Anticipation, Simultaneity/Consecutivity and Distinctive Features in Phonology

The notion of distinctive features has had a firm position in phonology since the time of the Prague Linguistic Circle and especially that of one of its representatives, Roman Jakobson, whose well-known delimitation of a phoneme as “a bundle of distinctive features” (Jakobson, 1962, p. 421), that is, a set of simultaneous distinctive features, has inspired many scholars. Jakobson’s attempt “to analyse the distribution of distinctive features along two axes: that of simultaneity and that of successiveness” (ibid., p. 435) helped cover several phonetic and/or phonological processes and phenomena. Distinctive features, although theoretical constructs (Giegerich, 1992, p. 89), reflect phonetic, that is, articulatory and acoustic, properties of sounds. In the flow of speech, some features tend to influence the neighbouring phonemes. Sometimes speech organs produce something that the brain just ‘plans’ to produce (anticipatory speech errors). There are situations where it seems as if the successive organization of phonemes went hand in hand with the simultaneous nature of certain articulatory characteristics of those phonemes (the transgression of consonants and inherence of vowels in Romportl’s theory), or the given feature seems to be anticipated by the preceding segment. This is the case with nasalization and/or anticipatory coarticulation, as well as regressive (anticipatory) assimilation. In addition, simultaneity/consecutivity is a decisive criterion for the difference between the so-called complex segments, as specified in Feature Geometry, and simple segments (Duanmu, 2009). Moreover, the phonological opposition of simultaneity- successivity (that is, consecutivity) itself functions as a feature making a difference between segmental and suprasegmental elements in the sound system of a language, as was first mentioned by Harris (1944), later indicated by Jakobson (1962) and then fully developed by Sabol (2007, 2012).

Phonological Processes in Ekegusii Borrowing: A Constraint-based Approach

Phonological processes are at the heart of linguistic borrowing as it has varied phonological systems. It could be seen that the loan words entering the loan language from the source language can hardly be separated from the phonological process because they must be modified to suit the phonology of the loan language. This article analysed the phonological processes realized in Ekegusii borrowing from English using Optimality Theory’s constraint approach. Since this was a phonological study, descriptive linguistic fieldwork was used. The data used in this article was extracted from Mose’s doctoral study, whereby purposive sampling was used to obtain two hundred borrowed segments from the Ekegusii dictionary, then supplemented by introspection. Further, three adult native proficient Ekegusii speakers who were neither too young nor too old and had all their teeth were purposively sampled. The two hundred tokens were then subjected to the sampled speakers through interviews to realize the sound patterns in the Ekegusii borrowing process overtly. The findings revealed that Ekegusii phonological constraints defined the well-formedness of the loanwords by repairing the illicit structures. To fix, various phonological processes were realized. They included: epenthesis, deletion, devoicing/strengthening, voicing/ weakening, re-syllabification, substitution, monophthongization, and lenition. The article concludes that borrowing across languages (related or unrelated) reports similar if not the same phonological processes only that the processes attested in one language are a subset of the universally exhibited phonological processes.

No Stress System Requires Recursive Feet

A recursive foot is one in which a foot is embedded inside another foot of the same type: e.g., iambic (iaσ(iaσσ́)) or trochaic (tr(trσ́σ)σ). Recent work has used such feet to model stress systems with full or partial ternary rhythm, in which stress falls on every third syllable or mora. I show here that no stress system requires recursive feet, that phonological processes in such languages likely don’t either, and that the notion of recursive foot is theoretically suspect.

