Publication of Koryak folklore texts: causes of orthography variability

This work is motivated by graphic and orthographic difficulties in preparing Koryak texts for publication in the “Monuments of Folklore of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East.” Koryak language spelling difficulties are analyzed for the first time, particularly non-trivial cases of ambiguous spelling requiring comprehension and codification. For example, the spelling of equivocal vowel sound [ә] proves a problem. The normative spelling not allowing two conso- nants at the beginning of a word is due to the historical reconstruction of the Koryak phonological system. However, the indefinite vowel [ә] sometimes is reduced so as not to be identified by the modern Koryak speakers, with its designation with the letter ы [ә] causing reading mistakes. Also, the spelling of йи [ji] or йы [jә] is complicated, with the choice between these two variants based on morphologic principle and defined by this syllable position in the word: root morpheme, affix or in between two morphemes. The spelling of soft consonant followed by equivocal sound [ә], designated in writing by ы [ә], remains to be identified. This combination provokes orthographic variability observed in th-ɣe publications in Koryak. Variability appears in spellings of word forms with -гыйӈ [-ɣәjŋ], -ӈыйт [-ŋәjt] and in spellings of double consonants between two morphemes. The orthographic variability in Koryak publications is due to the conflict in phonemic and morphologic principles relevant for Koryak spelling. Moreover, given the dominant bilingualism, Koryak writing is strongly influenced by the Russian spelling, making the possibility of developing a national writing culture questionable.

Phoneme and Stress Programming Interact During Nonword Repetition Learning

Purpose Lexical stress and phoneme processes converge during phonological encoding, but the nature of the convergence has been debated. Stress patterns and phonemes may be integrated automatically and rigidly, resulting in a unified representation. Alternatively, stress and phoneme may be processed interactively based on sublexical contexts. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent to which the lexical stress and phoneme processing interact in a novel nonword learning paradigm. Method Twenty-seven adults with typical speech skills were trained to produce nonwords with specific phonemes, syllables, and stress patterns (Set 1) to an accuracy criterion. Then, participants repeated nonwords that varied from Set 1 in syllable position (Set 2), phoneme sequence (Set 3), included new phonemes (Set 4), or had new phonemes and stress patterns (Set 5). Nonword productions were perceptually analyzed, and phoneme and stress errors were counted. Results Participants' produced Set 1 nonwords with few phonemic or stress errors after training; a similar number of both types of errors were produced when comparing Sets 2 and 3. Greater phoneme and stress errors were produced on nonwords from Sets 4 and 5 compared to Sets 1–3. The highest number of phonemic errors occurred in Set 4 nonwords. There was no difference in the number of stress errors produced on nonwords in Sets 4 and 5. Conclusion The results of this study suggested that lexical stress and phoneme processing co-occurred and interacted during nonword productions. Trained stress patterns were learned during training; however, no evidence for a unified representation was observed. Negative interference was observed in nonwords with new phonemes and trained stress patterns, suggesting online phoneme processing may have dominated and interfered with the retrieval of stored metrical frames.

Syllable duration changes during babbling: a longitudinal study of French infant productions

At the babbling stage, the syllable does not have the temporal characteristics of adult syllables because of the infant's limited oro-motor skills. This research aims to further our knowledge of syllable duration and temporal variability and their evolution with age as an indicator of the development of articulatory skills. The possible impact of syllable position, as well as that of type of intrasyllabic associations and intersyllabic articulatory changes on these parameters has also been tested. Oral productions of 22 French infants were recorded monthly from 8 to 14 months. 11 261 Consonant-Vowel (CV) syllables were annotated and temporally analyzed. The mean duration varied according to syllable position, but not to the intrasyllabic or intersyllabic articulatory changes. Moreover, the syllable duration decreased significantly from the age of 10 months onwards, whereas the temporal variability remained the same.

Kalasha affricates: An acoustic analysis of place contrasts

Kalasha (Northwestern Indo-Aryan, spoken in Pakistan) exhibits a complex set of ten affricate phonemes, which is exceedingly rare among the world’s languages and not representative of the broader South Asian context. This paper presents results of an acoustic analysis of place contrasts (dental, retroflex, and alveolopalatal) in affricates of four laryngeal specifications (voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, non-breathy voiced, and breathy voiced). These consonants were produced by four male speakers of Kalasha in a variety of phonetic contexts, resulting in a sample of close to 700 affricate tokens. A series of acoustic analyses of the data revealed that place contrasts in Kalasha affricates are distinguished robustly by both burst/frication spectra and formant transitions, but not by duration, which correlates more with laryngeal features. Place distinctions are somewhat diminished for voiced affricates but are largely unaffected by aspiration and syllable position. Most of these results are consistent with what is known about comparable (yet laryngeally simpler) place contrasts in other languages outside of South Asia. However, some of them are unique and may reflect the typological uniqueness and complexity of Kalasha’s affricate system.

Perceptual Characteristics of Consonant Production in Apraxia of Speech and Aphasia

Purpose This retrospective analysis examined group differences in error rate across 4 contextual variables (clusters vs. singletons, syllable position, number of syllables, and articulatory phonetic features) in adults with apraxia of speech (AOS) and adults with aphasia only. Group differences in the distribution of error type across contextual variables were also examined. Method Ten individuals with acquired AOS and aphasia and 11 individuals with aphasia participated in this study. In the context of a 2-group experimental design, the influence of 4 contextual variables on error rate and error type distribution was examined via repetition of 29 multisyllabic words. Error rates were analyzed using Bayesian methods, whereas distribution of error type was examined via descriptive statistics. Results There were 4 findings of robust differences between the 2 groups. These differences were found for syllable position, number of syllables, manner of articulation, and voicing. Group differences were less robust for clusters versus singletons and place of articulation. Results of error type distribution show a high proportion of distortion and substitution errors in speakers with AOS and a high proportion of substitution and omission errors in speakers with aphasia. Conclusion Findings add to the continued effort to improve the understanding and assessment of AOS and aphasia. Several contextual variables more consistently influenced breakdown in participants with AOS compared to participants with aphasia and should be considered during the diagnostic process. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.9701690

Representation of letter and syllable position in Korean orthographic processing

Research suggests that readers of Korean Hangul are characterised by precise orthographic coding. In contrast to findings from many Indo-European languages, the recognition of Hangul words is not speeded by prior masked presentation of transposed-letter or transposed-syllable primes relative to substitution primes. The present studies asked whether evidence for precise orthographic coding is also observed in the same-different task – a task claimed to reflect pre-lexical orthographic representations. Experiments tested whether masked transposed-syllable (Experiment 1) or transposed-letter (Experiment 2) primes facilitate judgments about whether a target matches a reference stimulus. In contrast to previous results using lexical decision, robust transposition effects were observed in both cases compared to substitution primes. These findings add weight to the proposition that position invariance is a universal characteristic of orthographic representation, although results also raise questions about how the orthographic processing stream should be characterised.