Este estudo trata da variação regional em português brasileiro, pautando-se pelo viés perceptivo dos estudos da linguagem. Os trabalhos perceptuais de Atkinsons (1968), Bonte (1975), Maidment (1976), Ohala e Gilbert (1978) e Bezooijen e Gooskens (1999) já apontaram para a importância da prosódia como pista no reconhecimento das línguas e suas variedades regionais. Dessa maneira, este trabalho tem como objetivo verificar se os informantes de português brasileiro são capazes de reconhecer suas próprias variedades regionais apenas pela prosódia, além de buscar, por meio de uma análise de produção, pistas nas variações de F0 que possam justificar o reconhecimento dessas variedades. Trata-se de um estudo experimental sobre 3 variedades do português brasileiro: variedade de Pelotas (RS), a de São Paulo (bairro da Mooca) e a de Senador Pompeu (CE). Um teste perceptual foi elaborado de maneira a eliminar do sinal acústico os segmentos produzidos (experimento 1), deixando como informação para os participantes somente as características prosódicas. Esse experimento foi subdividido em trechos de fala curtos e longos, e, para a feitura com fala delexicalizada, foi utilizado o script PURR (SONNTAG; PORTELE, 1998b). Em contrapartida, o experimento 2 eliminou as variações prosódicas, restando somente a curva melódica monotônica (CMM) e os segmentos. A monotonização dos trechos de fala foi feita por meio de uma senoide com o valor do tom médio de cada estímulo, obtido automaticamente via aplicativo ExProsodia (FERREIRA NETTO, 2010). A análise dos dados foi feita de duas maneiras: via Teoria da Detecção TD (MACMILLAN; CREELMAN, 2005) e análise estatística dos dados. Os 9 resultados obtidos na TD demonstraram que os participantes tiveram um bom desempenho na tarefa de reconhecimento de suas variedades, com índices dprime elevados (d > 0). O desempenho entre o experimento 1 e 2 foi diverso, apresentando uma maior dificuldade de reconhecimento no experimento 1 com estímulos delexicalizados (PURR). Os informantes tiveram um desempenho melhor no experimento 2 (75% de acertos contra 62% do experimento 1). O mesmo foi observado por Bezooijen e Gooskens (1999), em estudo sobre percepção de características dialetais do inglês e do holandês. Na análise estatística dos dados, no experimento 1 (PURR), os informantes da variedade de São Paulo tiveram um desempenho diverso dos demais. Da mesma forma, na análise de produção, os estímulos da variedade de São Paulo apresentaram diferenças significativas no tom médio e na dispersão de F0. A tendência dos alarmes falsos (TD) também corroborou a hipótese de que os ouvintes são capazes de reconhecer sua própria variedade por meio da prosódia. / This is a perceptual study on the regional variation in Brazilian Portuguese. Previous perceptual studies conducted by Atkinsons (1968), Bonte (1975), Maidment (1976), Ohala & Gilbert (1978) and Bezooijen & Gooskens (1999) have verified the importance of prosody in languages recognition and their regional varieties. This study aims to verify if Brazilian informants are able to recognize their own regional varieties only by listening to some prosodic information. Moreover, it also aims at searching for cues in F0 variation, which can justify the recognition of varieties. The experimental studies conducted in this study deal with three varieties of Brazilian Portuguese: the variety of Pelotas (RS), São Paulo (Mooca district) and Senador Pompeu (CE). The first experiment was designed to eliminate the segments of speech in order to maintain only the prosodic information. It was divided into short and long excerpts, which consisted of delexicalized speech created with PURR script (SONNTAG; PORTELE, 1998b). The experiment 2 eliminated F0 variations from speech in order to maintain only the monotonic melodic curve (MMC) and the segments. The monotonization was done by using a sinusoidal curve with the mean frequency of each stimulus. The mean frequency was obtained automatically by using ExProsodia application. The data were analyzed in two ways: firstly, an analysis was done based on the Detection Theory DT (MACMILLAN; CREELMAN, 2005); secondly, a statistical analysis was performed. The results obtained in DT showed that the participants were good at the recognition task of their varieties. The levels of d11 prime were elevated (d >0). The results obtained by conducting experiment 1 and 2 were different as we observed more recognition difficulties in experiment 1 with delexicalized stimuli (PURR). The informants had a better performance in experiment 2 (75% of correct answers compared to 62% of experiment 1). The same was observed by Bezooijen & Gooskens (1999) in their study on the perception of dialectal characteristics of English and Dutch. In the statistical analysis of experiment 1, the participants, who speak the São Paulo variety, showed different results when compared to others varieties. The same was observed in the analysis of production date as the results showed significant differences in mean frequency and F0 dispersion. The tendency of false alarms (DT) also corroborated the hypothesis which claims that prosody information plays an important role in the recognition of regional varieties.

