Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre des travaux de révision de la structure de la racine sémitique en général, et arabe en particulier. Dans l’introduction, nous avons entamé une relecture critique des efforts des grammairiens arabes en quête du seuil minimal du sens, et qui ont abouti à poser la racine trilitère comme étant ce seuil ultime et inanalysable. Ce choix a été fait malgré tous les signes d’instabilité que comporte ce concept - tels que son incapacité à expliquer la réversibilité de l’ordre des consonnes et leur variation phonétique indépendamment du sens. C’est un choix synchronique anhistorique qui exclut la notion de temps, et émane d’une conception révélationniste (tawqîf) du langage. Au XIXe siècle, l'évolutionnisme darwiniste, étendu à la philologie, met à mal cette conception figée de la racine. En intégrant la notion de temps, nombre d’Orientalistes, suivis par quelques philologues arabes de l’époque, ont montré à travers une approche comparative que la racine trilitère est une forme évoluée d’une base primitive bilitère (ou monosyllabique). Depuis, plusieurs explications ont été proposées pour la formation de la racine trilitère à partir d’une base bilitère (croisement, incrémentation, affixation). Certains linguistes comme Hurwitz ont essayé d’identifier et de systématiser par déduction les éléments ternaires et leurs valeurs sémantiques. Dans notre travail, qui s'inscrit dans le cadre de la théorie des matrices et des étymons, nous démontrons à travers l’analyse synchronique de près de 1000 items que la racine trilitère est analysable en termes d’étymons bilitères et de créments, ou affixes. Les éléments affixables ou incrémentables à la base sont phonétiquement les mêmes (gutturales, sonantes, labiales, nasales) et corrélés souvent aux mêmes valeurs grammaticales (factitif, statif, moyen) ou sémantiques (l’intensif). La troisième position de la racine est la position privilégiée dans ce processus d’affixation/incrémentation. La racine trilitère n’est donc pas le seuil minimal du sens, et s’avère réductible à une base biconsonantique rendue trilitère grâce à un segment crément ou affixe. Ceci peut avoir un effet sur notre conception du lexique arabe, désormais réorganisable autour des bases bilitères soit abstraites (les traits phonétiques), soit concrètes (les étymons primitifs), qui sont à leur tour transformables en radicaux trilitères grâce à une liste préalable de créments et affixes spécifiant la signification primordiale véhiculée par la base bilitère. / This thesis is part of the revisionist work on the structure of the Semitic root in general, and the Arabic root in particular. In the introduction, we present a critical review of the efforts of Arab grammarians in their quest of a minimum linguistic threshold associated with meaning, a quest that resulted in establishing the triliteral root as the ultimate unanalysable unit. This choice was made despite the many obvious shortcomings of this theoretical framework, such as its inability to explain the reversal of the order of consonants, or their phonetic variation (regardless of its meaning). It is an anhistorical, synchronic choice that excludes the notion of time, and finds its roots in a revelationnist (tawqîf) linguistic framework. In the end of the nineteenth century, the extended Darwinist theory has undermined this static conception of the root. By integrating the notion of time, a number of Orientalists - followed by some Arab philologists of that period - showed, through a comparative methodology, that the triliteral root has evolved from a primitive monosyllabic (or biconsonantal) root. Since then, several explanations have been proposed for the formation of the triliteral root from a biliteral base (crossed bilateral roots, affixation of formative increments or determinatives).Some linguists, such as Hurwitz, tried to identify and to systematize by deduction the ternary elements and their semantic values. In this work, which is carried within the framework of the Matrix and Etymons Theory , we demonstrate through the synchronic analysis of nearly 1,000 trilateral items that the triliteral root is analyzable in terms of biliteral etymons and of separable increments or affixes added at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of bilateral bases.The characteristic elements that can be affixed or incremented on the base are phonetically similar (gutturals, sonorants, labial, and some dentals) and correlated often with the same grammatical (factitive, stative, reflexive or middle voice) or semantic (intensive) values. The third position of the root is the position favored in this process of affixation / incrementation. Thus, the triliteral root is not the minimal threshold of meaning, and can be broken down to a biconsonantal base, which became triliteral thanks to an incremental or affixal segment. These findings may affect our perception of the Arabic lexicon, which can now be rearranged around biliterals bases, either abstract ( i.e. phonetic features), or concrete (i.e. historical primitive etymons) that are in turn convertible into triliteral radicals through a preliminary list increments and affixes that specify the primary meaning conveyed by the bilateral base.

There are numerous methods teachers use to teach the alphabet to children. This thesis is a curriculum on how to teach the alphabet to English learners and English speakers. The author teaches kindergarten to students who are English speakers and to students who are Spanish speakers learning English as a second language. The school's instructional Reading Based Program (the Houghton Mifflin Lectura of California) offers many ideas and strategies but is missing some components necessary to meet distinct standards for kindergarten. The author developed this curriculum to meet the standards of teaching English speakers and English learners the alphabet to meet district standards.

