This study investigated speech sound and syllable development in eighteen Zulu speaking children, between the ages of 3;0 to 6;2. In addition, the frequency of occurrence of Zulu speech sounds and syllables in this age group was investigated. To elicit a representative sample of the subjects’ natural speech, a 100-word spontaneous conversational sample was elicited from each subject. The samples were collected by a linguistically matched research assistant. All samples were transcribed phonetically by a stringent transcription procedure, and the reliability of the transcription was assessed by an external moderator. The UNIBET was used to code the transcription into computer recognisable symbols. The Phonetic Calculator Program (PCP) quantitively analysed the samples in terms of speech sound inventory, syllable inventory and the frequency of occurrence of speech sounds and syllables. The data was processed to allow for the comparison of the findings at three age levels namely, 3;0-4;0; 4;1-5;1 and 5;2-6;2. It was found that there was developmental progression between the ages of 3;0-6;2, with regard to speech sounds and syllables. It was found that much speech and syllable development occurred before the age of 3;0, and that the speech sound inventory and syllable inventory was incomplete by the age of 6;2. In addition, the nasals, plosives, approximants and fricatives were found to develop earlier than the affricates, clicks and prenasalised consonant sounds. The shorter syllable strings were found to develop earlier than the longer syllable strings. The subjects produced more speech sounds at an earlier age than their English-speaking peers. The subjects also produced longer strings of syllables at a younger age than their English-speaking peers. The findings in Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3 were similar to each other with regard to, the order of the speech sound frequency and syllable frequency. The more complex sounds and syllables were produced more frequently by the older subjects, demonstrating developmental progression. The findings have important clinical implications. Furthermore, the study can provide Speech-Language Therapists with a framework for further research, and contribute in constructing a relevant database of Zulu speech development. / Dissertation (MA (Communication Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / Unrestricted

Spring dead spot (SDS) is the most destructive disease of bermudagrass and its hybrids, affecting intensively managed bermudagrass turf that is at least three years old. This bermudagrass disease is most prevalent in the United States where winter temperatures become cold enough to induce dormancy. The symptoms of SDS appear as sunken, necrotic patches of turf ranging from several centimeters to greater than 0.5 m in diameter. Field studies were conducted at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, MS on a Tifway bermudagrass fairway beginning January of 2005 and concluding December of 2006 to determine the frequency and the effects of soil temperature on occurrence of O. korrae in bermudagrass. Characterization of O. korrae isolates was conducted based on optimal in vitro growth temperatures and greenhouse pathogenicity studies. Cultural, nutritional, and chemical management practices were evaluated on the bermudagrass fairway for the reduction of SDS severity, promotion of improved turf color, quality, root health, and reduction of the thatch/mat layer. Treatments included core aerification with and without topdressing, vertical mowing, manganese, elemental sulfur, and myclobutanil fungicide applications. Each year was divided into seasons (winter, spring, summer, fall) based on the bermudagrass growth cycle in Mississippi. The frequency of O. korrae occurrence ranged from 14% in 2005 to 16% in 2006, and was similar for all treatments. Ophiosphaerella korrae occurrence was greatest in the winter and spring compared to the summer and fall. There was no direct association between mean soil temperature and frequency of O. korrae occurrence. Spring dead spot severity ratings were similar in 2005 and 2006. Vertical mowing had a significant effect on fall turf color in 2005 and fall turf color and quality in 2006. The aggressive cultural practices (i.e. vertical mowing, aerification) were the most consistent treatments for significantly reducing the thatch/mat layer and improving root health.

The assemblage structure, abundance, biomass, and vertical distribution of juvenile reef fishes in the offshore pelagic habitat of the northern Gulf of Mexico are described as part of the NOAA-supported Offshore Nekton Sampling and Analysis Program. The results presented here are from a 3-month, continuous sampling series in 2011 in which discrete depth strata from 0 to 1500 m were sampled using a 10-m2 MOCNESS midwater trawl. This is the first study to examine pelagic juvenile reef fish distributions across the entire oceanic northern Gulf of Mexico seaward of the continental shelf break after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. During this series, 87,407 specimens were collected, of which 838 were reef fishes, representing seven orders, 30 families and 119 species. The faunal composition of pelagic juvenile reef fishes was diverse and well mixed, with no discernable spatial structure with respect to water masses and solar cycle. Seventy-nine percent of the pelagic juvenile reef fishes were collected in the epipelagic and the dominant families were Congridae, Carangidae, Tetraodontidae, and Acanthuridae. Species richness, biomass, and frequency of occurrence of pelagic juvenile reef fishes was greatest between 0-200 m and decreased with depth. Data from the assemblage structure, abundance, biomass, and vertical distribution of pelagic juvenile reef fishes collected from this cruise series will contribute to the lack of knowledge regarding the dispersal dynamics and coastal-connectivity of these fishes in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

This study investigated common English language errors made by Oshiwambo, Afrikaans and Silozi First Language speakers. The study examined errors in a corpus of 360 essays written by 180 participants. Errors were identified and classified into various categories. The four most common errors committed by the participants were tenses, prepositions, articles and spelling. The study is important to educators and study material developers who should become aware of the kind of errors that their target learners make, so that they are in a better position to put appropriate intervention strategies into place. For learners, error analysis is important as it shows the areas of difficulty in their writing. The limitations and some pedagogical implications for future study are included at the end of this research paper. / English Studies / M. A. (TESOL)

This study investigated common English language errors made by Oshiwambo, Afrikaans and Silozi First Language speakers. The study examined errors in a corpus of 360 essays written by 180 participants. Errors were identified and classified into various categories. The four most common errors committed by the participants were tenses, prepositions, articles and spelling. The study is important to educators and study material developers who should become aware of the kind of errors that their target learners make, so that they are in a better position to put appropriate intervention strategies into place. For learners, error analysis is important as it shows the areas of difficulty in their writing. The limitations and some pedagogical implications for future study are included at the end of this research paper. / English Studies / M. A. (TESOL)

The present thesis studies the copular verbs and their co-occurrence with adjectival complements in contemporary written and spoken English. The theoretical part of this work first describes the copular verbs in terms of their types and types of complements they take. A corpus-based approach to copular verbs follows. A part of the theory also provides an overview of the terminology that is used with copular verbs. The work consists of two parts: the theoretical part which introduces the topic and describes the features of both the principal copula be and other copular verbs and the analytical part which analyses written language data excerpted from the Araneum Anglicum corpus and spoken language data from the Spoken BNC2014 corpus. The analytical part focuses on the following seven verbs: feel, look, seem, remain, become, go and get and their adjectival complements. These adjectives are then analysed in terms of their frequency and collocability with the verbs. The collocate lists of all verbs are then compared between the two corpora. Finally, the analysis also attempts to categorize the adjectives semantically. The analysis also focuses on adverbs which occur in these constructions and which function is to modify the adjectives. The results of the analytical part are summarized in the conclusion.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T14:59:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008 - Leandro Galzerano.pdf: 1398173 bytes, checksum: 3b9bc8540a1e5f744b54fffefe6a7828 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-05 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / This work was carried out in order to obtain subsidies under the definition of strategies for nitrogen fertilization of pastures of tifton 85, based on monitoring the dynamics changes in the structure of swards. The underlying assumption was that the application of increasing levels of N is a powerful tool for that purpose. The experiment was developed over a Planosol of occurrence in the experimental field of the Universidade Federal Rural Rio de Janeiro, city of Serop?dica, Brazil, during the establishment of the pasture, between the months of October, 2006 to January 2007. Treatments consisted of four levels of N (0, 50, 100 and 150 kg N-urea. ha-1), in single application, in plots of 4 x 4 m, arranged in blocks fully randomized, with four repetitions. Together with nitrogen fertilization, the plots received 80 kg P.ha-1 and 150 kg K.ha-1, and Ca as calcareo (1.0 tn.ha-1). The variables were: frequency of occurrence of plants; height of the canopy, leaf growth and leaf area index (LAI), the interception of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and the production and partition of dry matter. The results showed that the frequency of occurrence, height and interception of PAR varied according to a standard logistic, whose parameters have been modified to a greater or lesser degree, by the levels of N added. Similarly, at the 87 days after planting, the LAI and the total dry matter produced, but not its partition between leaves and stems, responded to changes in N mineral available in the soil. It was concluded that the application of increasing levels of Nurea, during the establishment of grass tifton 85 was an efficient experimental strategy for the induction of quantitative changes during the development time of swards structure. / O presente trabalho foi realizado com o prop?sito de definir estrat?gias de aduba??o nitrogenada em pastagens de tifton 85, baseadas no monitoramento de mudan?as din?micas na estrutura dos doss?is forrageiros. O experimento foi desenvolvido numa ?rea de Planossolo no campo experimental da Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, munic?pio de Serop?dica, RJ, durante a fase de estabelecimento da pastagem, entre os meses de outubro de 2006 a janeiro de 2007. Os tratamentos consistiram de quatro n?veis de N (0; 50; 100 e 150 kg N-ur?ia.ha-1), em aplica??o ?nica, dispostos em parcelas de 4 x 4 m, arranjadas em blocos inteiramente casualizados, com quatro repeti??es. Em conjunto com a aduba??o nitrogenada, as parcelas receberam 80 kg P.ha-1 e 150 kg K.ha-1. O solo foi corrigido com 1,0 tn.ha-1 de calc?reo. As vari?veis estudadas foram: freq??ncia de ocorr?ncia de plantas; altura do dossel, crescimento foliar e ?ndice de ?rea foliar (IAF), intercepta??o de radia??o fotossinteticamente ativa (RFA) e produ??o e parti??o da mat?ria seca. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que a freq??ncia de ocorr?ncia; altura e a intercepta??o de RFA variaram temporalmente de acordo com um padr?o log?stico, cujos par?metros foram modificados, em maior ou menor grau, pelos n?veis de N adicionados. De forma similar, aos 87 dias p?s- plantio, o IAF e a mat?ria seca total produzida, mas n?o a sua parti??o entre folhas e colmos, responderam ?s varia??es do N mineral dispon?vel no solo. Foi conclu?do que a aplica??o de n?veis crescentes de Nur?ia, durante a fase de estabelecimento do capim tifton 85 foi uma estrat?gia experimental eficiente para a indu??o de varia??es quantitativas durante o desenvolvimento temporal da estrutura dos doss?is.

The present dissertation aims at analyzing the interplay between initial acoustic biases and language exposure during acquisition of language in the first year of life. This is a critical period in development because it is when phonetic categories are attuned to the native language. This goal is addressed by integrating the results from two developmental studies. The first study explores the presence of asymmetries in vowel perception in infants from 4 to 12 months of age, as a function of the acoustic salience and distributional properties in the test language. The second study investigates the previous contrasting results on vowel perception in 8-month-old infants growing in bilingual environments, and in particular and their relationship with task demands and the properties of the bilingual input. The results emerging from these studies point to two developmental trends. On one hand, asymmetries in vowel perception are modulated by acoustic biases before and during perceptual reorganization, and by distributional cues after perceptual reorganization. On the other hand, discrimination abilities of 8-month-old bilinguals parallel those of monolinguals when tested with an Anticipatory Eye Movement procedure, highlighting the importance of task demands in determining infants' performance. / L'objectiu d'aquesta tesis és analitzar la dinàmica que s'estableix entre els biaixos acústics i l'experiència amb el llenguatge durant el primer any de vida. Aquest és un període decisiu durant el qual les categories fonètiques s'ajusten a les propietats de la llengua materna. Aquest objectiu s'assoleix integrant els resultats de dos estudis. En el primer estudi s'explora la presència d'asimetries en la percepció de les vocals en bebès de 4 a 12 mesos d'edat, en funció de la saliència acústica i les propietats distribucionals de la llengua. El segon estudi investiga els resultats contradictoris obtinguts amb bebès de 8 mesos d'edat bilingües, i la seva relació amb les demandes de la tasca i les propietats de l'input bilingüe. Els resultats d'aquests estudis indiquen dos tendències al desenvolupament. Per una banda, que les asimetries en la percepció de les vocals són modulades per biaixos acústics abans i durant la reorganització perceptiva i per les propietats distribucionals després de la reorganització perceptiva; per l'altra banda, els resultats mostren que les habilitats de discriminació dels bilingües de 8 mesos d'edat són corresponents a les dels monolingües quan es fa servir un procediment d'anticipació de la mirada, posant en rellevància la importància de les demandes de la tasca en determinar el rendiment dels bebès.

En los estudios sobre la percepción de los sonidos del habla es fácil encontrar diversos ejemplos que muestran que algunas características de la señal resultan más notorias que otras. En general estas diferencias no han sido incorporadas en los modelos de reconocimiento de palabras. En este trabajo se muestran evidencias de los sesgos en la percepción de vocales en adultos utilizando la técnica de los potenciales evocados. Independientemente de la lengua materna de los participantes, el fonema /i/ resulta mejor discriminado (i.e. respecto a /e/). Además se estudia el papel que la notoriedad de los estímulos juega en la representación y el acceso léxico. El juicio léxico realizado sobre no-palabras se ve acelerado cuando estas contienen como vocal crítica la /i/ (vs. /e/). / In speech perception literature, it is easy to find examples of some characteristics in the signal hich are more salient than others. However, such differences have generally not been incorporated in word recognition models. In this dissertation, evidence of adult vowel perception biases is shown by means of the event-related potentials (ERP) technique. We show that, regardless of the participants' native language, the /i/ phoneme is recognised more easily (relative to the /e/ phoneme). In addition the role that salience plays in lexica representation and access is studied. We find that lexical judgement in non-words is speeded when these contain /i/ as a critical vowel (vs. /e/).