Phonology

This paper presents a comprehensive phonetic and phonological description of Northern Sangtam, an essentially undescribed Tibeto-Burman language of central Nagaland belonging to the Aoic subgroup. It is a noteworthy language from a number of phonological perspectives, not least because its phoneme inventory contains two of the world's rarest phonemes: a pre-stopped bilabial trill, and a doubly-articulated labial-coronal nasal. These unique segments are described in detail, and an attempt is made to determine how they might have developed their phonemic status. The tone system is also of interest, as it demonstrates evidence of debuccalization resulting in the development of a new high tone. Following a systematic description of the syllable and word structure, the tone system, and the segmental phonology, some observed age-related differences in the phoneme inventory are discussed. The paper is linked to an online repository containing the audiovisual data and transcribed word lists of approximately 900 items, based on the recorded utterances of eight speakers.

This article proposes a new formal reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) nouns containing the suffix *–oi–. I argue that both primary and non-primary derivatives in this class had stress alternating between the derivational suffix and the following inflectional ending (e.g., ACC.SG *[-óy-ṃ] vs. GEN *[-y-ós]) rather than the "amphikinetic" alternation between root and inflectional ending (ACC.SG *[´-oy-ṃ] vs. GEN *[-y-ós]) that is traditionally assumed for all primary nominals with suffixal *[o]-vocalism under the widely accepted “Erlangen Model” (Schindler 1975a,b, Rix 1992) of Indo-European morphophonology. Support for this alternative reconstruction comes from Hittite, which confirms that the suffixal stress seen in the Greek reflex of this noun class was inherited from PIE rather than root stress as in Vedic Sanskrit. More broadly, I contend that an adequate account of the prosodic behavior of PIE *–oi-stems requires (i) abandoning the traditional connection between suffixal *[o]-grade and "amphikinetic" word stress; and (ii) adopting a framework (such as the one articulated by Kiparsky 2010) in which the suffix's capacity to attract stress in both primary and non-primary derivation can be modeled in a unified way.

Natural Language Processing is a programmed approach to analyze text that is based on both a set of theories and a set of technologies. This forum aims to bring together researchers who have designed and build software that will analyze, understand, and generate languages that humans use naturally to address computers.

Two studies were conducted to investigate the correlates of hyperlexia in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children with the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Study 1 involved 3 groups of school age children individually matched for word reading ability: 6 ASD hyperlexic children, 6 ASD non-hyperlexic children, and 6 typically developing children. Study 2 involved 2 ASD preschool hyperlexic boys, and a group of 21 typical children of similar word reading ability. In both studies, participants were administered several reading measures as well as measures of cognitive and linguistic abilities that have been associated with variations in typical and dyslexic reading, namely, vocabulary, phonological processes, and rapid naming. Results suggest that ASD hyperlexic reading differs from both typical and ASD non-hyperlexic reading. In particular, they suggest that hyperlexics learn to compute letter-sound relations implicitly, on the basis of statistical learning. Although the hyp...

In this study, it was postulated that typically developing (i.e., normally developing without incidence of a speech or language delay or disorder) Spanish/Englishspeaking children ages 4 to 5 years old would show different articulation productions and phonological patterns in both languages. Sixteen participants from Florida were tested with Spanish and English articulation and phonology tests. For articulation, two manner or