Ultrasonographic analysis of coronal fricative phonemes

Compare the tongue contour in different groups (children with typical, atypical phonological development and adults) in the production of fricative children, through ultrasound videos. The six participants were divided in three groups: Group DF - two children with phonological processes anteriorization of fricative (/ʃ/→ [s]), (both with seven years), group DT - two children with typical development of language (eight and nine years old) and group AD - two adults, all speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. The videos of the movement of the tongue in the production of target sounds inserted in the words /'sapo/, /'sika/, /'suko/, /'∫ave/, /'∫ike/ and /'∫uva/ were organized and evaluated by three judges speech therapists with experience in this area, guided in VAS. It has been observed that, for two of the judges, there was a significant difference between the words produced by children with DF and CT when compared with the words in contexts and vowel [i] and [u], and the productions of these children /∫/→[s] and /s/→[s], respectively, but not for words accompanied [a]. When comparing the data of children with DF and AD, there was statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) in the context of vowel [u]. The judges have detected articulatory differences between typical and atypical productions for children, as well as differentiation also as to the production of adults.

Phonological Profile of Patients With Velopharyngeal Dysfunction and Palatal Anomalies

Purpose This purpose of this study was to assess the frequency and types of phonological process errors in patients with velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD) and the different types of palatal anomalies. Method A total of 808 nonsyndromic patients with VPD, who underwent follow-up at the Center for Cleft Palate and Craniofacial Anomalies, from 2000 to 2016 were included. Patients were stratified into four age groups and five subphenotypes of palatal anomalies: cleft lip and palate (CLP), cleft palate (CP), submucous cleft palate (SMCP), occult submucous cleft palate (OSMCP), and non-CP. Phonological processes were compared among groups. Results The 808 patients ranged in age from 3 to 29 years, and 439 (54.3%) were male. Overall, 262/808 patients (32.4%) had phonological process errors; 80 (59.7%) ages 3–4 years, 98 (40, 0%) ages 4.1–6 years, 48 (24.7%) 6.1–9 years, and 36 (15.3%) 9.1–29 years. Devoicing was the most prevalent phonological process error, found in 97 patients (12%), followed by cluster reduction in 82 (10.1%), fronting in 66 (8.2%), stopping in 45 (5.6%), final consonant deletion in 43 (5.3%), backing in 30 (3.7%), and syllable deletion and onset deletion in 13 (1.6%) patients. No differences were found in devoicing errors between palatal anomalies, even with increasing age. Phonological processes were found in 61/138 (44.20%) with CP, 46/118 (38.1%) with SMCP, 61/188 (32.4%) with non-CP, 70/268 (26.1%) with OSMCP, and 25/96 (26.2%) with CLP. Phonological process errors were most frequent with CP and least with OSMCP ( p = .001). Conclusions Phonological process errors in nonsyndromic VPD patients remained relatively high in all age groups up to adulthood, regardless of the type of palatal anomaly. Our findings regarding the phonological skills of patients with palatal anomalies can help clarify the etiology of speech and sound disorders in VPD patients, and contribute to general phonetic and phonological studies.

Serial Reduplication Is Empirically Adequate and Typologically Restrictive

Wei and Walker (2020) and Zymet (2018) claim that derivational lookahead effects are attested in the interactions between reduplication and other phonological processes in Mbe and Logoori, respectively. On the basis of this evidence, they argue that reduplication in these languages cannot be modeled by Serial Template Satisfaction (McCarthy, Kimper, and Mullin, 2012), a theory of reduplication set in Harmonic Serialism. This paper refutes these claims, and provides serial analyses for both languages. It further identifies a novel prediction of Base-Reduplicant Correspondence Theory (McCarthy and Prince, 1994, 1995, 1999), a parallel theory of reduplication, that reduplicants may surface with marked structures unattested elsewhere in the language, and demonstrates that these patterns are not replicated in serial.

Lagos' Bus Stop Names and their Pronunciations by Danfo Bus Conductors

Danfo Buses are one of the main means of transportation in Lagos. For commuters to move from one location to another, it is highly essential that they know their bus stops and how the Danfo bus conductors pronounce them. This is because an inability to understand how these bus stops are pronounced will make it difficult for commuters to locate their destination. This paper aims to classify Lagos bus stop names based on their languages and sources of origin and demystify their pronunciation by Danfo bus conductors. Data was gathered through audio recordings of the speeches of the Danfo bus conductors. Data shows that bus stops in Lagos were named using both the local and English languages. Data also reveals that the names of these bus stops were derived from several ancient landmarks, including religious landmarks, commercial activities, agro-related landmarks, ancient edifices, and long-standing handiwork practices around these bus stops either now or in time past. The data further shows that the Danfo bus conductors employ various phonological processes such as vowel deletion, nasal deletion, vowel lengthening, consonant deletion, and word deletion in the pronunciation of bus stop names. The public is urged to take cognisance of these pronunciations in order not to miss their locations.

