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Over the years, phonologists working in the generative framework have encountered a number of persistent problems in their descriptions of Japanese phonology. Several of these problems concern phonological rules that sometimes do and sometimes do not apply in seemingly identical phonological environments. Many of the proposed analyses achieve observational adequacy, but, nonetheless, are intuitively dissatisfying. The first of two such problems involves the desiderative suffix -ta and the homophonous perfective inflection -ta, both of which attach to verb roots. When the verb root is vowel-final, the derivations are straightforward. (1) (a) tabe + ta + i → tabe-ta-i 'want to eat' mi + ta + i → mi-ta-i 'want to see' (b) tabe + ta → tabe-ta 'ate' mi + ta → mi-ta 'see (past)' Derivations are not so straightforward when the verb root is consonant-final. In such cases an intervening i is inserted between the root and the desiderative suffix, but not between the root and the perfective inflection. (2) (a) tat + ta + i → tat-i-ta-i 'want to stand' kat + ta + i → kat-i-ta-i 'want to win' (b) tat + ta → tat-ta 'stood' kat + ta → kat-ta 'won' McCawley (1968) is not specific in how he accounts for this differential it appears that he favours the adoption of a morphological rule such as (3) (from Koo, 1974). (3) ∅ → i / C]v__+tai Koo (1974) has attempted to reanalyze the desiderative suffix as -ita, but, since there is no evidence of W cluster simplification in the language, he is left with the even more difficult problem of deleting the initial i of the suffix following vowel-final verb roots. (4) tabe + ita + i → tabe-ta-i 'want to eat' mi + ita + i → mi-ta-i 'want to see' Maeda (1979) has chosen a boundary solution, positing that t-initial inflections are joined to verb roots by morpheme boundaries (+), while other suffixes such as the desiderative suffix are joined by a stronger boundary (:). By making the i insertion rule sensitive to boundaries of level :, the correct outputs can be derived. This solution, though, is unsatisfactory since the assignment of boundaries is not independently motivated. A second difficulty encountered by McCawley (1968) and others involves a high vowel syncopation rule that deletes the final i or u of Sino-Japanese monomorphemes when the initial consonant of a following Sino-Japanese monomorpheme is voiceless. (5) iti + too → it-too 'first class' roku + ka → rok-ka 'sixth lesson' However, a morpheme- or word-final high vowel at the boundary between a Sino-Japanese compound and a Sino-Japanese monomorpheme does not delete under those conditions insertion of i in these phonological identical environments, but (6) zi-ryoku 'magnetism' (X-Y) zi-ryoku + kei → zi-ryoku-kei 'magnetometer' (X-Y-Z) hai-tatu 'delivery' (Y-Z) betu + hai-tatu → betu-hai-tatu 'special delivery' (X-Y-Z) McCawley accounts for this pattern by invoking internal boundaries of different strengths: + and #. (7) iti + too roku + ka zi + ryoku # kei betu # hai + tatu He claims, then, that high vowel syncopation is sensitive to boundaries of strength + and is, therefore, blocked from applying to the u of zi + ryoku # kei. His analysis is correct, but his assignment of boundary strengths is rather arbitrary. Analyses such as the two above which appeal to boundary strength hierarchies have often been intuitively dissatisfying because of a lack of independent motivation. The relatively recent theory of lexical morphology and phonology as formulated by Kiparsky (1982) is ideally suited for this type of problem. One of the theory's most compelling attributes is that phonological processes may be put into a much broader context that includes morphological processes as well. This more integrated approach is often able to fit formerly isolated facts into a network of related facts to provide compelling independent motivation for diverse processes. The purpose of this thesis, then, is to fit i insertion, high vowel syncopation, and other Japanese phonological processes into the lexical phonology network to see exactly how they are related to each other and to the morphological phenomena of the language. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

