Nos recherches ont porté sur l'étude des différences de prononciation pouvant exister pour certains phonèmes arabes, dans deux parler, urbain et bédouin, en fonction des intervenants évoluant au sein d'un espace social particulier, la diwaniyya, au Koweït. La diwaniyya est un espace réservé propre à la structure sociale koweïtienne. Elle regroupe une salle principale aménagée pour la réception des invités. L'atmosphère qui y règne est semblable à celle des clubs sociaux, cercles culturels et littéraires et salons politiques. Notre problématique, ancrée dans le champ sociolinguistique, explore l'impact d'une variable extralinguistique, ici un lieu de rencontre qui est la diwaniyya, sur les productions langagières des sujets qui la fréquentent et sur les éventuelles influences qu'exercent les sujets les uns sur les autres au sein de cette structure sociale. Nous nous posons également la question de savoir comment se manifeste concrètement cette influence et si le chef de la diwaniyya, au centre du réseau social, exerce une emprise sur ses frères et ses amis, en agissant sur leur façon de parler. Nous avons principalement eu recours aux travaux de Labov ainsi que ceux de Milroy et de Gordon. Nous représentons les relations existant entre les personnes constituant le réseau en nous inspirant des schémas établis par Milroy et Gordon et de la notion de réseau "dense" et de réseau "lâche". L'intérêt de ce travail de recherche est donc d'analyser la réalisation de phénomènes choisis selon les locuteurs et de quelle façon celle-ci peut varier en fonction des membres appartenant à un groupe social donné. En outre, le paramètre à l'origine bédouine ou urbaine des locuteurs est prise en compte et analysée dans le cadre d'une étude phonétique et phonologique, en vue d’expliquer certaines variations des phénomènes cités. / Our research focuses on the study of differences occuring in the pronunciation of certain Arab phonemes in Urban and Bedouin dialects, depending on the speakersand operating within a particular social space, the diwaniyya in Kuwait. The diwaniyya is particular to the Kuwaiti social structure. This space includes a main hall equipped for the reception of guests. The atmosphere that prevails is similar to that social clubs, cultural and literacy circles and political salons. Our problematic is rooted in the field of sociolinguistics. It explores the impact of extra linguistic variables - i.e. the diwaniyya as a meeting place - on the language productions of the speakers as well as the possible influences of each others' within this social structure. We also analyze the way this influence occurs concretely and wether the chief of the diwaniyya, as the center of the social network, exercices control over his brothers and friends, thus influencing their way of speaking. We mainly had recourse to the work of Labov and those of Milroy and Gordon. We represent the relationships between the persons in the network with established diagrams inspired by Milroy and Gordon and the concept of "dense" and "loose" networks. The interest of this research is to analyze the realization of chosen phonemes according to the speakers and the way this realization can vary according to members belonging to a particular social group. In addition, the parameter of the Bedouin or urabn origin of speakers has to be taken into account and analyzed in the frame of a phonetical and phonological study, in order to explain the variations of some of the phonemes.

