The main goal of this study is to investigate the difficulties of acquiring tense/lax /i, I/ and /u, U/ contrasts by adult Arabic speakers learning English as a Second Language (ESL). Twenty Saudi ESL subjects, 16 male and 4 female, produced a list of 20 English monosyllabic words in a carrier sentence. Target vowels were preceded and followed alternately by consonant stops (e.g., /bVb/, /bVt/, /bVd/, /bVk/, /bVg/). The productions were analyzed acoustically for vowel quality and length. The results of the study revealed that most subjects had difficulties acquiring tense/lax contrasts. Their realization of the target vowel /i, I/ and /u, U/ were assimilated to their first language (L1) short vowel counterparts /i/ and /u/ respectively. However, advanced second language (L2) learners tended to produce slightly separate spectral contrasts specifically with front vowels, whereas durational differences of tense/lax contrasts were still affected by durational differences of Arabic long-short contrasts. Additionally, target back vowel contrasts were more difficult to acquire for both beginners and advanced learners. The study suggested that L2 participants were focusing on quantity rather than quality to acquire the target vowels. Orthography was observed affecting L2 production of vowel contrasts, especially with beginners. These findings have been found to support Flege's (1995) Speech Learning Model and Eckman's (1977) Markedness Differential Hypothesis.

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Previous research on speakers' abilities to track non-adjacent dependencies (e.g., vowels or consonants that co-occur across syllables) in artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks has shown that the acquisition of these patterns is extremely difficult (e.g. Newport&Aslin 2004; Gómez 2002; Bonatti, PenÞa, Nespor&Mehler 2005). One assumption made in this literature is that all speakers of all languages should be capable of tracking these patterns even when the native language of those speakers contains no such non-adjacent dependencies. This dissertation questions this assumption by testing whether native Khalkha Mongolian speakers attend to and track the frequency of vowel patterns and harmonic class size in their language. It also tests their ability to acquire non-adjacent vocalic dependencies in AGL tasks.Because Khalkha displays [ATR] vowel harmony (Svantesson, Tsendina, Karlsson&Franzén 2005) which restricts vowel co-occurrences, it was hypothesized that Khalkha speakers are biased towards attending to the frequency and form with which these vowel patterns occur. The results of three experiments indicated that Khalkha speakers both attend to and track the frequency with which vowel patterns occur. These results also indicate that Khalkha speakers build abstract categories based on the relative token numbers of [+ATR] and [-ATR]harmonic spans.Khalkha speakers were further tested in three experiments which focused on speakers' ability to acquire novel non-adjacent vocalic dependencies in AGL tasks. The results indicated that participants successfully acquired vocalic dependencies (both harmonic and disharmonic) in all three experiments. These results indicate that Khalkha speakers' attention is biased towards vowels, regardless of harmonic status of the item.Collectively, these results highlight the role of language-specific phonology in the ways that speakers abstract and utilize phonological information. The special status of harmonic vowel patterns and harmonic class size are new variables with which to conduct future research on vowel harmonic languages and with vowel harmonic language speakers. The effects of language-specific phonology on speech perception and lexical access must be considered a crucial aspect in future psycholinguistic research, particularly in regards to the aspects of language toward which speakers attend.

Esta dissertação trata dos processos fonológicos de elisão, ditongação e degeminação no falar de São Paulo. Além dos trabalhos clássicos sobre esses processos de sândi vocálico externo, em Português Brasileiro, serão apresentados dados de um experimento feito para este trabalho. De acordo com os dados do corpus desta dissertação, houve preferência pela aplicação da elisão e não da ditongação, nos casos em que ambos os processos eram possíveis. Os números referentes à elisão confirmaram a afirmação de Bisol com relação à aplicação categórica desse processo quando a vogal a ser elidida é [a]. No entanto, houve alta aplicação de elisão de [u], indicando um favorecimento pela elisão e não pela ditongação. Houve ainda algumas ocorrências de elisão de vogal [coronal], quando esta vogal era precedida por uma consoante que partilhava os mesmos traços com ela. Considerando-se os contextos para ditongos crescentes vs ditongos decrescentes, observou-se uma forte preferência pelo ditongo crescente nos dados coletados do dialeto de São Paulo. Finalmente, com relação à posição do contexto de aplicação dos processos, na seqüência de três vogais adjacentes (V1V2V3), observou-se que o contexto V1+V2 favorece a ocorrência de elisão, e não da ditongação. O processo de elisão, no corpus desta dissertação, foi mais aplicado quando a vogal a ser elidida estava na fronteira de grupos clíticos, podendo estar ou na fronteira de sintagmas fonológicos ou dentro de um mesmo sintagma. / This dissertation deals with the phonological processes of vowel elision, diphthongation and vowel degemination used by speakers from São Paulo. Besides presenting some classic studies about the so called processes of external sandhi in Brazilian Portuguese, this dissertation will also present new data recorded in order to carry on the analysis. Data showed that vowel elision is more productive than diphthongation in contexts within which both processes were possible to be applied. Besides, they confirmed Bisol\'s hypothesis that there is categorical use of vowel elision when the vowel (to be elided) is [a]. Nevertheless, elision of vowel [u] was also productive, indicating the preference for vowel elision over diphthongation. There were also some occurrences of coronal vowel elision, when this vowel and its preceding consonant shared phonological features. Also, it could be noted a strong preference for rising diphthongs, not for the falling ones, in the data collected in São Paulo. Finally, it was observed that the sequence \"first vowel + second vowel\" - V1+V2 - (in a sequence formed by three adjacent vowels - V1+V2+V3) favors the use of elision over diphthongation. Vowel elision, according to the data collected in order to carry on the analysis presented in this dissertation, was more productive in clitic group boundaries, within the phonological phrase as well as in phonological phrase boundaries.

Esta dissertação trata dos processos fonológicos de elisão, ditongação e degeminação no falar de São Paulo. Além dos trabalhos clássicos sobre esses processos de sândi vocálico externo, em Português Brasileiro, serão apresentados dados de um experimento feito para este trabalho. De acordo com os dados do corpus desta dissertação, houve preferência pela aplicação da elisão e não da ditongação, nos casos em que ambos os processos eram possíveis. Os números referentes à elisão confirmaram a afirmação de Bisol com relação à aplicação categórica desse processo quando a vogal a ser elidida é [a]. No entanto, houve alta aplicação de elisão de [u], indicando um favorecimento pela elisão e não pela ditongação. Houve ainda algumas ocorrências de elisão de vogal [coronal], quando esta vogal era precedida por uma consoante que partilhava os mesmos traços com ela. Considerando-se os contextos para ditongos crescentes vs ditongos decrescentes, observou-se uma forte preferência pelo ditongo crescente nos dados coletados do dialeto de São Paulo. Finalmente, com relação à posição do contexto de aplicação dos processos, na seqüência de três vogais adjacentes (V1V2V3), observou-se que o contexto V1+V2 favorece a ocorrência de elisão, e não da ditongação. O processo de elisão, no corpus desta dissertação, foi mais aplicado quando a vogal a ser elidida estava na fronteira de grupos clíticos, podendo estar ou na fronteira de sintagmas fonológicos ou dentro de um mesmo sintagma. / This dissertation deals with the phonological processes of vowel elision, diphthongation and vowel degemination used by speakers from São Paulo. Besides presenting some classic studies about the so called processes of external sandhi in Brazilian Portuguese, this dissertation will also present new data recorded in order to carry on the analysis. Data showed that vowel elision is more productive than diphthongation in contexts within which both processes were possible to be applied. Besides, they confirmed Bisol\'s hypothesis that there is categorical use of vowel elision when the vowel (to be elided) is [a]. Nevertheless, elision of vowel [u] was also productive, indicating the preference for vowel elision over diphthongation. There were also some occurrences of coronal vowel elision, when this vowel and its preceding consonant shared phonological features. Also, it could be noted a strong preference for rising diphthongs, not for the falling ones, in the data collected in São Paulo. Finally, it was observed that the sequence \"first vowel + second vowel\" - V1+V2 - (in a sequence formed by three adjacent vowels - V1+V2+V3) favors the use of elision over diphthongation. Vowel elision, according to the data collected in order to carry on the analysis presented in this dissertation, was more productive in clitic group boundaries, within the phonological phrase as well as in phonological phrase boundaries.

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In this report, the phenomenon of vowel lengthening in Standard Italian and two Northern Italian dialects, Friulian and Milanese, is discussed. For each language, the facts of vowel lengthening are presented and analyzed in the framework of several theories previously proposed to account for the data. These include primarily derivational theory, moraic theory, and optimality theory. Vowel lengthening is analyzed predominantly from a synchronic perspective for Standard Italian, but for Friulian and Milanese, both diachronic and synchronic accounts are presented. Vowel length in Italian and Milanese is seen to result from bimoraic enforcement, a principle requiring that all stressed syllables be bimoraic. A constraint prohibiting long vowels in word-final position interacts with the principle of bimoraic enforcement in Italian. In Milanese, bimoraic enforcement responds to a lexical contrast in moraic and non-moraic codas. Vowels before non-moraic codas lengthen to create a bimoraic syllable, while those before moraic codas do not since those syllables are already bimoraic. In Friulian, on the other hand, historical vowel lengthening which resulted from compensatory lengthening following the apocope of final vowels has been reanalyzed as a synchronic process of compensatory lengthening resulting from loss of consonant voice following word-final devoicing. / text