scholarly journals Categoricity, Variation, and Gradience in Sambla Balafon Segmental Encoding

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura McPherson
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Behavior ◽  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Rhythmic Structure ◽  
Inner Voice ◽  
Phonetic Detail

This paper analyzes the musical surrogate encoding of Seenku (Mande, Burkina Faso) syllable structure on the balafon, a resonator xylophone used by the Sambla ethnicity. The elements of syllable structure that are encoded include vowel length, sesquisyllabicity, diphthongs, and nasal codas. Certain elements, like vowel length and sesquisyllabicity, involve categorical encoding through conscious rules of surrogate speech, while others, like diphthongs and nasal codas, vary between being treated as simple or complex. Beyond these categorical encodings, subtler aspects of rhythmic structure find their way into the speech surrogate through durational differences; these include duration differences from phonemic distinctions like vowel length in addition to subphonemic differences due to phrasal position. I argue that these subconscious durational differences arise from a “phonetic filter”, which mediates between the musician’s inner voice and their non-verbal behavior. Specifically, syllables encoded on the balafon may be timed according to the perceptual center (p-center) of natural spoken rhythm, pointing to a degree of phonetic detail in a musician’s inner speech.

scholarly journals Syllable structure and extrametricality

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Gordon ◽  
Carmen Jany ◽  
Carlos Nash ◽  
Nobutaka Takara
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Functional Basis ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
Stress Asymmetry ◽  
As Stress ◽  
Phonetic Study ◽  
Universal Pattern ◽  
Duration Theory

This paper proposes a functional basis for final consonant extrametricality, the asymmetric status of CVC syllables as stress-attracting in non-final position of a word but stress-rejecting in final position. A typological study of phonemic vowel length pattern in 10 languages with this final vs. non-final stress asymmetry and 30 languages in which CVC attracts stress in final position indicates a robust asymmetry between languages differing in their stress system’s treatment of final CVC. Languages that asymmetrically allow stress on non-final but not on final CVC all lack phonemic vowel length contrast in final position, whereas those lacking the stress asymmetry often have contrastive length in final vowels. It is claimed that the absence of phonemic length in languages that do not stress final CVC facilitates the nearly universal pattern of phonetic final lengthening, which threatens to obscure the perception of phonemic length. The enhanced lengthening of final vowels in languages with final phonemic vowel length reduces the duration ratio of CVC relative to CV, thereby reducing CVC’s perceptual prominence and thus its propensity to attract stress in keeping with Lunden’s (2006) proportional duration theory of weight. A phonetic study of two languages differing in the stress-attracting ability of final CVC offers support for the proposed account. Arabic, which displays consonant extrametricality and largely lacks phonemic vowel length in final position, has substantial final vowel lengthening, whereas Kabardian, which stresses final CVC and contrasts vowel length in final position, lacks substantial final lengthening.

Foot and Syllable Structure in Modern Icelandic

1989 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory K. Iverson ◽  
Courtenay A. Kesterson
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Consonant Cluster ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Foot Structure

As is well known, vowel length in Modern Icelandic is in general predictable on the basis of syllable structure such that, in polysyllabic words, stressed vowels in open syllables are long, other vowels are short; in stressed monosyllables, however, vowels are long whether the syllable is open or closed by a single consonant, and short only when the syllable is closed by a consonant cluster. In contrast to the ‘final maximalistic’ strategy of Árnason (1980) and other unlikely syllabification schemes designed to unify these two patterns, we invoke Giegerich's (1985) characterization of foot structure as applied to German and English, according to which stressed monosyllables categorize metrically as disyllabic feet whose rightmost member is null. Thus, CVC structures are metrically /CV.CØ/, with the result that the generalization regarding vowel length in words of all types is simply that stressed vowels in open syllables are long, others short.

Cayuga Accent: A Synchronic Analysis

1997 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-322
Author(s):  
Carrie Dyck
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Vowel Length

AbstractCayuga (Northern Iroquoian) is a pitch accent language displaying different conditions for the accenting and lengthening of even-numbered and odd-numbered penults (counting from left to right). It is shown that Cayuga accent placement is predictable from metrical structure, and that metrical structure is in turn influenced by constraints on syllable structure. Syllable structure constraints are that: 1) all things being equal, coda consonants are parsed as light; and 2) vowel length is dispreferred. In odd-numbered penults, dispreferred syllable structure can be avoided, and this results in accented odd-numbered open penults and unaccented odd-numbered closed penults. In even-numbered penults, dispreferred syllable structure (especially that resulting from lengthening) is required in order to avoid metrically adjacent strong elements, and this results in the accenting of all even-numbered penults. The accenting patterns of Cayuga ultimately derive from the fact that Cayuga is a quantity-sensitive language that disprefers quantity.

Some Anticipatory, Kinesthetic, and Dynamic Aspects of Auditory Imagery

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-172
Author(s):  
Timothy L. Hubbard
Keyword(s):  
Inner Ear ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Auditory Imagery ◽  
Auditory Verbal Hallucinations ◽  
Musical Imagery ◽  
Dynamic Representation ◽  
Inner Voice ◽  
Performance Suggestions ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
And Performance

Timothy Hubbard offers a discussion of recent findings related to auditory imagery. These findings allow Hubbard to focus on how auditory imagery can occur automatically and involuntarily and can be evoked by different activities and/or triggered by memories from previous musical exposure. Hubbard discusses different forms of auditory imagery (e.g., anticipatory musical imagery, earworms, notational audiation, inner speech, in silent reading of text, auditory verbal hallucinations), and he explores differences between the inner ear and the inner voice, possible contributions of subvocalization to auditory imagery, and potential of auditory imagery as a component in musical practice and performance. Suggestions that auditory imagery reflects dynamic representation are considered, and Hubbard speculates that auditory imagery has a more profound role in a wider range of cognitive activities than is commonly assumed.

