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The present study investigates the effect of Arabic lexical stress predictability in producing English lexical stress by Yemeni EFL undergraduates and native Hadhrami Arabic (HA) speakers. The study involved the participation of 69 Yemeni EFL undergraduates with two varying levels of English proficiency. Additionally, 10 American native speakers were included to evaluate the correct production of English stress patterns by the Yemeni EFL undergraduates. The authors adopt the Metrical Theory and the Stress Typology Model to underpin the grounds of this study. Data from the study were collected through a production experiment using individual recording sessions for each participant reading 84 English real and nonce words. The differences between stressed and unstressed syllables were measured using phonetic cues ratios, vowel duration, intensity, and fundamental frequency (F0), analysed through PRAAT software. The findings suggest that the production of English lexical stress by Yemeni EFL undergraduates is influenced by HA. However, the predictability of the Arabic stress pattern does not always trigger errors in producing English lexical stress by Yemeni EFL undergraduates. Findings indicate that Yemeni EFL undergraduates are more attentive to vowel weight, especially when the ultimate syllable incorporates a tense vowel. It stands in contrast to the conventional approach of syllable structure, which places a more pronounced emphasis on instructing English vowels among Arab ELF learners as a result of Arabic dialectal variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate how information status is encoded paradigmatically and syntagmatically via prosodic prominence in German. In addition, we consider individual variability in the production of prominence. To answer our research questions, we collected controlled yet ecologically valid speech by applying an innovative recording paradigm. Participants were asked to perform an interactive reading task in collaboration with an interlocutor remotely via video calls. Results indicate that information status is encoded paradigmatically via the F0 contour, while syntagmatic effects are subtle and depend on the acoustic parameter used. Individual speakers differ primarily in their strength of encoding and secondarily in the type of parameters employed. While the paradigmatic effects we observe are in line with previous findings, our syntagmatic findings support two contradictory ideas, a balancing effect and a radiating effect. Along with the findings at the individual level, this study thus allows for new insights regarding the redundant and relational nature of prosodic prominence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Congenital amusia is a neurogenetic disorder of musical pitch processing. Its linguistic consequences have been examined separately for speech intonations and lexical tones. However, in a tonal language such as Chinese, the processing of intonations and lexical tones interacts with each other during online speech perception. Whether and how the musical pitch disorder might affect linguistic pitch processing during online speech perception remains unknown. Method: We investigated this question with intonation (question vs. statement) and lexical tone (rising Tone 2 vs. falling Tone 4) identification tasks using the same set of sentences, comparing behavioral and event-related potential measurements between Mandarin-speaking amusics and matched controls. We specifically focused on the amusics without behavioral lexical tone deficits (the majority, i.e., pure amusics). Results: Results showed that, despite relative to normal performance when tested in word lexical tone test, pure amusics demonstrated inferior recognition than controls during sentence tone and intonation identification. Compared to controls, pure amusics had larger N400 amplitudes in question stimuli during tone task and smaller P600 amplitudes in intonation task. Conclusion: These data indicate that musical pitch disorder affects both tone and intonation processing during sentence processing even for pure amusics, whose lexical tone processing was intact when tested with words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: The current study investigated English prosodic focus marking by autistic and typically developing (TD) Cantonese trilingual children, and examined the potential differences in this regard compared to native English-speaking children. Method: Forty-eight participants were recruited with 16 speakers for each of the three groups (Cantonese-speaking autistic [CASD], Cantonese-speaking TD [CTD], and English-speaking TD [ETD] children), and prompt questions were designed to elicit desired focus type (i.e., broad, narrow, and contrastive focus). Mean duration, mean fundamental frequency (F0), F0 range, mean intensity, and F0 curves were used as the acoustic correlates for linear mixed-effects model fitting and functional data analyses in relation to groups and focus conditions (i.e., broad, narrow, and contrastive pre-, on-, and post-focus). Results: The CTD group had post-focus compression (PFC) patterns via reducing mean duration, narrowing F0 range, and lowering mean F0, F0 curve, and mean intensity for words under both narrow and contrastive post-focus conditions, while the CASD group only had shortened mean duration and lowered F0 curves. However, neither the CTD group nor CASD group showed much of onfocus expansion (OFE) patterns. The ETD group marked OFE by increasing mean duration, mean F0, mean intensity, and higher F0 curve for words under on-focus conditions. Conclusions: The CTD group utilized more acoustic cues than the CASD group when it comes to PFC. The ETD group differed from the CASD and CTD groups in the use of OFE. Furthermore, both the CASD and CTD groups showed positive first language transfer in the use of duration and intensity and, potentially, successful acquisition in the use of F0 for prosodic focus marking. Meanwhile, the differences in the use of OFE between the Cantonese-speaking and English-speaking groups, not PFC, might indicate that Cantonese-speaking children acquire PFC prior to OFE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian banjo frogs are a distinctive group of medium to large, terrestrial, and burrowing limnodynastid frogs known for their conspicuous, single-note advertisement calls which are often likened to the pluck of a banjo string. Preliminary analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences had previously indicated that the present taxonomy of the group, based primarily on morphology and advertisement calls, may not best reflect the true evolutionary relationships among taxa. In this study, we use comprehensive geographic sampling and integrative analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences, nuclear single-nucleotide polymorphisms, adult morphology, and advertisement call data to re-evaluate the systematics and taxonomy of the Northern Banjo Frog (Limnodynastes terraereginae) and allied taxa. Our study reveals the presence of three evolutionarily distinct, morphologically divergent, and narrowly allopatric lineages that replace each other in a north-south series from the tip of Cape York Peninsula to the Sydney Basin in the south. Our findings demonstrate that our understanding of the systematics and taxonomy of Australian frogs remains incomplete, even for large and apparently "well-known" species that live in densely populated areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the perception of Mandarin lexical tones and stops to examine the degree of overlap between music and language. Eighteen musicians and 21 nonmusicians participated in a typical categorical perception task. Results showed that musicians and nonmusicians had comparable degree of categorical perception of tones and stops. Compared to nonmusicians, musicians exhibited enhanced sensitivities to within-category lexical tone stimuli. However, this improved ability was not observed in the perception of stops. These findings imply that musical experience strengthens the acuity of subtle low-level acoustic variations between within-category lexical tone stimuli without interfering with the high-level phonological representations of lexical tones, and this facilitatory effect is selective and could not readily extend to stop consonants in native language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of lexical stress diacritics on the English comprehensibility and accentedness of Korean speakers. To this end, 30 native Korean participants read aloud 15 English sentences without diacritics in the pretest. Then, they were given explicit instructions on the production of higher pitch and extended duration as a marker of English stress with musical notation provided. In the posttest, the participants read aloud the same sentences as were in the pretest but which had diacritics indicating stress placement. In the delayed posttest, two days after the pretest and the posttest, the participants read 15 sentences without diacritics again to see if the effects of the treatment were retained. Randomized speech samples were rated by three native speakers of English in relation to comprehensibility and accentedness. Findings showed that significant improvements were observed after the treatment in both comprehensibility and accentedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]