Icelandic vowel lengthening and prosodic phonology

Abstract This paper presents a detailed analysis of nasality in Dagbani, a Gur language of Ghana, and the role it plays in Dagbani prosody. It demonstrates that the nasal is at the centre of defining the range of what is possible in Dagbani prosodic patterns. Nasals provide the basis for determining the full range of syllable types and the tone bearing unit of Dagbani; nasals are the only coda consonants that licence vowel lengthening; and nasals provide the only cases of phonological non-vocalic geminates. The overall effects of the influence of nasality is the emergence of complex prosodic structures. Contrary to the crosslinguistically acclaimed marked position of the coda, the CVN syllable is the default, unmarked syllable in Dagbani.

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Perceptual salience and analogical change: evidence from vowel lengthening in modern Swiss German dialects

Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s0022226700000542 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 1-13 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Carol Chapman

Keyword(s):

Semantic Relation ◽

Short Vowel ◽

Swiss German ◽

Perceptual Salience ◽

German Dialects ◽

Morphological Theory ◽

Vowel Lengthening

In the light of current morphological theory, this paper examines the analogical levelling of long/short vowel oppositions in certain inflectional and derivational alternations in a number of modern Swiss German dialects. The regular occurrence of levelling is shown to depend on the extent to which the alternation in question is ‘perceptually salient’ (Chapman 1994). That is, if the semantic relation between base and derivative is transparent and the derivative is uniformly marked, analogical levelling occurs regularly. On the basis of this evidence it is argued that all morphological alternations, both inflectional and derivational, are listed in the lexicon and that each one is assigned a different status according to its degree of perceptual salience.

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Phonetic Encoding Contributes to the Processing of Linguistic Prosody at the Word Level: Cross-Linguistic Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00037 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Luodi Yu ◽

Jiajing Zeng ◽

Suiping Wang ◽

Yang Zhang

Keyword(s):

Auditory Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Acoustic Cues ◽

Prosodic Features ◽

Speech Stimuli ◽

Word Level ◽

Acoustic Control ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Prosodic Phonology

Purpose This study aimed to examine whether abstract knowledge of word-level linguistic prosody is independent of or integrated with phonetic knowledge. Method Event-related potential (ERP) responses were measured from 18 adult listeners while they listened to native and nonnative word-level prosody in speech and in nonspeech. The prosodic phonology (speech) conditions included disyllabic pseudowords spoken in Chinese and in English matched for syllabic structure, duration, and intensity. The prosodic acoustic (nonspeech) conditions were hummed versions of the speech stimuli, which eliminated the phonetic content while preserving the acoustic prosodic features. Results We observed language-specific effects on the ERP that native stimuli elicited larger late negative response (LNR) amplitude than nonnative stimuli in the prosodic phonology conditions. However, no such effect was observed in the phoneme-free prosodic acoustic control conditions. Conclusions The results support the integration view that word-level linguistic prosody likely relies on the phonetic content where the acoustic cues embedded in. It remains to be examined whether the LNR may serve as a neural signature for language-specific processing of prosodic phonology beyond auditory processing of the critical acoustic cues at the suprasyllabic level.

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The Prosodization of Weak Function Words in Kurdish Language (Leilakhi Dialect)

International Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.5296/ijl.v7i4.8065 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 42

Author(s):

Sadegh Mohammadi Bolban Abad ◽

Batool Alinezhad ◽

Vali Rezai

Keyword(s):

Noun Phrase ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Personal Pronoun ◽

Prosodic Structure ◽

Personal Pronouns ◽

Function Words ◽

Phonological Process ◽

Stress Assignment ◽

Prosodic Phonology

<p>This paper investigates the prosodic structure of simple prepositions and dependent personal pronouns as weak function words in Leilakhi Dialect with the theoretical framework of Prosodic Phonology or Phonology of Domains. Weak function words (fnc) of this dialect are proclitics or enclitics that form Clitic Group (CG) with their host. One such feature of these elements is their combinatorial restriction with their host, <em>i.e. </em>simple prepositions as prosodic proclitics must precede a noun phrase or independent personal pronoun and absolute prepositions as phonological words join the dependent personal pronouns in the role of enclitics which give form to the clitic group. The phonetic process and phonological process used in this research are aspiration and stress assignment pattern respectively. </p>

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Compensatory Lengthening in OT and DOT: Loss of Dorsal Fricatives in Middle or Early Modern English

Anglica An International Journal of English Studies ◽

10.7311/0860-5734.28.2.03 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 47-61

Author(s):

Grzegorz Kleban

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Optimality Theory ◽

Syllable Weight ◽

Early Modern English ◽

Working Solution ◽

Vowel Lengthening ◽

Compensatory Lengthening ◽

Lexical Phonology

The loss of dorsal fricatives in English held significant consequences for the adjacent tautosyllabic vowels, which underwent Compensatory Lengthening in order to preserve a syllable weight. While the process appears to be regular in descriptive terms, its evaluation handled within standard Optimality Theory highlights the ineffectiveness of the framework to parse both the segment deletion and two weight-related processes: Weight- by-Position and vowel lengthening due to mora preservation. As Optimality Theory has failed to analyse the data in a compelling manner, the introduction of derivation, benefitting from the legacy of Lexical Phonology, seems inevitable. The working solution is provided by Derivational Optimality Theory, which assumes a restrictive use of intermediate stages throughout the evaluation.

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