Search

South Central Tibeto-Burman (or Kuki-Chin) languages have diverse systems of lexical and grammatical tone. Previous literature on South Central suggests that researchers can expect to encounter broad variation between languages and dialects. The goals of this paper are twofold: (1) to offer an overview of tone research in South Central languages, and (2) to prepare the linguistic field researcher to incorporate tone study into their data collection and analysis.

Nuosu Yi, a Tibeto-Burman language, has a tone sandhi pattern, where a lexical [33] -tone is realized as [44]-tone on the surface. This tone sandhi pattern in Nuosu Yi is described as having a "weak phonological status (Gerner, 2013: 28)". In this study, we confirm this observation and further show the role of phonological length in the tone sandhi patterns. A closer examination of the sandhi contexts, however, reveals an intricate interplay between phonology and morphology of various aspects of Nuosu Yi grammar. Tone sandhi is conditioned by word size and morphological processes. Monosyllabic words, but not multi-syllabic words, tend to undergo tone sandhi, and tone sandhi is sensitive to morphological operations such as compounding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uipo, also called Khoibu, is an underdescribed Tibeto-Burman language spoken by around 1800 people in the Chandel district of Manipur. Uipo has four lexical tones: a high falling tone, a low level tone, a low falling tone and a high level tone. These are called Tone 1, Tone 2, Tone 3 and Tone 4 respectively. When tones are combined within one word, there are two sandhi rules that explain how the tones change. This article will look at the different context where tone sandhi occurs, focusing on compounds, possessive constructions, and nominal attribution. For instance, a noun that start with a Tone 1 or a Tone 2 syllable will get a Tone 4 when following a Tone 2 possessive prefix. There are examples of minimal pairs that become homonymic in certain morphological contexts, and these are used to illustrate that the tonal category of a given words has really changed. Interestingly, what otherwise seem like phonological rules have some specific lexical exceptions. For instance, the word toŋ1kan2 does not change its tone in contexts where it is expected. The sandhi rules are argued to be  evidence that Uipo has a four-tone system, as opposed to what has been proposed by some previous accounts of the language which have described it as having only three.

