No description available.

Inspired by Lin and Huang’s (2009) rhythmic study of Chinese dialects, this study examines speech rhythm of 21 Chinese dialects from three perspectives, timing, melody, and phonological structure. The 21 dialects belong to four major groups of Chinese and their respective sub-groups. The four major groups are Mandarin, Wu, Min, and Cantonese. Nine duration-based and four pitch-based metrics are used to quantify timing and melody, respectively. Four phonological structure-based metrics are used to explore the relationships between syllable structure and timing and between tone structure and melody. All the metrics are paired up according to five categories, duration-only, pitch-only, duration-pitch, duration-syllable, pitch-tone, and each pair is subject to a correlation analysis. Then timing and melody patterns of the Chinese dialects are determined by correlation patterns of relevant metric pairs. The main findings of this study are as follows: 1) Timing and melody patterns of the Chinese dialects are far from homogenous across major groups and melody patterns are more distinct than timing patterns; 2) No single metric pair is able to quantify speech rhythm consistently for all the Chinese dialects; nonetheless, pitch-based metric pairs fare better than duration-based ones; 3) Syllable-timedness and melodiousness are correlated positively for all the major groups except for Wu; 4) Phonological structure plays little role in shaping timing and melody patterns of most Chinese dialects. The above findings are both expected and unexpected. They are expected in the sense that rhythmic perception invovles multiple acoustic cues, so it comes as no surprise that not all rhythmic metrics are successful in quantifying Chinese rhythm. They are unexpected for the reason that all the metrics are developed based more or less on phonological structure, yet the rhythmic patterns they reveal do not correspond to the structure affinity or group membership of the Chinese dialects. Overall, the findings suggest that pitch is a more import cue than duration to Chinese rhythm. As the first study of Chinese rhythm across multiple dialects and from different perspectives, this study not only lays a methodological foundation for future research but also contributes to our in-depth understanding of Chinese dialects. / Graduate / 0290 / yali@uvic.ca

This dissertation is an investigation of the stress system of Squamish (Skwxwú7mesh), one of ten languages that make up the Central division of the Northwest Coast branch of Salishan, a linguistic group indigenous to the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Although other researchers have previously investigated aspects of stress in the language, this work provides the first integrated account of the Squamish stress system as a whole, couched in an Optimality Theoretic framework. The first two chapters are introductory, with Chapter 1 supplying a contextual background for the undertaking within linguistics, and especially within Salishan linguistices, while Chapter 2 provides a thorough grounding in the phonology and phonemics of Squamish in particular. Chapter 3 begins the formal analysis of stress in Squamish by examining the way stress surfaces in free root morphemes,which tend to stress penultimate syllables whenever they contain either a full vowel or a schwa followed by a resonant consonant. Given this outcome, Chapter 4 continues the investigation of basic stress patterns by looking more closely at the interactive roles of schwa, sonority, weight and the structure of syllables and feet in Squamish stress assignment. With the basic stress pattern established, the remaining chapters look at the outcome of stress in morphologically complex Squamish words. Thus, Chapter 5 is an analysis of stress in words involving prefixation, especially those resulting from CVC and CV prefixal reduplication, since non-reduplicative prefixes are unstressable; and Chapters 6 and 7 investigate the occurrence of stress in polymorphemic words resulting from the addition of lexical suffixes and grammatical suffixes, respectively. While stress in roots is generally predictable on the basis of phonological factors alone, that in polymorphemic words may also be influenced by morphological factors, as when a root or suffix has underlying lexical accent, and such factors then take precedence ofer phonological factors. In addition, prosodic domains play an important and interactive work.

The thesis presents an overview of the layers on which speech develo- pment can be studied and a brief account of the main theoretical branches within these layers. It accounts for the periodization of a child's speech development according to Czech and foreign authors. In the thesis, a syllable is introduced as a phonological unit. Attention is also paid to the related layer of phonotactics; important works concerning the phonotactics of child's speech are mentioned. The target of the experimental part is a longitudinal case study of a child acqui- ring Czech as her mother tongue. For the purpose of the study, a corpus of the child's utterances in her natural environment between the ages of 7 to 27 months was built. The utterances have been analyzed with respect to the frequency of occurrence of different syllable types, with closed syllables and syllables with con- sonant clusters in the center of interest. The found consonant clusters and their reductions have been further analyzed with respect to the findings of the phono- tactic studies mentioned in the theoretical part, in order to confirm or dismiss their relevance for Czech. Most importantly, two theories have been checked, the frames theory commenting on the combinatory potential of the front/middle/back vowels and coronal/labial/dorsal...

William Clarke (1976) and Nathan Greenberg (1980) offer an objective framework for the study of alliteration in Latin poetry. However, their definition of alliteration as word initial sound repetition in a verse is inconsistent with the syllabic nature both of the device itself and also of the metrical structure. The present study reconciles this disparity in the first half of the Aeneid by applying a similar method to syllable initial sound repetition. A chi-square test for goodness-of-fit reveals that the distributions of the voiceless obstruents [p], [t], [k], [k^w], [f], and [s] and the sonorants [m], [n], [l], and [r] differ significantly from a Poisson model. These sounds generally occur twice per verse more often than expected, and three or more times per verse less often than expected. This finding is largely consistent with existing observations about Vergil's style (e.g. Clarke, 1976; Greenberg, 1980; Wilkinson, 1963). The regular association of phonetic features with differences in distribution suggests phonetic motivation for the practice.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-06-06T11:26:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 emersonlopescruz.pdf: 4593129 bytes, checksum: 951b095b83f2d5e1f9ef2c741f72ceca (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-06-06T12:16:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 emersonlopescruz.pdf: 4593129 bytes, checksum: 951b095b83f2d5e1f9ef2c741f72ceca (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-06T12:16:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 emersonlopescruz.pdf: 4593129 bytes, checksum: 951b095b83f2d5e1f9ef2c741f72ceca (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Esta dissertação busca: (1) entender as motivações para os erros fonético-fonológicos produzidos por alunos brasileiros universitários aprendizes do Inglês, principalmente no que se refere à dificuldade desses alunos em produzir palavras que contêm agrupamentos consonantais (consonant clusters), e (2) contribuir para uma análise linguística e pedagógica, buscando mostrar a necessidade de mudança de paradigmas no ensino de Inglês com base em transformações histórico-político-sociais, causadas pela expansão da língua inglesa como fenômeno mundial, para que haja uma revisão dos parâmetros e consequente reformulação dos currículos utilizados atualmente no ensino do Inglês, inclusive e principalmente no Brasil. Para a execução da presente investigação, utilizamos pesquisa de orientação etnográfica e estudo comparativo entre o Português e o Inglês. Concluímos, em linhas gerais, que os brasileiros, não-nativos falantes do Inglês como L2, tendem a pronunciar palavras que contenham agrupamentos (clusters) ou sequências consonantais desfazendo-os, principalmente através do uso de um elemento epentético de valor [+ silábico], em geral a vogal [i], em face das diferenças fonético-fonológicas existentes entre o Português e o Inglês. / This thesis aims at: (1) seeking to understand the motivations for the phonetic-phonological errors produced by Brazilian university students, English learners, mainly in what concerns the difficulty of those students in producing words which contain consonant clusters; and (2) contributing a pedagogical and linguistic analysis, trying to show the need for paradigm shifting in the teaching of English on the basis of recent historical, political, and social changes, caused by the spreading of the English language as a world phenomenon, so that there can be a revision of the parameters and consequent restructuring of the curricula presently adopted in English language teaching, mainly in Brazil. For the execution of this work, we made use of ethnographically-oriented research and carried out a comparative study of Portuguese and English. In general lines, we conclude that, as non-native speakers of English, Brazilians are likely to pronounce words which contain consonant clusters by splitting them, mainly through the use of an epenthetic [+ syllabic] element, in general the vowel [i], because of the existing phonetic-phonological differences between Portuguese and English.

Bereits in frühen Phasen der Sprachentwicklung sind bei Kindern mit Spaltbildungen im Vergleich zu Kindern ohne Spaltbildungen Abweichungen beobachtet worden. In der Fachliteratur sind allerdings meist nur undifferenzierte Aussagen über den frühen strukturellen Verlauf zu finden. Daher wurde eine Untersuchung an 100 Kindern mit Spaltbildungen im Alter von 0-1;6 Jahren durchgeführt. Untersuchungsgegenstand waren die kindlichen Vokalisationen in der 1.Lallphase, der 2.Lallphase (prälinguistische Phase) und der Phase des Sprechbeginns (frühe linguistische Phase). Die Analyse umfaßte phonetische Parameter, den aktiven Wortschatz sowie die Silben- und Wortstrukturen. Die Auswertung ergab hinsichtlich des temporalen Verlaufs beim überwiegenden Teil der Probanden keine Unterschiede, hinsichtlich des strukturellen Verlaufs jedoch deutliche, typisch-spezifische Unterschiede im Vergleich zu altersgleichen Kindern ohne Spaltbildungen. / Even at the earliest stages, differences in speech development can be observed between children with cleft palate and those without cleft palate. One finds, however, only undifferentiated statements in the scientific literature on the early structural and linguistic phases. We therefore undertook an investigation of 100 children with cleft palate between the ages of 0 and 1;6 years. The subjects of the investigation were the children s vocalizations during the first and second babbling phases (prelinguistic phase) and during the onset of speech (early linguistic phase). The analysis included phonetic parameters and active vocabulary, as well as syllable and word structures. Our results showed no differences among the majority of the cildren, in terms of temporal development, and only typical-specific differences in structural development, in comparison with children of the same age without cleft palate.