Despite the fact that speech-language pathologists do not develop the theories underlying the principles and procedures used in the clinic, speech and language clinicians are ethically obliged to apply the "best" possible theory in their practice. Recently phonologists have been developing a theory of nonlinear phonology. Application of this theory to cross-linguistic data and to child language data has shown that what appeared to be idiosyncratic or difficult to account for using previous theoretical formulations can be neatly explained using a nonlinear phonological explanation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of further extending the application of nonlinear phonological principles to the field of speech-language pathology. Two levels defined by the theory, segmental and prosodic, were investigated in a six-month-long intervention programme with a set of phonologically delayed twins (aged 5;6 at the outset of the project). Each twin was assigned to an experimental condition motivated by one of these levels, or tiers. In each condition, intervention goals were determined by parameters of the theory; the segmental condition contrasted features "higher" versus "lower" in the feature hierarchy, while the prosodic condition contrasted moraic with onset-rime descriptions of syllable/word shape. Using twins as subjects also allowed the twin aspect of language acquisition and speech-language intervention to be explored. Results of the phonological intervention study revealed that nonlinear phonology provides a viable framework for assessing and determining goals for phonological remediation. A comparison of progress in therapy indicated that one twin acquired therapy goals faster than the other. An investigation of the differential progress of the twins allowed conclusions to be drawn regarding social awareness and success in phonological therapy. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

A central claim of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, McCarthy and Prince 1993a) is that phonological variation can be modeled through the variable ranking of universal constraints. In this thesis, I test this claim by examining variation in the tongue root vowel harmony system in a number of closely related yet distinct Bantu languages of Congo and Zaire. The twenty-odd languages are drawn from each of Guthrie 1967's eight Bantu C. subgroups and are shown to vary along a number of dimensions. One is morphological, related to whether or not the harmonic element in the lexical root extends to prefixes and suffixes. This variation is shown to follow from the variable ranking of constraints that seek to ALIGN the harmonic feature, [retracted tongue root] ([rtr]) with the edges of the morphological domains STEM and WORD. A second parameter of variation concerns the relationship between high vowels and [rtr]. A third dimension involves the interaction of [rtr] with the low vowel [a] under harmony. Here, three patterns involving (i) low vowel assimilation, (ii) low vowel opacity, or (iii) low vowel transparency under harmony are shown to follow from the variable ranking of a few constraints. A significant theme that emereges in the study is recognizing and characterizing the distinct morphological and phonological domain edges involved in vowel harmony. An important contribution of this study is in bringing to light a language family where phonological tongue height, in this case expressed by the feature [low], is shown to be incompatible with tongue root retraction, as expressed in the feature [rtr]. Although the gestures of tongue body lowering and tongue root retraction are sympathetic in the articulatory dimension and in their acoustic effect, they are seen to be phonologically hostile, in fact, because of the redundancy relation between them. This redundancy-based phonological incompatibility is implemented via licensing-failure: [low] fails to "license" [rtr] because lowness implies retraction (Ito, Mester and Padgett 1994). / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation offers an in-depth investigation of the phonology of Munduruku, a Tupi language spoken in the Amazonian basin of Brazil, approached from three interrelated perspectives: phonetic, phonological and diachronic. It examines (i) the Munduruku vowel and consonant inventories, (ii) syllable structure and syllabification, (iii) phonotactic patterns, (iv) nasal harmony, (v) consonant mutation, (vi) tone system and the tone-creaky voice interaction, (vii) reduplication, and (viii) the phonological behavior of various affixes. The phonetic investigation focuses on several acoustic properties of segments (i.e. vowels and consonants), and on phonological contrasts observed in vowels, in particular the oral-nasal and modal-creaky voice oppositions, in addition to tonal distinctions. This is done with a view to determining how and to what extent such phonetic realizations can be imposed on phonological representations. These issues constitute an important part of the study, and are particularly relevant to the discussion about the coarticulatory effects observed in the realization of stops, nasals and laryngeals. The study also offers a formal account of all major phonological processes attested in the language such as syllabification, nasal harmony, consonant mutation, tone, etc. The theoretical model adopted here is Optimality Theory (OT), which defends a representation of the structural design of grammars based upon a ranking of universal constraints. Each chapter contributes to the development of an OT-based grammar of the phonology of Munduruku by examining new aspects of the language, and by situating them in a large-scale scenario until the OT-grammar is assembled. This result is presented in the last chapter. In search of evidence for the synchronic analysis, and for a better understanding of some uncharacteristic patterns, the study turns to the historical development of the language. Using data from Kuruaya, a sister language to Munduruku, hypotheses about the stage that preceded both languages, Proto-Munduruku, are made available. In recovering this stage, and the stage that preceded the modern period, it is possible to recover many of the changes the grammar has undergone and which culminated in the synchronic patterns. Ultimately, this study argues for an approach to synchronic grammars as a composite of universal and language-specific properties, determined by diachronic changes. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