Esta dissertação tem como objetivos (i) descrever e analisar o contorno entoacional das sentenças declarativas neutras do português falado na ilha de São Tomé (PST), em São Tomé e Príncipe, especificamente a relação entre associação de eventos tonais ao contorno entoacional e a formação de domínios prosódicos, tanto em fala controlada quanto em fala espontânea, assim como (ii) comparar os resultados encontrados para o PST com aqueles descritos na literatura para outras variedades de português já estudadas sob a mesma perspectiva teórica: variedades lusitanas, brasileiras e de Guiné-Bissau, variedade africana assim como o PST. Nossa hipótese é que do ponto de vista entoacional o PST se distancie do SEP (standard european portuguese, o português falado em Lisboa), embora esta seja considerada a variedade de prestígio no país e tida como alvo pela população, ensinada nas escolas e veiculada na mídia. Para alcançar os objetivos estabelecidos, nos valemos do aparato teórico da Fonologia Entoacional Autossegmental e Métrica, para a investigação da associação de eventos tonais ao contorno entoacional, numa abordagem integrada à Fonologia Prosódica, para verificarmos a formação dos constituintes prosódicos e identificação dos domínios relevantes na atribuição de eventos tonais. Dentre as características prosódicas e entoacionais que encontramos, destacamos (i) a alta densidade tonal do contorno entoacional das sentenças declarativas neutras em PST; (ii) a associação de acentos tonais (pitch accents) a todas as palavras prosódicas nas sentenças de fala controlada;(iii) a associação obrigatória de acento tonal à palavra prosódica cabeça de sintagma entoacional, seguido de um tom de fronteira associado à sua fronteira direita; (iv) a possibilidade de associação de acento frasal (phrasal accent) à fronteira de sintagmas fonológicos; (v) a configuração de contorno nuclear majoritariamente baixa (L* L%), embora também seja possível a realização de um contorno nuclear descendente (H+L* L%) para as sentenças declarativas neutras dessa variedade de português. Através desta dissertação, apontamos características entoacionais e prosódicas do PST que o afastam do SEP e que podem ser consideradas como argumentos para a consolidação do PST como uma variedade que possui (assim como o PB) uma gramática entoacional própria, não se tratando de uma produção considerada irregular da variedade tida como padrão. / This study aims to (i) describe and analyze the intonational contour on neutral declarative sentences in the Portuguese spoken on São Tomé island, in São Tomé & Principe (PST), specifically the relation between the association of tonal events with the intonational contour and the formation of prosodic domains, either on controlled or spontaneous speech and (ii) compare the results achieved on PST with the ones described on previous papers on other Portuguese varieties already studied under the same theoretical perspective: lusitanic varieties, Brazilian varieties, and from Guinea-Bissau, an African Portuguese variety, like PST. Our hypothesis is that from the intonational point of view, PST stands far away from the SEP (standard European Portuguese), although that is the prestige variety and seen as a goal by the population, taught in schools and used by the media. To accomplish these objectives, we used the theoretical apparatus supplied by the Metric and Autosegmental Intonation Phonology to investigate the association of tonal events to the intonational contour, approaching it while integrated to the Prosodic Phonology, to verify the formation of prosodic constituents and the identification of relevant domains to the tonal event attribution. Among the prosodic and intonation characteristics we found, we highlight (i) the high tonal density of the intonational contour of the neutral declarative sentences in PST; (ii) the association of pitch accents with every prosodic word in the controlled speech sentences; (iii) the mandatory association of pitch accent to the intonational phrase head prosodic word, followed by a boundary tone associated to its right-side edge; (iv) the possibility of associating the phrasal accent to the phonological phrase edge; (v) predominantly low nuclear contour configuration (L* L%), although it is also possible to perform a top-down nuclear contour (H+L* L%) to the neutral declarative sentences in this Portuguese variety. With this paper, we point out PSTs intonational and prosodic characteristics that ward it off from SEP that may be considered as arguments for the consolidation of PST as a variety possessing (just like the PB) its own intonational grammar, proving it is not a production considered as irregular when compared to the standard one.