This study describes the segmental and suprasegmental phonology of Adur Niesu, a Loloish (or Ngwi) language spoken mainly in Liangshan, Sichuan, southwest China. Phonemically, there are 41 consonants, 10 monophthongs and 1 diphthong in Adur Niesu. All Adur syllables are open. Its segmental changes mainly happen to the vowels, featuring high vowel fricativization, vowel lowering, vowel centralization, vowel assimilation and vowel fusion. It is common for Adur Niesu syllables to be reduced in continuous speech, with floating tones left. There are three main types of syllable reduction: complete reduction including the segment and tone, partial reduction with a floating tone left, and partial reduction with the initial consonant left. Adur Niesu employs tones as an important means for lexical contrast, namely, high-level tone 55, mid-level tone 33, and low-falling tone 21. There is also a sandhi tone 44. There are two types of tonal alternation: tone sandhi and tone change. Tone sandhi occurs at both word and phrasal levels, and is conditioned by the phonetic environment, while tone change occurs due to the morphosyntactic environment. Finally, some seeming tonal alternation is the result of a floating tone after syllable reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é propor uma descrição dos três processos de sândi vocálico externo no português vernacular de São Tomé (PST): a degeminação (DG), a elisão (EL) e a ditongação (DT). A partir de um corpus composto por 113 sentenças distintas que apresentavam o encontro vocálico em fronteira de palavra (V#V), analisamos a produção de seis informantes santomenses, totalizando 216 ocorrências por falante ou 1315 tokens totais. Com auxílio do Praat, inspecionamos os dados e mensuramos o encontro vocálico e, quando este era desfeito, a vogal resultante, de modo a detectarmos a implementação dos fenômenos. Esses, por sua vez, também foram analisados conforme diferentes fronteiras (palavra e frase fonológica; sintagma entoacional) e proeminências prosódicas (lexical e de palavra fonológica), além de serem considerados fatores segmentais como a qualidade vocálica dos segmentos-alvo. Constatamos que os três processos são produtivos no PST: 32% DG; 36% EL; 52.5% DT. Ademais, ocorrem em diferentes fronteiras prosódicas: palavra fonológica (ω + ω), frase fonológica (ϕ + ϕ), e, no caso da ditongação, entre sintagmas entoacionas (IP+IP) desde que sua fronteira não seja delimitada por pausa. Em relação ao acento, a proeminência da frase fonológica foi o fator preponderante para impedir os processos em evidência, bloqueando a degeminação, caso o acento da segunda vogal coincidisse com o acento da frase fonológica. Já para a elisão e para a ditongação, o bloqueio ocorreu quando as duas vogais portavam o acento da frase fonológica. Palavras-chave: Sândi; Fonologia; Português; Elisão; Degeminação; Ditongação. Abstract: The aim of this paper is to propose a description of three processes of external vowel sandhi in São Tomé vernacular Portuguese (PST): degemination (DG), elision (EL) and diphthongization (DT). All three processes are found in PST: 32% DG; 36% EL; 52.5% DT. Working with six Santomean informants, we analyzed a corpus of 113 sentences with vowel encounters in word boundaries (V#V). Then, we measured the duration of vowel encounters or the single resulting vowel when the encounter was undone. Factors such as the nature of the prosodic boundaries (phonological word, phonological phrase, and intonational phrase), prosodic stress (lexical and phonological word), and vowel quality are crucial to implementing sandhi processes. However, they occur in different prosodic settings: diphthongization occurs between intonation phrases (IP+IP) insofar their boundary is not limited by a pause. In contrast, elision and degemination occur in phonological word boundaries (ω + ω) and phonological phrase boundaries (ϕ + ϕ). The prominence of the phonological phrase was the preponderant factor in preventing all processes, blocking degemination whenever phonological phrase stress matches with a stressed second vowel. For elision and diphthongization, sandhi was blocked when two stressed vowels co-occurred with the stress of a phonological phrase. Keywords: External vowel sandhi; Phonology; Portuguese; Degemination; Elision; Diphthongization.

Copyright of Revista de Estudos da Linguagem is the property of Revista de Estudos da Linguagem and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The phenomenon of incomplete neutralisation describes a situation where a putative case of categorical phonological neutralisation is observed to be phonetically non-neutralising. This has been argued to be a problem for phonological theories that employ categorical features. Here, we use two distinct feeding orders of tone sandhi processes from Huai'an Mandarin to show that incomplete phonetic neutralisation is compatible with categorical phonological phenomena. Therefore, incomplete phonetic neutralisation does not automatically inform us of gradient phonological representations. We further show that incomplete phonetic neutralisation can in fact have a large effect size. Such results are not surprising from a classic generative view of phonology where linguistic performance is argued to be a multi-factorial problem, and linguistic knowledge (i.e., competence) is only one of the many factors involved. Furthermore, our results suggest that the observed incompleteness or gradience may have a source outside phonological knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes the segmental and suprasegmental phonology of Adur Niesu, a Loloish (or Ngwi) language spoken mainly in Liangshan, Sichuan, southwest China. Phonemically, there are 41 consonants, 10 monophthongs and 1 diphthong in Adur Niesu. All Adur syllables are open. Its segmental changes mainly happen to the vowels, featuring high vowel fricativization, vowel lowering, vowel centralization, vowel assimilation and vowel fusion. It is common for Adur Niesu syllables to be reduced in continuous speech, with floating tones left. There are three main types of syllable reduction: complete reduction including the segment and tone, partial reduction with a floating tone left, and partial reduction with the initial consonant left. Adur Niesu employs tones as an important means for lexical contrast, namely, high-level tone 55, mid-level tone 33, and low-falling tone 21. There is also a sandhi tone 44. There are two types of tonal alternation: tone sandhi and tone change. Tone sandhi occurs at both word and phrasal levels, and is conditioned by the phonetic environment, while tone change occurs due to the morphosyntactic environment. Finally, some seeming tonal alternation is the result of a floating tone after syllable reduction.