The aim of this thesis is to create an ethnolinguistic analysis of two corpuses of Mongolian riddles (Lovor and Ölziikhutag 1990 and Ölziikhutag 2013). The work contains over one hundred riddles appended with translations and morpheme-to-morpheme glosses. The riddles are further analyzed on a phonetic level, including descriptions of specific sound patterns and alliterations, as well as their lexical and semantic properties. This complex analysis, in conjunction with findings gained in field research, renders possible the description of a specific language of Mongolian riddles, characterized by the frequent occurrence of borrowings, the presence of semantically and phonetically 'damaged' words, ideophones, metaphors and many specific cultural expressions. The language of Mongolian riddles also often skilfully exploits overt abstractions, allusions, and lexical and morphological ambiguities, in addition to other techniques which facilitate conceptual mapping and cognitive blending. This linguistic analysis makes possible a description of the various aspects of the worldview of Mongolian nomads concealed in these riddles, including the characteristic linking of the 'sacred and profane,' as well as the relationship of these riddles to mythology and religious ideas.

本論文は第二言語話者の発話を高精度で認識するための音素セットの構成方法に関する研究結果を述べている．本論文では，第二言語話者の発話をネイティブ話者の発話とは異なる音響特徴量の頻度分布を持つ情報源とみなし，これを表現する適切な音素セットを構築する手法を提案している．具体的には，対象とする第二言語と母語との調音位置や調音様式などの類似性に加え，同音異義語の発生による単語識別性能の低下を総合した基準に基づき，最適な音素セットを決定する．提案手法を日本人学生の英語発話の音声認識に適用し，種々の条件下で認識精度の向上を検証した． / This dissertation focuses on the problem caused by confused mispronunciation to improve the recognition performance of second language speech. A novel method considering integrated acoustic and linguistic features is proposed to derive a reduced phoneme set for L2 speech recognition. The customized phoneme set is created with a phonetic decision tree (PDT)-based top-down sequential splitting method that utilizes the phonological knowledge between L1 and L2. The dissertation verifies the efficacy of the proposed method for Japanese English and shows that the feasibility of building a speech recognizer with the proposed method is able to alleviate the problem caused by confused mispronunciation by second language speakers. / 博士(工学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

Els instruments musicals digitals es descomponen usualment en dues parts: la interfície d'usuari i el motor de síntesi. Tradicionalment la interfície d'usuari pren el nom de controlador musical. L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és el disseny d'un interfície que permeti el control de la síntesi de sons instrumentals a partir de la veu cantada.Amb la present recerca, intentem relacionar la veu amb el so dels instruments musicals, tenint en compte tan la descripció del senyal de veu, com les corresponents estratègies de mapeig per un control adequat del sintetitzador.Proposem dos enfocaments diferents, d'una banda el control d'un sintetitzador de veu cantada, i d'altra banda el control de la síntesi de sons instrumentals. Per aquest últim, suggerim una representació del senyal de veu com a gests vocals, que inclou una sèrie d'algoritmes d'anàlisis de veu. A la vegada, per demostrar els resultats obtinguts, hem desenvolupat dos prototips a temps real. / Los instrumentos musicales digitales se pueden separar en dos componentes: el interfaz de usuario y el motor de sintesis. El interfaz de usuario se ha denominado tradicionalmente controlador musical. El objectivo de esta tesis es el diseño de un interfaz que permita el control de la sintesis de sonidos instrumentales a partir de la voz cantada.La presente investigación pretende relacionar las caracteristicas de la voz con el sonido de los instrumentos musicales, teniendo en cuenta la descripción de la señal de voz, como las correspondientes estrategias de mapeo para un control apropiado del sintetizador. Se proponen dos enfoques distintos, el control de un sintetizador de voz cantada, y el control de la sintesis de sonidos insturmentales. Para este último, se sugiere una representación de la señal de voz como gestos vocales, incluyendo varios algoritmos de analisis de voz. Los resultados obtenidos se demuestran con dos prototipos a tiempo real. / Digital musical instruments are usually decomposed in two main constituent parts: a user interface and a sound synthesis engine. The user interface is popularly referred as a musical controller, and its design is the primary objective of this dissertation. Under the title of singing-driven interfaces, we aim to design systems that allow controlling the synthesis of musical instruments sounds with the singing voice. This dissertation searches for the relationships between the voice and the sound of musical instruments by addressing both, the voice signal description, as well as the mapping strategies for a meaningful control of the synthesized sound. We propose two different approaches, one for controlling a singing voice synthesizer, and another for controlling the synthesis of instrumental sounds. For the latter, we suggest to represent voice signal as vocal gestures, contributing with several voice analysis methods.To demonstrate the obtained results, we developed two real-time prototypes.

Language adaptation of foreigners is always accompanied by a number of problems connected to the acquisition and the use of the language which becomes the primary communicative tool in the new environment. Ignoring and underestimating these problems typical of a particular language community can result in a failure to master the target language and consequently in the unsuccessful integration in the new society. This thesis is aimed at specific problems in the area of morphosyntax and phonetics, characteristic of Russian-speaking students of Czech. At the same time, it warns about the danger of overestimating positive transfer from Russian and emphasizes the necessity of using special didactic approach in teaching this group of foreign-language speakers. The analysis of the chosen language phenomena is based on the data from the Database of the voice recordings of spoken Czech by native speakers of Russian and the Database of language mistakes in Czech made by speakers whose native language is another Slavic language, which were created, among others, for the purpose of this thesis. The attention is specifically focused on the use of the reflexive se/si, forms of the auxiliary verb to be in the past tense, short forms of personal pronouns in spoken and written production of Russian-speaking...