Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2009.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Of all the areas of intonational research, study of the tendency of the frequency of vocal fold vibration to decline during the course of an utterance - F0 declination - is likely initially to be the most fruitful in determining the interaction between perceptual and productive processes. A general introduction to the phenomenon is augmented by analysis of different methods of determining declination lines; theoretical treatments are then introduced. One particular local factor contributing to the downward trend, downstep, is discussed, and its pivotal role in the intonational phonology developed by Janet Pierrehumbert critically examined. In the light of the theoretical discussion, two competing hypotheses are presented as to the mediation of the declination effect, which is the effect that of two accented syllables in an utterance, the second has to have a lower peak F0 value than the first for them to be judged to have equal prominence. The Global Declination Hypothesis attributes this to the use by speakers and hearers of one or two abstract reference lines declining through the course of a tone-unit. The Local Declination Hypothesis attributes it to the disposition of F0 excursions surrounding the two accents as well as to the respective peak values. The Global Declination Hypothesis is tested by presenting listeners with pairs of dual-peak accented utterances with the two peaks identical in F0, without any physically present local declination, and asking them to rate the prominence of the second peak of each such utterance. No significant differences are found in the prominence ratings, so the Local Declination Hypothesis appears to be favoured. That hypothesis is itself tested through the development of a model of individual accent prominence, which incorporates terms for surrounding unaccented context. This is then used as the basis of a model of the perceptual constraints on the production of intonation in the scaling of target peaks. The model predicts that local slope between accents and slope of the context after the target accent, as well as other local variables, jointly determine the F0 value of a peak with a particular targetted prominence relationship with its predecessor. If the interaccentual stretch is declining, the declination effect is predicted to occur, ceteris paribus. The model is found to be initially acceptable. In addition, a global interpretation of downstep is made within the model. The mechanisms the model is suggested to represent are auditory feedback control loops of a variety of possible degrees of complexity. An experiment is devised to test for the basic existence of a feedback loop which is used to prevent local slope exceeding an arbitrary threshold value. Auditory feedback In subjects was disrupted by headphone-administration of low-pass filtered masking noise during their utterance of a sustained vowel, and a short and a long dual peak-accented sentence. The disruption was sufficient to alter the apparent mechanism controlling the production of the sustained vowel, but the Lombard effect, whereby subjects automatically raise the level of their voice in ambient noise, was found to be a vitiating factor. General conclusions are drawn on the nature of the declination phenomenon In intonation, and proposals made for future research.

Two traditions have arisen from an ongoing debate concerning cross-linguistic laryngeal representations in series of obstruents. The first, ‘traditional’ approach assumes universally identical laryngeal representations: /p, t, k/ are unspecified and /b, d, g/ carry |voice|. The second, Laryngeal Realism (LR), assumes underlyingly different representations between languages: ‘aspiration languages’ have unspecified /b, d, g/, and /p, t, k/ specified for |spread|. ‘Voice languages’ have unspecified /p, t, k/, and /b, d, g/ specified for |voice|. In this thesis, I use historical data in order to determine which of these two traditions is correct. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis subject and places it in the broader context of representational models of theoretical phonology and general historical linguistics. In chapter 2, I discuss the discrepancy between traditional laryngeal features and their cross-linguistic implementation, the basis of the debate outlined above. The two traditions are then discussed in detail. It is shown that evidence for LR is drawn from surface facts in aspiration- and voice languages such as respective presence or absence of aspiration of /p, t, k/, respective absence or presence of voicing in /b, d, g/ and asymmetry in assimilation processes in favour of one of the features. Present-Day English (PDE) is best described in LR when these criteria are taken into account, e.g., [ph]in, [b 0]in, and invariable assimilation to ‘voicelessness’, e.g., cats /t+z/→[ts], sacked /k+d/→[kt]. In the following chapters, I present data from historical laryngeal modifications in English which have never been considered together in this respect before. In Chapter 3, I present new evidence that the laryngeal situation just described for Present-Day English dates back to the very beginning of its recorded history. This is shown in the fact that all laryngeal assimilation throughout the history of English is exclusively assimilation to ‘voicelessness’ or |spread| - as in pre-Old English [pd] > [pt] cepte ‘kept’, [td] > [tt] mette ‘met’, [kd] > [kt] iecte ‘increased’, [fd] > [ft] pyfte ‘puffed’, [sd] > [st] cyste ‘kissed’. LR can easily capture this asymmetry because |spread| is the only active member in the laryngeal opposition. |voice| is unspecified in English and can therefore never partake in phonological processes. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 deal with historical English data traditionally interpreted as ‘voicings’, i.e. addition of |voice|, and ‘devoicings’, i.e. loss of |voice|. Therefore, these data are potentially problematic for LR in that, according to this framework, |voice| is not specified in English. However, I show that LR can unproblematically deal with these phenomena as laryngeal lenition, removal of |spread|, and fortition, addition of |spread|. In fact, some of the lenition processes provide extra back up for LR. Processes in word-initial position, e.g., dialectal [v]ather, and final position, e.g., i[z], knowle[d3], are highly marked when viewed as ‘voicings’. However, when viewed as simple lenitions, as in LR, they are natural processes, which are predicted to be found in languages. Therefore, I show in this thesis that all available data from English historical laryngeal modification support LR, and that LR in its turn sheds an interesting new light on the data. It is superior to traditional accounts in that it can account for otherwise puzzling phenomena such as asymmetric assimilation and initial and final ‘voicings’.

