scholarly journals Assessing the Representation of Phonological Rules by a Production Study of Non-Words in Coratino

Phonetica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 77 (6) ◽  
pp. 405-428
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bucci ◽  
Paolo Lorusso ◽  
Silvain Gerber ◽  
Mirko Grimaldi ◽  
Jean-Luc Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Southern Italy ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Data Display ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Formal Rules

Phonological regularities in a given language can be described as a set of formal rules applied to logical expressions (e.g., the value of a distinctive feature) or alternatively as distributional properties emerging from the phonetic substance. An indirect way to assess how phonology is represented in a speaker’s mind consists in testing how phonological regularities are transferred to non-words. This is the objective of this study, focusing on Coratino, a dialect from southern Italy spoken in the Apulia region. In Coratino, a complex process of vowel reduction operates, transforming the /i e ɛ u o ɔ a/ system for stressed vowels into a system with a smaller number of vowels for unstressed configurations, characterized by four major properties: (1) all word-initial vowels are maintained, even unstressed; (2) /a/ is never reduced, even unstressed; (3) unstressed vowels /i e ɛ u o ɔ/ are protected against reduction when they are adjacent to a consonant that shares articulation (labiality and velarity for /u o ɔ/ and palatality for /i e ɛ/); (4) when they are reduced, high vowels are reduced to /ɨ/ and mid vowels to /ə/. A production experiment was carried out on 19 speakers of Coratino to test whether these properties were displayed with non-words. The production data display a complex pattern which seems to imply both explicit/formal rules and distributional properties transferred statistically to non-words. Furthermore, the speakers appear to vary considerably in how they perform this task. Altogether, this suggests that both formal rules and distributional principles contribute to the encoding of Coratino phonology in the speaker’s mind.

Vowel Reduction in Coratino (South Italy): Phonological and Phonetic Perspectives

Phonetica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 287-324
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bucci ◽  
Pascal Perrier ◽  
Silvain Gerber ◽  
Jean-Luc Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Southern Italy ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
South Italy ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Reduction Processes ◽  
Vowel Formant ◽  
Phonetic Reduction ◽  
High Vowels

Vowel reduction may involve phonetic reduction processes, with nonreached targets, and/or phonological processes in which a vowel target is changed for another target, possibly schwa. Coratino, a dialect of southern Italy, displays complex vowel reduction processes assumed to be phonological. We analyzed a corpus representative of vowel reduction in Coratino, based on a set of a hundred pairs of words contrasting a stressed and an unstressed version of a given vowel in a given consonant environment, produced by 10 speakers. We report vowelformants together with consonant-to-vowel formant trajectories and durations, and show that these data are rather in agreement with a change in vowel target from /i e ɛ·ɔ u/ to schwa when the vowel is a non-word-initial unstressed utterance, unless the vowel shares a place-of-articulation feature with the preceding or following consonant. Interestingly, it also appears that there are 2 targets for phonological reduction, differing in F1 values. A “higher schwa” - which could be considered as /ɨ/ - corresponds to reduction for high vowels /i u/ while a “lower schwa” - which could be considered as /ə/ - corresponds to reduction for midhigh

scholarly journals Durational Differences of Word-Final /s/ Emerge From the Lexicon: Modelling Morpho-Phonetic Effects in Pseudowords With Linear Discriminative Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Schmitz ◽  
Ingo Plag ◽  
Dinah Baer-Henney ◽  
Simon David Stein
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Discriminative Learning ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Real Word ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Learning Network ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Different Types

Recent research has shown that seemingly identical suffixes such as word-final /s/ in English show systematic differences in their phonetic realisations. Most recently, durational differences between different types of /s/ have been found to also hold for pseudowords: the duration of /s/ is longest in non-morphemic contexts, shorter with suffixes, and shortest in clitics. At the theoretical level such systematic differences are unexpected and unaccounted for in current theories of speech production. Following a recent approach, we implemented a linear discriminative learning network trained on real word data in order to predict the duration of word-final non-morphemic and plural /s/ in pseudowords using production data by a previous production study. It is demonstrated that the duration of word-final /s/ in pseudowords can be predicted by LDL networks trained on real word data. That is, duration of word-final /s/ in pseudowords can be predicted based on their relations to the lexicon.

