nÃo hà / Sob a perspectiva variacionista, defendida, principalmente, por Weinreich, Labov e Herzog (1968) e Labov (1972, 1994), este estudo aborda a realizaÃÃo variÃvel das vogais mÃdias pretÃnicas /e/ e /o/, em posiÃÃo interconsonÃntica, com o propÃsito de descrever o comportamento variÃvel das vogais mÃdias prÃ-acentuadas na variedade do portuguÃs popular dos fortalezenses. A escolha por um aspecto fÃnico, como matÃria de estudo, justifica-se, em primeiro lugar, por ser o nÃvel fonÃtico o que mais, imediatamente, denuncia as diferenÃas sociais e regionais; e, em segundo, por ser o comportamento das vogais mÃdias pretÃnicas, um dos fatos lingÃÃsticos que permitem reconhecer as diversas Ãreas dialetais do portuguÃs. Os 72 informantes utilizados, nesta pequisa, foram estratificados, igualitariamente, em funÃÃo do sexo, da faixa etÃria e da escolaridade. Nesta anÃlise, foram testados os seguintes fatores: vogal tÃnica, vogal Ãtona seguinte, distÃncia em relaÃÃo à tÃnica, tipo de atonicidade, nasalidade, contexto fonolÃgico precedente e seguinte, tipo de sÃlaba, estrutura morfolÃgica, sexo, faixa etÃria e escolaridade. A hipÃtese principal era a de que a pretÃnica copiava o traÃo de altura da vogal tÃnica. Os resultados obtidos revelam que as variantes abertas, tanto as de /e/ quanto as de /o/, predominam, maciÃamente, sobre as fechadas e altas. Confirmou-se a suspeita de que o fenÃmeno em questÃo à regido, primordialmente, pela harmonizaÃÃo vocÃlica da pretÃnica em relaÃÃo à altura da tÃnica. No entanto, outros fatores, tanto de natureza lingÃÃstica quanto extralingÃÃstica, tambÃm podem favorecer ou desfavorecer a regra variÃvel, dentre os quais, destacam-se: o contexto consonÃntico precedente e seguinte, o tipo de atonicidade, a faixa etÃria e a escolaridade. Pode-se concluir que a variaÃÃo das pretÃnicas se apresenta como um fenÃmeno sistÃmico, ou seja, condicionado, basicamente, por fatores estruturais. / Under the variationist perspective, mainly defended by Weinreich, Labov and Herzog (1968) and Labov (1972, 1994), this study approaches the variable realization of the medium pretonic vowels /e/ and /o/, in interconsonantal position, aiming at describing the variable behavior of the pre-stressed medium vowels in the popular variable of the Portuguese language spoken by the people from the city of Fortaleza. The choice of a phonic aspect for this study is mainly justified by the fact that the phonetic level is the one which immediately shows the social and regional differences; besides, the behavior of the medium pretonic vowels is one of the linguistic facts that permits the recognition of the various dialectal areas of the Portuguese language. The 72 participants in this research were equally stratified, according to gender, age and school level. The following factors were tested in this analysis: tonic vowel, following non-tonic vowel, distance in relation to the tonic, kind of non-tonic vowel, nasality, pre and post phonological context, type of syllable, morphological structure, gender, age and school level. The main hypothesis was that the pre-tonic would copy the pitch feature of the tonic vowel. The results reveal that the open variable vowels, the /e/ and the /o/, appear in a greater number than the closed and high ones. We confirmed the idea that this phenomenon is mainly led by the vocalic harmonization of the pre-tonic related to the height of the tonic one. However, there are other factors, either linguistic or extra-linguistic, that can either favor or not the variable rule. Some of these factors are: the pre and post consonant context, the type of unstressed vowels, the age and the school level. Thus, the pre-tonics variation is a systemic phenomenon, that is, it is basically conditioned by structural factors.

