This dissertation explores the relationship between English phonotactics – sequential dependencies between adjacent segments – and the metrical parse, which relies on the division of words into syllables. Most current theories of syllabification operate under the assumption that the phonotactic restrictions which co-determine syllable boundaries are constrained by word edges. For example, a syllable can never begin with a consonant sequence that is not also attested as a word onset. This view of phonotactics as categorical is outdated: for several decades now, psycholinguistic research employing monosyllables has shown that phonotactic knowledge is gradient, and that this gradience is projected from the lexicon and possibly also based on differences in sonority among consonants located at word margins. This dissertation is an attempt to reconcile syllabification theory with this modern view of phonotactics. In what follows, I propose and defend a gradient metrical parsing model which assigns English syllable boundaries as a probabilistic function of the well-formedness relations that obtain between potential syllable onsets and offsets. I argue that this well-formedness is subserved by the same sources already established in the phonotactic literature: probabilistic generalizations over the word edges as well as sonority. In support of my proposal, I provide experimental evidence from five sources: (1) a pseudoword hyphenation experiment, (2) a reanalysis of a well-known, large-scale hyphenation study using real English words, (3) a forced-choice preference task employing nonwords presented as minimal stress pairs, (4) an online stress assignment experiment, and (5) a study of the speech errors committed by the participants of (4). The results of all studies converge in support of the gradient parsing model and correlate significantly with each other. Subsequent computer simulations suggest that the gradient model is preferred to the categorical alternative throughout all stages of lexical acquisition. This dissertation contains co-authored material accepted for publication.

No estudo fonológico experimental descrito nesta dissertação, buscamos testar a capacidade dos falantes de português de reconhecerem as palavras a partir de fragmentos iniciais com informações baseadas no acento lexical. Para tanto, realizamos um teste em que palavras segmentadas da língua portuguesa eram apresentadas aos sujeitos os quais deveriam escolher entre palavras pertencentes a três padrões acentuais - tônica/átona, átona/tônica, átona/átona - a qual julgavam pertencer a seqüência de som ouvida. Os resultados do teste revelaram que os sujeitos são capazes de reconhecer uma palavra com base em seus segmentos iniciais e informações sobre o acento lexical. O padrão átona/átona, nomeado PP, apresentou o maior índice de julgamentos errados, 46%, dos quais, a maioria, favorece o padrão átona/tônica. Os parâmetros acústicos que marcam o português foram observados e não apresentaram justificativa para os erros de PP, o que nos leva a concluir que a escolha dos sujeitos seja norteada pelo padrão acentual do português, o paroxítono. / In the experimental phonological research described in this dissertation, we aimed at testing the Portuguese speakers\' ability to recognize words from its initial fragments with information based on the lexical stress. Considering this goal, we \"administered\" a test in which segmented words from Portuguese language were presented to the subjects who had to choose it among three initial stressed patterns - stressed/unstressed, unstressed/stressed, unstressed/unstressed. The choice was done according to the judgment of the sequence of sounds heard by the subjects. The test results revealed that the subjects are able to recognize a word on the basis of its initial segments and information about the lexical stress. The pattern unstressed/unstressed, named PP, presented a higher index of amiss judgment, 46%, the greatest part of the erroneous PP judgment favors the pattern unstressed/stressed. The acoustic parameters that represents Portuguese stress were observed and did not present justification for the errors of PP. Therefore, we could conclude that the choices made by the subjects were leaded by the Portuguese stressed pattern, the paroxítono.

No estudo fonológico experimental descrito nesta dissertação, buscamos testar a capacidade dos falantes de português de reconhecerem as palavras a partir de fragmentos iniciais com informações baseadas no acento lexical. Para tanto, realizamos um teste em que palavras segmentadas da língua portuguesa eram apresentadas aos sujeitos os quais deveriam escolher entre palavras pertencentes a três padrões acentuais - tônica/átona, átona/tônica, átona/átona - a qual julgavam pertencer a seqüência de som ouvida. Os resultados do teste revelaram que os sujeitos são capazes de reconhecer uma palavra com base em seus segmentos iniciais e informações sobre o acento lexical. O padrão átona/átona, nomeado PP, apresentou o maior índice de julgamentos errados, 46%, dos quais, a maioria, favorece o padrão átona/tônica. Os parâmetros acústicos que marcam o português foram observados e não apresentaram justificativa para os erros de PP, o que nos leva a concluir que a escolha dos sujeitos seja norteada pelo padrão acentual do português, o paroxítono. / In the experimental phonological research described in this dissertation, we aimed at testing the Portuguese speakers\' ability to recognize words from its initial fragments with information based on the lexical stress. Considering this goal, we \"administered\" a test in which segmented words from Portuguese language were presented to the subjects who had to choose it among three initial stressed patterns - stressed/unstressed, unstressed/stressed, unstressed/unstressed. The choice was done according to the judgment of the sequence of sounds heard by the subjects. The test results revealed that the subjects are able to recognize a word on the basis of its initial segments and information about the lexical stress. The pattern unstressed/unstressed, named PP, presented a higher index of amiss judgment, 46%, the greatest part of the erroneous PP judgment favors the pattern unstressed/stressed. The acoustic parameters that represents Portuguese stress were observed and did not present justification for the errors of PP. Therefore, we could conclude that the choices made by the subjects were leaded by the Portuguese stressed pattern, the paroxítono.