蕭振豪. / "2010年8月". / "2010 nian 8 yue". / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-89). / Abstract in Chinese and English. / Xiao Zhenhao. / Chapter 第一章 --- 引言 --- p.1 / Chapter 第二章 --- 華嚴字母簡介 / Chapter 第一節 --- 字門與華嚴字母 --- p.3 / Chapter 第二節 --- 「《禪門日誦》系」考:華嚴字母韻表版本考(上) --- p.13 / Chapter 第三節 --- 華嚴字母韻表創作年代補說:華嚴字母韻表版本考(下) --- p.15 / Chapter 第三章 --- 華嚴字母韻表與明清小學 / Chapter 第一節 --- 華嚴字母與十二攝排序 --- p.20 / Chapter 第二節 --- 韻表的作成 --- p.22 / Chapter 第四章 --- 華嚴字母所載符號與明清小學 --- p.36 / Chapter 第五章 --- 華嚴字母與音素 / Chapter 第一節 --- 二合與三合輔音及其相關問題 --- p.45 / Chapter 第二節 --- 普世的音系 --- p.46 / Chapter 第三節 --- 劉獻廷與華嚴字母? --- p.48 / Chapter 第六章 --- 華嚴字母與明清聲韻概念 / Chapter 第一節 --- 華嚴字母與古音關係的誤解 --- p.58 / Chapter 第二節 --- 華嚴字母與字母數 --- p.62 / Chapter 第七章 --- 清廷與華嚴字母´ؤ兼論戴震〈聲韻考〉 / Chapter 第一節 --- 清廷與華嚴字母 --- p.72 / Chapter 第二節 --- 四庫館臣對華嚴字母的評價 --- p.74 / Chapter 第三節 --- 紀昀與戴震〈聲韻考〉 --- p.77 / Chapter 第八章 --- 總結與展望 / Chapter 第一節 --- 從五十音排序檢討四十二字門 --- p.82 / Chapter 第二節 --- 小結與研究展望 --- p.84 / 參考書目 --- p.86 / 附錄一四十二字門對音比較 --- p.90 / 附錄二〈禪門日誦〉系書版本一覽 --- p.104 / 附錄三內地、台灣所藏單行本「八十華嚴」善本書目 --- p.108 / 附錄四華嚴字母韻表小韻字比較 --- p.111

This report describes a computational system with which phonologists may describe a natural language in terms of autosegmental phonology, currently the most advanced theory pertaining to the sound systems of human languages. This system allows linguists to easily test autosegmental hypotheses against a large corpus of data. The system was designed primarily with tonal systems in mind, but also provides support for tree or feature matrix representation of phonemes (as in The Sound Pattern of English), as well as syllable structures and other aspects of phonological theory. Underspecification is allowed, and trees may be specified before, during, and after rule application. The association convention is automatically applied, and other principles such as the conjunctivity condition are supported. The method of representation was designed such that rules are designated in as close a fashion as possible to the existing conventions of autosegmental theory while adhering to a textual constraint for maximum portability.