Time Limit: 1 second In the Marvelous Mountain, there are N attractions. Each attraction is labeled from 1 to N. There are M one-way cable car lines to connect pairs of attractions. The length of a cable car line is a positive integer. As we want most visitors to travel from the attraction S to the attraction T, we should consider possible plans to reduce the length of the shortest path to travel from S to T. We have a list of proposals with K new two-way cable car lines that can be built. Your task is to select one of the K proposed cable car lines to build so that, upon finishing this new cable car line, the length of the shortest path from S to T is minimized. Input The first line contains five integer numbers: N, M, K, S, and T (N ≤ 10 5 , M ≤ 2 × 10 5 , K < 10 5 , 1 ≤ S, T ≤ N, and S ≠ T). The i th line of the following M lines contains 3 positive integer numbers: ai, bi, and li, denoting that the i th cable car line is from the attraction ai to the attraction bi, and has the length of li (li ≤ 10 9). The j th line of the following K lines contains 3 positive integer numbers: uj, vj, qj, denoting that the new possible two-way cable car line can be built from uj to vj (and vice versa), with the length for each way of qj (qj ≤ 10 9). Output Display an integer number that is the minimum length of the shortest path to go from S to T, after building a new two-way cable car line. Print-1 if there is no way to go from S to T, even with any new cable car line in the proposal list.

This paper examines opaque examples of phrase-level phonology taken from Chilean Spanish under the framework of Stratal Optimality Theory (OT) (Rubach 1997; Bermúdez-Otero 2003, 2019) and Harmonic Serialism (HS) (McCarthy 2008a, b, 2016). The data show an interesting double repair of the coda /s/ taking place at word edges. It is argued that Stratal OT is superior in modelling phonological processes that take place at the interface between morphology and phonology because it embraces cyclicity. Under this model, prosodic structure is built serially, level by level, and in accordance with the morphological structure of the input string. In this way, opacity at constituent edges can be solved. Stratal OT also provides insight into word-internal morphological structure and the domain-specificity of phonological processes. It is demonstrated that a distinction in this model is necessary between the word and the phrase levels, and between the stem and the word levels. As illustrated by the behaviour of Spanish nouns, affixation and the resultant alternations inform us about the domains to which both morphological and phonological processes should be assigned. Against this background, Harmonic Serialism embraces an apparently simpler recursive mechanism in which stepwise prosodic parsing can be incorporated. What is more, it offers insight into the nature of operations in OT, as well as into such problematic issues as structure building and directionality. Nevertheless, despite the model's ability to solve various cases of opacity, the need to distinguish between two competing repairs makes HS fail when confronted with the Chilean data under examination.

Advanced tongue root (ATR) harmony is “[o]ne of the best-known and most-discussed features
of African phonology”, while such systems of vowel harmony have been claimed to be
“apparently unknown elsewhere in the world” (Clements & Rialland 2008: 50, 49). In this talk, I
will propose on the basis of first-hand data that the Papuan language Idi (Pahoturi River family)
as spoken in Sibidiri, Trans-Fly region (cf. Evans 2012) has ATR harmony, not unlike the
systems found in Africa (see e.g. Archangeli & Pulleybank 2002 on the Bantu language
Kinande). In my presentation, I provide an overview of the basic system and discuss exceptions and systematic cases of disharmony, making reference to African languages exhibiting similar systems for comparison (e.g. Kinande, cf. Archangeli & Pulleyblank 2002), and to systems of vowel harmony found in Northern Australia, e.g. in Jingulu (Pensalfini 2002).

The pitch-accent system in Northern Bizkaian Basque (NBB) is characterized for making
a pitch distinction between lexical accented/unaccented words (i.e. singular vs. plural
contrast) and for lacking a durational correlate of accentual prominence. The present
study examines whether such system is maintained in Gernika Basque, a variety of NBB.
Results show that younger speakers (ages 18-45) from Spanish speaking households are
more likely to show no pitch differences to convey a singular/plural contrast if they also
belong to Spanish-speaking social networks. Although duration correlates were found
among some speakers, its use was not directly related to the loss of contrast in pitch.

Dans ce cours nous allons recueillir et organiser des données d’une langue peu décrite (probablement une langue autochtone) et nous allons utiliser ces données pour préparer des résumés descriptifs de la langue, formuler et tester des hypothèses concernant des phénomènes particuliers dans cette langue, et finalement développer des analyses de ces phénomènes.