O presente trabalho levanta a questão da derivação sintática em diferentes contruções de tópico. Essa diferenciação foi estabelecida por Frascarreli & Hinterhölzl (2007) com base na abordagem de Rizzi (1997) que propõe uma estrutura mais articulada para o complexo CP. Assim Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl (2007) realizam um levantamento de corpora determinando três tipos de tópico em sentenças do italiano e do alemão, a saber: a) Tópico conversacional (aboutness topic): informação que é o tema da sentença (REINHART, 1981); b) Tópico contrastivo: constituinte que cria um par opositivo a outro tópico (CHAFE, 1987) c) Tópico familiar: constituinte acessível, geralmente realizado em uma forma pronominal (PESETSKY, 1987). Para dar uma ideia do problema considere os exemplos, abaixo: 1) O JOÃO (*ele) leu o livro de sintaxe (não o Pedro). Foco contrastivo 2) O livro de sintaxe, o João leu ø/ele ontem. Tópico 3) O João, ele leu o livro de sintaxe. Tópico 4) O João, ø leu o livro de sintaxe ontem. Tópico Os autores avaliam o contorno entoacional de cada uma das construções (2 e 3) e a sentença (4) que coloca uma ambiguidade estrutural entre moviemnto e geração na base. Os autores, então, propõem que todas sejam geradas na base deixando a estrutura de cujo sintagma é inequivocamente movido para a expressão de foco, sentença (1). Com base nesse trabalho realizamos um estudo comparativo entre as estruturas de tópico em PB. Contrapomos a entoação de sentenças como as decritas acima e avaliamos se existe um melhor tratamento sintático para tais estruturas, seja derivação via movimento, ou geração na base. No primeiro capítulo apresentamos o problema e a arquitetura da fonética articulatória, autossegmental e métrica e prosódica que embasam o estudo. Em seguida apresentamos alguns estudos já realizados nessa matéria que contam com a descrição prosódica de sentenças neutras do PB e sentenças com foco prosódico sobre o sujeito, além de sentenças com tópicos já levantadas em pesquisas anteriores. No segundo capítulo apresentaremos a teoria sintática que ampara nosso entendimento das estruturas envolvidas e o tipo de derivação em jogo. A teoria gerativa formulada por Chomsky servirá como guia balizador da derivação, especialmente a partir do programa minimalista (COMSKY 1995 e posteriores) Após essa introdução aprsentaremos algns estudos sobre esse conjunto de sentenças os possíveis caminhos a serem seguidos. No terceiro capítulo descrevemos o experimento, no quarto apresentamos e discutimos os resultados. Por fim, o quinto e último capítulo oferece um panorama geral do que foi exposto e as conclusões. / This study is about different topic constructions and their darivations. This differentiation was established by Frascarreli & Hinterhölzl (2007) based on the approach developed by Rizzi (1997), which proposes a more articulated CP structure. So Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl (2007) conducted corpora syrvey and unveal three types of topics in the Italian and German: a) shifting topic (aboutness topic): information that is the subject of the sentence, relativaly (Reinhart, 1981); b) contrastive topic: a phrase that creates a opposition to another pharse (Chafe, 1987) c) familiar topic: a given or accessable constituint (PESETSKY, 1987). To give an ideato this problem, please, consider the examples, below: 1) JOHN (* he) reads the syntax book (not Peter). Contrastive focus 2) The syntax book, John read ø / it yesterday. Topic 3) John, he read the syntax book. Topic 4) John ø syntax read the book yesterday. Topic These sentences ar all fine in BP. Sentence (1) can not have the strong