The purpose of this study was to develop, digitally record, evaluate, and psychometrically equate a set of Thai monosyllabic word lists to use in the measurement of word recognition ability. A native male and female talker from Thailand, who were judged to have a standard Thai dialect, participated as talkers in digitally recording familiar Thai monosyllabic words. Twenty native Thai participants were used as subjects to determine the percentage of correct word recognition for each word at 10 intensity levels ranging from --5 to 40 dB HL in 5 dB increments. The 200 words with the highest raw scores were included in the final word lists. Four lists of 50 words each were created and eight half-lists (25 words each) were created from the four lists. A chi-square analysis was performed, revealing no statistical differences among the lists and half-lists. The monosyllabic word data were analyzed using logistic regression to calculate threshold and slope for each list and half-list.

The purpose of this study was to develop, digitally record, evaluate, and psychometrically equate a set of Arabic monosyllabic word lists to use in the measurement of the word recognition score. Familiar Arabic monosyllabic words were digitally recorded by a native male talker from Jordan who was judged to have a standard Arabic dialect. Twenty native Arabic participants with normal hearing were used as subjects to determine the percentage of correct word recognition for each word at 10 intensity levels ranging from -5 to 40 dB HL in 5 dB increments. The monosyllabic word data were analyzed using logistic regression. The words producing the steepest psychometric function were included in the final word lists. Four lists of 50 words each were created and eight half-lists (25 words each) were created from the four lists. A Chi-square analysis was performed, revealing no statistical differences among the lists and half-lists. The mean monosyllabic psychometric function slopes at 50% for lists and half-lists were 4.8%/dB.

The present study examines Saudi ESL learner perception of three syllable-final English nasal contrasts: /m/-/n/, /m/-/©¯/, and /n/-/©¯/. It was based primarily on two models, the Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM) and the Speech Learning Model (SLM), in order to determine how Saudi ESL learners categorized nasal segments in their L2, English. In addition, other models, including the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH), contributed in finding the most difficult contrast. The participants, consisting of 24 Saudis studying in the US, were asked to distinguish between 40 English monosyllabic words grouped into minimal pairs. Regardless of their length of exposure, participants had greater difficulty in categorizing /n/ and /©¯/ as separate phonemes, dealing with these sounds as a Single Category (SC). The /n/-/m/ contrast had the fewest errors among participants with more exposure in the US, who were able to distinguish between the word pairs in this contrast, while those with less exposure had more difficulty in distinguishing /n/ from /m/. This fact shows that the participants, especially after receiving more exposure, were able to categorize the /n/ and /m/ as a Two Category (TC). The contrast /m/-/©¯/ had a number of errors somewhat similar to that found with the /n/-/m/ contrast. Therefore, participants in early stages of learning encountered more difficulties in categorizing /m/ and /©¯/ than those who had spent a longer period of time in the US. This study concluded that the categorization between Arabic and English phonemes was highly important in learning English as an L2. Therefore, the absence of the English nasal /©¯/ from the Arabic phonemic inventory caused difficulties for Saudi ESL learners to categorize /©¯/ as a separate phoneme. Additionally, markedness also played a role since the velar nasal /©¯/ is typologically more marked than /n/ and /m/ making it more difficult to acquire in early stages of L2 learning.

The purpose of this study was to record a set of Mongolian monosyllabic word lists that could be used to obtain a word recognition score. A word list was developed of 190 frequently used monosyllabic words which had been selected by a group of raters. Native male and female Mongolian talkers were utilized to make digital recordings. The 190 words were divided into 10 lists of 19 words. The lists were presented to 20 normally hearing subjects at 10 different intensity levels ranging from -5 to 40 dB HL in 5 dB increments. An S-curve distribution was used to divide the words among three lists based upon the results of the word recognition testing. Word lists were assembled formulating 3 lists of 50 words and 6 half-lists of 25 words using an S-curve distribution. Logistic regression was used to calculate the psychometric functions for each list. The mean psychometric function slopes for the male and female word lists were 6.19%/dB and 5.17%/dB respectively. The 50% threshold was 14.47 dB HL for the final adjusted male and female lists.

This PhD thesis examines a phenomenon known as Monosyllabic Circumflexion (MC, hereafter) from a historical linguistics / phonological point of view. MC denotes a Lithuanian or Balto-Slavic phenomenon according to which long vowels and diphthongs in monosyllabic words exhibit a circumflex tone instead of the expected acute tone.  It is observed in the following four categories: I. 3rd person future forms of monosyllabic stems (e.g., šõks ― šókti `to jump;' vy͂s ― výti `to drive') II. reflexes of PIE root nouns (e.g., Latv. gùovs `cow;' Lith. šuõ `dog') III. prepositions/adverbs (e.g., nuõ `from' ~  nùotaka `bride;' vė͂l `again' ~ Latv. vêl `still, yet,' tė͂ (permissive particle) < *teh1) IV. pronominal forms (e.g., tuõ ~ gerúoju `the good (m.~sg.~instr.),' tie͂ ~ tíeji `id. (pl.nom)'). The unexpected circumflex tone in these categories is problematic and important for the solution of a Balto-Slavic accentological question on the etymological background of acute and non-acute tones. The aim of this thesis is to partially contribute to the solution of this problem by establishing the existence of MC and its relative chronology. The first category, the 3rd person future forms, provides a substantial number of examples and counterexamples. The examination of them has revealed the fact that the counterexamples constitute a morpho-semantic group of verbs whose future stems underwent considerable morphological changes in the prehistory, hence not exhibiting MC. This shows that the regular tonal reflex of the 3rd person future forms of monosyllabic acute stem must be circumflex, allowing for the establishment of MC as a regular phonological process, although this category does not provide much information on the relative chronology of MC. The second category, the reflexes of Proto-Indo-European root nouns, gives an important clue as to where MC is located in the relative chronology of Balto-Slavic sound changes. Next, there is a discussion of whether the results of the examinations of the first two categories can be maintained for the data of the third and fourth categories, which show an irregular distribution of the acute and circumflex tones in monosyllabic forms. It is shown that various morphological factors, such as homonymic clashes within the paradigms for pronouns, can explain why some monosyllabic forms have acute tone. Also, the linguistic feature of West Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian that tend to preserve the results of MC is revealed. These dialects are known to have played an important role in the formation of standard Lithuanian. In this way, the monosyllabic forms with unexpected circumflex tone in Lithuanian are explained as a combination of MC in the Proto-Balto-Slavic time and the dialectal tendency of West Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian.

This study compares, for listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss, the recognition performances obtained with digit-pair and digit-triplet stimulus sets presented in multitalker babble. Digits 1 through 10 (excluding 7) were mixed in approximately 1,000 ms segments of babble from 4 to -20 dB signal-to-babble (S/B) ratios, concatenated to form the pairs and triplets, and recorded on compact disc. Nine and eight digits were presented at each level for the digit-triplet and digit-pair paradigms, respectively. For the listeners with normal hearing and the listeners with hearing loss, the recognition performances were 3 dB and 1.2 dB better, respectively, on digit pairs than on digit triplets. For equal intelligibility, the listeners with hearing loss required an approximately 10 dB more favorable S/B than the listeners with normal hearing. The distributions of the 50% points for the two groups had no overlap.