Esta tese trata da aquisição do sistema vocálico em posição tônica e pretônica do português brasileiro fazendo uso de dados longitudinais de 3 crianças gravadas semanalmente de 1;0 à 3;5 (ano;mês) provenientes do Banco de dados A aquisição do ritmo em Português Brasileiro Processos de Ancoragem (SANTOS, 2005). O arcabouço teórico assumido é a Teoria da Hierarquia Contrastiva de Traços HCT - (2003; 2009), que prevê que os segmentos da língua sejam lexicalmente representados através de uma hierarquia de traços dependente de processos fonológicos e específica de cada língua. E, uma vez que a hierarquia de traços não é inata, ela deve ser construída pela criança com base no input. Trata-se de um trabalho inovador, pois, além de usar a HCT para explicar a trajetória de aquisição das vogais do PB, aborda questões que ainda estão em aberto na teoria, tal como o papel do input na aquisição fonológica, a variabilidade na aquisição e a reestruturação de hierarquias. Nossos dados mostram que, de fato, as crianças trilham caminhos diferentes para adquirir o sistema vocálico do PB. Enquanto duas delas, L. e Am., iniciam suas hierarquias por ponto de articulação, a terceira A. inicia por altura. Em relação a essas diferenças, discutimos uma proposta de hierarquia contrastiva para o PB que se inicia por altura vocálica (Lee, 2008), e verificamos que essa proposta não dá conta do processo de elisão do dialeto de São Paulo, ao qual as crianças desse estudo estão expostas. Por esse motivo, (i) elaboramos uma proposta de hierarquia contrastiva para esse dialeto a qual se inicia por ponto e (ii) propomos que se os contrastes iniciais infantis impedem que, posteriormente, a gramática infantil dê conta dos processos da língua, a criança reestrutura sua hierarquia assim que possível. A organização da hierarquia e os traços utilizados foram estabelecidos de acordo com a ordem de aquisição dos segmentos (aquisição estabelecida de acordo com a metodologia de Ingram 1981, 1989) e as substituições ocorridas na fala infantil. Em relação à reestruturação, conseguimos evidenciar um momento em que há reestruturação nas hierarquias observando as substituições. Em relação à aquisição da pauta pretônica, partimos da hipótese de que segmentos que sofrem processos fonológicos seriam adquiridos mais tardiamente (cf. MIRANDA, 2013), e, por esse motivo, ambos /e/ e /o/ pretônicas apresentariam diferenças de aquisição em relação às suas contrapartes tônicas. Os resultados mostraram, entretanto, que apenas a vogal pretônica /e/ é adquirida mais tardiamente, o que traz mais evidências aos estudos que defendem que apenas essa vogal é alvo do processo de harmonia vocálica no PB. Dessa forma, ao discutir a aquisição do sistema vocálico em Português Brasileiro a partir da Hierarquia Contrastiva de Traços, conseguimos tratar da influência do input na aquisição vocálica, da variabilidade entre os aprendizes e da reestruturação de hierarquias, o que não é possível a partir de outros arcabouços