Vowel Reduction in Israeli Heritage Russian

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-133
Author(s):  
Daniel Asherov ◽  
Alon Fishman ◽  
Evan-Gary Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Mixed System ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Russian Speakers ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Productive System ◽  
Modern Hebrew ◽  
Adult Immigrants ◽  
Contemporary Standard

This study examines vowel reduction patterns of Israeli Heritage Russian speakers (IHRs). Contemporary Standard Russian is well documented as having a complex system of vowel reduction (e.g., Barnes, 2002; Crosswhite, 1999; Jakobson, 1929; Padgett, 2004): specifically, underlying /o/ surfaces as [o] in stressed syllables, as [ɐ] in the first pretonic syllable, and as [ə] in other unstressed syllables. In Modern Hebrew, on the other hand, stressed and unstressed vowels differ in duration, but not in quality (Cohen, Silber-Varod, & Amir, in preparation; Maymon, 2001). We conducted a production experiment to determine the patterns of vowel reduction in the Russian of IHRs. Sixteen IHRs were exposed to audiobased forms of real and nonce words with stressed /o/ and were required to produce the forms with and without stressed suffixes. Thus, underlying /o/ was produced in three distinct prosodic positions: stressed (e.g., /nos/ ‘nose sg.’), pretonic (e.g., /nos- ̍ɨ/ ‘nose pl.’), and antepretonic (e.g., /nos-o ̍voj/ ‘nasal.’). The quantity (duration) and quality (F1, F2) of /o/ were acoustically analyzed and compared to a control group of five Russian-speaking adult immigrants to Israel. The results showed that IHRs reduced unstressed /o/ in both real and nonce words, but in producing nonce words they did not display the height contrast that is expected between pretonic and antepretonic vowels. We argue that IHRs’ productions of real words may be rote-learnt, whereas their treatment of nonce words better reflects their productive grammar. We propose that IHRs’ productive system of vowel reduction is a mixed system, combining aspects of their heritage language (i.e., Russian) and dominant language (i.e., Hebrew).

scholarly journals Reconstructing phonological change: duration and syllable structure in Latin vowel reduction

Phonology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranjan Sen
Keyword(s):  
Initial Stress ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Early Archaic ◽  
Quantitative Changes ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Phonological Change

During the fixed initial-stress period of Latin (sixth to fifth centuries BC), internal open syllable vowels were totally neutralised, usually raising to /i/ (*per.fa.ki.oː>perficiō ‘I complete’), whereas in closed syllables /a/ was raised to /e/, but the other vowels remained distinct (*per.fak.tos>perfectus ‘completed’). Miller (1972) explains closed syllable resistance by positing internal secondary stress on closed syllables. However, evidence from vowel reduction and syncope suggest that internal syllables never bore stress in early archaic times. A typologically unusual alternative is proposed: contrary to the pattern normally found (Maddieson 1985), vowels had longer duration in closed syllables than in open syllables, as in Turkish and Finnish, thus permitting speakers to attain the targets for non-high vowels in closed syllables. This durational pattern is manifested not only in vowel reduction, but also in the quantitative changes seen in ‘classical’ and ‘inverse’ compensatory lengthenings, the development CVːCV > CVC and ‘superheavy’ degemination (VːCCV > VːCV).

What can production data teach us about the effectiveness of instructive text design variables?

1999 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-181
Author(s):  
Fons Maes
Keyword(s):  
Production Data ◽  
Text Design ◽  
Design Variables ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Independent Variable ◽  
Case Writing ◽  
Design Characteristics ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
The Way

This paper focuses on the way in which production tasks — in this case writing an instructive text — can provide us with data, which can be used to evaluate textual variables which are assumed to be relevant in processing, using, and hence designing instructive texts. The second and third sections describe the set-up and results of a production experiment in which subjects had to write an instructive text given one of two users' conditions: they had to assume that their readers either had to execute the instruction only once (reading-to-do) or that they had to learn the instructions described (read-ing-to-learn). This independent variable was claimed to have an effect on the strategies writers choose, in particular on the way in which they use two important types of information in instructive discourse, goal vs action information. As such, this experiment sheds light on the interaction between use conditions and design characteristics of instructive documents. As the method used in the experiment is not self-evident in assessing the effectiveness of text design variables, the last section evaluates the use of production tasks as a way of replicating, amending, refining and perhaps even outperforming data obtained from other methods.

The reduction of unstressed high vowels in modern Greek

1980 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 17-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Dauer
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
High Vowels

The unstressed high vowels /i/ and /u/ are subject to extreme shortening, devoicing, or elision in certain environments in standard modern Greek. This process goes on below the consciousness of most native speakers in their own speech; however, they will recognize it in speakers of northern Greek dialects where unstressed /i/ and /u/ are frequently elided (see Newton, 1972; Papadopoulos, 1926). In the phonology of the language, vowel reduction and elision are treated as a collection of optional ‘fast speech’ rules (e.g. Theophanopoulou-Kontou, 1973). In this study, they are considered as related stages in the same phonetic process, which will be described from both an auditory and acoustic point of view. An analysis of read texts and spontaneous speech samples by a number of educated speakers from Athens and Thessalonika shows that vowel reduction is not purely optional, but depends on a number of factors, the most important of which are phonetic environment and position relative to the stressed syllable. Some hypotheses concerning the phonetic motivation for this kind of vowel reduction will then be discussed.

