scholarly journals Geminate Acquisition and Representation by Ammani Arabic-Speaking Children

This study investigates the acquisition and representation of geminate plosives and geminate liquids in the speech of Ammani Arabic (AA) children aged from 2;6 (year; month) to 5 years, at six months intervals. Although gemination is perceived properly by AA children at an early stage, in which they produce words including geminates significantly longer than words with singletons, the acoustic measurements indicate that the children’s phonetic/acoustic representations start to be noticeable (in comparison with adults) at the age-stage of 3;7-4, and much closer to that of the adults by the age-stage 4;7-5. In terms of phonological representation, it is found that gemination is implemented as a main strategy by AA children for word-medial clusters at syllable boundaries. Interestingly, if the medial cluster is not pronounced faithfully, it will be pronounced as a geminate consonant where the second member of the cluster compensates for the deleted consonant to rescue the moraic weight and the segmental length that would be achieved by producing the target of two distinct consonantal gestures. This strategy offers an intriguing piece of evidence for the two-root node composite modal which combines moraic representation of geminates (by preserving weight to the syllable) and prosodic representation (by preserving segmental length to the geminate consonant).

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 152
Author(s):  
Fawaz Ali Ahmed Qasem

Making spelling errors is one of the common issues faced by learners in any language as Second Language (SL) at the early stage of learning. This study investigated the spelling errors in the writings of undergraduate B.A. English students, University of Bisha, Al-Namas, Saudi Arabia. The study explored the spelling errors’ phenomenon with relation to the phonological syllable structure of words where the spelling errors were classified into three categories of words, (1) mono-syllabic, (2) di-syllabic, and (3) tri-syllabic and complex syllabic words. The researcher analyzed the spelling errors with relation to the sounds/phonemes positions in each syllable, (a) onset position, (b) nucleus position, and (c) coda position spelling errors. The results showed that Arabic-speaking learners made more spelling errors in tri-syllabic and complex syllabic words compared to the spelling errors in mono-syllabic words. The results explored that learners made more spelling errors in the nucleus position with 54.85% and fewer errors in the coda position 36.40%. Interestingly learners made a small number of errors than the other groups with 8.75% in the onset position. This suggested that English vowels, being in the nucleus position, are a more problematic position for Arab learners than consonants. The omission and the substitution spelling errors were more frequent and high compared to other categories. The study explored that the spelling errors are attributed to the different orthographical and morpho-phonological systems of L1 and L2 including the letter-to-sound correspondence and sound-to-letter correspondence, homophones, silent letters. The study concluded with some solutions to help learners avoid the spelling errors such as the importance of the phonological awareness of ESL.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 180-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen van de Weijer ◽  
Marjoleine Sloos

In this paper we discuss the four tones of Standard (Beijing) Mandarin Chinese. First, we will suggest a proposal for their phonological representation. Then, we discuss the order in which they are acquired in first language acquisition, relating this both to the representations we propose and to the relative frequency with which these tones appear in the most frequently used Chinese words. It turns out that the former predicts the order of acquisition more closely than the latter: We provide an explanation for this based on the early stage at which the tones are acquired.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (35) ◽  
pp. 298-305
Author(s):  
Alaa Majed Alkhlouf ◽  
Najihah Abd Wahid ◽  
Mustafa Kazakzeh ◽  
Anas Mohd Yunus

The study plans to analyze diagnoses and treatments to language disorders among Arabic-speaking children. The paper regards language disorder as a major problem facing under-aged children in many Arab societies. Since human communication is incomplete without language, there is a need to identify the treatment and diagnosis of language disorder on Arab pre-school children residing in Terengganu, Malaysia. As such, the study examines language disorder among Arabic-speaking minors during early-stage development and explores its influences in Arab-communities. The study highlights methods of healing under-aged children that fall under this category. A total of 50 participants aged between 3-5 years were used for the sampling method. Standardized assessment tools were purposefully applied to differentiate articulation from language disorder, and fluency and speech turmoil were recognized. The result indicates that language disorder is uncontrollable for minors, most especially, in the absence of counseling services. Hence, the current study complements the previous studies on language disorder by highlighting diagnosis, treatments, and services available for victims of language disorder.


Author(s):  
L. Vacca-Galloway ◽  
Y.Q. Zhang ◽  
P. Bose ◽  
S.H. Zhang

The Wobbler mouse (wr) has been studied as a model for inherited human motoneuron diseases (MNDs). Using behavioral tests for forelimb power, walking, climbing, and the “clasp-like reflex” response, the progress of the MND can be categorized into early (Stage 1, age 21 days) and late (Stage 4, age 3 months) stages. Age-and sex-matched normal phenotype littermates (NFR/wr) were used as controls (Stage 0), as well as mice from two related wild-type mouse strains: NFR/N and a C57BI/6N. Using behavioral tests, we also detected pre-symptomatic Wobblers at postnatal ages 7 and 14 days. The mice were anesthetized and perfusion-fixed for immunocytochemical (ICC) of CGRP and ChAT in the spinal cord (C3 to C5).Using computerized morphomety (Vidas, Zeiss), the numbers of IR-CGRP labelled motoneurons were significantly lower in 14 day old Wobbler specimens compared with the controls (Fig. 1). The same trend was observed at 21 days (Stage 1) and 3 months (Stage 4). The IR-CGRP-containing motoneurons in the Wobbler specimens declined progressively with age.


