Cette étude d’ordre phonético-phonologique considère la prononciation en allemand L4 chez des apprenants tardifs cantophones de la première génération postcoloniale à Hong Kong. Pour ces locuteurs dont les langues source sont le cantonais (L1) et l’anglais (L2) de Hong Kong, ainsi que le putonghua/mandarin (L3), l’allemand est la quatrième langue orale (L4). La question des transferts linguistiques issus des langues source reste mal évaluée. À travers une analyseprincipalement auditive, nous cherchons à découvrir comment l’allemand lu est prononcé sous l’effet interférentiel attendu d’une ou de plusieurs langues source. Ce travail dégage des fautes typiques et quantifiables à travers l’exploitation d’enregistrements d’apprenants cantophones adultes. Ces données élicitées aux niveaux segmental et suprasegmental ont été comparées à celles d’un groupe contrôle de locuteurs natifs, ainsi qu’à la prononciation canonique retenue. Noustentons de déterminer les causes des déviances saillantes dues aux effets interférentiels des langues source relevant du niveau phonético-phonologique. Ce travail permettra de dégager des méthodes d’apprentissage plus adaptées, une fois les différents domaines identifiés, ayant trait aux difficultés spécifiques lors de l’acquisition de l’allemand L4. Ainsi, des exercices variés et bien adaptés à ce public d’apprenants permettront d’améliorer plus rapidement l’acquisition del’allemand oral. Ce travail était dicté par le souci de fournir un ensemble d’informations potentiellement utiles aux domaines linguistique et didactique / This thesis aims to investigate salient mispronunciations from Cantonese adult L4 learners of German in Hong Kong, in order to support the design of effective pedagogical and remedial instruction for pronunciation improvement. For these learners of the first post-colonial generation, the other source languages are Hong Kong English (L2) and putonghua/Mandarin (L3), both non-native/non-foreign languages. The overall aims of this study are to promote ourunderstanding of cross-linguistic interference between source languages and the target language in adult learners whose first language is genetically and typologically distant from German, as well as to identify typical linguistic features of German L4. The proposed approach involves a systematic contrastive description of phonology and phonetics primarily between German and Cantonese, followed by a shorter description of learners’ L2 and L3. To address the question of deviant features and language transfer, data gathered from students reading German were compared to native speaker data, as well as to a canonical form of pronunciation. The analysis of interlanguage data revealed segmental and suprasegmental deviations from the underlying canonical form, as well as contexts where L1 and L2 transfer effects are prominent. Thismethodology enabled us to propose an inventory of salient pronunciation errors, useful for the domain of linguistics and for pedagogical purposes. Though further studies should be conducted at both the segmental and suprasegmental level, this work contributes to our understanding of aspects of this particular L4 interlanguage

Cette thèse en sociophonétique anglaise combine les approches de la sociolinguistique variationniste et de la phonétique expérimentale pour étudier les rhotiques et la rhoticité en Écosse en anglais écossais standard. Grâce aux analyses auditives de 147 locuteurs écossais et aux analyses acoustiques fines de locuteurs de Dundee et de Kinross, l'extrême variabilité de /r/ a été confirmée dans cette variété d'anglais, y compris pour des locuteurs de la classe moyenne en style de discours contrôlé. Les rôles respectifs des facteurs linguistiques et extralinguistiques ont également été évalués. L'origine géographique et l'environnement phonologique notamment sont des facteurs déterminants pour la réalisation phonétique de /r/, et dans une moindre mesure les facteurs de l'âge et du genre des locuteurs. Ces résultats confirment que la variation est structurée et que le changement phonétique est en cours, avec une réduction progressive des rhotiques en anglais écossais. / This thesis in English sociophonetics combines the approaches of variationist sociolinguistics and experimental phonetics to study rhotics and rhoticity in Standard Scottish English. With auditory analysis of 14 7 Scottish speakers and fine acoustic analyses of speakers of Dundee and Kinross,the extreme variability of /r/ was confirmed in this variety of English, including for middle-class speakers in controlled speech. The respective roles of linguistic and non-linguistic factors were also evaluated. The geographical origin and phonological environment in particular are decisive factors for the phonetic realization of /r/ and to a lesser extent the factors of the age and gender of the speakers. These results confirm that the variation is structured and that sound change is underway, with a graduai reduction of Scottish English rhotics.

This work deals with the variant of Spanish in Costa Rica and together with the phonological, morphosyntactical and lexical aspects examines languages in conctact and its influence on the lexical system. Apart from the data published in the Linguistic-enthnographic Atlas of Costa Rica the work presents also an investigation made by the author among the inhabitants of the central part of Costa Rica and compares it with other publications of the local lingüists who deal with the dialectal differences in the concrete area. At the same time its aim is to caracterize the Costa Rican variant in terms of the diversity related to the other types of Spanish and highlight the elements which appear exclusively in the speech of the inhabitants of Costa Rica. Key words: Costa Rican Spanish, phonetics, morfosyntax, vocabulary, languages in contact

The present Master's thesis deals with the forensic use of fundamental frequency characteristics, specifically with F0 mean values and indicators of variability. Phoneticians who specialise in the forensic analysis of speech generally believe that F0 does not hold much potential as a parameter useful for speaker identification, mainly because it is easily influenced by extrinsic factors (e.g. the speaker's emotional state, interfering noise, transmission channel or even the speaker's own effort to mask his voice), which cause high intra-individual variability. Despite these facts, however, the forensic use of F0 offers a number of advantages, namely straightforward extraction from the speech signal and lower susceptibility to varying lexical content - unlike, for example, vowel formants. This thesis investigates the recordings of 8 male speakers made in two different speech styles (spontaneous and read) and compares the respective indicators of F0 stability and variability, in particular those that are robust in varying external conditions: that is, the baseline for mean values and the 10.-90. percentile range for variability indicators. Apart from that, we take into account phenomena such as the creaky voice, which are idiosyncratic and contribute to easier speaker discrimination. Key words:...

This thesis deals with the changing role of phonetics in the history of teaching French as a foreign language. It provides a probe into the most significant methods of language teaching (the Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, the Audiolingual Method, the SGAV, Communicative Approach), including the current role of phonetics in teaching French. It also outlines a possible further development. The historical overview is then demonstrated on chosen French textbooks representing the individual methods, including a more detailed analysis of two contemporary textbooks. The analysis aims to provide information concerning the frequency of phonetic exercises, their focus, type and the use of phonetic transcription. Based on the theoretical background and the practical analysis, a list of inspiring approaches and techniques for current French teaching is made.

This thesis is an articulatory investigation into phonological variation and change in English /l/-darkening. Although syllable-based accounts of /l/-darkening state that light [l] occurs in onsets (e.g. `leap') and a dark variant in codas (e.g. `peel'), numerous works linking phonology with other subfields of linguistics have shown that this simplified distinction cannot fully account for the variation found. Firstly, /l/-darkening is sensitive to morphosyntactic structure, as shown through overapplication of the process in certain morphosyntactically defined positions: e.g. word-finally in phrases such as `heal it', or stem-finally before a suffix in words such as `healing'. In addition, analyses of /l/-darkening from several phonetic studies have led to some arguing against an allophonic distinction altogether, stating that the difference between light and dark variants is merely two extremes of one continuum. Not only does this interpretation challenge the traditional categorisation of /l/-darkening but, given the clear sensitivity to morphosyntactic boundaries that /l/-darkening displays, it also raises questions for a modular architecture of the grammar if phonetics can be morphologically conditioned. This dissertation is an empirical analysis of /l/-darkening, presenting data from nine varieties of English. Given the difficulty in measuring liquid consonants reliably, ultrasound tongue imaging is used to provide a thorough account of the prime articulatory correlations of darkening processes. The present study provides hitherto absent instrumental evidence confirming the varying degrees of morphosyntactic sensitivity across different dialects. I demonstrate that, rather than being contradictory or chaotic, variation to morphosyntactic boundaries cross-dialectally makes complete sense under an analysis that pays due consideration to the diachronic evolution of phonological processes. Moreover, my data show that the majority of speakers display both categorical allophony of light and dark variants, and gradient phonetic effects coexisting in the same grammar. Therefore, an adequate account of English /l/-darkening presupposes both a theory of the morphosyntax-phonology interface, and the phonetics-phonology interface. I interpret these results by assuming the modular architecture of the life cycle of phonological processes, whereby a phonological rule starts its life as a phonetically driven gradient process, over time stabilising into a phonological process at the phrase level, and advancing through the grammar. Not only does the life cycle make predictions about application at different levels of the grammar, it also predicts that stabilised phonological rules do not replace the phonetic processes from which they emerged, but typically coexist with them. Moreover, the obvious intimate link between /l/-darkening and /l/-vocalisation can be explained in terms of the life cycle, in the way of lenition trajectories. The results here show that, as predicted, the more recent stage of the lenition trajectory is harsher in terms of its phonetic effect, as well as less advanced in the grammar, applying at a lower level than darkening when the two co-occur in the same variety. I conclude by arguing that the proposed analysis demonstrates that a full understanding of /l/-darkening in English requires an approach that considers variation under phonetic, phonological and morphosyntactic terms. The wide range of dialectal diversity, for which this thesis provides only a small subset, shows a great deal of orderliness when paying due consideration to the diachronic evolution of variable phonological processes.

Speaker accent influences the accuracy of automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. Knowledge of accent based acoustic variations can therefore be used in the develop¬ment of more robust systems. This project investigates the differences between first language (L1) and second language (L2) English in South Africa with respect to vowels and diphthongs. The study is specifically aimed at L2 English speakers with a native African mother tongue, for instance speakers of isi-Zulu, isi-Xhosa, Tswana or South Sotho. The vowel systems of English and African languages, as described in the linguistic literature, are compared to predict the expected deviations of L2 South African English from L1. A number of vowels and diphthongs from L1 and L2 speakers are acoustically compared and the results are correlated with the linguistic predictions. The comparison is firstly made in formant space using the first three formants found using the Split Levinson algorithm. The L1 vowel centroids and diphthong trajectories in this three-dimensional space are then compared to their L2 counterparts using analysis of variance. The second analysis method is based on simple hidden Markov models (HMMs) using Mel-scaled cepstral features. Each HMM models a vowel or diphthong from one of the two speaker groups and analysis of variance is again used to compare the L1 and L2 HMMs. Significant differences are found in the vowel and diphthong qualities of the two language groups which supports the linguistically predicted effects such as vowel substitution, peripheralisation and changes in diphthong strength. The long-term goal of this project is to enable the adaptation of existing L1 English recognition systems to perform equally well on South African L2 English. / Dissertation (MEng (Computer Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Voice comparison is one of the most frequently addressed terms in the context of forensic phonetics; however, so far experts have not been able to find a speech parameter which reliably discriminates between two speakers. Formant dynamics have brought promising results in this respect, therefore in our study using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) we tested the speaker-discriminatory potential of formant trajectories on real forensic recordings. The aim was firstly, to compare the results of LDA when formant frequencies or coefficients of quadratic and cubic fit are used as predictors and secondly, to compare the results when the analyzed classes are balanced or not regarding the number of objects. As for the predictors, all of the types demonstrated comparable classification rates, nevertheless, as LDA limits the number of predictors in relation to the class size, the quadratic fit appears to be the most efficient. Even though LDA was able to discriminate between different voices above chance, it cannot be recommended for forensic use. It delivered highly inconsistent results when the number of objects in the classes was changed; and more importantly, it significantly discriminates between objects of the same speaker. Key words: formant trajectories, voice comparison, LDA, Czech, forensic phonetics

The goal of this dissertation was to investigate experimentally the phonetic qualities of the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian. The term ‘palatalized’ refers to consonants (e.g., [tʲ, dʲ]) which are articulated with a secondary palatal gesture superimposed on the primary gesture associated with their plain counterparts (e.g., [t, d]). An acoustic study investigated the claim (Horálek, 1950; Choi, 1998; Ignateva-Tsoneva, 2008) that the palatalized consonants of Standard Bulgarian have undergone depalatalization, which was defined as the decomposition of a secondary palatal [ ʲ ] gesture into a palatal glide [j]. A cross-language comparison was performed. Russian (e.g., [tʲulʲ], ‘silk net’) and British English (e.g., [tju:lip], ‘tulip’) data served as a baseline against which the Bulgarian data (e.g., [tʲul], ‘silk net’) was evaluated. Subjects’ productions of words were recorded for acoustic analyses. The F1, F2 and F3 frequencies of the critical segments were analyzed with a Smoothing Spline ANOVA (Gu, 2002). The analyses indicated that Bulgarian palatalized consonants were identical to those of the Russian palatalized consonants, but different from the consonant-palatal glide sequences of British English. It was concluded that Bulgarian palatalized consonants have not undergone depalatalization. A perception study employed two variations of the gating task (Grosjean, 1980): audio-only and audio-visual. The results of the audio-only experiment indicated that Bulgarian and Russian listeners needed only the information associated with the palatalization portion of the consonant to identify it as palatalized. Bulgarian subjects did not need the transitions with the following vowel (Tilkov, 1983) to identify a consonant as palatalized. The Russian subjects of Richey’s (2000) experiment did not need the formant transitions either to identify the secondary palatal gesture. These findings provide further evidence that the palatalized consonants of the Standard Bulgarian have not undergone depalatalization. The purpose of the audio-visual experiment was to investigate if Bulgarian and Russian listeners use visual information to identify palatalized consonants. The results from this experiment were not as clear cut as those from the audio-only experiment. Factors such as insufficient visual information at earlier gates, as well as attentional load are being considered as possible confounds. In addition, an improved methodology for an audio-visual perception study is outlined. Experimental evidence from the acoustic and perception studies points to similarities in the phonetic shape of the palatalized consonants of Bulgarian and Russian. However, the phonological distribution of these segments is very different in the respective languages. I argue against a one-to-one mapping between the phonetic and phonological representations of the Bulgarian palatalized consonants. Based on distributional evidence, I propose that at the level of phonology they consist of a sequence of /CjV/.

