2. Context Sensitive Acoustic Near-Neutralization in Tongue Twisters

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Brohan
Keyword(s):  
Recurrent Network ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Interesting Problem ◽  
Acoustic Data ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Tongue Twisters ◽  
Articulatory Model

Tongue twisters present an interesting problem with respect to their implication to the interactions between phonology and phonetics. Only recently, however, have the articulations produced in tongue twisters been analyzed phonetically. The research presented is a preliminary study into the so-called /s/ → /∫/ neutralization occurring in English tongue twisters. Traditionally, it was believed that tongue slips in tongue twisters resulted in complete phoneme replacement, neutralizing the contrast. (Pronouncing “seashell” as “sheashell”). More recent studies suggest a differing phonetic account, in which the resulting sound is nearly-neutralized. This study examined the segments /s/ and /∫/ near-neutralizing in differing contexts. Acoustic data was collected from one speaker eliciting eight artificial tongue twisters repeatedly in various contexts. The central band of frequency of the sounds were analyzed using Praat. A near-neutralization effect was found, that the “neutralized" segment was significantly between a /s/ and a /sh/. This effect was observed in both a forwards and backwards direction (“sheashell” & “seasell”) were both present in the data, with a noticeably stronger right-to-left effect; in accordance with cross-linguistic studies of /s/ - /sh/ neutralization. A recurrent network articulatory model is presented in the discussion, which can account for the asymmetry and context sensitivity of results. Findings move us towards a greater understanding of the greater problem of sibilant harmony across languages.

Discourse, Context, and Coherence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Pure Indexicals

On the received view, the resolution of context-sensitivity is at least partly determined by non-linguistic features of utterance situation. If I say ‘He’s happy’, what ‘he’ picks out is underspecified by its linguistic meaning, and is only fixed through extra-linguistic supplementation: the speaker’s intention, and/or some objective, non-linguistic feature of the utterance situation. This underspecification is exhibited by most context-sensitive expressions, with the exception of pure indexicals, like ‘I.’ While this received view is prima facie appealing, I argue it is deeply mistaken. I defend an account according to which context-sensitivity resolution is governed by linguistic mechanisms determining prominence of candidate resolutions of context-sensitive items. Thus, on this account, the linguistic meaning of a context-sensitive expression fully specifies its resolution in a context, automatically selecting the resolution antecedently set by the prominence-governing linguistic mechanisms.

scholarly journals TESTIMONY, RECOVERY AND PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY: A RESPONSE TO PEET

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Alex Davies
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Epistemology Of Testimony ◽  
Public Responsibility

ABSTRACTAccording to telling based views of testimony (TBVs), B has reason to believe that p when A tells B that p because A thereby takes public responsibility for B's subsequent belief that p. Andrew Peet presents a new argument against TBVs. He argues that insofar as A uses context-sensitive expressions to express p, A doesn't take public responsibility for B's belief that p. Since context-sensitivity is widespread, the kind of reason TBVs say we have to believe what we're told, is not widespread. Peet doesn't identify any problem with his own argument though he does attempt to limit its sceptical potential by identifying special contexts in which TBVs stand a chance of success. A more general defence of TBVs can be provided by showing Peet's argument to be unsound. I argue that Peet's argument is unsound because it requires us to wrongly suppose that speakers do far less labour than their audiences in context-sensitive linguistic communication. I aim to show why – in the context of the epistemology of testimony and the philosophy of language – it's important to recognize the labour that speakers can do, and so can be held responsible for not doing, in episodes of context-sensitive linguistic communication.

The Grammar of Prominence

2021 ◽  
pp. 171-186
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Gradable Adjectives ◽  
Domain Restriction ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
Model Context ◽  
The Way

This chapter draws theoretical conclusions and outlines directions for future developments. It summarizes the key theoretical and philosophical upshots of the account developed in the book and discusses further extensions of this framework. It discusses how the account can be applied to model context-sensitivity of situated utterances, in a way that can offer insights into puzzles concerning disagreement in discourse and communication under ignorance, which have plagued standard accounts of context and content. Further, it outlines the way the account is to be extended and applied to various types of context-sensitive items, including relational expressions, gradable adjectives, and domain restriction.

Colour Categories in Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmina Jraissati
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Colour Space ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Way

It is agreed that colour categorization is context sensitive, and that context plays a role in why colour categories are the way they are. Yet, the way context is supposed to influence colour categorization is never spelled out in the literature, the focus of which has mostly been to identify mechanisms at play in colour categorization, either perceptual and cognitive or, alternatively, linguistic. This chapter steers away from the wealthy categorization literature, and takes a different starting point by asking the preliminary question of how we categorize colour in our everyday interactions. The answer to this question makes important use of the notion of colour space and subspace. It leads to a unified framework that makes room for context sensitivity, while also accounting for colour categorization.

Skepticism and Objective Contexts: A Critique of DeRose

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-129
Author(s):  
Giovanni Mion
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Truth Value

In this paper I contrast my contextualist account of Cartesian skepticism with Keith DeRose’s account. I agree with DeRose that when the Cartesian skeptic and her opponent meet in the same context, their claims are truth-value-less. But I agree with him on the basis of a different conception of context sensitivity. According to DeRose, the content of context sensitive expressions in general, and of knowledge in particular, is personally indicated. By contrast, I think that the content of context sensitive expressions in general, and of knowledge in particular, is objectively determined by the goals of the conversation and the environment in which the conversation takes place.

scholarly journals Investigating the asymmetry of English sibilant assimilation: Acoustic and EPG data

