published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

This thesis is a new edition of the Preface and Books 1-8 of Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome of Herodian’s Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας. It includes an introduction, critical apparatus, apparatus of parallel passages and notes on the text, and is intended as a contribution to modern Herodianic studies. Most of our knowledge of Greek accentuation is due to Herodian’s lost Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας. The main sources for this work, an epitome misattributed to Arcadius and another by John Philoponus, do not have modern critical editions. Lentz’s only collected edition of Herodian’s works (1867-70) is difficult to work with, because Lentz attempts to reconstruct Herodian’s work rather than to lay out the surviving evidence. The new critical edition of Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome is a response to the need for new and separate editions of the sources for the Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας. A new edition of this text is important because the previous two editions (Barker 1820, Schmidt 1860) have many weaknesses; neither editor examined all the surviving manuscripts, and they did not read the manuscripts themselves but used copies made by other people. My new examination of all the surviving manuscripts, excepting some very late and uncontroversially derivative manuscripts, comes to a new conclusion about their interrelations. The two manuscripts which I am the first to employ turn out to be the only non-derivative manuscripts, and therefore by far the most important. They enable us to improve the text significantly. My introduction includes a substantial new evaluation of the interpolated or doubtful sections in the epitome, whose study is impeded by confusion as to their date and relationships to other works. It also discusses the authorship of this epitome, and its grammatical terminology and concepts. Another innovation is the apparatus of parallel passages. The collection of other texts that have derived material from Herodian shows the extent of Herodian’s influence on later grammatical texts. The parallel passages, as witnesses to Herodian’s text in some form, often enable us to correct the text of Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome. A further contribution of my thesis consists of the commentary, which discusses corrupt passages, features of the text that have never been explained before, and places where specific details of the epitomator’s methods can be identified. The commentary also provides argumentation supporting decisions taken in editing the text, and other helpful information for the understanding of the text.

This thesis examines existing theories of Spanish stress assignment in generative phonology and proposes an alternative theory that is more effective in predicting the surface representations of Spanish stress. Stress is characterized according to traditional textbook standards and examples are given (Chapter I). The current theoretical setting, especially the theories of James W. Harris, is then described (Chapter II). This writer's own theory, based upon an underlying distinction between tense and lax vowels, is delineated (Chapter III) and defended (Chapter IV). The new stress assignment rule--along with a rule of vowel laxing before a word boundary (#) and a rule of stress adjustment--shows stress in Spanish to be predictable and, therefore, not phonemic.

Communication in a second or multiple languages has become essential in the globalized world. However, acquiring a second language (L2) after a critical period is universally acknowledged to be challenging (Lenneberg, 1967). Late learners hardly reach a nativelike level in L2, particularly in its pronunciation, and their incomplete phonological acquisition is manifested by a foreign accent—a common and persistent feature of otherwise fluent L2 speech. Although foreign-accented speech is widespread, it has been a target of social constraints in L2-speaking communities, causing many learners and instructors to seek out ways to reduce foreign accents. Accordingly, research in L2 speech has unceasingly examined various learner-external and learner-internal factors of the occurrence of foreign accents as well as nonnative speech characteristics underlying the judgment of the degree of foreign accents. The current study aimed to expand the understanding of the characteristics and judgments of foreign accents by investigating phonological awareness, a construct pertinent to learners’ phonological knowledge, which has received little attention in research on foreign accents. The current study was exploratory and non-experimental research that targeted 40 adults with Korean-accented English living in the United States. The study first examined how 23 raters speaking American English as their native language detect, perceive, describe, and rate Korean-accented English. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses of the accent perception data, the study identified various phonological and phonetic deviations from the nativelike sounds, which largely result from the influence of first language (Korean) on L2 (English). The study then probed the relationship between foreign accents and learners’ awareness of the phonological system of L2, which was measured using production, perception, and verbalization tasks that tapped into the knowledge of L2 phonology. The study found a significant inverse relationship between the degree of a foreign accent and phonological awareness, particularly implicit knowledge of L2 segmentals. Further in-depth analyses revealed that explicit knowledge of L2 phonology alone was not sufficient for targetlike pronunciation. Findings suggest that L2 speakers experience varying degrees of difficulty in perceiving and producing different L2 segmentals, possibly resulting in foreign-accented speech.

by Lui Ling-yee. / Thesis (M.A.)--Chiense University of Hong Kong, 1981. / Bibliography: leaves 94-97.

Sin Ping Wong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991. / Bibliography: leaves 143-147. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.ii / Table of Contents --- p.iii / Chapter CHAPTER 0. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 0.1. --- Learning the English Sound System --- p.1 / Chapter 0.2. --- The Importance of the Acquisition of English Word Stress --- p.5 / Chapter 0.2.1. --- "Stress, Morphology and Syntax" --- p.5 / Chapter 0.2.2. --- Stress and Intelligibility of Non-native Speech --- p.7 / Chapter CHAPTER 1. --- THE STRESS PATTERNS OF ENGLISH WORDS --- p.12 / Chapter 1.1. --- The Phonetic Properties of English Word Stress --- p.12 / Chapter 1.2. --- Theoretical Approaches to English Word Stress --- p.13 / Chapter 1.2.1. --- Chomsky and Halle (1968) 一一 The Sound Pattern of English --- p.14 / Chapter 1.2.1.1. --- Strong/Weak Syllables --- p.15 / Chapter 1.2.1.2. --- The Transformational Cycle --- p.15 / Chapter 1.2.1.3. --- The Main Stress Rule --- p.18 / Chapter 1.2.1.4. --- The Compound Stress Rule and Nuclear Stress Rule --- p.20 / Chapter 1.2.2. --- Liberman and Prince (1977) -- Metrical Phonology --- p.22 / Chapter 1.2.2.1. --- The Stress Rules --- p.24 / Chapter 1.2.2.2. --- The Lexical Category Prominence Rule --- p.26 / Chapter 1.2.3. --- Selkirk (1980) ´ؤ Prosodic Categories --- p.29 / Chapter 1.2.4. --- Hayes (1981) ´ؤ Extrametricality --- p.34 / Chapter 1.2.4.1. --- Rime Projection --- p.34 / Chapter 1.2.4.2. --- Extrametricality --- p.35 / Chapter 1.2.4.3. --- English Stress Rules and Word Tree Construction --- p.36 / Chapter 1.3. --- Prerequisites for the Acquisition of English Word Stress --- p.40 / Chapter CHAPTER 2. --- STUDIES ON THE ACQUISITION OF STRESS --- p.43 / Chapter 2.1. --- The Acquisition of Stress by Children --- p.43 / Chapter 2.2. --- Adults' Stress Patterns - Native Speakers and ESL Learners --- p.45 / Chapter CHAPTER 3. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.51 / Chapter 3.1. --- Research Objectives --- p.51 / Chapter 3.2. --- Research Design --- p.55 / Chapter 3.2.1. --- Test Materials --- p.55 / Chapter 3.2.1.1. --- Criteria for the Coinage of Test Items --- p.55 / Chapter 3.2.1.2. --- The Rime Structure of Test Words --- p.57 / Chapter 3.2.1.3. --- Number of Syllables and Directionality of Rule Application --- p.59 / Chapter 3.2.1.4. --- Syntactic Categories --- p.61 / Chapter 3.2.2. --- Subjects --- p.64 / Chapter 3.2.3. --- Procedure --- p.64 / Chapter CHAPTER 4. --- FINDINGS --- p.68 / Chapter 4.1. --- Overall Performance --- p.69 / Chapter 4.1.1. --- Proficiency Test --- p.69 / Chapter 4.1.2. --- Overall Performance in Test Items --- p.70 / Chapter 4.1.2.1. --- Secondary Students Versus University Students --- p.72 / Chapter 4.1.2.2. --- Syntactic Category --- p.73 / Chapter 4.2. --- Learners' Stress Patterns Classified According to Syllable Structures --- p.76 / Chapter 4.2.1. --- The Stress Patterns of ESL Learners in Verbs --- p.78 / Chapter 4.2.1.1. --- 2-syllable Verbs --- p.78 / Chapter 4.2.1.2. --- 3-syllable Verbs (Regularly Patterned Responses) --- p.83 / Chapter 4.2.1.3. --- 3-syllable Verbs (Irregularly Patterned Responses) --- p.87 / Chapter 4.2.2. --- Stress Patterns of ESL Learners in Nouns --- p.92 / Chapter 4.2.2.1. --- 2-syllable Nouns --- p.92 / Chapter 4.2.2.2. --- 3-syllable Nouns --- p.96 / Chapter 4.3. --- 4-Syllable Nouns --- p.104 / Chapter CHAPTER 5. --- DISCUSSION --- p.116 / Chapter 5.1. --- Summary of Findings --- p.117 / Chapter 5.2. --- The Metrical Theory and the Stress Patterns of ESL --- p.123 / Chapter 5.2.1. --- Rime Structures --- p.123 / Chapter 5.2.2. --- Extrametricality --- p.125 / Chapter 5.2.2.1. --- Consonant Extrametricality --- p.125 / Chapter 5.2.2.2. --- Noun Extrametricality --- p.126 / Chapter 5.2.3. --- Directionality --- p.130 / Chapter 5.2.4. --- Stress Assignment --- p.132 / Chapter 5.3. --- Second Language Acquisition --- p.137 / Chapter 5.3.1. --- Learners' Strategy --- p.137 / Chapter 5.3.2. --- Group Difference --- p.138 / Chapter 5.3.3. --- L1 Transfer --- p.139 / Chapter CHAPTER 6. --- CONCLUSION --- p.141 / REFERENCES --- p.143 / Appendix A --- p.i / Appendix B --- p.vi / Appendix C --- p.xvi