pronoun. Sentence (2) is accetable in both forms either with a strong pronoun or wth the empity category. Sentence (3) is accetable because John is based generated at spell out. Sentence (4) is ambiguous bettween movment or base generation. The authors evaluate the intonation of each one of the structures like (2, 3 and 4) and propose that: they are all based generated leaving the derivation via movment to express focus, sentence (1). Based on this work, we carried out a comparative study of the topic structures in BP. Analizing sentences like (2-4) we stabilishs the intonational contour of them and look for a better treatment for such syntactic structures: derivation via movement, or base generation. In the very first chapter we present the problem and the architecture of the phonetic articulation, the autossegmental and metric phonology and prosodic structure that will guide this study. Then, some previous studies in this area are show wtih the descriptions of the PB neutral sentences and sentences with prosodic focus on the subject, and, also, sentences with already raised topics in the recent past. In the second chapter, we will present the syntactic theory that supports our understanding of the structures involved here and the type of analisys envolved. The generative theory formulated by Chomsky will serve as base line, especially from the Minimalist Program (COMSKY 1995 and laters). After this introduction, we will present some findings on this set of sentences and two possible paths to follow. In the third chapter we describe the experiment, in the fourth we present and discuss the results. Finally, the fifth and final chapter offers an overview of the foregoing and the conclusions.

Esta pesquisa descreve a entoação da língua portuguesa falada por mulheres guatós, fazendo comparação com mulheres não-índias. Foram analisadas as falas de quinze sujeitos. Descreve também a imanência da prosódia da língua guató, adquirida na infância, das guatós, mesmo depois de muito convívio com a população de Corumbá. Os dados foram obtidos por meio de pesquisa de campo e pesquisa bibliográfica. A análise e tabulação dos dados realizaram-se por meio do aplicativo ExProsodia. A análise centrou-se especificamente nas finalizações de frases em contexto diverso daquele dos falantes da língua portuguesa. Os resultados obtidos apontaram para a diferenciação na finalização das frases da categoria das meninas corumbaenses em relação às senhoras corumbaenses e às senhoras guatós, que não fizeram finalização descendente de frases assertivas. A diferenciação entre as senhoras guatós e as senhoras corumbaenses manifestou-se no tom médio das frases assertivas. / This research aims at describing the intonation of the Portuguese spoken by Guató women and comparing their intonational patterns to the ones produced by non Guató women. We analyzed the speech of fifteen subjects and observed that the Guató prosody, which is the language acquired in their childhood, remains although our subjects have been living with people from Corumbá for a long time. The data were collected through field research and a literature review. Analysis and tabulation of data were conducted using the software ExProsodia. The analysis focused specifically the end of sentences in different contexts from those in the speech of non Guató women. The results pointed out to differences at the end of sentences produced by young Corumbá women in relation to the production of old Guató and Corumbá women, who did not produce the falling contour of assertive sentences. The difference between the production of Guató and Corumbá women was found in the middle tone of assertive sentences.

