<p>I en longitudinell studie har elever i årskurs 1 och 2 på två olika skolor i Vallentuna kommunundersökts under tre på varandra följande projektår. Huvudsyftet med denna studie var att undersökahuruvida träning i fonologisk medvetenhet enligt den s.k. Bornholmsmodellen under elevernas tid isexårsklass påverkar deras läs- och skrivinlärning. Tre typer av test användes, under årskurs 1administrerades UMESOL för kartläggning av fonologisk medvetenhet och ITPA, för kartläggning avpsykolingvistiska färdigheter. Under årskurs 2 kartlades elevernas läs- och skrivutveckling medUMESOL, ”läsning och skrivning”. I kontrast med tidigare forskningsresultat som pekade på enfördelaktig användning av Bornholmsmodellen under elevernas förskoleklassår, visade resultaten idenna studie inte på entydiga långsiktiga effekter för de elever som tränats fonologiskt enligtBornholmsmodellen. Istället verkade den avgörande faktorn för elevernas läs- och skrivutveckling varaskoltillhörighet och pedagogisk ledning under dessa första skolår.</p>

Phonological interactions among sonorant sounds, and between sonorants and obstruents, are widespread in Romance languages. In this dissertation, I examine in detail such interactions in two dialects of Sardinian (Italo-Romance), Campidanese and Nuorese, showing that sonorant relationships differentiate the synchronic grammars of these dialects. The synchronic patterning of nasals and liquids, and how these two sonorant subclasses interact with obstruents, is significantly different between the two dialects. In particular, nasals trigger phonological nasalization of vowels and of the rhotic in Campidanese but not in Nuorese. The arguments for a phonological analysis of vowel nasalization in Campidanese are reviewed, expanded, and tested against an acoustic study. The historical traces of interaction between /n/ and /r/ in this dialect are linked to the synchronic rhotic nasalization process highlighted by an acoustic study of fieldwork data. In Nuorese, on the other hand, /n/ does not initiate phonological nasalization either of vowels or of the rhotic, and it is the target of total assimilation when followed by any segments but an oral stop. Nasals in the two dialects thus pattern in two very different ways phonologically: nasals are process triggers in Campidanese and process targets in Nuorese. The rhotic also shows distinct patterns in the two dialects, interacting with /n/ in Campidanese and with /s/ in Nuorese. The two dialects, with those asymmetries, thus display complementary sonorant patterns. I argue that a model able to capture such complementarity of patterns is the theory of the contrastive hierarchy (Dresher 2008). The Campidanese and Nuorese sonorant patterns, so radically different, lead one to question whether sonorants form a homogeneous phonological class cross-linguistically. Campidanese and Nuorese show that the make-up of such a class appears to be language-specific. Since the sonorant class is a universal class of sounds, its heterogeneity, in turn, questions the notion of phonological classhood at large. The data and the analysis presented in this dissertation thus feed the debate around phonological classhood. According to the theoretical model adopted in the present dissertation, the language-specific make-up of a class of sounds is all that can be labeled a ‘phonological’ class. Classes of sounds can be described in phonetic terms, but classes phonetically defined do not necessarily amount to phonological classes.