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Bibliography: leaves 246-253. / by Janet Breckenridge Pierrehumbert. / Ph.D.

This study investigates the acquisition of English lexical stress by Cantonese-English bilingual children and compares the bilinguals with English monolingual children of the same age. The aim of this study is to find out how Cantonese-English bilingual children develop English lexical stress under the possible interaction of the two phonological systems. Two age groups were included: 2;06 and 3;0. Two acoustic correlates for lexical stress were measured: syllable duration and peak F0. Words in two language contexts were examined: disyllabic words in English speech and code-switched English words in Cantonese speech. / Data of eight bilingual children and seven monolingual children were used. All the bilingual data came from CHILDES database and monolingual data came from multiple sources. Disyllabic words were extracted from English utterances, and the stressed/unstressed syllable duration and peak F0 ratios were calculated to see how contrastive the stress patterns were. Results indicated that the monolingual children displayed a more contrastive stress pattern in both acoustic correlates, although syllable duration is found to be more reliable than peak F0 in stress distinction. Stress pattern in code-switched words were also analyzed. It was found that bilingual children displayed a stronger pitch difference in code-switched words, more contrastive than the patterns in their English speech. The results suggest that between 2;06 and 3;0, Cantonese-English bilingual children used less duration and pitch contrast for lexical stress than English monolingual children did, and they were slower in developing native-like lexical stress pattern during this period. On the other hand, Cantonese-English bilingual children used acoustic properties for lexical stress differently in the two language contexts, indicating that they possessed some kind of metalinguistic awareness at such an early age. / 本研究探索粵語和英語雙語兒童對英語詞重音的早期習得情況，並將雙語兒童與英語單語兒童進行對比討論。研究目的旨在探討雙語語音系統之間是否存在相互影響，以及此影響如何改變雙語兒童的語言韻律發展。研究對象包括處於2 歲6個月及3 歲這兩個年齡階段的粵英雙語及英語單語兒童。文章選取兒童自然對話中,位於句中位置的雙音節詞，對其音節時長和音高峰值進行測量。此外，本研究發現雙語兒童存在代碼轉換的現象，即在粵語表達中插入英語辭彙，因此本文同時也對被插入的英語辭彙的詞重音進行探究，以期對詞重音的雙語習得獲得更詳盡的瞭解。 / 本研究所用數據來自八名粵英雙語兒童和七名英語單語兒童。雙語兒童數據取自“兒童語言資料交換系統”（CHILDES）中的“香港雙語兒童語料庫”，單語兒童數據則來自多方資料。研究將所提取的雙音節詞的重音音節與非重音音節的時長及音高峰值分別測量之後，計算出重音音節與非重音音節的比值。比值越大表明兒童在產出中越能明顯區別重音音節與非重音音節，即對英語詞重音的掌握越好。 / 研究結果發現單語兒童的表現領先于雙語兒童，體現在單語兒童可以將重音與非重音音節的時長與音高明顯區分，而雙語兒童產出的雙音節詞中，重音音節和非重音音節在時長和音高方面的區別都不明顯。然而對於被插入粵語句子中的英語雙音節詞，雙語兒童卻能很好地區分開重音音節和非重音音節的音高 。 / 研究結果表明，在2 歲6 個月至3 歲之間的這段時間，粵語和英語雙語兒童對英語詞重音的習得逊於英語單語兒童。但另一方面，粵語和英語雙語兒童表現出對語言環境的敏感，可以根據語言環境和交流對象的不同改變對語音特徵的運用，展現出一定程度的元（後設）語言覺識。 / Li, Jingwen. / Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-65). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on 11, October, 2016). / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only.