abstract: Speech intelligibility measures how much a speaker can be understood by a listener. Traditional measures of intelligibility, such as word accuracy, are not sufficient to reveal the reasons of intelligibility degradation. This dissertation investigates the underlying sources of intelligibility degradations from both perspectives of the speaker and the listener. Segmental phoneme errors and suprasegmental lexical boundary errors are developed to reveal the perceptual strategies of the listener. A comprehensive set of automated acoustic measures are developed to quantify variations in the acoustic signal from three perceptual aspects, including articulation, prosody, and vocal quality. The developed measures have been validated on a dysarthric speech dataset with various severity degrees. Multiple regression analysis is employed to show the developed measures could predict perceptual ratings reliably. The relationship between the acoustic measures and the listening errors is investigated to show the interaction between speech production and perception. The hypothesize is that the segmental phoneme errors are mainly caused by the imprecise articulation, while the sprasegmental lexical boundary errors are due to the unreliable phonemic information as well as the abnormal rhythm and prosody patterns. To test the hypothesis, within-speaker variations are simulated in different speaking modes. Significant changes have been detected in both the acoustic signals and the listening errors. Results of the regression analysis support the hypothesis by showing that changes in the articulation-related acoustic features are important in predicting changes in listening phoneme errors, while changes in both of the articulation- and prosody-related features are important in predicting changes in lexical boundary errors. Moreover, significant correlation has been achieved in the cross-validation experiment, which indicates that it is possible to predict intelligibility variations from acoustic signal. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2019

Cette thèse interroge la présence et les métamorphoses du son dans l’œuvre de Seamus Heaney, avec pour perspective la confrontation de l’expérience du texte imprimé à celle d’un corpus audio. En nous penchant sur les essais, les poèmes et les enregistrements commercialisés de l’auteur, nous retraçons le parcours des influx sonores depuis la perception des ondes dans l’environnement jusqu’à l’émission de la voix en passant par leur recréation dans le texte. Parler d’« influx sonores », c’est raviver la métaphore aquatique dans la catachrèse des « ondes », mais aussi inviter à détecter des courants souterrains et à prendre en compte leur réception et leur absorption par l’auditeur autant que leur diffusion.Afin de montrer que chaque poème constitue un événement sonore à part entière, nous analysons le processus par lequel l’environnement sonore est transformé en un paysage sonore poétique, à son tour placé dans de nouveaux environnements par le biais de la performance orale. L’éclairage apporté par les Sound Studies nous permet de souligner le caractère dynamique mais aussi la fugacité du son, d’identifier et de discuter les propriétés conductrices d’une écriture qui accueille aussi le silence en son sein, ainsi que de conceptualiser, avec Heaney, la notion d’écoute. Nos micro-lectures sont aussi des micro-écoutes qui vont jusqu’à tenir compte de la dimension phonétique des textes, notre étude de la voix poétique étant complétée par une analyse de la voix physique. En considérant le graphotexte, le phonotexte et l’audiotexte comme trois modes d’existence non-hiérarchisables d’un même poème, nous cherchons à approfondir et nuancer les recherches sur la prosodie de Heaney, qui dépasse de loin la versification classique, voire formaliste, à laquelle on l’a souvent assimilée. / This thesis questions the presence and metamorphoses of sound in the works of Seamus Heaney, ultimately bringing the experience of the printed text and that of audio recordings into comparison. Based on a study of the author’s essays, poems and commercialised recordings, it retraces the trajectory of sound influxes from the perception of soundwaves in the environment to the emission of the voice, via their recreation in writing. The phrase “sound influx” is meant to revive the aquatic metaphor in the catachretic compound “soundwave.” It also invites to detect undercurrents by ear and study them from the perspective of the listener, taking into account their reception and absoption as much as their broadcasting.In order to show that each poem is a sound event of its own kind, it analyses the process through which the sonic environment is turned into a poetic soundscape which then becomes part of other environments when orally performed. Borrowing concepts from Sound Studies, it highlights the dynamic but elusive nature of sound, identifies and questions the conductive properties of a writing that also makes room for silence, and reflects, along with Heaney, on listening as a notion.The close-readings developed here are also close-listenings that take into account the phonetic dimension of texts, the study of the poetic voice being completed by an analysis of the poet’s physical voice. Considering the graphotext, the phonotext and the audiotext as three equally significant incarnations of one poem, aims at bringing a nuanced perspective on Heaney’s prosody as it is too often reduced to formal – if not formalist – versification.

For adult English speakers studying Mandarin (Modern Standard Chinese), the acquisition of the Mandarin prosody presents major difficulties. One particularly problematic aspect of the Mandarin prosodic system, and the one singled out for research here is the acquisition of tones by second language (L2) learners of Mandarin. This thesis involves a literature review and a description of an experiment conducted for the purpose of assessing the effectiveness of a new teaching method for educating students in Mandarin prosody generally, but especially with regard to "tones." Most studies investigating the acquisition of Mandarin tones by L2 learners have treated tones as separate from other aspects of Mandarin prosody such as stress, loudness and duration. The teaching method examined in this thesis, however, takes an alternative approach. Here the acquisition of Mandarin prosody is approached as a complex dynamic that has tones as an integral part. The aims of the study are twofold: (1) to identify the principal problems encountered by most learners in order to discover the causes of recurrent error patterns and, (2) to find out how a multi-sensory approach, which in this study was called the Somatically Enhanced Approach (SEA), might influence the acquisition of Mandarin prosody in these areas. The experiment involved 22 adult Australian students studying Mandarin in the first three months of language training. The experimental component of the study consisted of an evaluation of two groups of students� oral conversations. The two groups of students were divided into a control group and an experimental group. The control group was trained in a nonmulti- sensory but communicative approach in 2001 and 2002. Their results are compared with those of a test group and with a group of students trained in the multi-sensory communicative approach (SEA) in 2003 and 2004. The test materials consisted of short dialogues that were likely to occur in everyday communication. Data was collected from each group, once during the first half of the first semester of study in each year. The findings of the experiment were that the order of difficulty of the four Mandarin tones was found to be similar for both the experimental and control groups of students. However, the order of difficulty differed from what has been reported by previous researchers. This suggests that the input and the type of task used to collect data might exert a significant influence on the learning of tones. In other words, the performance of subjects in the dialogues suggests that in the initial stages of learning, the major cause of errors was first language (L1) interference rather than the physical "difficulty" of articulating particular phonemes (or any features of Universal Grammar). Therefore, by using a multi-sensory approach (SEA) to the learning of Mandarin, it may be possible to considerablly lessen the influence of learners� L1 from the outset. Finally, a number of suggestions for improving the teaching of Mandarin prosody are made and future research directions outlined. Some salient suggestions for teaching of Mandarin prosody that arise from the research are: (1) To use movement and gesture in the early stages of learning to enhance students� perception and production of Mandarin. This approach provides students with useful memory tools for learning both in class and in self-accessed learning; (2) To teach Tone 3 not as a full Tone 3 but as a low level tone. This should not be done solely through a simple verbal explanation but through a combination of movement and gesture, provision of visual and auditory feedback and a large amount of exposure and perception training so that Tone 3 is recognised as a low level tone rather than a full Tone 3. By so doing confusion is reduced between the various realizations of Tone 3 during the initial learning stages; and (3) To caution students about the common error patterns caused by interference from their L1. This should be supplemented with opportunities for students to observe their own production of Mandarin and then experience how physically they can find ways of reducing the interference. A qualitative analysis of interview and question data obtained from this research also revealed that the extensive use of computer enhanced language learning and SEA work well together, not only efficiently conditioning students to the phonology of Mandarin, but dramatically changing students' strategies in learning and increasing their learning opportunities.