Ce cours va inclure la discussion des données, l’élicitation en classe auprès d’un locuteur natif de la langue ciblée, ainsi que les rencontres en petits groupes avec ce locuteur, hors de la salle de classe. Nous allons aussi enregistrer et transcrire une histoire pour obtenir un échantillon du discours connecté. Cette histoire devrait aussi nous présenter plusieurs énigmes grammaticales que nous allons examiner plus profondément dans les séances d’élicitation.

The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the concurrent validity of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) with the Com- prehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), and (b) explore the diag- nostic accuracy of the DIBELS in predicting CTOPP performance using suggested and alternative cut-scores. Eighty-six students were administered the DIBELS and the CTOPP in

This article investigates prototypically attributive versus predicative adjectives in English in terms of the phonological properties that have been associated especially with nouns versus verbs in a substantial body of psycholinguistic research (e.g. Kelly 1992) – often ignored in theoretical linguistic work on word classes. Inspired by Berg&#39;s (2000, 2009) ‘cross-level harmony constraint’, the hypothesis I test is that prototypically attributive adjectives not only align more with nouns than with verbs syntactically, semantically and pragmatically, but also phonologically – and likewise for prototypically predicative adjectives and verbs. I analyse the phonological structure of frequent adjectives from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and show that the data do indeed support the hypothesis. Berg&#39;s ‘cross-level harmony constraint’ may thus apply not only to the entire word classes noun, verb and adjective, but also to these two adjectival subclasses. I dis...

Ponència convidada a les III Jornades GrOC. L'ensenyament de la gramàtica en contextos multilingües. Treball en què s'exposa de quina es pot orientar l'ensenyament de la gramàtica a secundària, per tal d'estimular la capacitats d'observar, de generalitzar i relacionar, de relacionar causes i efectes, d'argumentar i d'experimentar (seguint Bosque 2014), introduint a l'aula la variació intralingüística i interlingüística.

Saramaccan, a maroon creole of Suriname, shows evidence of having a split lexicon where the majority of its words are marked for pitch accent but an important minority are marked for tone. The basic origins of this split would appear to be clear: pitch-accented words represent transfer of a European-like accent system, while tonal words represent transfer of an African-like tone system. If this is the right account, its apparent simplicity raises an important question: Why didn’t it happen more often? While a definitive answer cannot yet be given, it is suggested that a likely explanation is that the split lexicon was not a product of creolization but, rather, the result of a restricted kind of language mixing, which took place after marronage, and that this mixing was employed as a means of establishing a distinct speech variety for the nascent Saramaccan community.

The grounds for studying phonetic symbolism (phonosemantics, etc.) in Tolkien's invented languages were well established by Tolkien through comments made in letters, drafts of his works, and essays. Previous researchers (e.g., Smith, 2006; 2007; Gymnich, 2005) have discussed the aesthetic effects of Tolkien's elvish languages on his audience, and have also observed connections between a range of meanings and sounds in Tolkien's languages (e.g., Fimi, 2008; Rausch, 2013). However, no researchers have explored this area of study with quantitative methods. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between vowel quality and meanings of size in the Gnomish Lexicon and the Qenya Lexicon. Chi-square goodness-of-fit tests indicate statistically significant associations between vowel category and meanings of size, particularly /i/ and smallness, and the back vowels /o/ and /a/ and meanings of largeness. I argue that this case study confirms the presence of phonetic symbolism in Tolkien's invented languages.