In recent years quite a lot of attention has been paid to the suprasegmental features of speech. In the field of second language acquisition, by contrast, the study of prosodic systems suffers from a considerable under-representation. Situated in the double theoretical framework of contrastive linguistics and interlanguage analysis, this study investigates the strategies underlying the distribution of pitch accents in L2 Dutch and French as well as the factors influencing them. The ‘Integrated Contrastive Model' used in this research involves four types of comparisons: Dutch (L1) – French (L1), Dutch (L1) – Dutch (L2), French (L1) – French (L2), Dutch (L2) – French (L2). Looking at Dutch and French L1 data, it appears that structural factors have a much stronger influence on the distribution of pitch accents in French than in Dutch, where their position in the utterance is mainly governed by semantic-pragmatic principles. Crucially, this contrast between the learners' L1 and L2 constitutes a major of interference in their inter¬language system. This is reflected by the use of a structurally motivated default pattern in L2 Dutch, whereas Dutch-speaking L2 learners of French have a clear preference for accent patterns reflecting the contextual news value of sentence elements. The systematic use of the French ‘arc accentuel' in L2 Dutch results in a relatively high number of contextually infelicitous accent distributions (negative transfer), whereas the use of the pragmatic accent rules of Dutch in L2 French gives rise relatively few accentuation errors. This leads to a significant over- and underuse of some accent distributions instead. Besides those differences, there are also similarities between the two interlanguage varieties under investigation. In both cases, the relative correctness of the accentuation proves to be correlated with the overall quality of the segmentation of the utterance: the more accurate the learners' pausing strategies, the higher the probability that they also produce a contextually adequate accent distribution. Also, marked L1 accent patterns appear not to be transferred to the learners' L2 speech. Finally, mastering both the L2 pausing strategies and the typologically marked accent patterns of the target language emerges as an important step towards nativelike use of the L2 accent system. In the general conclusions, both the theoretical and pedagogical implications of the research results are discussed. / En dépit de l'intérêt croissant pour les études prosodiques, relativement peu de recherches ont été consacrées aux caractéristiques suprasegmentales de l'interlangue. Située dans le double cadre théorique de la linguistique contrastive et de l'analyse de l'interlangue, cette thèse étudie les stratégies de placement de l'accent ‘tonique' en français et en néerlandais, ainsi que les facteurs influençant la distribution de l'accent dans les productions orales de locuteurs natifs et non-natifs (niveau de maîtrise ‘avancé') des deux langues. Pour étudier ces différents aspects, nous avons développé un paradigme expérimental (‘Modèle Contrastif Intégré') faisant intervenir quatre études contrastives : néerlandais – français (L1), néerlandais (L1) – néerlandais (L2), français (L1) – français (L2), néerlandais (L2) – français (L2). L'étude contrastive de données comparables recueillies auprès de locuteurs natifs démontrent, en français, la prédominance de facteurs structuraux sur des facteurs d'ordre sémantico-pragmatique, alors qu'en néerlandais c'est l'inverse qui se produit. Par ailleurs, ce contraste s'avère exercer une influence importante sur les productions orales des deux groupes d'apprenants. Ceci se traduit chez les apprenants francophones du néerlandais par une distribution par défaut de type ‘arc accentuel', alors que les apprenants néerlandophones du français ont plutôt tendance à produire des schèmes accentuels reflétant la valeur informative des constituants. Ces différentes stratégies d'accentuation s'accompagnent dans le premier groupe d'un nombre important de distributions contextuellement inadéquates (transfert négatif), alors que dans le second groupe l'application en interlangue des stratégies de la langue maternelle occasionne relativement peu d'erreurs (transfert positif), mais uniquement des différences (significatives) en terme de fréquence statistique. Outre ces différences, les deux interlangues étudiées présentent un certain nombre de similitudes. Tout d'abord, la qualité de l'accentuation s'avère, dans les deux cas, être étroitement liée à la qualité de la segmentation de l'énoncé : plus la répartition des pauses dans l'énoncé est correcte, plus il y a de chances que les apprenants produisent un schème accentuel contextuellement approprié. En outre, il apparaît que les formes ‘marquées' de la langue maternelle ne sont pas transférées vers l'interlangue. Enfin, la maîtrise des schèmes accentuels marqués ainsi que des stratégies de segmentation de la langue-cible s'avèrent constituer deux étapes importantes vers un niveau de maîtrise comparable à celui des locuteurs natifs. L'étude se termine par une discussion des implications théoriques et didactiques des résultats.