Cette thèse se propose d’analyser les changements phonétiques qui ont affecté l’approximante latérale héritée du latin dans les dialectes occitans, dans les langues romanes ainsi que dans un certain nombre d’autres langues du monde. Le premier chapitre donne une vue d’ensemble des recherches phonétiques sur la latérale. Les aspects articulatoires, acoustiques et les questions de représentation abstraite y sont notamment discutés. Les chapitres suivants, 2 à 5, sont consacrés à certains changements phonétiques spécifiques survenus dans les dialectes occitans à des moments divers de leur histoire. Ces évolutions seront comparées de façon systématique à des phénomènes semblables dans les autres langues romanes et non-romanes. Le chapitre 2 traite de la vocalisation de la latérale vélarisée en position réconsonantique et finale de mot aussi bien qu’à l’intervocalique. Je propose dans ce chapitre que l’évolution de la vocalisation de la latérale en occitan et dans les langues romanes en général ne peut être expliquée à partir des seuls faits phonétiques. Dans le chapitre 3, je discute de la palatalisation de la latérale dans un groupe consonantique en attaque syllabique. J’y fais l’hypothèse que l’origine de ce changement phonétique est à rechercher plutôt dans la friction qui accompagne le groupe consonantique du type obstruante + latérale que dans une assimilation de type articulatoire. La rhotacisation de la latérale, et son contraire, la latéralisation d’une rhotique sont traitées dans le chapitre 4. Dans ce chapitre, je discute des facteurs de durée dans ces changements phonétiques et je présente des résultats expérimentaux qui soutiennent l’idée que la durée y joue un rôle important. Finalement, le chapitre 5 regarde de près l’évolution de la latérale géminée latine en gascon et dans d’autres dialectes romans; étant donné qu’il est communément admis que cette évolution est due à un processus de rétroflexion, je discute les chemins possibles de ce changement d’un point de vue phonétique. / This thesis analyses sound changes that affected the lateral approximant inherited from Latin in Occitan dialects, in the Romance languages, and in a number of other languages from around the world. Chapter 1 gives a comprehensive overview of the research carried out on the lateral approximant; it discusses articulation and acoustics as well as abstract representations of the sound. Chapters 2 to 5 are devoted to specific sound changes which occurred in Occitan dialects at different points in time. These developments are systematically compared to similar phenomena in Romance and other languages. In chapter 2, I discuss the vocalisation of the dark lateral in preconsonantal and word-final position as well as intervocalically. It is argued there that Occitan and more generally Romance followed an unexpected pathway towards vocalisation, which cannot be explained by phonetic factors alone. Chapter 3 deals with palatalisation of the lateral in onsetclusters. Rather than in articulatory assimilation, I propose that the origin of this sound change is to be sought in the frication which accompanied the obstruent + lateral onset clusters. Rhoticisation of the lateral, and its opposite, lambdacisation of the rhotic, is the topic of chapter 4. In this chapter, I discuss duration factors in these sound changes and present experimental evidence to substantiate the idea that duration plays an important role. Finally, chapter 5 looks at thedevelopments of the Latin geminate lateral in Gascon and other Romance dialects; according to common opinion, the Latin geminate lateral underwent a retroflexion process, and I discuss how this might have been possible from a phonetic point of view.