Formal Variation in the Rhymes of Robert Pinsky’s the Inferno of Dante

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 309-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Rhythmic Structure ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Poetic Practice ◽  
The Way

Rhyme is commonly defined as the repetition of certain final sounds. In English poetic practice, however, even within single poems, the extent of the repetition often varies, sometimes involving more similarity than definitions of the form suggest, and sometimes less, often as a means of creating aesthetic effects. As noted by Zwicky (1976) and more recently developed by Holtman (1996), such variation raises both descriptive and theoretical questions about the form: out of the full range of imaginable variations in rhyme, which are actually used by poets, and why? Here a close study of the variations used by Robert Pinsky in his slant-rhyme translation of Dante’s Infernoidentifies practices which turn out to be shared with other English poets, and to reflect phenomena in English phonology itself. Rhymes may match melodic structure only, reflecting the separation of melodic structure from rhythmic structure which phonological theory has hypothesized. Rhymes may differ in distinctive features – specifically voice in obstruents, place in nasals, and possibly height in vowels – reflecting the way those features are sometimes altered to satisfy constraints of English phonology. Rhymes may differ in one member having an extra final [s/z], reflecting the possibility of such an appendix in English syllable structure (Golston, 1997). These practices support the suggestion by Kiparsky (1973, 1987), building on Jakobson (1960), that the constraints that define poetic forms refer to the same structures that grammars do.

The historical background of the vowel ṣere in some Hebrew verbal and nominal forms

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Khan
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Arabic Orthography ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Classical Arabic

One of the most important sources for our knowledge of the length of vowels in the Tiberian tradition of Biblical Hebrew is a corpus of manuscripts containing transcriptions of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic letters. In most of the manuscripts the Arabic transcription employs the orthography of Classical Arabic to represent the sounds of Hebrew. Since Classical Arabic orthography used matres lectionis systematically to mark long vowels we are able to reconstruct the distribution of long and short vowels in Tiberian Hebrew. The transcriptions show us that the main factors determining vowel length were stress and syllable structure.

scholarly journals The syllable in Kuki-Chin

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-308
Author(s):  
Samson Lotven ◽  
Kelly Berkson ◽  
James C. Wamsley ◽  
Jillian Danaher ◽  
Kenneth Van Bik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Online Version ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Link Type ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
Structure Simplification ◽  
Phonetic Realization

AbstractThe Kuki-Chin group of the Tibeto-Burman language family consists of upwards of 50 languages spoken mainly in western Myanmar, predominantly in Chin State and in neighboring areas of India and Bangladesh (Simons & Fennig (eds.). 2019. Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 21st edn. Dallas Texas: SIL International. Online version. http://www.ethnologue.com/). In the many daughter languages of Proto–Kuki-Chin, syllable structure simplification has yielded a synchronic situation in which individual languages are spread along a cline ranging from more conservative languages, some with complex onsets and vowel length distinctions, to more innovative languages, some with no coda consonants at all. The distribution and phonetic realization of these features vary across the Kuki-Chin group, raising a number of relevant questions about the underlying phonological representations of the Kuki-Chin syllable. This paper surveys representative structures from a variety of Kuki-Chin languages in order to highlight issues in syllable structure across these little-studied languages. In doing so, we aim to both unify observations on Kuki-Chin phonology related to the syllable, and to propose research that will further elucidate its structures.

scholarly journals Syllable weight, vowel length and focus in Lebanese Arabic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niamh Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Short Vowel ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Consonant Cluster ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Short Vowels ◽  
Levantine Arabic ◽  
Lebanese Arabic

Research on a variety of languages has shown that vowel duration is influenced by phonological vowel length as well as syllable structure (e.g., Maddieson, 1997). Further, the phonological concept of a mora has been shown to relate to phonetic measurements of duration (Cohn, 2003; Hubbard, 1993; Port, Dalby, & O'Dell, 1987). In Levantine Arabic, non-final closed syllables that contain a long vowel have been described as partaking in mora-sharing (Broselow, Chen, & Huffman, 1997; Khattab & Al-Tamimi, 2014). The current investigation examines the effect of vowel length and syllable structure on vowel duration, as well as how this interacts with durational effects of prosodic focus. Disyllabic words with initial, stressed syllables that were either open or closed and contained either a long or a short vowel wereexamined when non-focused and in contrastive focus. Contrastive focus was associated with longer words and syllables but not vowels. Short vowels were shorter when in a syllable closed by a singleton but not by a geminate consonant, while long vowels were not shortened before coda singletons. An analysis is proposed whereby long vowels followed by an intervocalic consonant cluster are parsed as open syllables, with the first consonant forming a semisyllable (Kiparsky, 2003), while long vowels followed by geminate consonants partake in mora-sharing (Broselow, Huffman, Chen, & Hsieh, 1995). The results also indicate compensatory shortening for short vowels followed by a singleton coda.

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