Phonological Development in Urdu-Speaking Children: A Systematic Review

Background Speech and language researchers study phonological acquisition and evaluate the errors that children make to understand this complex process. This information provides clinicians with a scientific reference for better assessment and intervention services to children with articulation/phonological disorders. Urdu is a language spoken by more than 200 million speakers worldwide. However, research on Urdu phonological development is in its infancy. Purpose This systematic review aimed to identify relevant studies and provide a comprehensive review of which aspects of Urdu phonological development have been targeted, along with the reported findings. Method Five phases of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed. All retrieved studies published between January 1980 and March 2020 and focusing on Urdu speech sound acquisition and/or phonological processes in typically developing native Urdu speakers aged up to 8 years were included in the review. The final search was conducted on May 4, 2020. Results A total of 873 records were identified from five databases and a manual search. Nine studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria were included in the final review. All studies were published in the English language, five of which were unpublished master's theses and four were peer-reviewed journal articles. Four of these studies focused on consonant acquisition, whereas five explored phonological processes. No study focused on the acquisition of Urdu vowels, diphthongs, or consonant clusters. These shortlisted studies were reviewed in detail to determine participants' demographic characteristics, focused areas of phonological acquisition, data elicitation methods and contexts, transcription systems, and major findings. Conclusion This study provides a comprehensive review of the available literature on Urdu phonological development and highlights areas for future research.

Construction of auditory bombardment therapy program: a pilot study

Background Speech sound disorder is a communication disorder in which children have persistent difficulty saying words or sounds correctly. It refers to any difficulty or combination of difficulties with perception, motor production, or phonological representation of speech sounds and speech segments. Aim of the Work to construct an Arabic auditory bombardment therapy program and measure its effectiveness in treatment of functional speech sound disorder. Subjects and Methods This study was applied on 60 participants divided into 2 groups (30 for each group) with age ranging from 3-5 years diagnosed with functional speech sound disorder with or without language disorders, attending at the Phoniatrics outpatient clinic in Ain Shams University Hospitals. The test for identification of phonological processes was applied on 60 patients with speech sound disorder selected to participate in this study. These were divided in to 2 groups (Group (1) received only the conventional therapy while group (2) received auditory bombardment in addition to the conventional therapy for 3 months) and the test was repeated again after therapy. Results Group (2) showed high significant difference (improvement) in consonant assimilation, voicing change, final consonant deletion, palatal fronting, gliding, lateralization and glottal replacement while group (1) showed high significant difference (improvement) in syllable deletion and partial cluster reduction. Conclusion The present study showed that application of auditory bombardment therapy program in addition to conventional therapy has high significant improvement than conventional therapy alone.

PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES AMONG GHANAIAN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN: A CASE STUDY OF NEW ELITE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

The study focused on ascertaining the phonological processes that characterize the speech patterns of some selected preschool children. Data was collected from a sample of ten (10) pupils from ages 1-5 spanning the accepted age range for pupils to be in preschool in Ghana. Productions of the participants on words were recorded and later analyzed to determine the phonological processes present. It was found that the phonological processes that characterized the speech of the sample are syllable structure processes (e.g. cluster reduction); substitutions; and insertions. Further, it was found that age has a role to play in the presence of phonological processes in the speech of an individual. It was found however that some of the pupils were able to correctly articulate sounds when they were repeated to them. The study recommends that this study be extended to other school children in the country as well as teachers and other stakeholders towards ensuring the school-going children learn English pronunciation the right way. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0897/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>