TITLE: Distinctive Features of Irish Accent AUTOR: Tomáš Uher DEPARTMENT: Department of English Language and Literature SUPERVISOR: Mgr. Kristýna Poesová ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is to examine the distinctive phonetic and phonological aspects of Irish English. The theoretical part provides a comprehensive description of the segmental and suprasegmental features of the Irish accent in contrast with the Received Pronunciation. The first section of the practical part analyses the speech of three Irish actors in Irish films and TV shows in order to examine the use of the distinctive features described in the theoretical part. The second section of the practical part presents a 45 minute long lesson plan on the Irish accent with suggested exercises for intermediate (B2) learners. KEY WORDS: accent, Irish, pronunciation, phonetics, phonology, lesson plan

The present study aims to address the question of how vowel quality varies between rural and town-dwelling male speakers of Irish-English in South Roscommon, Ireland. Previous studies have identified four distinct varieties of Irish-English in Ireland: the Eastern, South &Western, Midland, and Northern varieties, loosely based on the political provinces of Munster, Connaught, Leinster, and Ulster. County Roscommon straddles the provinces of Connaught and Leinster, complicating the presence of phonological features associated with one of two different ‘accent regions’. The last phonological study carried out in Roscommon was by Patrick Leo Henry in 1957. While this was a promising start in assessing regional distinctions, rural ones in particular, the lack of recent studies leaves a sizeable gap that does not address modern changes in the linguistic landscape of Ireland, nor the availability of modern methods of acoustic analysis. In particular, the present study investigates the pre-nasal merging of front unrounded vowels /ɛ/ and /ɪ/, vowel centralization, and a lower /æ/, associated with the Western variety of Irish English. Factors such as supraregionalization lead to my hypothesis that rural speakers will demonstrate higher frequency of the vowel features associated with the Western variety. To assess the frequency of certain vowel sounds, twenty participants were recorded and formant data was extracted for F1 and F2 values of the tokens. It was found that the rural speakers in Roscommon demonstrated a more prominent merger between /ɛ/ and /ɪ/, a lower [æ], and the rural speakers demonstrated an overall trend toward centralization.

This study investigates sociophonetic stress variation in the Onondaga County area of Upstate New York. I argue that five variations of stress correlate to factors of age, education level, place of residence, frequency, and analogical change. Dinkin and Evanini (2010) have examined and discovered similar outcomes of stress variation in his work with dialectal features across the state of New York. Rather than analyze the state and its borders in their entirety, I focus on morpheme-specific analogical change of stress in specific social categories within the Syracuse, New York region. In terms of lexical items, I analyze stress placement within four-, five-, and six-syllable words containing the -mentary affix and explore how stress shifts in these words depending on those social and linguistic factors. Data were collected through formal and informal sociolinguistic interviews in which each instance of the target words were analyzed as belonging to one of five types of stress. Results indicate that Syracuse is one of the locations in the state that see all five stress patterns. To further investigate, I take the provided evidence of stress variation and filter for sociological relevance for factors of age, gender, and residence.

Cette thèse traite de l'acquisition des consonnes par des enfants francophones monolingues. Son but est de montrer que l’utilisation des traits distinctifs et des principes qui leur sont associés (hiérarchie des traits, évitement de la marque, économie des traits) rend compte du parcours d’acquisition des consonnes en français. Le corpus de cette thèse est constitué des productions spontanées longitudinales (pendant 16 et 28 mois) de deux enfants francophones. L’analyse a dégagé deux grandes étapes dans le parcours d’acquisition des contrastes consonantiques. Chacune d’elle repose sur l’intervention d’un principe associé aux traits distinctifs. La première étape rend compte de l’acquisition isolée des contrastes opposant les consonnes, dont l’ordre est guidé par le principe de hiérarchie des traits, exprimé par leur robustesse : plus un trait est robuste, plus il sera acquis rapidement. L’acquisition d’un trait suppose également l’acquisition des deux valeurs de ce trait par l’intervention du principe d’évitement de la marque : la valeur non-marquée de chaque trait sera acquise avant la valeur marquée. La seconde étape consiste en la diffusion, à l’ensemble