<p>Prosodi kan sammanfattas som talets rytmiska, dynamiska och melodiska aspekter. Utan prosodi skulle talet förefalla monotont och kommunikationen kunna kompliceras. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka prosodiska aspekter av nonordsproduktion hos barn med cochleaimplantat och barn med språkstörning. Tidigare studier av prosodi hos nämnda grupper har inte i detalj beskrivit vilka typer av fel som förekommer varför detta var intressant att undersöka.</p><p>Föreliggande studie baseras på redan insamlat material av nonordsrepetition av sammanlagt 41 barn vilka deltagit i tidigare studier. Av dessa var 27 stycken barn med språkstörning i åldrarna 4:6-7:6 år och fjorton var barn med CI i åldrarna 3:0-13:4. Det inspelade materialet transkriberades och felanalyserades gruppvis och medelvärden för grupperna räknades ut.</p><p>Barnen med CI uppvisade större prosodiska problem vid nonordsrepetition än barnen med språkstörning. Såväl barnen med språkstörning som barnen med CI uppvisade svårigheter med stavelseproduktion, betoningsplacering, ordaccent och vokalkvantitet. Dock gjorde barnen med CI generellt större antal fel samt fler olika typer av fel jämfört med barnen med språkstörning. Alla barnen med CI gjorde någon typ av prosodiskt fel medan 11 av 27 de barnen med språkstörning producerade korrekt prosodi på samtliga nonord. Barn som hade en högre ålder vid implantation uppvisade större prosodiska svårigheter än barn som implanterats vid en lägre ålder</p> / <p>Prosody can be defined as the rythmic, dynamic and melodic aspects of speech. Without prosody, speech would sound monotonous and communication could be obstructed. The aim of the present study was to examine prosodic aspects of nonword repetition by children with cochlear implants and children with language impairment. Previous studies of prosody in these groups have not in detail described what kinds of errors that occur and therefore this is interesting to investigate.</p><p>The present study is based on previously collected data of nonword repetition among a total of 41 children, all participating in previous studies. Of these children, 27 were children with language impairment aged between 4:6-7:6 years. Fourteen were children with CI aged between 3:0-13:4. The recorded data was transcribed and analyzed group wise and the mean value of the groups were calculated.</p><p>Children with CI showed prosodic problems in nonword repetition to a greater extent than children with language impairment did. Both children with language impairment and children with CI had difficulties with number of syllables, stress, tonal word accent and quantity of vowel. However, the children with CI generally made errors to a greater extent as well as more types of errors, compared to the children with language impairment. All children with CI made some type of prosodic error whilst 11 out of 27 of the language impaired children produced all the words prosodically correct. Children who were implanted at an older age showed greater difficulties with prosody than children who were implanted at a younger age.</p>

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that there is a reciprocal relationship between comprehension and fluency during reading. The notion that oral reading fluency can facilitate reading comprehension is well established in the research literature on the development of reading comprehension. However, more recent models have questioned the unidirectionality of this relationship and have suggested that reading comprehension may increase fluency through reading rate. This hypothesis was examined via analyses of second grade students' oral reading of connected texts. Four previewing conditions which isolated lexical effects, comprehension effects, and prosody effects on oral reading fluency were manipulated in an experiment and the effects on students' passage reading times and prosody were evaluated. Students who were on-level readers were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions consisting of word preview (lexical factor), listening preview (prosody and comprehension factor), summary preview (comprehension factor) and no preview. Following the preview, students were asked to read passages aloud. Analyses of Covariance were performed to test the effects of lexical priming, comprehension priming and prosodic modeling on oral reading fluency as measured in correct words per minute (CWPM) and prosodic reading, while controlling for students overall achievement in reading as measured by the STAR-R score. The results showed significant differences in CWPM favouring the listening preview and summary preview over the no-preview condition for students at lower levels of fluency performance. The results are discussed in relation to theories of reading that highlight the role of comprehension and fluency in the integration of information during reading.

Japanese <i>wh</i>-questions always exhibit focus intonation (FI). Furthermore, the domain of FI exhibits a correspondence to the <i>wh</i>-scope. I propose that this phonology-semantics correspondence is a result of the cyclic computation of FI, which is explained under the notion of <i>Multiple Spell-Out</i> in the recent Minimalist framework. The proposed analysis makes two predictions: (1) embedding of an FI into another is possible; (2) (overt) movement of a <i>wh</i>-phrase to a phase edge position causes a mismatch between FI and <i>wh</i>-scope. Both predictions are tested experimentally, and shown to be borne out.