Latim e sabélico são línguas que possuem muitos paralelos entre si, pois pertencem ao mesmo ramo do proto-indo-europeu, o ramo itálico. Uma semelhança interessante e intrigante entre essas línguas é a síncope vocálica, porque se trata de um processo fonológico recorrente. Até algumas décadas atrás, os estudiosos não acreditavam ser possível analisar devidamente as condições nas quais a síncope ocorre em latim, por serem muito complexas. No entanto, pesquisas mais recentes mostram que isso é possível de alguma forma, apesar de a análise ser difícil. A ocorrência da síncope vocálica em sabélico parece menos complexa que em latim. Em sabélico, os ambientes fonológicos nos quais a síncope ocorre são mais limitados, mas a dificuldade em entender o significado e a etimologia de algumas palavras sabélicas também torna a análise complicada. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi delimitar o máximo possível os ambientes fonológicos da síncope em latim e em sabélico e entender quais correlações podem ser feitas entre os exemplos listados. Ainda que seja interessante analisar todos os casos com base nas mesmas premissas, isso é muito difícil, uma vez que os dados encontrados são muito variados. As correlações que podem ser feitas entre casos de línguas diferentes são basicamente apenas de ordem etimológica, pois a ação e resultado da síncope agem de maneiras diferentes dependendo da língua e do período. / Latin and Sabellic are languages that have many parallels, for they belong to the same Indo-European branch, the Italic branch. An interesting and intriguing phonological similarity between these languages is vowel syncope, because is a recurring phonological process. Until a few decades ago, scholars believed not to be possible to analyze properly the conditions under which syncope occurs in Latin, because they are very complex. However, more recent researches show that this is somehow possible, though the analysis is difficult. The occurrence of vowel syncope in Sabellic seems to be less complex than in Latin. In Sabellic, the phonological environments in which syncope occurs are more limited, but the difficulty to understand the meaning and etimology of some Sabellic words make this analysis also tough. The aim of this research was to limit as much as possible the phonological environments of syncope in Latin and in Sabellic and to understand the correlations that can be made among the examples of the corpora. Although it would be interesting to analyze all cases based on the same premises, this is very difficult, for the data do not allow it. The correlations that can be made are basically just etymological, because the way it works and the results are different according to each language and each time they existed.

Submitted by Fabiano Vassallo (fabianovassallo2127@gmail.com) on 2017-04-20T18:56:01Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Luiz Pedro Barbosa.pdf: 1635124 bytes, checksum: 919c2146c2d8a5fa3160948945acaf6b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Josimara Dias Brumatti (bcgdigital@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-04-25T14:57:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Luiz Pedro Barbosa.pdf: 1635124 bytes, checksum: 919c2146c2d8a5fa3160948945acaf6b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-25T14:57:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertação Luiz Pedro Barbosa.pdf: 1635124 bytes, checksum: 919c2146c2d8a5fa3160948945acaf6b (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Reitoria, Centro de Letras e Artes, Rio de Janeiro, RJ / Esta pesquisa foi desenvolvida durante o curso de Mestrado em Estudos da Linguagem, no Instituto de Letras da UFF. O objeto enfocado é o morfema –ē, formador de verbos com valor de estado – estativos – em Latim. O ponto de partida destes estudos é a aparente interseção entre as categorias de sufixo derivacional e vogal temática em que se encontra o referido morfema. Estudos de Morfologia Diacrônica do Latim mostram que ele tem uma trajetória relativamente complexa como continuidade de um morfema formador de temas aorísticos indoeuropeus. Como a permanência é inerente à mudança, o Latim apresenta diversos traços desse antigo paradigma. Filiado a uma corrente funcionalista centrada no uso, este trabalho utiliza a perspectiva construcional de Traugott & Trousdale (2013). Para as análises, são utilizados também os parâmetros de transitividade de Hopper e Thompson (1980). O corpus são as comédias de Plauto, autor do período arcaico da Literatura Latina. A escolha do autor se deu pelo caráter “popular” de sua obra e pelas numerosas marcas de oralidade de seus textos, o que leva a crer que eram próximos do falar vernáculo da época. As análises, de modo geral, mostraram que os usos dos verbos estativos se afastam, em muitos aspectos, das características descritas pelas gramáticas diacrônicas, pois não possuem produtividade e com provável neoanálise do radical verbal. Mostraram também, que o sufixo está relacionado com a noção de aktionsart, ou modo de ser da ação verbal / This research was developped during the Master Course on Language Studies, at Instituto de Letras, in UFF. The objectve focused is the morpheme –ē, composer of verbs with a state value – stative – in Latin. The starting point of these studies is the apparent intersection between the categories of derivational suffix and thematic vowel wich the referred morpheme is found in. Diacronic studies of latin morfology show that this suffix has a relatively complex path as continuity of a morpheme composer of indoeuropean aoristic themes. As the permanence is inherent to change, Latin shows several features of such na ancient inflectional paradigm. Affiliated to a used based functionalist theory, this work uses the constructional perspective by Traugott & Trousdale (2013). For the analysis, we used transitivity paramaters by Hopper & Thompson (1980). The corpus are comedies of Plautus, writer from archaic period of Latin Litterature. The choice of this author is due to the popular feature of his work and to the numerous orality marks nos his texts, wich lead us to believe that its language was close to the vernacular spoken language of his age. In a general way, the analysis shoed that stative verbs use are away, in many features, from those described by diachronic grammars, because they have no productivity and with a probable neoanalysus of the verb stem. They also showed that the suffix is related to the notion of aktionsart, or a way of being of a verbal action