du système, d’un trait acquis de façon isolée. Cette diffusion est guidée par le principe d’économie des traits : plus un trait participe à l’économie du système, plus il se diffusera rapidement. Afin d’extraire de l’input de l’enfant, l’information utile nous permettant d’exprimer l’actualisation de chaque principe dans la langue, nous avons conçu des calculs de fréquence des traits. Nous avons établi un lien entre l’expression des principes de hiérarchie, d’évitement de la marque et d’économie, et ces différentes fréquences des traits dans le langage adressé à l’enfant. En appréhendant l’acquisition consonantique comme l’acquisition de contrastes au sein d’un système, nous avons modélisé le parcours d’acquisition des consonnes grâce aux traits distinctifs et à leurs principes associés, en le mettant en regard des travaux sur la structuration des inventaires sonores adultes. / This work focuses on consonantal acquisition of monolingual French-speaking children. Its aim is to show that the use of distinctive features and their associated principles (feature hierarchy, markedness avoidance, feature economy) captures the path of consonantal acquisition in French. The data of this dissertation consist of spontaneous longitudinal productions (during 16 and 28 months) of two French-speaking children. Analysis of the data reveals two main stages in the acquisitional path of consonantal contrasts. Each of these stages relies on the intervention of a principle associated with distinctive features. The first stage captures the isolated acquisition of contrasts between consonants. The order of the acquisition of contrasts is guided by the feature hierarchy principle, which is expressed by feature robustness: the more robust a feature is, the faster it will be acquired. The acquisition of a feature also implies the acquisition of its two values through the intervention of the avoidance of markedness principle: the unmarked value of a feature will be acquired before the marked value. The second stage of the feature acquisition path consists in the distribution of a feature - acquired in an isolated way - throughout the whole system. This distribution is guided by the economy feature principle: the more a feature participates in the system economy, the more rapidly it will diffuse. In order to extract the relevant information from the child’s input that allows us to express the realisation of each principle into the language, we designed feature frequency calculations. We established a link between the expression of the hierarchy, markedness avoidance and economy principles and the different feature frequencies in child-directed speech. By approaching consonantal acquisition as contrast acquisition within an entire system, we were able to model the consonantal acquisition path based on distinctive features and their associated principles, paralleling it with work on the structure of adult sound inventories.

Cette thèse s’intéresse au développement phonologique et lexical précoce d’enfants arabophones d’origine tunisienne. Son objectif est de considérer à la fois l’influence des contraintes articulatoires (maturité phonatoire) et les caractéristiques de l’input (LAE : langage adressé à l’enfant) dans les premières productions lexicales. Le corpus de cette étude longitudinale est constitué de productions spontanées de 8 enfants arabophones qui on été enregistrés à leur domicile en situation de communication naturelle avec leurs mères entre 11 et 24 mois. L’analyse des données collectées s’effectue en deux parties. Dans un premier temps, nous mesurons l’influence des contraintes articulatoires (biomécaniques) en examinant l’évolution de la complexité phonétique des premiers mots en utilisant l’Indice de Complexité Phonétique (ICP) de Jakielski (2000). Dans un second temps, nous tentons d’évaluer les effets de l’input maternel par la fréquence d’occurrence des sons présents dans le LAE. Les effets de ces deux facteurs sont observés en fonction des différents stades de développement. Les résultats découlant de notre analyse montrent que la complexité phonétique des productions enfantines augmente avec l’âge et la taille du vocabulaire. Au cours du développement les enfants produisent des mots de plus en plus complexes mais dont la complexité est toujours inférieure à celle des mots visés (cibles). Les premières réalisations enfantines procèdent ainsi d’une forme de « sélection lexicale » que les enfants semblent opérer en fonction de leur maturité phonatoire. Nous avons observé également que la valeur de la complexité phonétique des mots cibles (LAE) est inférieure à celle des mots adultes, ce qui semble témoigner d’une adaptation des mères aux capacités de l’enfant en produisant des mots dont la forme sonore est simplifiée. Par ailleurs, les inventaires phonétiques établis révèlent que l’acquisition du système consonantique est guidée aussi par l’influence de la fréquence des consonnes présentes dans le