In this dissertation I examine partial vowel assimilations, where more than one but less than all vowel features pattern together in a phonological rule. The result of this dissertation research is the 'Height Node Geometry'. The particular innovation this geometry makes is to group the height features ( (high) and (low)) under a separate Height Node, as opposed to having the height features report to the Dorsal Node or the Place Node. Motivation for the Height Node Geometry comes from analyses of several phonological processes. First, removing the height features from under the Dorsal Node and the Place Node facilitates a more natural explanation for reduplication in the Petit Diboum dialect of Fe?fe?-Bamileke. Second, placing the height features above the Place Node but still directly or indirectly under the Supralaryngeal Node provides an account for Tunica partial translaryngeal harmony. Finally, vowel harmony in Ewe involves spreading of (+high) and (+low) in the same environment, arguing for a simpler rule of node spread; hence, I propose that the height features stem from a separate Height Node, instead of directly to the Supralaryngeal Node.

This thesis explores the coarticulatory effects of English /l/ and /r/, examining their articulatory basis, acoustic manifestation and perceptual relevance. It demonstrates that there are perceptually relevant coarticulatory differences associated with the distinction between /l/ and /r/. Two perceptual experiments, an articulatory experiment and a modelling study were conducted. Both perceptual experiments used a modified gating technique. The first experiment demonstrates that the coarticulatory effects of /l/ and /r/ on surrounding vowels and consonants can sometimes be used by listeners to identify an HI or /r/ which has been deleted and replaced by noise. The second perceptual experiment shows that the cues for an /r/ are more perceptually salient than those for an /l/. The articulatory experiment used simultaneous electromagnetic articulography, electropalatography and acoustic recordings to investigate the coarticulatory effects of /l/ and /r/. In /r/ contexts, relative to /l/ contexts, raising and retraction of the tongue, lip rounding and lowering of F₃ were found, up to two syllables preceding and following the /r/. The extent of this coarticulatory effect is far greater than commonly acknowledged in the coarticulation literature. Phonetic and phonological theories fail to predict or account for effects of this extent. The theory that coarticulation can be modelled as overlap of articulatory gestures was tested in a modelling study. A subset of the articulatory data was modelled numerically using dynamical descriptions of articulatory gestures from an approach developed at Haskins Laboratories. The modelling showed that longdistance coarticulatory effects could not be adequately accounted for by gestural overlap alone. Feature-spreading models, such as Keating's window model of coarticulation, are also unable to account for these effects adequately. The results of this thesis pose a challenge to current phonetic and phonological theory, as they show that coarticulatory effects have greater extent than commonly recognised.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1980. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 382-395).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1965. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-217).

Jia, Shiwei. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-114). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study provides the first critical history of British developments in phonetic science from 1890 to the beginning of the Second World War. It draws on both published and unpublished documentary evidence, and on original digital analyses of contemporary images, experimental data, and sound recordings. Experimental phonetics had diverse origins embracing medicine, physics and philology. A survey of the nineteenth century background shows that by 1890 significant British contributions in all three fields could have furnished the makings of a native approach to phonetics as an experimental science, but they failed to come together for a variety of bureaucratic, professional and personal reasons. Experimental phonetics-an academic fashion as much as a scientific specialism-was instead imported from Germany and France, and it had little continuity with British antecedents. The study details the earliest British phonetics laboratories, their personnel, equipment, and research programmes, providing the first extensive account of the UCL laboratory, and bringing to light a forgotten 1930s laboratory in Newcastle. The major methods of empirical investigation of the period are scrutinised, rehabilitating long-neglected British origins. The early work of Daniel Jones is extensively re-evaluated, establishing his scientific credentials, and the career of Stephen Jones, the first academic in Britain to earn a salary as an experimental phonetician, receives detailed treatment. New light is thrown on many neglected figures, including W. A. Aikin, E. R. Edwards, John G. McKendrick, and Wilfred Perrett, while a detailed investigation of the work of Sir Richard Paget reveals the astonishing accuracy of his auditory analyses. The study concludes with an account of the career of Robert Curry, the first recognisably modern and professional speech scientist to emerge in Britain.