Phonological interactions among sonorant sounds, and between sonorants and obstruents, are widespread in Romance languages. In this dissertation, I examine in detail such interactions in two dialects of Sardinian (Italo-Romance), Campidanese and Nuorese, showing that sonorant relationships differentiate the synchronic grammars of these dialects. The synchronic patterning of nasals and liquids, and how these two sonorant subclasses interact with obstruents, is significantly different between the two dialects. In particular, nasals trigger phonological nasalization of vowels and of the rhotic in Campidanese but not in Nuorese. The arguments for a phonological analysis of vowel nasalization in Campidanese are reviewed, expanded, and tested against an acoustic study. The historical traces of interaction between /n/ and /r/ in this dialect are linked to the synchronic rhotic nasalization process highlighted by an acoustic study of fieldwork data. In Nuorese, on the other hand, /n/ does not initiate phonological nasalization either of vowels or of the rhotic, and it is the target of total assimilation when followed by any segments but an oral stop. Nasals in the two dialects thus pattern in two very different ways phonologically: nasals are process triggers in Campidanese and process targets in Nuorese. The rhotic also shows distinct patterns in the two dialects, interacting with /n/ in Campidanese and with /s/ in Nuorese. The two dialects, with those asymmetries, thus display complementary sonorant patterns. I argue that a model able to capture such complementarity of patterns is the theory of the contrastive hierarchy (Dresher 2008). The Campidanese and Nuorese sonorant patterns, so radically different, lead one to question whether sonorants form a homogeneous phonological class cross-linguistically. Campidanese and Nuorese show that the make-up of such a class appears to be language-specific. Since the sonorant class is a universal class of sounds, its heterogeneity, in turn, questions the notion of phonological classhood at large. The data and the analysis presented in this dissertation thus feed the debate around phonological classhood. According to the theoretical model adopted in the present dissertation, the language-specific make-up of a class of sounds is all that can be labeled a ‘phonological’ class. Classes of sounds can be described in phonetic terms, but classes phonetically defined do not necessarily amount to phonological classes.

El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar el proceso de asimilación de sonoridad a diferentes velocidades de habla en catalán e inglés y, más concretamente observar y analizar la asimilación de sonoridad cuando dos consonantes que tienen una especificación fonológica de sonoridad distinta coocurren a través de palabras. Además, el estudio se propone evaluar modelos descriptivos actuales con el fin de determinar cómo explican los datos obtenidos en el experimento. Se realizó un experimento usando datos acústicos, electropalatográficos y electoglotográficos simultáneos. Las secuencias estudiadas son de 4 tipos:1) Secuencias de obstruyentes donde C1 es fonológicamente sorda y C2 es fonológicamente sonora.2) Secuencias de obstruyentes donde C1 es fonológicamente sonora y C2 es fonológicamente sorda.3) Secuencies de sonorante seguida de obstruyente.4) Secuencias de obstruyente seguida de sonorante.Se observó que en las secuencias de obstruyentes en catalán los hablantes tienden a anticipar el gesto de sonoridad de C2 a C1, tanto en las secuencias de oclusivas como en las secuencias de fricativa seguida de oclusiva. Así, el proceso es regresivo y categórico, lo cual es congruente con la existencia de una regla de asimilación de sonoridad en catalán. También se observó que los hablantes catalanes pueden mostrar anticipación parcial del gesto de sonoridad de C2, lo cual muestra que la asimilación de sonoridad puede ser un proceso gradual en catalán. Así pues, parece que la regla de asimilación de sonoridad es opcional. Los datos del catalán reflejan dos procesos distintos: por un lado, la asimilación completa y regresiva de sonoridad en las secuencias de obstruyentes es el resultado de una regla que implica la reorganización a alto nivel de las instrucciones motoras. Por otro lado, los casos de asimilación parcial podrían ser debidos a factores de implementación fonética.En inglés se observó que no existe una regla fonológica de asimilación de sonoridad en las secuencias de obstruyentes. La coordinación de los gestos orales y glotales durante la constricción máxima es un proceso gradual. En las secuencias que combinan sonorantes y obstruyentes, el gesto de sonoridad coincide con la transición de C1 a C2 en ambas lenguas. Además, se observa que puede haber asimilación completa de sonoridad en las secuencias obstruyente - sonorante en catalán. Esto sugiere que la regla de asimilación regresiva de sonoridad podría extenderse a este tipo de secuencias, por lo menos en algunos hablantes catalanes.Finalmente, se sugiere que los modelos conocidos como Articulatory Phonology y Windows Theory pueden dar cuenta de la coordinación de los gestos orales y glotales en catalán e inglés. / The present study intends to analyze the process of voicing assimilation across different speaking rates in Catalan and English. More specifically, it aims at observing and characterizing voicing assimilation when two consonants that have a different phonological specification for voicing co-occur across word boundaries. Furthermore, this study intends to evaluate current descriptive frameworks, in order to see how they account for the data obtained in the experiment. An experiment was carried out using simultaneous acoustic, electroglottographic and electropalatographic data. The sequences were of 4 types:1) Obstruent sequences where C1 was phonologically voiceless and C2 was phonologically voiced, e.g., 'fat gap', 'this doll'.2) Obstruent sequences where C1 was phonologically voiced and C2 was phonologically voiceless, e.g., 'sad gap', 'his toll'.3) Sequences of sonorant plus voiceless obstruent, e.g., 'full cap', 'long sip'.4) Sequences of voiceless obstruent plus sonorant, e.g., 'thick lap', 'this nut'.It was found that in Catalan obstruent sequences that differ in their phonological specification for voicing, speakers tend to anticipate the voicing gesture of C2 to C1, both in stop sequences and in fricative - stop sequences. Thus, the process is regressive and categorical, which is congruent with a rule of voicing assimilation in Catalan. Evidence was also found that speakers can display partial anticipation of the voicing gesture of C2, which shows that voicing assimilation may also be a gradient process in this language. Thus, the voicing assimilation rule seems to be optional. The Catalan data thus seem to reflect two different processes. On one hand, complete regressive voicing assimilation in obstruent sequences seems to be the result of a rule involving higher-level reorganization of motor commands. On the other hand, cases of partial assimilation may result from phonetic implementation factors.In English, it was found that there is no phonological rule of voicing assimilation in obstruent sequences. Rather, the coordination of oral and glottal gestures during the maximal constriction is a gradient process that may result from anticipatory overlap - sensitive to time constraints - and inertial effects . In sequences of consonants where nasals and laterals combine with obstruents, the voicing gesture seems to be switched at the transition from C1 to C2 in both languages. In addition, evidence was found for complete assimilation of voicing in Catalan obstruent - sonorant sequences, suggesting the extension of the regressive voicing assimilation rule for obstruents to these sequences, at least for some speakers.Finally, it is suggested that Articulatory Phonology and Keating's Windows Theory account for the coordination of oral and glottal gestures in Catalan and English.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 21, 2010). Advisor: Peter Mueller. Keywords: acoustic measures, voice, older singers, non-singers. Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-91).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Texas at Arlington, 2008.

Not available / text

Speech sounds are typically perceived categorically. The acoustic information in speech sounds is perceptually grouped into phonetic categories. It is widely known that language influences the way speech sounds are categorized. That is, one's native language influences where category boundaries are placed. However, it is less understood how bilingual listeners categorize speech sounds. There is evidence showing that bilinguals have different category boundaries from monolinguals, but there is also evidence suggesting that bilinguals have different category boundaries depending on the language they are using at the moment. This phenomenon has been referred as the double phonetic boundary. The goal of this investigation was to verify the existence of the double phonemic boundary in bilingual listeners. As has been done in other studies, bilingual speakers of Spanish and English were asked to identify the speech sound /ta/ from a 10-token speech continuum ranging in VOT from /da/ to /ta/ in two language contexts. In this study, however, two additional procedures were carried out. First, English monolinguals were asked to identify the continuum in two language contexts. It was expected that bilinguals, but not monolinguals, would show a double phonetic boundary. Second, while participants' behavioral measures were assessed, electrophysiological measures [event-related potentials, (ERPs)] also were recorded. This was done in order to observe how speech sounds are represented in the brain. It as expected that bilinguals, but not monolinguals, would show different ERP amplitudes across language contexts. The behavioral results showed that phonemic boundaries did not differ across language contexts for either bilinguals or monolinguals. Further analyses showed bilinguals, but not monolinguals, perceived specific speech sounds--in the "ambiguous zone"--differently across language contexts. The electrophysiological results showed that the ERPs of bilinguals, but not monolinguals, differed across language contexts. Interestingly, behavioral measures correlated significantly with electrophysiological measures only in bilinguals. This result showed that the ERP amplitude was in accordance with the number of sounds perceived as 'ta' across language contexts. The challenges of testing the double phonemic boundary are discussed, along with the limitations of the methodology used in this study. / text