No description available.

One of the key features of the hypokinetic dysarthria associated with Parkinson disease is dysprosody. While there has been ample research into the global characterization of speech in Parkinson disease, little is known about how people with Parkinson disease mark lexical stress. This study aimed to determine how people with Parkinson disease modulate pitch, intensity, duration, and vowel space to differentiate between two common lexical stress patterns in English: trochees (strong-weak pattern) and iambs (weak-strong pattern), in two syllable words. Twelve participants with mild to moderate idiopathic Parkinson disease and twelve age- and sex-matched controls completed a series of speech tasks designed to elicit token words of interest in prosodically-relevant speech tasks (picture identification (in isolation and lists) and giving directions (spontaneous speech). Results revealed that people with Parkinson disease produced a higher overall pitch and a smaller vowel space as compared to controls, though most lexical marking features were not significantly different. Importantly, the elicitation task had a significant effect on most dependent measures. Although lexical stress is not significantly impacted by Parkinson disease, we recommend that future research and clinical practice focus more on the use of spontaneous speech tasks rather than isolated words or lists of words due to the differences in the marking of lexical stress in the latter tasks, making them less useful as ecologically-valid assessments of prosody in everyday communication.

No description available.

Second language learners of English often experience difficulties in English lexical stress perception. This has traditionally been attributed to transfer of prosodic unit or settings from their first language (L1). Similarly, the problem of Chinese learners with English stress perception was assumed to arise from tonal transfer. However, little research has been devoted to the investigation of the phonetic details of second language (L2) stress perception. The present research focuses on the perception of English lexical stress by Chinese learners of English. The purpose of this study is to reveal the use of acoustic cues in stress perception by Chinese learners of English. In the experiment, F0, duration and intensity were manipulated, each with five steps, on three disyllabic nonsense words to result in a total of 375 nonsense tokens. A group of native speakers of English (NE) and a group of Chinese learners of English (CE) participated in the study and judged whether the stress was on the first or second syllable in the test stimuli. The responses of Chinese learners of English in stress judgment were compared against the baseline of native English speakers. The statistical tests of reliance measures and logistic regression models were used in data analysis. Results indicated that, similar to NE participants, performance by CE participants showed systematic variation as a result of the manipulation of the three acoustic cues. However, CEs were different from NEs in their reliance on the three cues. CE had significantly lower duration and intensity reliance scores but significantly higher F0 than NE. In logistic regression analysis, compared to the NE group, F0 contributed most to the CE models, while the contribution of duration and intensity was minimal. It is concluded from this study that while all three cues have significant effects on stress perception for native English speakers, only F0 has a decisive effect on stress judgments by Chinese learners of English. This study reveals that, rather than transfer of tone at the phonological level, there is transfer of reliance on F0 in the acquisition of L2 English stress. It is suggested that the investigation of phonetic details of learners’ problems with L2 stress acquisition is necessary for L2 speech learning theories and also for L2 stress teaching.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-08-20Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:43:48Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 costa_ds_dr_arafcl.pdf: 4693120 bytes, checksum: ac0e9a0c46593fd4bab80819608c224c (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Esta tese de doutorado tem por objetivo confirmar a possibilidade de uma conexão entre a música e a linguística no desenvolvimento de uma nova metodologia para o estudo da prosódia de línguas mortas ou de períodos anteriores de línguas vivas. Tal metodologia baseia-se, resumidamente, na observação das proeminências musicais de textos poéticos musicados, na observação das proeminências linguísticas do texto dos poemas, junto com a observação da estrutura métrica dos mesmos. Sendo assim, partiu-se da ideia de que o tempo forte do compasso musical (o primeiro tempo) marca preferencialmente uma proeminência no nível linguístico, podendo servir de base para a localização das sílabas tônicas das palavras do texto, o que poderia fornecer pistas para o estudo do acento lexical de palavras em línguas que já não possuem falantes, nem registros orais. O corpus utilizado na pesquisa que sustenta essa tese constitui-se de um recorte das cem primeiras Cantigas de Santa Maria de Afonso X, tomadas a partir das suas versões transcritas por Anglés (1943) para a notação musical atual. Os dados foram coletados por meio da elaboração de fichas de análise, as quais mostram, de maneira clara, as coincidências entre proeminências nos níveis musical e linguístico. Vale ressaltar que foram coletadas trinta e oito mil e dezoito palavras, por meio das quais foi possível analisar a atribuição do acento lexical nas três pautas prosódicas existentes no português arcaico (oxítonas, paroxítonas e proparoxítonas), além e abrirmos uma discussão a respeito da tonicidade de monossílabos e o status prosódico de clíticos; também foi possível analisar a ocorrência do acento secundário, uma das maiores