This investigation was motivated by the growing dissatisfaction with the inconsistent use of empirical methodology in transformational generative phonology (TGP) and by the resulting limited value which TGP has for other scientific fields of study. The investigation is concerned with judging a particular experimental paradigm for its validity as a confirmation/disconfirmation procedure with the intention of consequently confirming or disconfirming the psychological reality of certain phonological rules. As revealed in the review of the relevant literature, one could justify the violation of TGP's ideal speaker-listener framework—which would result from testing some of TGP1s hypotheses—by using real speaker-listeners. Previous testing for the use of certain of Chomsky and Halle's (1968) phonological rules has raised doubts about the validity of claims concerning these rules' psychological reality. The method used in the present study consisted of requiring subjects to derive and pronounce novel words (without the use of pencil and paper) from existing English stem-words and suffixes aurally presented to them. One group of subjects was exposed to existing English derivations which exemplified sound patterns accounted for by Chomsky and Halle through the rules under investigation. This group was also exposed to example derivations which showed no phonetic change. A second group of subjects were exposed only to examples showing no phonetic change. Analysis of the results show, first (with respect to the present experiment's design), that the distribution of the number of predicted responses (i.e. the responses predicted by the rules under investigation) in each group of subjects is very similar. It is concluded that each group showed a similar ability in performing the novel derivation task and that the subjects were representative samples of the population under study. The greater occurrence of predicted sound patterns in the responses of the first group of subjects is attributed to that group's exposure to example derivations showing predicted phonetic changes. The overall production of predicted sound patterns in each group cannot be attributed to just a few subjects. A trend appears in which stem-suffix sets which were most often involved in given predicted phonetic changes were the same in both groups' responses. Conclusions are also drawn with respect to the validity of the experimental paradigm as a valid procedure for confirming or disconfirming the phonological rules in question. First, the logical argument which uses the positive consequences of an hypothesis, known as "the fallacy of affirming the consequent," is invalid. Thus, none of the various possible strategies of sound pattern production which were considered (in order to account for subjects' responses) could be affirmed. Secondly, a valid argument of the type modus tollens can be used when the consequences of an hypothesis are negative. The valid conclusion permitted by this argument is the disconfirmation of the hypothesis. Some of the problems encountered with this argument are discussed: (a) it is impossible to determine the exact number of times that an hypothesis is disconfirmed in a set of data in which some of the data consist of positive consequences; (b) the argument must be carefully quantified in order to permit valid conclusions to be drawn from data that is derived from real (i.e. non-idealized) conditions of the world; and (c) there exists no criterion frequency of (non-)use for the (dis)confirmation of the 'psychological reality of a phonological rule'. If it were possible to explicitly specify the extension of a rule's use, such a criterion frequency of a rule's (non-)use might be well motivated. In its absence, the psychological reality of phonological rules could not even be disconfirmed in this study. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to describe the phonetic repertoire of late 8 phonemes among adolescents and young adults with Down syndrome and then determine the relationship between age and presence of the latest developing phonemes as well as their impact on intelligibility. This study also described the stimulability profile for those late 8 phonemes that were produced in error. The Arizona Articulation and Phonology Scale was administered to individuals with Down syndrome between the ages of 12 – 21;11 to obtain a phonetic profile. Among those participants included in the study, on average, 87.5% of the late 8 phonemes were present. Seven of eight participants were stimulable for all phonemes that were misarticulated. Results did not indicate a significant correlation between either age or intelligibility and the presence of late 8 phonemes.

The purpose of the current study was to analyze an existing data set featured in Osborne (2020). More specifically, the current study aimed to identify phonological processes occurring in the speech of adolescents and adults with Down syndrome and explore subsequent impacts to speech intelligibility. Phonology coding forms from the Arizona Articulation and Phonology Scale, Fourth Revision were completed by analyzing phonetic transcriptions and audio-recordings generated during the completion of the Word Articulation subtest by participants featured in Osborne (2020). Seventeen distinct phonological processes occurred across all participant responses. Phonological process occurrence and speech intelligibility values were found to have a significant negative correlation value (r(4)= -.7883, p= .063).

In the clinical management of voice clients, it is important to measure accurate pitch ranges in order to determine if a client has a normal range or is speaking at an optimum pitch. It is not clear from the literature which vowel should be used in determining these pitch ranges. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the phonational frequency ranges in adults with no vocal training when phonating the cardinal vowels of /i/, /u/, and /a/. The investigation sought to answer the following question: Does the phonational frequency range in vocally untrained adults vary significantly when phonating the cardinal vowels of /i/, /u/, and /a/?