LAE. Les consonnes bilabiales, approximantes et nasales ont été acquises plus tôt en raison de leur plus haute fréquence dans le LAE. Les formes des mots produits par les enfants tunisiens semblent être influencées aussi par la langue ambiante (arabe tunisien). Avec l’âge, les enfants tunisiens produisent des mots de plus en plus longs (3 syllabes et plus) composés de différentes syllabes de plus en plus complexes (CVCC, CCVC). Enfin nous avons pu décrire, à travers l’analyse des données collectées, le développement des premières productions lexicales en arabe tunisien qui semblent avoir été plus influencées par la complexité phonético-phonologique que par la fréquence d’occurrence. / This Work focuses on early phonological and lexical development of Tunisian Arabic--speaking children. Its aim is to consider both the influence of articulatory constraints (phonatory maturity) and the input characteristics (CDS: Children Directed Speech) on first lexical productions. The data of this longitudinal study consists of spontaneous productions of 8 Arabic-speaking children who have been recorded at home in natural communication environnement with their mothers between 11 and 24 months. Analysis of data executes in two parts. In a first time, we measure the influence of articulatory constraints (biomécanics) by examining the evolution of phonetic complexity of the first words by using the Index of Phonetic Complexity (IPC) (Jakielski 2000). Secondly, we attempt to evaluate the effects of maternal input by the frequency of occurrence of the sounds presents in the CDS. The effects of these two factors are observed according to the linguistic stages of children. Our results show that the IPC children's increases significantly with vocabulary size. Moreover, we showed that although children’s IPC increases with time, its value is always inferior to that of target words. We propose that children’s realizations are the result of some kind of lexical selectivity which is determined by their phonatory maturity. (i.e. words composed of already attested segments in their phonetic inventory). In addition our results reveal that mothers adapt their language to their children’s abilities (i.e. the value of IPC of target words is inferior to that of adult’s words. Otherwise, the phonetic inventory show that the acquisition of the consonant system is also guided by the influence of the frequency of these consonants presents in the CDS. Bilabial consonants, approximants and nasals were acquired earlier because of their higher frequency in the CDS. The shapes of words produced by Tunisian children seem to be influenced also by the ambient language (Tunisian Arabic). With age, Tunisian children produce words increasingly long (three syllables or more) composed of different syllables increasingly complex (CVCC, CVCC). Finally we describe, through analysis of data, the development of the Tunisian first lexical productions that seem to have been more influenced by the phonetic-phonological complexity than by frequency of occurrence.

Nous avons examiné à travers cinq études le rôle de la phonologie dans la reconnaissance de mots écrits chez des enfants tout-venant plus ou moins avancés dans l’apprentissage de la lecture. Pour cela, nous avons utilisé le paradigme de l’amorçage dans des versions visuelles, auditives et intermodales. Ce paradigme, à ce jour peu utilisé dans les études chez l’enfant, permet d’étudier, en temps réel et de manière précise, les processus phonologique et orthographiques engagés dans la reconnaissance de mots. Les études 1 et 2 montrent que chez les jeunes lecteurs, les représentations phonologiques du langage oral sont impliquées dans la lecture silencieuse de pseudomots, dans un format trait phonétique et dans la reconnaissance de mots familiers écrits, dans un format phonémique. L’étude 3 indique que le code phonologique contribue à la reconnaissance des mots de manière stable entre le CE2 et le CM2. Néanmoins, lorsque les représentations orthographiques sont peu spécifiées, la contribution du code phonologique est plus importante. Les études 4 et 5, en amorçage masqué visuel phonologique (O-P+ vs O-P-) et ortho-phonologique (O+P+ vs O+P-), montrent qu’au cours de la reconnaissance de mots familiers, les représentations phonologiques sont activées de manière automatique et ce dès le CE2. En revanche, l’activation automatique des représentations orthographiques semble apparaître plus tardivement dans le développement (CM2). Nos résultats suggèrent que lorsque le processus orthographique est fonctionnel mais pas encore pleinement efficace (CE2), la reconnaissance des mots écrits bénéficie de l’activation phonologique alors que, lorsque le processus est pleinement efficace (CM2), la reconnaissance des mots bénéficie de l’activation orthographique. Il semble donc que le développement du processus d’activation automatique des représentations phonologiques et le développement du processus d’activation