contribuições deste trabalho para a descrição da prosódia dessa língua. Dialogando com os trabalhos de... / This thesis aims to confirm the possibility of a connection between Music and Linguistics on the development of a new methodology applied to the study of the prosody of dead languages or ancient periods of living languages. This methodology is based on the observation of musical prominences of poetic texts with musical notation, and on the observation of linguistic prominences of the texts, considering their metrical structure. There is a great probability of the musical stresses (the first beat of the measure) to coincide with the stressed syllable of the words. This fact provides clues for the study of lexical stress in past periods of the language. The corpus used for this research is composed by the first hundred Cantigas de Santa Maria, which were compiled by Alfonso X and transcribed for the contemporary musical notation by Anglés (1943). The data were collected by means of the elaboration of boards which show the coincidences between prominences at musical and linguistic levels. It is important to point out that thirty eight thousand and eighteen words were collected; this fact enabled the analysis of the attribution of the lexical stress in Medieval Portuguese. Moreover it was possible to discuss the prominence grade of monosyllables and to analyze the occurrence of secondary stresses, maybe the largest contribution of this research in the description of the prosody of that language. Dialoguing with previous researches such as Massini-Cagliari (1995, 1999, 2005) and Costa (2006) - regarding the attribution of the lexical stress in Medieval Portuguese - and Collishonn (1994) - regarding the secondary stress in Brazilian Portuguese - we could verify that the methodology developed in this thesis brought significant contributions for the description of the Medieval Portuguese phonological component as it allowed the analysis of... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Gladis Massini-Cagliari / Banca: Gisela Collischonn / Banca: Flaviane Romani Fernandes Svartman / Banca: Rosane de Andrade Berlinck / Banca: Marcia Valeria Zamboni Gobbi / Resumo: Esta tese de doutorado tem por objetivo confirmar a possibilidade de uma conexão entre a música e a linguística no desenvolvimento de uma nova metodologia para o estudo da prosódia de línguas mortas ou de períodos anteriores de línguas vivas. Tal metodologia baseia-se, resumidamente, na observação das proeminências musicais de textos poéticos musicados, na observação das proeminências linguísticas do texto dos poemas, junto com a observação da estrutura métrica dos mesmos. Sendo assim, partiu-se da ideia de que o tempo forte do compasso musical (o primeiro tempo) marca preferencialmente uma proeminência no nível linguístico, podendo servir de base para a localização das sílabas tônicas das palavras do texto, o que poderia fornecer pistas para o estudo do acento lexical de palavras em línguas que já não possuem falantes, nem registros orais. O corpus utilizado na pesquisa que sustenta essa tese constitui-se de um recorte das cem primeiras Cantigas de Santa Maria de Afonso X, tomadas a partir das suas versões transcritas por Anglés (1943) para a notação musical atual. Os dados foram coletados por meio da elaboração de fichas de análise, as quais mostram, de maneira clara, as coincidências entre proeminências nos níveis musical e linguístico. Vale ressaltar que foram coletadas trinta e oito mil e dezoito palavras, por meio das quais foi possível analisar a atribuição do acento lexical nas três pautas prosódicas existentes no português arcaico (oxítonas, paroxítonas e proparoxítonas), além e abrirmos uma discussão a respeito da tonicidade de monossílabos e o status prosódico de clíticos; também foi possível analisar a ocorrência do acento secundário, uma das maiores contribuições deste trabalho para a descrição da prosódia dessa língua. Dialogando com os trabalhos de... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This thesis aims to confirm the possibility of a connection between Music and Linguistics on the development of a new methodology applied to the study of the prosody of dead languages or ancient periods of living languages. This methodology is based on the observation of musical prominences of poetic texts with musical notation, and on the observation of linguistic prominences of the texts, considering their metrical structure. There is a great probability of the musical stresses (the first beat of the measure) to coincide with the stressed syllable of the words. This fact provides clues for the study of lexical stress in past periods of the language. The corpus used for this research is composed by the first hundred Cantigas de Santa Maria, which were compiled by Alfonso X and transcribed for the contemporary musical notation by Anglés (1943). The data were collected by means of the elaboration of boards which show the coincidences between prominences at musical and linguistic levels. It is important to point out that thirty eight thousand and eighteen words were collected; this fact enabled the analysis of the attribution of the lexical stress in Medieval Portuguese. Moreover it was possible to discuss the prominence grade of monosyllables and to analyze the occurrence of secondary stresses, maybe the largest contribution of this research in the description of the prosody of that language. Dialoguing with previous researches such as Massini-Cagliari (1995, 1999, 2005) and Costa (2006) - regarding the attribution of the lexical stress in Medieval Portuguese - and Collishonn (1994) - regarding the secondary stress in Brazilian Portuguese - we could verify that the methodology developed in this thesis brought significant contributions for the description of the Medieval Portuguese phonological component as it allowed the analysis of... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor