Syllable Structure of Totok Chingkho

This research presents a phonological description of Totok Chingkho. The aim is to construct a phonemic and vocalic inventory of the language, as well as look into the syllable structure. The main objective of this research is to provide a phonological basis for further research in this language. Field methodology was used during data collection for this project. A word list of approximately 413 words was constructed and translated to Totok Chingkho by a native speaker. The translated words were transcribed using the IPA system, and were analyzed manually. The phonemic and vocalic inventory were created from minimal pairs extracted from the word-list. To determine the syllable structure, words were divided according to the number of syllables and their onset-nucleus, nucleus-coda relationship was investigated. There is a possibility for further research in phonological system as well as suprasegmental phonology of Totok Chingkho. Certain anomalies were observed, such as, the presence of labial stops and nasal sounds but absence of a labial fricative sound. Similarly, diphthongs were observed but not all could be confirmed. The data for onset-nucleus-coda relationship was found to be irregular which needs more explanation. This study provides requisite groundwork for further research in various facets of Totok Chingkho.

Habilidades fonológicas suprasegmentales y desarrollo lector en niños de educación primaria

Recent literature research has shown the influence of suprasegmental phonology (the awareness of prosodic features such as stress, timing, and intonation) on literacy acquisition. However, the majority of these studies have been carried out in English. Moreover, the lexical level has been the most explored component. The current study analyzes the relationship between suprasegmental phonology skills and reading development in 92 Spanish primary-school children of 5thgrade. Vocabulary, phonological awareness, suprasegmental skills (lexical- and metrical-stress sensitivity, and non-linguistic rhythm) along with reading aloud and reading comprehension were assessed. Results suggest that suprasegmental phonology predicts a significative amount of variance in reading once phonological awareness and vocabulary were controlled. Furthermore, the components of suprasegmental skills (lexical- and metrical-stress sensitivity, and non-linguistic rhythm) have different relationships with reading skills.

Phonology

Phonology is the study of systematic patterning in the distribution and realization of speech sounds within and across language varieties. Arabic phonology features heavily in the work of the Arab grammarians, most notably in the Kitaab of Sibawayh. Sibawayh provides phonetic descriptions of the articulation of individual speech sounds, which are accompanied by an analysis of the patterning of sounds in Arabic, which is indisputably phonological in nature. This article sets out five important strands of phonological research on Arabic, taking in work on the language-particular phonological properties of Arabic as well as research that exploits fine-grained variation among spoken varieties of Arabic for theoretical gain. The discussion is structured to move from segmental phonology (the properties of individual speech sounds) to suprasegmental phonology (the properties of larger domains such as the syllable, word, or phrase).

On English sentence stress and the nature of metrical structure

This essay is concerned with a section of the suprasegmental phonology of English that has traditionally been called ‘sentence stress’: a domain that goes beyond the simple word and its accent, covering prominence relations within lexical compounds and syntactic phrases. Some almost commonplace assumptions are usually made about sentence stress in the phonological literature of English: first, that the distinction between compound stress and phrasal stress leads to a phonological contrast, so that in a compound noun like black board the left-hand constituent is the stronger one whereas in a phrase, black board for example, the right-hand one is. Second, that this prominence differentiation consists of a further contouring of the main stresses of the simple words involved so that word stress serves as input for sentence stress differentiation, as in Gérman tèacher vs.Gèrman téacher. Also frequently observed is a class of exceptions to this second assumption: the thìrteen mén cases, where the primary stress of a word in isolation, thirtéen, gets shifted in certain contexts for rhythmic reasons.