automatique du lexique orthographique soient indépendants, le premier se développerait pleinement avant le second. / We conducted five studies to examine the role of phonological code in visual word recognition in children more or less advanced in learning to read. For that, we used the priming paradigm (in visual, auditory and inter modalities). This paradigm allows to study on-line and in precise manner, phonological and orthographic processes engaged in visual word recognition. The studies 1 and 2 indicate that, in Grade 3 and Grade 5, speech representations are involved in silent reading of pseudowords, in phonetic feature format and in visual familiar word recognition, in phonemic format. The study 3 indicates that phonological code contributes to visual word recognition in stable manner through Grade 3 and Grade 5. Nevertheless, when lexical orthographic representations are not well specified, phonological contribution is greater. The studies 4 and 5, in phonological (O-P+ vs O-P-) and ortho-phonological (O+P+ vs O+P-) visual masked priming, show that familiar visual word recognition involves phonological representations in automatic manner from Grade 3 to Grade 5. In contrast, automatic activation of orthographic representations seems to develop later (Grade 5). These results suggest that when orthographic process is functional but not fully effective (Grade 3), visual word recognition benefits from phonological activation whereas when orthographic process is fully effective (Grade 5), visual word recognition benefits from orthographic activation. That suggests that development of phonological automatic activation and development of orthographic automatic activation are independent. The process of phonological automatic activation is entirely developed earlier than the process of orthographic automatic activation.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma análise fonológica segmental da língua Urubu Ka\'apor, baseada em dados coletados no ano de 2008 e 2011, bem como os resultados obtidos com a análise acústica dos sons vocálicos presentes no inventário fonético da língua. Essa língua é falada no Estado do Maranhão (Brasil) descrita como pertencente à família linguística Tupi-Guarani - tronco Tupi (RODRIGUES, 1986). O povo Ka\'apor vive na Terra Indígena (T.I.) Alto Turiaçu e há uma estimativa de 1541 pessoas compondo a população Ka\'apor (IBGE,2010). Em relação à análise fonética proposta neste trabalho, o parâmetro acústico utilizado para a caracterização da qualidade vocálica foi os valores dos Formantes, que são as ressonâncias criadas no trato vocal, a partir dos pulsos de ar que passam pelas cordas vocais, provocando vibração. As frequências dos três primeiros formantes (F1, F2, F3) são suficientes para a identificação das vogais e, de modo geral, a maior parte delas pode ser corretamente identificada apenas com os dois primeiros formantes (LADEFOGED, 2001, p.33). Os dados utilizados nesta análise são itens lexicais gravados com colaboradores adultos, do sexo masculino. E para a medição dos valores dos formantes, utilizou-se o software Praat, no qual é possível visualizar, no espectrograma, os formantes das vogais e obter seus valores de frequência. A partir de tais valores, é possível analisar o movimento de dispersão das vogais, caracterizando o espaço acústico ocupado por cada série de segmento. Com isso, pretende-se que a análise acústica das vogais da língua Ka\'apor auxilie na descrição das características fonéticas desses sons, bem como na análise fonológica da língua (KAKUMASU, 1986; CALDAS, 2009; LOPES, 2009). A análise proposta neste trabalho confirma a existência das seguintes qualidades vocálicas [a, ã, ɛ, ɛ̃, i, ĩ, ɨ, ɔ, ɔ̃, u, ũ ] / This dissertation presents a segmental phonological analysis of the Urubu Ka\'apor language based on data collected in the years 2008 and 2011, as well as the results obtained with the acoustic analysis of vowel sounds present in the phonetic inventory of the language. This language is spoken in the state of Maranhão (Brazil) described as belonging to the Tupi-Guarani linguistic subfamily - Tupi family (RODRIGUES, 1986). The Ka\'apor people live in the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Land. There are an estimated number of 1541 Ka\'apor people (IBGE, 2010). In relation to the phonetic analysis proposed in this work, the acoustic parameter used for the characterization of vowels quality was the values of the Formants, which are the resonances created in the vocal tract, from the air pulses that pass through the vocal cords, causing vibration. The frequencies of the first three formants (F1, F2, F3) are sufficient to identify the vowels and, in general, most of them can be correctly identified only with the first two formants (LADEFOGED, 2001, p.33). The data used in this analysis are lexical items recorded with adult male speakers. The Praat software was used for the measurement of the formant values. By this software it is possible visualize spectrogram\'s vowels, the formants of the vowels and to obtain their frequency values. From these values, it is possible to analyze the dispersion movement of the vowels, characterizing the acoustic space occupied by each segment series. Thus, it is intended that the acoustic analysis of Ka\'apor vowels helps in the description of the phonetic characteristics of these sounds, as well as in the phonological analysis of the language (KAKUMASU, 1986; CALDAS, 2009; LOPES, 2009). The analysis proposed in this work confirms the existence of the following vocalic qualities: [a, ã, ɛ, ɛ̃, i, ĩ, ɨ, ɔ, ɔ̃, u, ũ]