RESUMO As investigações experimentais no campo da perceção da fala demonstraram, a partir da segunda metade do século XX, a natureza categorial do processamento dos sinais acústicos da fala. O fonema passou então a ser concebido não só como uma unidade teórica da descrição das línguas, mas também como uma categoria percetiva. Neste estudo, veremos como, sem a fundamentação metodológica dos estudos experimentais, correntes de pensamento mais tradicionais em linguística-como a fonética tradicional britânica e a fonologia distribucionalista norte-americana da primeira metade do século XX-haviam adiantado já algumas propriedades desta conceção categorialista do fonema. Defenderemos que uma visão mais abrangente desta unidade descritiva e de processamento, combinando informação oriunda de diversas disciplinas e de quadros teóricos alternativos, permite uma melhor explicação não só dos sistemas fonológicos e do seu processamento, mas também da inter-relação entre estes dois objetos de estudo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE Fonema. Categoria. Perceção da fala. Perceção categorial. Fonética e Fonologia. ABSTRACT Experimental studies in the field of speech perception have demonstrated, since the 1950s, that speech perception is, fundamentally, an instance of categorical processing. Accordingly, the phoneme has been conceived of as a theoretical-descriptive linguistic unit and, simultaneously, as a perceptual category. In this paper, we shall see that, even before the more recent experimental methods, traditional views-such as the British school of descriptive phonetics and the American first structuralists-had anticipated some important aspects of the categorical perspectives on the phoneme. We shall defend that a broader view on this unit, based on the combination from different subdisciplines and theoretical frameworks, could offer us stronger explanations of phonological systems, phonetic processing and the interrelation between both objects of study. (*) Unidade de investigação financiada pela FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT-UIDB/00022/2020).

Detey, S., Fontan, L., Le Coz, M. & Jmel, S. (2020). Computer-assisted assessment of phonetic fluency in a second language: a longitudinal study of Japanese learners of French. Speech Communication 125: 69-79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2020.10.001

Available here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344594440_Computer-assisted_assessment_of_phonetic_fluency_in_a_second_language_a_longitudinal_study_of_Japanese_learners_of_French

Abstract: Automatic second language (L2) speech fluency assessment has been one of the ultimate goals of several projects aiming at designing Computer-Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) tools for L2 learners. Usually, three challenges must be tackled in order to solve the issues at stake: 1) Defining fluency from a threefold interdisciplinary perspective (acoustic and perceptual phonetics, computer science, L2 education); 2) Using a cost-effective algorithm; 3) Testing the procedure with actual learners' data. Despite rapid technical developments in the field of automatic speech processing, the tools which are actually available for learners are still scarce, and most of them rely on automatic speech recognition (ASR). Moreover, most research on the topic is focusing on English as the target L2. Therefore, in this article, we address the following research questions: (a) is it possible to use a non-ASR-based low-level signal segmentation algorithm to predict human expert assessment of phonetic fluency in beginner Japanese learners of French in a text-reading task during the first stages of their learning? (b) if the answer to (a) is positive, then what are the best predictors of phonetic fluency among a set of available measures (see below for more details)? (c) is it possible to use this algorithm to monitor the evolution of phonetic fluency (and of its associated predictors) in these learners in a longitudinal study? As a first step, a corpus of French sentences read aloud by 12 Japanese learners of different proficiency levels in French was used to design a prediction system. 2 speech fluency, speech rate, regularity of speech rate, speech fluidity (i.e. smoothness of transitions between phones). Inter-rater agreement and reliability were high for all dimensions, and the average human ratings were compared with the scores provided by our prediction system. The results show strong correlations between human and automatic scores of speech rate and regularity of speech rate, and a weak correlation for speech fluidity. Automatic scores were finally combined together through a multiple linear regression model in order to predict overall speech fluency. The best model led to a correlation coefficient of .92 between automatic and human ratings, with a root-mean-square error of .38. In the second step of this study, a corpus of identical sentences read aloud four times over two years by 12 Japanese learners of French (after 4, 7, 12, and 19 months of French courses in Japan) was fed to the automatic system. The results show regular progress in overall speech fluency, which fits with the regular progress the Japanese learners under scrutiny were expected to make through their academic program in French at their university in Japan every semester. Our study suggests a positive answer to our first and third research questions, with speech rate as the best predictor to answer our second research question. In a pedagogical perspective, it seems that such a simple algorithm could be integrated in a CAPT tool to monitor learners' progress in phonetic fluency in reading-aloud tasks.S