scholarly journals A/an and the: allomorphy or phonology?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Pak
Keyword(s):  
Definite Article ◽  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Reduction Rule ◽  
Internal Process ◽  
Phonological Treatment

English <em>a/an</em> presents a well-known paradox: it is restricted to a single morpheme, which suggests that it is a morphological phenomenon, yet it depends crucially on information about the <em>following</em> word, and thus cannot be characterized as a strictly word-internal process. Here I look at <em>a/an </em>alongside a strikingly similar but far less studied alternation: English definite article th/i/ vs. th/ə/. I argue that despite initial appearances, neither <em>a/an</em> nor <em>thi/t</em><em>hə</em> is determined by syllable well-formedness constraints. I show parallels between the two cases that can be explained under a phonological treatment featuring a vowel-reduction rule, which applies to both <em>thi</em> and the ‘strong’ <em>a/an</em> form /ej/.

Segment–zero alternations in Galician definite article allomorphy

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Shanti Ulfsbjorninn
Keyword(s):  
Specific Pattern ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Theoretical Discussion

AbstractGalician presents an intriguing case of opaque phonologically-conditioned definite article allomorphy (PCA). Though Galician features in the general literature on PCA (Nevins 2011), there is a surprising lack of synchronic theoretical discussion of this specific pattern. The data appears to require allomorph selection arranged in a system of Priority (Mascaró 2005; Bonet et al. 2003; 2007). The pattern involves opaque segment ‘deletion’ and resyllabification, where segment deletion counterbleeds allomorph insertion along with morphologically-specific segmental changes. A Strict CV representational reanalysis is proposed in which there is no true allomorphy (no selection between competing underlying morphemes). All the forms are generated from a single underlying form, thereby undercutting PRIORITY.

Zum Augment neuägyptischer Verbalformen

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 139-164
Author(s):  
Carsten Peust
Keyword(s):  
Initial Position ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Verb Forms

“On the Augment of Late Egyptian Verb Forms” -- It is shown that the augment which is characteristic of certain nominal verb forms of Late Egyptian – and survives in a few traces up until Coptic – contains none of those vowels that were regularly admitted at the beginning of Egyptian words. Rather, it must continue a wordinternal vowel /ǝ/ that moved into the initial position by a misdivision of the proclitic definite article, which frequently preceded participles and relative forms in speech. The same vowel [ǝ] occurred as an epenthetic sound before the preposition ‹r› /r/ ~ [ǝr], from which only ǝ remained after its consonantal body got lost. These phonetic insights prove that the Late Egyptian augment cannot derive from the Old Egyptian augment, as has been contended, but is a genuine innovation of Late Egyptian. Finally, the rise of unetymological initial vowels in various other nouns such as ⲉϭⲱϣ (“Nubian”) and ⲉϩⲟⲟⲩ (Bohairic for “day”) is explained.

Prosodic Factors Influencing Vowel Reduction in Russian

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniil Kocharov ◽  
Tatiana Kachkovskaia ◽  
Pavel Skrelin
Keyword(s):  
Vowel Reduction ◽  
Factors Influencing

scholarly journals The Processing of Spanish Article–Noun Gender Agreement by Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092097705
Author(s):  
Monika Molnar ◽  
José Alemán Bañón ◽  
Simona Mancini ◽  
Sendy Caffarra
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Gender Agreement

We assessed monolingual Spanish and bilingual Spanish-Basque toddlers’ sensitivity to gender agreement in correct vs. incorrect Spanish noun phrases (definite article + noun), using a spontaneous preference listening paradigm. Monolingual Spanish-learning toddlers exhibited a tendency to listen longer to the grammatically correct phrases (e.g., la casa; “the house”), as opposed to the incorrect ones (e.g., * el casa). This listening preference toward correct phrases is in line with earlier results obtained from French monolingual 18-month-olds (van Heugten & Christophe, 2015). Bilingual toddlers in the current study, however, tended to listen longer to the incorrect phrases. Basque was not a source of interference in the bilingual toddler’s input as Basque does not instantiate grammatical gender agreement. Overall, our results suggest that both monolingual and bilingual toddlers can distinguish between the correct and incorrect phrases by 18 months of age; however, monolinguals and bilinguals allocate their attention differently when processing grammatically incorrect forms.

scholarly journals Possessives, from Franco-Provençal and Occitan Systems to Contact Dialects in Apulia and Calabria

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Benedetta Baldi ◽  
Leonardo Maria Savoia
Keyword(s):  
Language Variation ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Test Bed ◽  
North West ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
Complex Knowledge ◽  
Italian Dialects ◽  
Transfer Mechanisms

This article investigates the contact-induced reorganization of the possessive system in the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken from around the 12th century in the villages of Celle and Faeto in North Apulia and Guardia Piemontese in North-West Calabria. Gallo-Romance possessives exclude the article in the prenominal position, whereas in the Southern Italian dialects, possessives follow the noun preceded by the definite article. This original contrast is no longer visible in the varieties of Celle, Faeto and Guardia which changed the original prenominal position to the postnominal position combining with the article, except with kinship terms, preserving the original prenominal position. At the heart of contact phenomena, there are bilingualism and transfer mechanisms between the languages included in the complex knowledge of the speaker, suggesting a test bed for the treatment of language variation and parameterization. We propose an account of morpho-syntactic and interpretive properties of possessives, making use of the insights from the comparison of contact systems with prenominal (Franco-Provençal and Occitan varieties) and postnominal (Southern Italian dialects) possessives. The final part examines the distribution of possessives, tracing it back to the definiteness properties of DP and proposes a phasal treatment based on syntactic and interpretive constraints.

scholarly journals Neural changes after phonological treatment for anomia: An fMRI study

2010 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 164-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Rochon ◽  
Carol Leonard ◽  
Hana Burianova ◽  
Laura Laird ◽  
Peter Soros ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fmri Study ◽  
Phonological Treatment
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