syllable structure, vocalic pattern, and an affix. The data in this article, drawn from different languages, display the various ways in which these structural properties are combined to determine the surface structure of the word. The invariant shape of Japanese clippings (e.g., suto ← sutoraiki ‘strike’) consists of a prosodic template alone, while that of English hypocoristics (e.g., Trudy ← Gertrude) consists of a prosodic template plus the suffix -i. The Arabic verb classes, such as class-I (e.g., sakan ‘to live’) and class-II (e.g., misek ‘to hold’), display a prosodic template plus a vocalic pattern, and the Hebrew verb class-III (e.g., hivdil ‘to distinguish’) displays a prosodic template, a vocalic pattern and a prefix. Given these structural properties, the relation between a base and its derived form is expressed in terms of stem modification, which involves truncation (for the prosodic template) and melodic overwriting (for the vocalic pattern). The discussion in this article suggests that templatic morphology is not limited to a particular lexicon type – core or periphery, but it displays different degrees of restrictiveness.

Subsyllabic units in written word production

2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Weingarten
Keyword(s):  
Time Course ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Word Production ◽  
Motor Execution ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Phonological Structure ◽  
Written Word ◽  
Whole Word

In previous studies we have found that the writing of words (typing) is made up of a highly structured time course. Words are written using a course of accelerations and decelerations at certain points within the words. These points correlate highly with the syllabic word structure and also with the morphological structure. At the beginning of these subword units we find significantly higher latencies than within units. We therefore assume that written word production starts with a frame of the whole word, certain subword frames (according to the syllabic and morphological structure) and subsequent filling of the frames with segmental information. So the segmental information is not completely available at the beginning of a word or syllable but is delivered during motor execution. In the present study we try to find out if there are also subsyllabic units that are produced in a frame and content mode. As a candidate for such a unit we choose polygraphemes (e.g. in engl.in “think”, in germanin “schon”). If they are produced in this way we expect an increased delay at their onset and an accelaration within the unit. The results suggest that because of their grapho-phonological structure some types of complex graphemes are produced in a frame and content mode.

Monitoring Progress for Children with Hearing Loss

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-81
Author(s):  
Monica Weston ◽  
Karen F. Muñoz ◽  
Kristina Blaiser
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Data Logging ◽  
Standardized Measures ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Hearing Aid Use ◽  
Outcomes For Children ◽  
Language Measures ◽  
Children With Hearing Loss

Purpose This study investigated average hours of daily hearing aid use and speech-language outcomes for children age 3 to 6 years of age with hearing loss. Method Objective measures of hearing aid use were collected via data logging. Speech and language measures included standardized measures GFTA-2, CELF Preschool-2 and additional item analyses for the word structure subtest CELF Preschool-2 and the GFTA-2. Results Hearing aid use was full time for 33% of the children (n=3; M=8.84 hours; Range: 2.9–12.1) at the beginning of the study, and for 78% at the end of the study (n=7; M=9.89 hours; Range 2.6–13.2). All participants demonstrated an improvement in articulation and language standard scores and percentiles however continued to demonstrate areas of weakness in sounds high-frequency in nature. Conclusions Through early identification and fitting, children gain access to speech sounds. Both standardized measures and individual language analysis should be used to identify and support children with hearing loss in language and subsequent literacy development.

Nonfluencies of Preschool Stutterers and Conversational Partners

1989 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan C. Meyers
Keyword(s):  
Whole Word

Nonfluencies produced by 12 stutterers (2–6 years old) interacting in three dyadic sessions were analyzed. A stutterer played with his own mother, own father, and a familiar peer for 10 rain. Results indicated that the total frequencies and types of nonfluency observed were very similar in each of the play situations. Although stutterers exhibited more part-word repetitions and prolongations than any other type of nonfluency, they did not differ in the amount and type of nonfluency when talking to their three conversational partners. Because children have more breakdowns in fluency than adults, it was not surprising that peers were more nonfluent when talking to the stutterer than were the parents. Peers used significantly more part- and whole-word repetitions, tense pauses, and interjections than the parents did. The nonfluency levels of the parent partners were quite similar when talking to the stutterers.

Age-Related Differences in Processing Dynamic Information to Identify Vowel Quality

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 892-902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Allen Fox ◽  
Lida G. Wall ◽  
Jeanne Gokcen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Perceptual Cues ◽  
Dynamic Information ◽  
Process Dynamic ◽  
Center Condition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Control Version ◽  
Older Subjects ◽  
Whole Word

This study examined age-related differences in the use of dynamic acoustic information (in the form of formant transitions) to identify vowel quality in CVCs. Two versions of 61 naturally produced, commonly occurring, monosyllabic English words were created: a control version (the unmodified whole word) and a silent-center version (in which approximately 62% of the medial vowel was replaced by silence). A group of normal-hearing young adults (19–25 years old) and older adults (61–75 years old) identified these tokens. The older subjects were found to be significantly worse than the younger subjects at identifying the medial vowel and the initial and final consonants in the silent-center condition. These results support the hypothesis of an age-related decrement in the ability to process dynamic perceptual cues in the perception of vowel quality.

The Direction of Affective Priming as a Function of Trait Anxiety When Naming Target Words With Regular and Irregular Pronunciation

2004 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 180-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Berner ◽  
Markus A. Maier
Keyword(s):  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Affective Priming ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Expected Effect ◽  
Negative Affective Priming ◽  
Whole Word ◽  
German Data ◽  
Target Words

Abstract. Results from an affective priming experiment confirm the previously reported influence of trait anxiety on the direction of affective priming in the naming task ( Maier, Berner, & Pekrun, 2003 ): On trials in which extremely valenced primes appeared, positive affective priming reversed into negative affective priming with increasing levels of trait anxiety. Using valenced target words with irregular pronunciation did not have the expected effect of increasing the extent to which semantic processes play a role in naming, as affective priming effects were not stronger for irregular targets than for regular targets. This suggests the predominant operation of a whole-word nonsemantic pathway in reading aloud in German. Data from neutral priming trials hint at the possibility that negative affective priming in participants high in trait anxiety is due to inhibition of congruent targets.

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