Emergent phonology

Emergent phonology PDF Author: Diana Archangeli
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961103356
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
To what extent do complex phonological patterns require the postulation of universal mechanisms specific to language? In this volume, we explore the Emergent Hypothesis, that the innate language-specific faculty driving the shape of adult grammars is minimal, with grammar development relying instead on cognitive capacities of a general nature. Generalisations about sounds, and about the way sounds are organised into meaningful units, are constructed in a bottom-up fashion: As such, phonology is emergent. We present arguments for considering the Emergent Hypothesis, both conceptually and by working through an extended example in order to demonstrate how an adult grammar might emerge from the input encountered by a learner. Developing a concrete, data-driven approach, we argue that the conventional, abstract notion of unique underlying representations is unmotivated; such underlying representations would require some innate principle to ensure their postulation by a learner. We review the history of the concept and show that such postulated forms result in undesirable phonological consequences. We work through several case studies to illustrate how various types of phonological patterns might be accounted for in the proposed framework. The case studies illustrate patterns of allophony, of productive and unproductive patterns of alternation, and cases where the surface manifestation of a feature does not seem to correspond to its morphological source. We consider cases where a phonetic distinction that is binary seems to manifest itself in a way that is morphologically ternary, and we consider cases where underlying representations of considerable abstractness have been posited in previous frameworks. We also consider cases of opacity, where observed phonological properties do not neatly map onto the phonological generalisations governing patterns of alternation.

Phonological Explorations

Phonological Explorations PDF Author: Bert Botma
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110295172
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The 16 papers contained in this volume address a variety of phonological topics from different theoretical perspectives. Combined, they provide an excellent showcase for the diversity of the field. Topics considered include the place of allomorphy in grammar; Dutch clippings; the status of recursion in phonology; the role of contrast preservation in the Grimm-Verner push chain; the phonological specification of Dutch ‘tense’ and ‘lax’ monophthongs; the distribution of English vowels in a Strict CV framework; a dependency-based analysis of Germanic vowel shifts; a Radical CV Phonology approach to vowel harmony; emergentist vs. universalist perspectives on frequency effects in vowel harmony; the representation of Limburgian tonal accents; durational enhancement in Maastricht Limburguish high vowels; constraint conjunction in Mandarin Chinese; lexical tone association in Harmonic Serialism; a constraint-based account of the McGurk effect; a case study of the acquisition of liquids in early L1 Dutch; and the learnability of segmentation in Tibetan numerals.

The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory

The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory PDF Author: S.J. Hannahs
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317382137
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 661

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory provides a comprehensive overview of the major contemporary approaches to phonology. Phonology is frequently defined as the systematic organisation of the sounds of human language. For some, this includes aspects of both the surface phonetics together with systematic structural properties of the sound system; for others, phonology is seen as distinct from, and autonomous from, phonetics. The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory surveys the differing ways in which phonology is viewed, with a focus on current approaches to phonology. Divided into two parts, this handbook: covers major conceptual frameworks within phonology, including: rule-based phonology; Optimality Theory; Government Phonology; Dependency Phonology; and connectionist approaches to generative phonology; explores the central issue of the relationship between phonetics and phonology; features 23 chapters written by leading academics from around the world. The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory is an authoritative survey of this key field in linguistics, and is essential reading for students studying phonology.

The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony

The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony PDF Author: Nancy A. Ritter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192561472
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1153

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Book Description
This handbook provides a detailed account of the phenomenon of vowel harmony, a pattern according to which all vowels within a word must agree for some phonological property or properties. Vowel harmony has been central in the development of phonological theories thanks to its cluster of remarkable properties, notably its typically 'unbounded' character and its non-locality, and because it forms part of the phonology of most world languages. The five parts of this volume cover all aspects of vowel harmony from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. Part I outlines the types of vowel harmony and some unusual cases, before Part II explores structural issues such as vowel inventories, the interaction of vowel harmony and morphological structure, and locality. The chapters in Part III provide an overview of the various theoretical accounts of the phenomenon, as well as bringing in insights from language acquisition and psycholinguistics, while Part IV focuses on the historical life cycle of vowel harmony, looking at topics such as phonetic factors and the effect of language contact. The final part contains 31 chapters that present data and analysis of vowel harmony across all major language families as well as several isolates, constituting the broadest coverage of the phenomenon to date.

