This study is primarily concerned with the issue of determining whether it is worthwhile to try to teach the correct pronunciation of subphonemic segments in ESL courses. It focuses specifically on the allophones [J, J] produced by the Flapping (or Tapping) of medial and final alveolar stops in North American English. Through an exhaustive examination of the ESL and TESL pronunciation manuals that have been published in the last thirty years or so, an assessment is first made of the manner and extent to which this widespread phonological process has been dealt with by the authors of such books. These findings are then compared with the opinions expressed by researchers in the field of second language education in order to determine what sort of consensus currently exists on this issue. The general conclusion is that since flaps are demonstrably the most salient of all NAE allophones and occur as phonemes in the first language of many ESL learners, these segments should be given due consideration in any pronunciation curriculum.

I investigate the phonology of prosodic clitics--independent syntactic words not parsed as independent prosodic words--in Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. I ask, first, how clitics are organized into prosodic structures, and second, how this is determined by the grammar. Following Zec (1997, 2005), I look at several clitic categories, including negation, prepositions, complementizers, conjunctions, and second-position clitics. Based on a reanalysis of word accent (Browne and McCawley 1965, Inkelas and Zec 1988, Zec 1999), I argue that in some cases where a preposition, complementizer, or conjunction fails to realize accent determined by a following word, it is not a proclitic-- that is, prosodified with the following word--but rather a free clitic parsed directly by a phonological phrase. Conversely, the second-position clitics are not always enclitic--that is, prosodified with a preceding word--but are sometimes free. Their second-position word order results not from enclisis, but from the avoidance of free clitics at phrase edges, where they would interfere with the alignment of phonological phrases to prosodic words. Regarding the determination of clisis by the grammar, I argue for an interface constraint approach (Selkirk 1995, Truckenbrodt 1995), whereby prosodic structures are built according to general constraints on their well-formedness, and on their interface to syntactic structures. I contrast this with the subcategorization approach , which sees clisis as specified for each clitic (Klavans 1982, Radanovic-Kocic 1988, Zec and Inkelas 1990). The comparison across clitic categories provides key support for the interface constraint approach, showing that their prosody depends on their syntactic configurations and phonological shapes, rather than on arbitrary subcategorizations. Prosodic differences across categories are a derivative effect of their configuration in the clause, and of the division of the clause into phonological phrases. The relevance of phonological phrases consists in how their edges discourage some kinds of clisis, blocking, for example, proclisis of complementizers and conjunctions to their complements. Free clisis is disfavored at phrase edges, producing the second-position effect. Thus, the interface constraint approach leads to a unified account of word, phrase, and clitic prosody.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Menggwa Dla is a Papuan language spoken in Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea and Kabupaten Jayapura of Papua Province, Indonesia. Menggwa Dla is a dialect of the Dla language; together with its sister language Anggor (e.g. Litteral 1980), the two languages form the Senagi language family, one of the small Papuan language families found in North-Central New Guinea. The main text of this thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the linguistic, cultural and political landscapes of the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea border area where the Dla territory is located. Chapter 2 introduces the phonology of Menggwa Dla; described in this chapter are the phonemes, allophonic variations, phonotactics, morpho-phonological processes, stress assignment and intonation of the language. The inventory of phonemes in Menggwa is average for a Papuan language (15 consonants and 5 vowels). The vast majority of syllables come in the shape of V, CV or C1C2V where C2 can be /n/ /r/ /l/ /j/ or /w/. In C1C2V syllables, the sonority rises from C1 to V (§2.2.2). Nevertheless, there are a few words with word-medial consonant sequences like ft /ɸt/, lk /lk/, lf /lɸ/ or lk /lk/ where the sonority drops from the first to the second consonant; the first consonant in these sequences is analysed as the coda of the previous syllable (§2.2.3). Chapter 3 is an overview of the word classes in Menggwa Dla; the morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of the three major word classes (nouns, adjectives and verbs) and the minor word classes are compared in this chapter. Chapter 4 describes the properties of nouns and noun phrases; the person-number-gender categories, noun-phrasal syntax, nominal clitics and personal pronouns are outlined in this chapter. Menggwa Dla has a rich array of case, topic and focus markers which comes in the form of clitics (§4.5). Subject pronouns (‘citation pronouns’) only mark person (i.e. one for each of the three persons), whereas object and genitive pronouns mark person (including inclusive/exclusive first person), number, and sometimes also gender features (§4.6). Chapter 5 introduces various morphological and syntactic issues which are common to both independent and dependent clauses: verb stems, verb classes, cross-referencing, intraclausal syntax, syntactic transitivity and semantic valence. Cross-referencing in Menggwa Dla is complex: there are seven paradigms of subject cross-reference suffixes and four paradigms of object cross-references. Based on their cross-referencing patterns, verbs are classified into one of five verb classes (§5.2). There is often a mismatch between the number of cross-reference suffixes, the semantic valence, and the syntactic transitivity within a clause. There are verbs where the subject cross-reference suffix, or the object suffix, or both the subject and object suffixes are semantically empty (‘dummy cross-reference suffixes’; §5.3.2). Chapter 6 outlines the morphology of independent verbs and copulas. Verbal morphology differs greatly between the three statuses of realis, semi-realis and irrealis; a section is devoted to the morphology for each of the three statuses. Chapter 7 introduces the dependent clauses and verbal noun phrases. Different types of dependent verbs are deverbalised to various degrees: subordinate verbs are the least deverbalised, chain verbs are more deverbalised (but they mark switch-reference (SR), and sometimes also interclausal temporal relations), and non-finite chain verbs even more deverbalised. Further deverbalised than the non-finite chain verbs are the verbal nouns; verbal noun phrases in Menggwa Dla functions somewhat like complement clauses in English. In younger speakers speech, the function of the chain clause SR system has diverted from the canonical SR system used by older speakers (§7.2.2). For younger speakers, coreferential chain verb forms and disjoint-reference chain verb forms only have their coreferential and disjoint-referential meaning — respectively — when the person-number-gender features of the two subject cross-reference suffixes cannot resolve the referentiality of the two subjects. Otherwise, the coreferential chain verb forms have become the unmarked SR-neutral chain verb forms. At the end of this thesis are appendix 1, which contains four Menggwa Dla example texts, and appendix 2, which contains tables of cross-reference suffixes, pronouns, copulas and irregular verbs.

Doctor of Philosophy / Anindilyakwa is the language spoken by over 1,000 Warnindilyakwa Aborigines on Groote Eylandt, Northern Territory. In the Australian language families, it is placed in the Groote Eylandt Family (Oates 1970:15) or the Andilyaugwan Family (Wurm 1972:117). As Yallop (1982:40) reports, Anindilyakwa and Nunggubuyu "are similiar in grammar and possibly share the distinction of being the most gramatically complex Australian languages. They are diverse in basic vocabularly, however, and are therefore allocated to separate families".

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brandeis University, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-172).

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Brandeis University, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-172).