Cette thèse est une description des systèmes phonologique et morphosyntaxique du kwakum, langue bantu A90 parlée dans la région de l’Est du Cameroun. Les données qui sont analysées dans ce travail ont été collectées à Sibita, un village de l’Arrondissement de Doumé. Le kwakum a une série de 28 consonnes parmi lesquelles des occlusives aspirées et labio-vélaires. Il possède un système vocalique de sept voyelles à longueur contrastive. L’analyse tonale est basée sur la distinction H vs. B vs. 0. Le système de classe nominale est quelque peu réduit et les correspondances entre les classes du kwakum et celles du Proto Bantu restent problématiques. Il existe huit classes morphologiques qui indiquent le nombre et cinq classes nominales qui déterminent l’accord. L’on note également un accord par défaut déclenché par les noms singuliers, ce qui suggère que la réduction du système de classe nominale est encore en cours. Le syntagme nominal est le seul domaine où s’observe l’accord en classe nominale. Dans les constructions connectivales, la tête syntaxique n’est pas nécessairement la tête sémantique. Le Kwakum possède des «ambipositions» employées comme préposition si le complément est nominal et comme postposition si le complément est pronominal. L’expression du temps verbal nécessite l’utilisation d’auxiliaires ou d’affixes temporels qui peuvent être combinés à un schème tonal de remplacement apparaissant sur les bases verbales. L’ordre des constituants dans la phrase est SVO. L’on note également des phrases averbales formées de deux noms ou d’un nom/pronom et d’un démonstratif. Les appendices contiennent un lexique kwakum-français et deux textes transcrits, glosés, traduits accompagnés de fichiers audio. / This thesis provides an analysis of the phonological and morphosyntactic systems of Kwakum, a Bantu A90 language spoken in the East Region of Cameroon. The data analysed in this work was collected from Kwakum speakers living in Sibita, a village located in the Doume Subdivision. Kwakum has a series of 28 consonants, among which aspirated and labiovelars stops. Its seven-vowel system is marked by contrastive length. The tone analysis is based on the distinction H vs. L vs. 0. The noun class system is somewhat reduced and the correspondences between the Kwakum classes and those of Proto Bantu are still problematic. There are eight morphological classes, marking number, and five noun classes which determine agreement. There is also a default agreement pattern triggered by singular nouns. This suggests an ongoing breakdown of the noun class system. Noun class agreement can only be observed within the noun phrase. In connective constructions, the syntactic head is not necessarily the semantic head. Kwakum has “ambipositions”, used as prepositions with nominal complements and as postposition with pronominal complements. Tense marking involves the use of tense auxiliaries or affixes which may be combined with a replacive tone scheme assigned to the verb stem. Kwakum is a SVO language and also presents instances of non-verbal clauses involving two nouns or a noun/pronoun and a demonstrative. The appendices include a Kwakum-French lexicon and two texts transcribed glossed and time-aligned with audio.

Linguistic research suggests that speakers represent syllable structure by a CV-frame. CVC syllables are more frequent than VCC ones. Further, the presence of VCC syllables in a language asymmetrically implies the presence of CVC syllables. These typological facts may reflect grammatical constraints. Alternatively, people's preferences may be due solely to their sensitivity to the statistical properties of sound combinations in their language. I demonstrate that participants in an auditory lexical decision task reject VCC nonwords faster than CVC nonwords, suggesting that the marked VCC syllables are dispreferred relative to CVC syllables. In a second experiment, I show that people are also sensitive to the distribution of these frames in the experiment. Findings indicate that syllable structure is represented at the phonological level, that individuals have preferences for certain syllables, and that these preferences can not be accounted for by the statistical properties of the stimuli. / by Kayla Causey. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.