teóricos. / This thesis deals with the acquisition of the vowel system in tonic and pretonic positions in Brazilian Portuguese, using longitudinal data from three children recorded every week from 1;0 to 3;5 (year; month) from the database Aquisição de Ritmo em Português Brasileiro Processos de Ancoragem (SANTOS, 2005). The theoretical framework assumed is Contrastive Hierarchy Theory - CHT - (DRESHER, 2003; 2009), which proposes that the segments of language are lexically represented by a feature hierarchy dependent on the language and its phonological processes. As the feature hierarchy is not innate, it must be constructed by the child based on input. This is an innovative study because in addition to using CHT to explain the acquisition trajectory for BP vowels, it addresses issues that have not yet been addressed in the theory, such as the role of input in phonological acquisition, variability in acquisition, and the restructuring of hierarchies. Our data show that, in fact, the children take different paths in acquiring the vowel system in BP. While two of them, L. and Am, begin their hierarchies with the place of articulation, the third, A. begins with height. In regard to these differences, we discuss a proposal for a contrastive hierarchy for BP that begins with vowel height (Lee, 2008), and we find that this proposal does not account for the external sandhi process in the São Paulo dialect to which the children in this study are exposed. For this reason, (i) we have put forward a contrastive hierarchy proposal for the dialect which begins with place of articulation and (ii) we have proposed that if children\'s initial contrasts subsequently prevent child grammar handling the language\'s processes, the child restructures its hierarchy as soon as possible. The organization of the hierarchy and features used were established according to the order of acquisition of the segments (acquisition established in accordance with the Ingram\'s methodology 1981, 1989) and the substitutions which occurred in child language. Regarding restructuring, we have identified a moment when there is restructuring in the hierarchies observing substitutions. Regarding the acquisition of pretonic position, we started from the hypothesis that the segments that undergo phonological processes would be acquired later (cf. MIRANDA, 2013) and, for this reason, both pretonic /e/ and /o/ would present differences in acquisition in relation to their tonic counterparts. The results showed, however, that only the pretonic vowel /e/ is acquired later, which provides more evidence for studies that argue that only this vowel is the target of the vowel harmony process in BP. Thus, when discussing the acquisition of the vowel system in Brazilian Portuguese based on Contrastive Hierarchy Theory, we can address the influence of input on vowel acquisition, the variability among learners, and the restructuring of hierarchies, which is not possible using other theoretical frameworks.