Phonetic mergers in American English have been studied throughout the last half century. Previous research has contributed social and phonetic explanations to the understanding of front and back vowel mergers before /l/, front vowel mergers before nasals and phonetically unconditioned back vowel mergers. Using data from the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS) and the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS), this thesis examines the spread of the front vowel mergers in Mary and merry and the back vowel mergers in horse and hoarse. The two complementary sources of data allow for a social and phonetic approach to the examination of the merger.

In Czechia, teaching L2 English pronunciation is underestimated, which might lead to potential production slips and affect the intelligibility of the learners. This study investigates accuracy in L2 English pronunciation of checked vowels (/ʌ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʊ, æ/) as produced by Czech students. I applied cross-sectional approach and analysed participants from two distinct school classes who are divided by an 8-year study period. The pronunciation accuracy is analysed with the help of the computer program Praat, which generates frequencies for both Czech and English vowel phonemes produced by the participants reading out loud a set of monosyllabic citation words. The formant frequencies are later compared to a reference set of SSBE frequency values, which represents the targeted native language model. The results of this work show that the L2 English values are influenced by the students’ inventories of L1 Czech, leading to inaccuracy in production of the phonemes /ʌ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʊ/ and setting constraints to the L2 /æ/ acquisition.

No description available.

The linguistic situation on the Korean peninsula is one ripe for research. For the past 70 years the two halves of the peninsula have been isolated from one another, thus creating two very different environments for development and change within the Korean language. It is hypothesized that due to conflict, divide, and social turmoil on the peninsula, the Korean language will have undergone a period of change in the last 70 years. This particular investigation looks at North and South Korean monophthong systems for evidence of a phonological shift. Studies of North Korea's language planning (Yong, 2001; Kumatani, 1990) will be incorporated to provide a background for lexical change in the country, which may also have contributed to phonological change. This study was carried out with the expectation that, due to the turmoil following the Korean War, both standard dialects would display some signs of phonetic shift.In order to track the changes to the monophthong systems over the last 70 years, a total of 7156 samples of the Korean language's eight monophthongs were collected from both North and South Korean films from the 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s. The vowels' F1 and F2 formants were measured using the computer program Praat. The data was then separated by vowel and run through statistical analyses. The results of a mixed methods ANOVA determined which vowels had shown significant variance between decades; the estimated means were then determined for each formant. Based on the statistical analysis, the North Korean vowels /a/, /Λ/, and /u/ have shifted significantly since the 1950s, while the rest of the North Korean monophthong system has not changed significantly. Most of the shifting occurred in the period after the 1980s. In the South, all vowels have shown significant variance for the variable of decade in F1, F2, or both formants. South Korea's results also indicate separate shifts between the 1950s and 1980s, and between the 1980s and 2010s. If the results of this study could be successfully replicated with the languages of other countries thrown into post-WWII turmoil, this study could prove that WWII left a lasting effect on the languages of the world as well. Even if there are not far-reaching implications, the study still demonstrates strong evidence that linguistic change has occurred in both the northern and southern halves of the Korean peninsula since it was split into two separate countries.