Pitch Accent Distribution and Focus Structure in Taifi Arabic: A Production Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Muhammad Swaileh A. Alzaidi
Keyword(s):  
Important Implication ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Content Word ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Focus Structure ◽  
Production Study ◽  
Production Experiment ◽  
Lebanese Arabic ◽  
Information Focus

Prosodic encoding of focus in Taifi Arabic is not yet fully understood. A recent production study found significant acoustic differences between syntactically identical sentences with information focus, contrastive focus and without focus. This paper presents results from a production experiment investigating whether information and contrastive focus have prosodic effects on the pitch-accent distributions. Using question-answer paradigms, 16 native speakers of Taifi Arabic were asked to read three target sentences in different focus conditions. Results reveal that every content word is pitch-accented in utterances with and without focus. However, there are very few cases (23.12%) in which the post-focus words are deaccented. The largest percentage of deaccentuation was observed in the utterances with initial contrastive focus. The results show that focus structures in Taifi Arabic show both deaccentuation and post-focus compression. Therefore, the prosodic realization of focus in Taifi Arabic is different from their counterparts in other Arabic dialects such as Egyptian and Lebanese Arabic. These findings have an important implication for both the prosodic typology and focus typology.

scholarly journals Sonority-driven stress and vowel reduction in Uyghur

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam McCollum
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Vowel Raising ◽  
Study Support ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Recent Claim ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Number Of Authors ◽  
Stress Placement

A number of authors have argued that sonority differences among vowels may interact with weight-sensitive stress placement (e.g. Kenstowicz 1994, 1997; de Lacy 2006). In previous work on sonority-sensitivity, variable stress placement has usually been assumed. In this paper, I examine the role of sonority in Uyghur, a language with fixed stress. I argue that sonority is encoded as a weight distinction in the language, which drives asymmetric lengthening of word-final high vowels. I demonstrate that a mora-based analysis also offers insight into medial vowel raising in the language, and sketch out an Optimality theoretic account of the data. Findings from this study support the recent claim made by Shih & de Lacy (2019) that sonority differences are only indirectly available to the grammar in the form of weight distinctions.

Vowel Devoicing in Contemporary French

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
CAROLINE L. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Reading Test ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Physical Mechanisms ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Vowel Devoicing

Fagyal and Moisset (1999) suggested that vowel devoicing in standard French occurs most often in phrase-final high vowels. An experiment testing the effect of both immediate segmental context and sentence-level contextual factors was conducted to further identify the linguistic features involved. Six French speakers were recorded reading test sentences. Devoicing only occurred in sentence-final vowels, but in more contexts than expected. From a cross-linguistic perspective the distribution of devoicing in French is unusual. Final position is prosodically prominent in French, whereas in many languages devoicing is a form of vowel reduction associated with lack of prominence. Different physical mechanisms may therefore be responsible.

ultrastructural process of intestinal wound healing

1995 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 1024-1025
Author(s):  
Rick L. Vaughn ◽  
Shailendra K. Saxena ◽  
John G. Sharp
Keyword(s):  
Wound Healing ◽  
Epithelial Cells ◽  
Smooth Muscles ◽  
Microscopic Level ◽  
Light Microscopic Level ◽  
Ileal Mucosa ◽  
Wound Model ◽  
Serosal Surface ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Orderly Fashion

We have developed an intestinal wound model that includes surgical construction of an ileo-cecal patch to study the complex process of intestinal wound healing. This allows approximation of ileal mucosa to the cecal serosa and facilitates regeneration of ileal mucosa onto the serosal surface of the cecum. The regeneration of ileal mucosa can then be evaluated at different times. The wound model also allows us to determine the rate of intestinal regeneration for a known size of intestinal wound and can be compared in different situations (e.g. with and without EGF and Peyer’s patches).At the light microscopic level it appeared that epithelial cells involved in regeneration of ileal mucosa originated from the enlarged crypts adjacent to the intestinal wound and migrated in an orderly fashion onto the serosal surface of the cecum. The migrating epithelial cells later formed crypts and villi by the process of invagination and evagination respectively. There were also signs of proliferation of smooth muscles underneath the migratory epithelial cells.

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