Author(s):  
W. O. Saxton

Recent commercial microscopes with internal microprocessor control of all major functions have already demonstrated some of the benefits anticipated from such systems, such as continuous magnification, rotation-free diffraction and magnification, automatic recording of mutually registered focal series, and fewer control knobs. Complete automation of the focusing, stigmating and alignment of a high resolution microscope, allowing focal series to be recorded at preselected focus values as well, is still imminent rather than accomplished, however; some kind of image pick-up and analysis system, fed with the electron image via a TV camera, is clearly essential for this, but several alternative systems and algorithms are still being explored. This paper reviews the options critically in turn, and stresses the need to consider alignment and focusing at an early stage, and not merely as an optional extension to a basic proposal.


Author(s):  
C. S. Lin ◽  
W. A. Chiou ◽  
M. Meshii

The galvannealed steel sheets have received ever increased attention because of their excellent post-painting corrosion resistance and good weldability. However, its powdering and flaking tendency during press forming processes strongly impairs its performance. In order to optimize the properties of galvanneal coatings, it is critical to control the reaction rate between solid iron and molten zinc.In commercial galvannealing line, aluminum is added to zinc bath to retard the diffusion rate between iron and zinc by the formation of a thin layer of Al intermetallic compound on the surface of steel at initial hot-dip galvanizing. However, the form of this compound and its transformation are still speculated. In this paper, we report the direct observations of this compound and its transformation.The specimens were prepared in a hot-dip simulator in which the steel was galvanized in the zinc bath containing 0.14 wt% of Al at a temperature of 480 °C for 5 seconds and was quenched by liquid nitrogen.


Author(s):  
C. Vannuffel ◽  
C. Schiller ◽  
J. P. Chevalier

Recently, interest has focused on the epitaxy of GaAs on Si as a promising material for electronic applications, potentially for integration of optoelectronic devices on silicon wafers. The essential problem concerns the 4% misfit between the two materials, and this must be accommodated by a network of interfacial dislocations with the lowest number of threading dislocations. It is thus important to understand the detailed mechanism of the formation of this network, in order to eventually reduce the dislocation density at the top of the layers.MOVPE growth is carried out on slightly misoriented, (3.5°) from (001) towards , Si substrates. Here we report on the effect of this misorientation on the interfacial defects, at a very early stage of growth. Only the first stage, of the well-known two step growth process, is thus considered. Previously, we showed that full substrate coverage occured for GaAs thicknesses of 5 nm in contrast to MBE growth, where substantially greater thicknesses are required.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 3700-3713
Author(s):  
Saleh Shaalan

Purpose This study examined the performance of Gulf Arabic–speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) on a Gulf Arabic nonword repetition (GA-NWR) test and compared it to their age- and language-matched groups. We also investigated the role of syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity in light of NWR theories. Method A new GA-NWR test was conducted with three groups of Gulf Arabic–speaking children: school-age children with DLD, language-matched controls (LCs), and age-matched controls (ACs). The test consisted of two- and three-syllable words that either had no clusters, medial clusters, final clusters, or medial + final clusters. Results The GA-NWR distinguished between the performance of children with DLD and the LC and AC groups. Results showed significant syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity effects. Differences between the DLD and typically developing groups were seen in two- and three-syllable nonwords; however, when compared on nonwords with no clusters, children with DLD were not significantly different from the LC group. Conclusions The GA-NWR test differentiated between children with DLD and their ACs and LCs. Findings, therefore, support its clinical utility in this variety of Arabic. Results showed that phonological processing factors, such as phonological complexity, may have stronger effects when compared to syllable length effects. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12996812


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 3991-3999
Author(s):  
Benjamin van der Woerd ◽  
Min Wu ◽  
Vijay Parsa ◽  
Philip C. Doyle ◽  
Kevin Fung

Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the fidelity and accuracy of a smartphone microphone and recording environment on acoustic measurements of voice. Method A prospective cohort proof-of-concept study. Two sets of prerecorded samples (a) sustained vowels (/a/) and (b) Rainbow Passage sentence were played for recording via the internal iPhone microphone and the Blue Yeti USB microphone in two recording environments: a sound-treated booth and quiet office setting. Recordings were presented using a calibrated mannequin speaker with a fixed signal intensity (69 dBA), at a fixed distance (15 in.). Each set of recordings (iPhone—audio booth, Blue Yeti—audio booth, iPhone—office, and Blue Yeti—office), was time-windowed to ensure the same signal was evaluated for each condition. Acoustic measures of voice including fundamental frequency ( f o ), jitter, shimmer, harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR), and cepstral peak prominence (CPP), were generated using a widely used analysis program (Praat Version 6.0.50). The data gathered were compared using a repeated measures analysis of variance. Two separate data sets were used. The set of vowel samples included both pathologic ( n = 10) and normal ( n = 10), male ( n = 5) and female ( n = 15) speakers. The set of sentence stimuli ranged in perceived voice quality from normal to severely disordered with an equal number of male ( n = 12) and female ( n = 12) speakers evaluated. Results The vowel analyses indicated that the jitter, shimmer, HNR, and CPP were significantly different based on microphone choice and shimmer, HNR, and CPP were significantly different based on the recording environment. Analysis of sentences revealed a statistically significant impact of recording environment and microphone type on HNR and CPP. While statistically significant, the differences across the experimental conditions for a subset of the acoustic measures (viz., jitter and CPP) have shown differences that fell within their respective normative ranges. Conclusions Both microphone and recording setting resulted in significant differences across several acoustic measurements. However, a subset of the acoustic measures that were statistically significant across the recording conditions showed small overall differences that are unlikely to have clinical significance in interpretation. For these acoustic measures, the present data suggest that, although a sound-treated setting is ideal for voice sample collection, a smartphone microphone can capture acceptable recordings for acoustic signal analysis.


2006 ◽  
Vol 175 (4S) ◽  
pp. 514-514
Author(s):  
David G. McLeod ◽  
Oliver Sartor ◽  
Paul F. Schellhammer ◽  
Anthony V. D'Amico ◽  
Susan Halabi ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document