Previous second language (L2) acquisition research has assumed that L2 learners from a common first language (L1) have the same problems in an L2, ignoring the potential impact of a speaker's L1 dialect on L2 acquisition. This study examines the effects of L1 dialect on the acquisition of L2 German vowels. In particular, this thesis investigates two questions: 1) Do speakers from L1 dialects with vowel mergers perceive or produce vowel contrasts in the L1 and/or L2 differently than speakers from dialect areas without the same mergers? and 2) Are subjects' patterns of L1 perception or production paralleled in the L2? This thesis focuses on the vowel contrasts "pin"-"pen," "fail"-"fell," and "pool"-"pull"-"pole," which are merged (i.e., neutralized) in some environments in the Mississippi dialect, such that words like "him" and "hem" are heard or produced as the same word. Two groups of subjects participated: students from The University of Mississippi (the merging group) and students from Brigham Young University (BYU) (the non-merging group). Subjects completed a perceptual task and a production task. The perception task was a forced-choice identification task in which subjects heard English and German words and indicated which word they heard. In the production task, subjects read aloud German and English sentences. Results indicate that BYU subjects were significantly better than UMiss subjects at perceiving many vowel contrasts in English and German. Additionally, some perceptual patterns seemed to transfer to the L2, e.g., /ɪn/ and /ɛn/, were identified with similar accuracy in English and in German. In production, the groups differed significantly from each other in their production of many vowel contrasts, while acoustic analysis found no production mergers for either group in English or German. In two case studies, perception results and production results (as found by native speaker judgments), showed that vowel contrasts merged in English were also problematic in L2 German, though the problematic vowel was not necessarily the same. In sum, the UMiss speakers with mergers in their L1 dialect appeared to face different challenges than the BYU speakers when perceiving and producing German vowel contrasts. Results have implications for the L2 classroom and L2 research, suggesting that instructors may need different teaching strategies for speakers from merging dialects.

This study employed spectral analyses for acoustic measures of sustained vowel productions from a group of 20 adolescents and young adults with Friedreich's Ataxia (FA) and compared findings with a group of 20 age-equivalent and gender-matched normal control participants. State-of-the art spectral analyses from the Analysis of Dysphonia in Speech and Voice (ADSV) program, developed for various voice disorders from Kay Elemetrics, were applied to initial 2 second sustained vowel segments of the vowels /a/, /i/, and /o/. Spectral analyses included averages and standard deviations of Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP), Cepstral Peak Prominence Standard Deviation (CPP SD), Low/High Spectral Ratio (L/H Ratio), Low/High Spectral Ratio Standard Deviation (L/H Ratio SD), Cepstral/Spectral Index of Dysphonia (CSID), and Mean Cepstral Peak Prominence Fundamental Frequency (Mean CPP F0). Statistical analyses revealed significant differences between the spectral analyses of voice characteristics of individuals with FA and those of normal controls for all measures except for CPP SD. The aim of these analyses was to determine spectral differences evident in vowel productions of individuals with FA using new cepstral-derived measures that characterize the phonatory instability and dis-coordination present in this disorder. Such research may not only help develop early non-invasive indicators of ataxia and track disease progression, but also serve to stimulate research into alleviating the symptoms of this devastating disease.

The purpose of this study was to conduct perceptual analyses, using the initial two-second portions, of prolonged vowels /a/, /i/, and /o/. Two groups of adolescents and young adults were analyzed- one group consisting of 20 individuals with Friedreich's ataxia who were compared to 20 individuals with normal voice (control participants). A trained group of 10 graduate students listened to 132 vowel samples (3 vowels X 40 participants, + 12 samples (10%) for reliability purposes) for a total of 132 perceptual judgments. The students listened to the samples which were randomized onto Dell computers (Optiplex 755) and played through headphones that were set at a comfortable level by the listeners prior to analyzing the voice samples. Listeners used a modified version of the Consensus-Auditory Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-VM) to rate the vocal qualities of 'roughness', 'breathiness', and 'strain' in the samples on a 100 millimeter visual analog scale with 0 representing a perception of no roughness, breathiness, or strain, and 100 indicating the most extreme amount of variance from normal voice quality. Statistical analyses were conducted to determine if perceptual measures were significantly different between the two groups. Values on these analyses were expected to be larger for individuals with Friedreich's ataxia than those with normal voice. Results revealed that all three measures were significantly different between the two groups, with those in the Friedreich's ataxia group reported as having increased rough, breathy, and strained components in their voice quality as compared to normal voiced peers. Findings support perceptual measures as useful indicators for reporting changes in the phonatory system due to Friedreich's ataxia.