scholarly journals Aquisição, afasia e a hierarquia prosódica

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ester Mirian Scarpa

Studies on language acquisition have shown that the child exhibits a top-down trajectory in the acquisition of the prosodic hierarchy, starting with the organisation of the upper (intonational) prosodic levels. Rhythmic readjustments and postlexical secondary stress are later acquisitions. Prosodic disturbances of aphasia and dysarthria have been connected to the question of brain-damage lateralisation and linguistic processing. Subjects damaged in their right hemisphere are said to be dysprosodic; they produce few Fo variations, Fo flattenning, slow tempo. Prosody is said to be reasonably preserved in Broca´s subjects and well preserved in fluent (Wernicke) aphasia subjects. A comparative study was carried out with two subjects, one aphasic and one dysarthric. Some prosodic difficulties were observed in the speech of fluent aphasic subjects, related to the prosodic hierarchy, to the metrical grid and to syllable structure, respectively. On the other hand, the correct placement of pauses in the frontiers of upper domains of the dysarthric subject shows preservation of the prosodic hierarchy. Pitch-direction is also preserved, with short pitch-range. In both cases, the upper domains of the prosodic hierarchy are preserved.

Author(s):  
Diana Deutsch

Chapter 2 focuses on musical illusions that involve stereo sounds that were discovered by the author. These are described and demonstrated as sound examples. In each illusion, two simultaneous streams of tones are played, one to the listener’s right and the other to their left. The tones are perceptually reorganized in space, so that the melodies we hear are quite different from those that are really being played. Most people tend to hear the higher tones as coming from their right and the lower tones as coming from their left, but other people hear the illusions differently. These perceptual differences depend statistically on the listener’s handedness, so that left-handers are more likely than right-handers to obtain different illusions. So not only do we hear these patterns “wrongly,” but we also hear them differently from each other. The illusions also show that listeners are strongly influenced by their assumptions concerning what is likely to occur—termed unconscious inference or top-down processing. In each illusion, sequences coming from both the right and the left channels consist of tones that leap around in pitch. However, listeners instead create in their minds patterns that do not really exist: They perceive two smooth melodies, each in a different pitch range. The illusions are not simply quirks of artificial sounds generated in the laboratory. Instead, related effects occur in music that is produced by natural instrument sounds, and can even be found in conventional orchestral music. Other related effects are also discussed.


1981 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Fallows

Most phonologists regard the syllable as a unit of language. In recent years, partly in reaction to Chomsky's and Halle's neglect of it in The sound pattern of English, much work has been done to incorporate the syllable into phonological theory (Anderson & Jones, 1974; Bailey, 1978; Hoard, 1971; Hooper, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978; Kahn, 1976; Pulgram, 1970; Rudes, 1977; Vennemann, 1972).Syllable theories have been based on evidence from phonetics, phonological processes, prosody, language change, child language acquisition, and language universals. The purpose of this experimental study is (a) to contribute empirical evidence about the nature of the syllable from native speakers' actual syllabifications of words and (b) to determine how this evidence reflects on the syllable theories already proposed.Syllable studies have focused on two major questions: (1) what is the structure of the syllable and (2) how are words divided into syllables (syllabified). These questions are obviously related, and the answers to each have implications for the other. This study was designed to elicit data directly addressing both questions.


2003 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Sturm

Abstract: Behavioral and PET/fMRI-data are presented to delineate the functional networks subserving alertness, sustained attention, and vigilance as different aspects of attention intensity. The data suggest that a mostly right-hemisphere frontal, parietal, thalamic, and brainstem network plays an important role in the regulation of attention intensity, irrespective of stimulus modality. Under conditions of phasic alertness there is less right frontal activation reflecting a diminished need for top-down regulation with phasic extrinsic stimulation. Furthermore, a high overlap between the functional networks for alerting and spatial orienting of attention is demonstrated. These findings support the hypothesis of a co-activation of the posterior attention system involved in spatial orienting by the anterior alerting network. Possible implications of these findings for the therapy of neglect are proposed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 142-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Trochidis ◽  
Emmanuel Bigand

The combined interactions of mode and tempo on emotional responses to music were investigated using both self-reports and electroencephalogram (EEG) activity. A musical excerpt was performed in three different modes and tempi. Participants rated the emotional content of the resulting nine stimuli and their EEG activity was recorded. Musical modes influence the valence of emotion with major mode being evaluated happier and more serene, than minor and locrian modes. In EEG frontal activity, major mode was associated with an increased alpha activation in the left hemisphere compared to minor and locrian modes, which, in turn, induced increased activation in the right hemisphere. The tempo modulates the arousal value of emotion with faster tempi associated with stronger feeling of happiness and anger and this effect is associated in EEG with an increase of frontal activation in the left hemisphere. By contrast, slow tempo induced decreased frontal activation in the left hemisphere. Some interactive effects were found between mode and tempo: An increase of tempo modulated the emotion differently depending on the mode of the piece.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Ágnes Langó-Tóth

Abstract In this study an experiment is presented on how Hungarian children interpret two word orders of recursive PPs (subject-PP-verb and PP-subject-verb order). According to the research of Roeper (2011) and Hollebrandse and Roeper (2014), children tend to give conjunctive interpretation to multiple embedded sentences at the beginning of language acquisition. This interpretation later turns into an adult-like, recursive interpretation. Our aim is to discover (i) whether Hungarian children start with conjunction as well, and whether (ii) the apparently more salient functional head lévő appearing in Hungarian recursive PPs can help them to acquire the correct, recursive interpretation early. We also want to find out whether (iii) the word orders in recursive PPs have an influence on the acquisition of children. In this paper two experiments are presented conducted with 6 and 8-year-olds and adults, in which the participants were asked to choose between two pictures. One of the pictures depicted recursive and the other one depicted conjunctive interpretation of the given sentence. In the first experiment subject-PP-verb order was tested, but in the second one sentences were tested with PP-subject-verb order. We will claim that lévő, which is (arguably) a more salient Hungarian functional element than -i, does not help children to acquire the embedded reading of recursive sentences, because both of them are overt functional heads. However, the two types of word orders affect the acquisition of recursive PPs. PP-subject-verb order is easier to compute because the order of the elements in the sentences and the order of the elements in the pictures matches.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Hesling

The modalities of communication are the sum of the expression dimension (linguistics) and the expressivity dimension (prosody), both being equally important in language communication. The expressivity dimension which comes first in the act of speech, is the basis on which phonemes, syllables, words, grammar and morphosyntax, i.e., the expression dimension of speech is superimposed. We will review evidence (1) revealing the importance of prosody in language acquisition and (2) showing that prosody triggers the involvement of specific brain areas dedicated to sentences and word-list processing. To support the first point, we will not only rely on experimental psychology studies conducted in newborns and young children but also on neuroimaging studies that have helped to validate these behavioral experiments. Then, neuroimaging data on adults will allow for concluding that the expressivity dimension of speech modulates both the right hemisphere prosodic areas and the left hemisphere network in charge of the expression dimension


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irmtraud Kaiser ◽  
Andrea Ender

Abstract This paper explores intra-individual variation as a manifestation of language-internal multilingualism in the Central-Bavarian Austrian context. Based on speech data from children and adults in different contexts, we discuss different methods of measuring and analyzing inter-situational variation along the dialect and standard language spectrum. By contrasting measures of dialectality, on the one hand, and proportions of turns in dialect, standard language or intermediate/mixed forms on the other, we gain complementary insights not only into the individual dialect-standard repertoires but also into the consequences of different methodological choices. The results indicate that intra-individual variation is ubiquitous in adults and children and that individual repertoires need to be taken into account from the beginning of the language acquisition process. We suggest that while intra-individual variation can be attested through the use of various methods, the revealed level of granularity and the conclusions that can be drawn as to the individual repertoires on the dialect-standard spectrum largely depend on the measures used and their inherent assumptions and intrinsically necessary categorizations.


Author(s):  
Juan de Lara ◽  
Esther Guerra

AbstractModelling is an essential activity in software engineering. It typically involves two meta-levels: one includes meta-models that describe modelling languages, and the other contains models built by instantiating those meta-models. Multi-level modelling generalizes this approach by allowing models to span an arbitrary number of meta-levels. A scenario that profits from multi-level modelling is the definition of language families that can be specialized (e.g., for different domains) by successive refinements at subsequent meta-levels, hence promoting language reuse. This enables an open set of variability options given by all possible specializations of the language family. However, multi-level modelling lacks the ability to express closed variability regarding the availability of language primitives or the possibility to opt between alternative primitive realizations. This limits the reuse opportunities of a language family. To improve this situation, we propose a novel combination of product lines with multi-level modelling to cover both open and closed variability. Our proposal is backed by a formal theory that guarantees correctness, enables top-down and bottom-up language variability design, and is implemented atop the MetaDepth multi-level modelling tool.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 1682
Author(s):  
Yoonja Kang ◽  
Yeongji Oh

The interactive roles of zooplankton grazing (top-down) and nutrient (bottom-up) processes on phytoplankton distribution in a temperate estuary were investigated via dilution and nutrient addition experiments. The responses of size-fractionated phytoplankton and major phytoplankton groups, as determined by flow cytometry, were examined in association with zooplankton grazing and nutrient availability. The summer bloom was attributed to nanoplankton, and microplankton was largely responsible for the winter bloom, whereas the picoplankton biomass was relatively consistent throughout the sampling periods, except for the fall. The nutrient addition experiments illustrated that nanoplankton responded more quickly to phosphate than the other groups in the summer, whereas microplankton had a faster response to most nutrients in the winter. The dilution experiments ascribed that the grazing mortality rates of eukaryotes were low compared to those of the other groups, whereas autotrophic cyanobacteria were more palatable to zooplankton than cryptophytes and eukaryotes. Our experimental results indicate that efficient escape from zooplankton grazing and fast response to nutrient availability synergistically caused the microplankton to bloom in the winter, whereas the bottom-up process (i.e., the phosphate effect) largely governed the nanoplankton bloom in the summer.


Author(s):  
ZhaoHong Han

At the recent CLTA-S2 conference, a spirited debate occurred between critics of second language acquisition (SLA) research and researchers who embraced it. Fascinating as it was, neither camp appeared to have convinced the other, but, more important, the debate left much of the audience flummoxed. In this paper, I intend to provide a follow-up, attempting to clarify a) the relationship between research and teaching in the context of Chinese as a second language (CSL), b) misunderstandings on the part of critics over research findings, and c) potential pitfalls in interpreting the SLA literature. My goal is to encourage, as well as contribute to, further communication between the two camps, for the ultimate good of CSL instruction and learning.


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