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Pouplier ◽  
Philip Hoole ◽  
James M. Scobbie
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Word Boundary ◽  
Empirical Content ◽  
Control Sequence ◽  
Phonotactic Probability ◽  
Control Structures ◽  
Fluent Speech ◽  
Acoustic Data ◽  
The Asymmetry

AbstractWe present tongue-palate contact (EPG) and acoustic data on English sibilant assimilation, with a particular focus on the asymmetry arising from the order of the sibilants. It is generally known that /s#ʃ/ sequences may display varying degrees of regressive assimilation in fluent speech, yet for /ʃ#s/ it is widely assumed that no assimilation takes place, although the empirical content of this assumption has rarely been investigated nor a clear theoretical explanation proposed. We systematically compare the two sibilant orders in word-boundary clusters. Our data show that /s#ʃ/ sequences assimilate frequently and this assimilation is strictly regressive. The assimilated sequence may be indistinguishable from a homorganic control sequence by our measures, or it can be characterized by measurement values intermediate to those typical for /ʃ/ or /s/. /ʃ#s/ sequences may also show regressive assimilation, albeit less frequently and to a lesser degree. Assimilated /ʃ#s/ sequences are always distinguishable from /s#s/ sequences. In a few cases, we identify progressive assimilation for /ʃ#s/. We discuss how to account for the differences in degree of assimilation, and we propose that the order asymmetry may arise from the different articulatory control structures employed for the two sibilants in conjunction with phonotactic probability effects.

scholarly journals Making pointer analysis more precise by unleashing the power of selective context sensitivity

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (OOPSLA) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Tian Tan ◽  
Yue Li ◽  
Xiaoxing Ma ◽  
Chang Xu ◽  
Yannis Smaragdakis
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
The State ◽  
Pointer Analysis ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Java Programs ◽  
One Step ◽  
The Difference

Traditional context-sensitive pointer analysis is hard to scale for large and complex Java programs. To address this issue, a series of selective context-sensitivity approaches have been proposed and exhibit promising results. In this work, we move one step further towards producing highly-precise pointer analyses for hard-to-analyze Java programs by presenting the Unity-Relay framework, which takes selective context sensitivity to the next level. Briefly, Unity-Relay is a one-two punch: given a set of different selective context-sensitivity approaches, say S = S1, . . . , Sn, Unity-Relay first provides a mechanism (called Unity)to combine and maximize the precision of all components of S. When Unity fails to scale, Unity-Relay offers a scheme (called Relay) to pass and accumulate the precision from one approach Si in S to the next, Si+1, leading to an analysis that is more precise than all approaches in S. As a proof-of-concept, we instantiate Unity-Relay into a tool called Baton and extensively evaluate it on a set of hard-to-analyze Java programs, using general precision metrics and popular clients. Compared with the state of the art, Baton achieves the best precision for all metrics and clients for all evaluated programs. The difference in precision is often dramatic — up to 71% of alias pairs reported by previously-best algorithms are found to be spurious and eliminated.

Smoking, Implicit Attitudes, and Context-Sensitivity

2015 ◽  
pp. 138-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Glock ◽  
Ineke M. Pit ten-Cate
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Outcome Expectancies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Addictive Behaviors ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
External Cues ◽  
Nicotine Deprivation ◽  
Attitudes Toward Smoking

This chapter focuses on implicit attitudes toward smoking and provides the first systematic review of research in this domain. Implicit attitudes are suggested to guide automatic behavior, thereby playing a pivotal role for automatic processes inherent in addictive behaviors. This chapter further explores the extent to which implicit attitudes are context-sensitive. More specifically, it reviews studies that have focused on the differential effects of external cues such as warning labels and internal cues (e.g., deprivation). Results of 32 studies show that although smokers generally have more positive implicit attitudes than non-smokers, the valence of implicit attitudes varies as a result of the applied method or stimuli. Studies reveal that implicit attitudes toward smoking partly depend on external cues, especially outcome expectancies. Similarly, internal cues affect implicit attitudes whereby the level of nicotine deprivation seems vital. Implications for intervention and future research are indicated in the discussion.

Context and Coherence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Value Theory ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Novel Model ◽  
Linguistic Account ◽  
Do So

Natural languages are riddled with context-sensitivity. One and the same string of words can express indefinitely many different meanings on an occasion of use. And yet we understand one another effortlessly, on the fly. What fixes the meaning of context-sensitive expressions, and how are we able to recover this meaning so quickly and without effort? This book offers a novel response: we can do so because we draw on a broad array of subtle linguistic conventions that fully determine the interpretation of context-sensitive items. Contrary to the dominant tradition, which maintains that the meaning of context-sensitive language is underspecified by grammar, and depends on non-linguistic features of utterance situation, this book argues that meaning is determined entirely by discourse conventions, rules of language that have largely been missed, and the effects of which have been mistaken for extra-linguistic effects of an utterance situation on meaning. The linguistic account of context developed in this book sheds a new light on the nature of linguistic content, and the interaction between content and context. At the same time, it provides a novel model of context that should constrain and help evaluate debates across many sub-fields of philosophy where appeal to context has been common, often leading to surprising conclusions: for example, in epistemology, ethics, value theory, metaphysics, metaethics, and logic, among others.

Slurs, truth-value judgements, and context sensitivity

Human Affairs ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-23
Author(s):  
Roberto B. Sileo
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Sensitivity Tests ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
Truth Value

AbstractCappelen and Lepore (2005) claim that the English language contains a basic and limited set of context-sensitive expressions, as only expressions within this set pass the truth-related tests that they propose to single out context-sensitive from context-insensitive words. In this paper, I argue that racial and ethnic slurs also pass Cappelen and Lepore’s context sensitivity tests and that, as a result, slurs should also be seen as context-sensitive expressions in a truth-related sense.

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