This study investigates the role of perceptual distinctiveness in consonant inventories. While distinctiveness appears to play a role in the shaping of vowel systems, a literature review indicates that its status in consonant selections remains unclear. To address this issue I used speech materials recorded by a trained phonetician containing 35 CV syllables with seven places of articulation (bilabial, dental, alveolar, retroflex, palatal, velar and uvular) and five vowels: [i] [[epsilon]] [a] [[backwards c]] and [u]. Detailed acoustic measurements were performed: formant patterns at vowel onsets (loci) and vowel midpoints, transitions rates and burst spectra. To validate the speech material, comparisons were made with published data and with formant frequencies derived by means of an articulatory model. Perceptual data were collected on these 35 syllables. Multiple Regression analyses were performed with the coded dissimilarities as the dependent variable and with (combinations of) formant-based distances, time constant differences and burst differences as the independent variables. The results indicated that acoustic measurements could be successfully used to help explain listener responses. Optimal place sets were obtained from a rank ordering of the CV syllables with respect to 'individual salience' (defined as the sum of a syllable's perceptual distance to other places in the same vowel context) and from a replication of the Liljencrants & Lindblom systemic criterion of maximizing distances within all vowel pairs. Instead of the typologically prevalent pattern of [b d g], predictions were found to be vowel-dependent and to often favor CV:s located at the 'corners' of the acoustic F3-F2 space, viz., uvular, palatal and retroflex. This finding leads to a conclusion that distinctiveness alone is unlikely to account for how languages use place of articulation in voiced stops. For more successful attempts, future work should be directed towards defining and incorporating production constraints such as 'ease of articulation'.

This thesis examines phonological awareness and literacy in monolingual and bilingual children. Experiment 1 shows that 5-6 year old Spanish-monolingual, English-monolingual and Spanish-English-bilingual children show the same pattern of development of phonological awareness. However, the degree of awareness of each unit is influenced by linguistic background. Spanish children are more aware of vowels and rimes than English children. English children are more aware of syllables than Spanish children. Bilingual children are more aware of syllables in Spanish than Spanish-monolinguals and more aware of vowels in English than English-monolinguals. Hence they show transfer of phonological awareness across languages. All three groups also show a different relationship between phonological awareness and reading. Experiment 2 shows that bilinguals are more aware than English monolinguals of vowels that exist in both languages (tense-vowels). Moreover, this enhanced awareness extends to vowels that do not exist in Spanish (lax-vowels). It is concluded that exposure to two languages enhances analysis of phonology as well as encouraging transfer of awareness. Experiment 2 also shows that Spanish-speakers read and spell vowels more accurately than English-speakers. Bilingual children read English vowels more accurately than English-monolinguals. This suggests they understand the orthographic representations of English vowels at least as well as monolinguals. However, they spell vowels less accurately. This may be because bilinguals misapply Spanish phoneme-to-graphemecorrespondences when spelling English vowels. The English and Spanish vowel systems differ more than their consonant systems. Experiment 3 shows that sensitivity to the four consonant types (stops, fricatives, nasals and liquids) is similar, and correlates with reading ability, in all groups. This suggests that bilinguals may only transfer awareness between English and Spanish of units that are linguistically dissimilar in each. Experiment 4 compared the awareness of the two consonants in word-medial double-consonants (e.g. the 'c' and 't' in mactan). Although only Spanish-speakers used syllable boundaries to analyse these consonants they made a similar number of errors to English-speakers. However, all groups used syllable boundaries to read and spell wordmedial double-consonants. Collectively, these results suggest that differences in phonological and orthographic structure between languages encourage different approaches to the acquisition of literacy. Future research should investigate how these differences may be exploited to facilitate literacy acquisition in each group.