Approaches to Phonological Complexity

Approaches to Phonological Complexity PDF Author: François Pellegrino
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110223953
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Complexity approaches, developed in physics and biology for almost two decades, show today a huge potential for investigating challenging issues in Humanities and Cognitive Sciences and obviously in the study of language(s). Theoretical approaches that integrate self-organization, emergence, non linearity, adaptive systems, information theory, etc., have already been developed to provide a unifying framework that sheds new light on the duality between linguistic diversity on the one hand and unique cognitive capacity of language processing on the other hand. Nevertheless, most of the linguistics literature written in this framework focuses on the syntactic level addressed through computational complexity or performance optimization, while other linguistic components have been somewhat neglected. In this context, the proposed volume draws on an interdisciplinary sketch of the phonetics-phonology interface in the light of complexity. Composed of several first-order contributions, it will consequently be a significant landmark at the time of the rise of several projects linking complexity and linguistics around the world.

Capturing Phonological Shades Within and Across Languages

Capturing Phonological Shades Within and Across Languages PDF Author: Yuchau E. Hsiao
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144387888X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
This volume captures a wide spectrum of phonological explorations covering three main areas: research architecture, pattern analysis, and inter-linguistic interface. These numerous shades of phonology are revealed through the work of authors who hail from Asia and America, featuring, among others, such giants as Paul Kiparsky, Diana Archangeli, Douglas Pulleyblank, Sharon Inkelas, Ellen Broselow, Duanmu San, Yen-hwei Lin, and James Myers.

Turbulent Sounds

Turbulent Sounds PDF Author: Susanne Fuchs
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 311022657X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
This series consists of collected volumes and monographs about specific issues dealing with interfaces among the subcomponents of linguistic structure: phonology-morphology, phonology-syntax, syntax-semantics, syntax-morphology, and syntax-lexicon. Recent linguistic research has recognized that the subcomponents of grammar interact in non-trivial ways. What is currently under debate is the actual range of such interactions and their most appropriate representation in grammar, and this is precisely the focus of this series. Specifically, it provides a general overview of various topics by examining them through the interaction of grammatical components. The books function as a state-of- the-art report of research.

Signal and Acoustic Modeling for Speech and Communication Disorders

Signal and Acoustic Modeling for Speech and Communication Disorders PDF Author: Hemant A. Patil
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501502417
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description


Africa's Endangered Languages

Africa's Endangered Languages PDF Author: Jason Kandybowicz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190675284
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
Relatively little is known about Africa's endangered languages. Unlike indigenous languages in Australia, North Asia, and the Americas, which are predominantly threatened by colonizers, African languages are threatened most immediately by other local languages. As a result, the threat of language extinction is perceived as lower in Africa than in other parts of the globe, and a disproportionate amount of research is devoted to the study of endangered African languages when compared to any other linguistically threatened region in the world. There are approximately 308 highly endangered languages spoken in Africa (roughly 12% of all African languages) and at least 201 extinct African languages. This volume hopes to illuminate and challenge this trend. Chapters offer both documentary and theoretical perspectives, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between the two approaches and its implications for the preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly. Documentary-oriented chapters deal with key issues in African language documentation including language preservation and revitalization, community activism, and data collection and dissemination methodologies, among others. Theoretically-oriented chapters provide detailed descriptions and analyses of phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic phenomena, and connect these to current theoretical issues and debates. Africa's Endangered Languages provides thorough coverage of a continent's neglected languages that will spur linguists and Africanists alike to work to protect them.

From Animals to Animats 4

From Animals to Animats 4 PDF Author: Pattie Maes
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262631785
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 664

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Book Description
From Animals to Animats 4 brings together the latest research at the frontier of an exciting new approach to understanding intelligence.