Esta tese trata da aquisição do sistema vocálico em posição tônica e pretônica do português brasileiro fazendo uso de dados longitudinais de 3 crianças gravadas semanalmente de 1;0 à 3;5 (ano;mês) provenientes do Banco de dados A aquisição do ritmo em Português Brasileiro Processos de Ancoragem (SANTOS, 2005). O arcabouço teórico assumido é a Teoria da Hierarquia Contrastiva de Traços HCT - (2003; 2009), que prevê que os segmentos da língua sejam lexicalmente representados através de uma hierarquia de traços dependente de processos fonológicos e específica de cada língua. E, uma vez que a hierarquia de traços não é inata, ela deve ser construída pela criança com base no input. Trata-se de um trabalho inovador, pois, além de usar a HCT para explicar a trajetória de aquisição das vogais do PB, aborda questões que ainda estão em aberto na teoria, tal como o papel do input na aquisição fonológica, a variabilidade na aquisição e a reestruturação de hierarquias. Nossos dados mostram que, de fato, as crianças trilham caminhos diferentes para adquirir o sistema vocálico do PB. Enquanto duas delas, L. e Am., iniciam suas hierarquias por ponto de articulação, a terceira A. inicia por altura. Em relação a essas diferenças, discutimos uma proposta de hierarquia contrastiva para o PB que se inicia por altura vocálica (Lee, 2008), e verificamos que essa proposta não dá conta do processo de elisão do dialeto de São Paulo, ao qual as crianças desse estudo estão expostas. Por esse motivo, (i) elaboramos uma proposta de hierarquia contrastiva para esse dialeto a qual se inicia por ponto e (ii) propomos que se os contrastes iniciais infantis impedem que, posteriormente, a gramática infantil dê conta dos processos da língua, a criança reestrutura sua hierarquia assim que possível. A organização da hierarquia e os traços utilizados foram estabelecidos de acordo com a ordem de aquisição dos segmentos (aquisição estabelecida de acordo com a metodologia de Ingram 1981, 1989) e as substituições ocorridas na fala infantil. Em relação à reestruturação, conseguimos evidenciar um momento em que há reestruturação nas hierarquias observando as substituições. Em relação à aquisição da pauta pretônica, partimos da hipótese de que segmentos que sofrem processos fonológicos seriam adquiridos mais tardiamente (cf. MIRANDA, 2013), e, por esse motivo, ambos /e/ e /o/ pretônicas apresentariam diferenças de aquisição em relação às suas contrapartes tônicas. Os resultados mostraram, entretanto, que apenas a vogal pretônica /e/ é adquirida mais tardiamente, o que traz mais evidências aos estudos que defendem que apenas essa vogal é alvo do processo de harmonia vocálica no PB. Dessa forma, ao discutir a aquisição do sistema vocálico em Português Brasileiro a partir da Hierarquia Contrastiva de Traços, conseguimos tratar da influência do input na aquisição vocálica, da variabilidade entre os aprendizes e da reestruturação de hierarquias, o que não é possível a partir de outros arcabouços teóricos. / This thesis deals with the acquisition of the vowel system in tonic and pretonic positions in Brazilian Portuguese, using longitudinal data from three children recorded every week from 1;0 to 3;5 (year; month) from the database Aquisição de Ritmo em Português Brasileiro Processos de Ancoragem (SANTOS, 2005). The theoretical framework assumed is Contrastive Hierarchy Theory - CHT - (DRESHER, 2003; 2009), which proposes that the segments of language are lexically represented by a feature hierarchy dependent on the language and its phonological processes. As the feature hierarchy is not innate, it must be constructed by the child based on input. This is an innovative study because in addition to using CHT to explain the acquisition trajectory for BP vowels, it addresses issues that have not yet been addressed in the theory, such as the role of input in phonological acquisition, variability in acquisition, and the restructuring of hierarchies. Our data show that, in fact, the children take different paths in acquiring the vowel system in BP. While two of them, L. and Am, begin their hierarchies with the place of articulation, the third, A. begins with height. In regard to these differences, we discuss a proposal for a contrastive hierarchy for BP that begins with vowel height (Lee, 2008), and we find that this proposal does not account for the external sandhi process in the São Paulo dialect to which the children in this study are exposed. For this reason, (i) we have put forward a contrastive hierarchy proposal for the dialect which begins with place of articulation and (ii) we have proposed that if children\'s initial contrasts subsequently prevent child grammar handling the language\'s processes, the child restructures its hierarchy as soon as possible. The organization of the hierarchy and features used were established according to the order of acquisition of the segments (acquisition established in accordance with the Ingram\'s methodology 1981, 1989) and the substitutions which occurred in child language. Regarding restructuring, we have identified a moment when there is restructuring in the hierarchies observing substitutions. Regarding the acquisition of pretonic position, we started from the hypothesis that the segments that undergo phonological processes would be acquired later (cf. MIRANDA, 2013) and, for this reason, both pretonic /e/ and /o/ would present differences in acquisition in relation to their tonic counterparts. The results showed, however, that only the pretonic vowel /e/ is acquired later, which provides more evidence for studies that argue that only this vowel is the target of the vowel harmony process in BP. Thus, when discussing the acquisition of the vowel system in Brazilian Portuguese based on Contrastive Hierarchy Theory, we can address the influence of input on vowel acquisition, the variability among learners, and the restructuring of hierarchies, which is not possible using other theoretical frameworks.

No description available.

This paper looks at the relationship between emotion and vowel length in spontaneous speech, specifically during narratives. It is hypothesized that during emotionally-laden speech, vowel length will be longer in duration than when in non-emotional speech. Data is drawn from the Univerisity of California, Santa Barbara linguistic corpus, with conversations focused on individuals in and around Southern California. The paper builds on work by Dabbs et al., Banse & Scherer, Estes & Adelman, and others regarding the nature of cognitive monitoring, as well as stance as discussed by Ochs & Schieffelin, Ochs, Kärkkainen, Local & Walker, and how emotion is displayed in speech. Tokens chosen for analysis are /ɑ/, /ɑɪ/, and /ə/. Three of each token in first syllable position is collected for analysis from both emotional and non-emotional speech. Analysis of tokens then takes place by (mean) averaging each token's length for each speaker in each stance, then the total vowel average time is calculated again for each speaker in each stance. Beyond intra-vowel, intra-speaker averages, inter-speaker average is calculated to assess consistency of the vowel length changes between stances. The paper finds that the length of tokens shows an average increase during intraspeaker emotional speech.

The roles of phonetics (e.g., Jun 1995, Holt 1997, Steriade 2001) and Articulatory Phonology (AP, Browman and Goldstein 1986, et seq.) in both the diachronic evolution of and synchronic analyses for phonological processes are relatively recent incorporations into Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004, McCarthy and Prince 1993/2001). I continue this line of inquiry by offering an AP-based OT proposal of three fricative-vowel assimilations in Latin American Spanish: /f/>[x] velarization (fui [xui] "I went"), /f/>[phi] bilabialization (fumo "I smoke") and /x/>[ç] palatalization (gente [çente] "people"). In this dissertation, I pursue three main objectives: to update and clarify via empirical study and spectral analysis the available data; to account for the crosslinguistically recurrent phonological patterns that affect fricative-vowel sequences; and to explain the above processes' genesis and diffusion in Latin American Spanish by integrating the first two goals into an Optimality Theoretic framework. Concerning the first task, data for the three processes are culled primarily from sociolinguistic corpora (Perissinotto 1975, Resnick 1975, Sanicky 1988, inter alia). Lacking from these accounts are detailed phonetic analyses. To fill this gap, I report on a four-part perception and production study designed to update the descriptive facts and provide spectral analyses for the allophonic variants. Regarding the second goal, I show that fricatives are susceptible to regressive consonant-vowel assimilation given the recurrence of assimilatory patterns nearly identical to the Spanish processes under investigation in disparate languages throughout the world. I argue that articulatory and acoustic facts conspire to render place features in (non-sibilant) fricatives difficult to recover given the vast interspeaker, intraspeaker and crosslinguistic variability in production (e.g., Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996) and the greater reliance on fricative-vowel transitional cues as opposed to cues internal to the frication on the part of the hearer (e.g., Manrique and Massone 1981, Feijóo and Fernández 2003). To that end, I argue that the sound changes originate(d) with the hearer's misperception of a speaker's extremely coarticulated target (Baker, Archangeli and Mielke 2011, inter alia). The dissertation concludes with a proposal adapting Jun (1995) that encodes the above articulatory and acoustic facts into an AP-based, typologically-minded OT approach that accounts both diachronically and synchronically for /f/ velarization, /f/ bilabialization and /x/ palatalization in Spanish (updating previous analyses by Lipski 1995 and Mazzaro 2005, 2011).

<p>ATR, advanced tongue root, is a phonological feature among vowels. As vowels assimilate to share the same value of that feature, they display ATR harmony. This is a common phenomenon among many African languages. ATR harmony is examined in this paper as manifested across morpheme boundaries wihin nouns in a Surmic language of Ethiopia called Bale. The data presented was collected at a workshop on ATR harmony held by SIL International in Mizan Teferi, Ethiopia, 2009. The vowel system in Bale displays a nine vowel inventory with a feature dominance of [+ATR] vowels which spread their feature both leftward and rightward to recessive [–ATR] vowels. The [+ATR] dominance is also present as a floating feature without any phonological material. The vowel /a/ is analysed as a neutral vowel, co-occuring with both [+ATR] and [–ATR] vowels within roots.</p>

This study investigated the neuroplastic changes that accompany speech identification training using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants completed three practice sessions over two consecutive days. In the morning group, practice occurred in the morning and evening of the first day, and in the morning of the next day; whereas, in the evening group, practice occured in the evening of the first day, and in the morning and evening of the second day. In both groups, behavioural improvement between the first session and last session was comparable. Neuromagnetic data showed practice-related changes in N1m amplitude between the first and last sessions. A time-of-day (TOD) of practice effect was found for P2m mean amplitude. In both groups, P2m-related changes with practice were greater when consecutive sessions occurred between days than within a day. The results are consistent with the proposal that task-related changes in the P2m wave are an index of perceptual learning.

This study investigated the neuroplastic changes that accompany speech identification training using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants completed three practice sessions over two consecutive days. In the morning group, practice occurred in the morning and evening of the first day, and in the morning of the next day; whereas, in the evening group, practice occured in the evening of the first day, and in the morning and evening of the second day. In both groups, behavioural improvement between the first session and last session was comparable. Neuromagnetic data showed practice-related changes in N1m amplitude between the first and last sessions. A time-of-day (TOD) of practice effect was found for P2m mean amplitude. In both groups, P2m-related changes with practice were greater when consecutive sessions occurred between days than within a day. The results are consistent with the proposal that task-related changes in the P2m wave are an index of perceptual learning.

This dissertation is an acoustic description of the phonemic inventory of Nez Perce [nez], a Penutian language of the United States. Acoustic work has been conducted on the consonants of Nez Perce, but no acoustic work has been conducted on the vowels or vowel harmony system. This work begins with an overview of the dissertation, language situation, and previous research. Following the introduction are chapters on ejectives and plain obstruents, plain and glottalized sonorants, vowels, vowel harmony, and the conclusion. Nez Perce has both plain and ejective stop series, a plain and ejective affricate series, and a plain fricative series. I examine these segments for acoustic correlates comparing them to previous research, other languages and current theory. The ejectives are described with f0, intensity, jitter, burst amplitude and VOT. I discuss fricatives in terms of spectra, duration, formant transitions, and moments. The timing and realization of glottalization on glottalized and plain sonorants is investigated. Segments are measured for duration and are visually and aurally inspected for variation of glottalization, realized using pitch, laryngealization, glottal stops, or a combination of these features. It is nearly always realized on the sonorant rather than before or after. Vowels are plotted and compared to previous phonological descriptions. The inventory is /i, æ, a, o, u/ rather than the canonical five-vowel system, leading to the description of the inventory as having a “gap” and not maximally contrastive. I suggest that if Nez Perce vowels are considered using a shifted axis then the vowels are maximally contrastive. The non-canonical vowel inventory leads to two seeming unrelated vowel harmony sets: dominant, /i, a, o/, and recessive, /i, æ, u/. The proposed shifted axis view becomes important for reanalyzing the vowel harmony to reconcile these unusual sets. Previous analyses have described Nez Perce vowel harmony as based on advanced tongue root (ATR). I investigated Nez Perce vowels for ATR acoustic correlates; however, the results provide evidence both supporting and not supporting an ATR analysis. I propose an alternate analysis for the vowel harmony based on the principle of maximal contrast, evidenced by the shifted axis model.

This paper examines the acoustic characteristics that differentiate the four tones of Burmese: high, low, creaky and stopped. The majority of previous work on Burmese tone is impressionistic but recently has become experimental. There are conflicting analyses of how the tones are distinguished. In particular, there is disagreement about the f0 contour of the high and low tones, the consistency of creakiness in the creaky and stopped tones, the role of f0 in distinguishing the creaky and stopped tones, and the vowel quality of the stopped tone. Recordings were made of four native speakers of Burmese, aged 24-30, who read sentences containing a carrier word with one of the four tones and one of two vowels, /a/ and /i/. Seven variables were measured: f0 contour (onset, offset, peak f0, peak delay), duration, voice quality, and vowel quality. It was found that the high and low tones are differentiated from the creaky and stopped tones by onset f0, peak f0, relative peak delay, duration, and voice quality. The high and low tones are distinguished from one another by offset f0, peak f0, relative peak delay, and voice quality. The creaky and stopped tones appear to be differentiated from one another mainly by vowel quality. This paper adds necessary acoustic analysis to the literature on Burmese tone, with the finding that a variety of characteristics is used to distinguish each tone. The findings of this experiment also add to the current understanding of the interactions between tone and phonation, as well as phonation and vowel quality. / text