Chain-shifts, particularly circular ones such as the tone sandhi of Taiwanese Min has been a longstanding challenge to which phonologists of various persuasions have attempted. This paper appeals to markedness against contour tones in non-final positions as the point of departure that sets off a chain reaction due to the need to preserve underlying contrasts in surface forms. The account has implications on the historical development and acquisition of the Min tone circle that awaits verification.

This article traces the history of how modern Western linguistics adopted the term sandhi from the Sanskrit grammatical tradition and adapted it to its theoretical needs. In particular, we will acknowledge the fundamental role played by Müller,1 who combining both Indic (Prakriyā grammars and Prātiśākhyas) and Western approaches (those of Colebrooke and Bopp) to the representation of Sanskrit grammar, coined in 1866 the labels of internal sandhi and external sandhi. Such labels gained momentum thanks to the works of Whitney in the 19th century and Bloomfield in the 20th century and eventually became common parlance in Western linguistics.

Seenku (Mande, Burkina Faso) displays a complex tone sandhi system, sensitive to phonological, morphological, and syntactic structure. In this paper, I argue that the opaque, phonetically unnatural alternations are best accounted for in an allomorph selection approach, following work by Tsay and Myers (1996), Zhang and Lai (2008), and others on Taiwanese Southern Min sandhi. In this model, lexical entries contain multiple surface allomorphs along with subcategorization frames, and forms that follow the same pattern are abstracted into increasingly general lexical templates or schemas. Morphology is post-syntactic, with syntactic structure matched with lexical entries, along the lines of Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993; Embick and Noyer 2007), but with a richer generative lexicon, as in Construction Morphology (Booij 2010b) or analogical approaches to word formation (e.g. Bybee 1995). The domains of application and the interaction of tone sandhi with both itself and other morphotonological processes point to the need for cyclic application, which I implement using phase-based spell out (Uriagereka 1999; Chomsky 2000). This approach allows for productive extension of the patterns without recourse to an overly complicated phonological component.

Highlights • The right-dominant sandhi is a phonetic reduction of the non-final tones. • The left- and right-dominant sandhis are composed of different prosodic structures. • Contrastive focus and slow speech rate are implemented through different mechanisms. Abstract This study compared the f0, duration and intensity patterns of disyllabic groups that undergo left- or right-dominant tone sandhi in Shanghai Chinese. We investigated the effects of contrastive focus and speech rate on these patterns, in order to further our understanding of the nature of left-/right-dominant sandhi and the phonetic realization mechanisms of focus encoding and speech rate. The results suggest that [Verb+Noun] phrases undergo right-dominant sandhi, which involves a phonetic reduction of the non-final tone as the f0 contour of σ1 is fully realized in focused or slow speech condition; [Adj.+Noun] compounds undergo left-dominant sandhi, which consists phonologically of rightward tone spread, since the f0 pattern of compounds is preserved in all conditions. The focus-induced adjustment patterns of f0, duration and intensity show that left-/right-dominant sandhi domains are composed of different prosodic structures and focus is indirectly encoded via prosodic structure. Although slow speech and focus both enhance the f0 realization, they are realized by way of different mechanisms. Focus is realized via a speaker's direct control of the intensity, while speech rate is realized via a speaker's intentional control of the duration, and the f0 adjustment is better regarded as the surface realization or byproduct of these adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the history of how modern Western linguistics adopted the term sandhi from the Sanskrit grammatical tradition and adapted it to its theoretical needs. In particular, we will acknowledge the fundamental role played by Müller,1 who combining both Indic (Prakriyā grammars and Prātiśākhyas) and Western approaches (those of Colebrooke and Bopp) to the representation of Sanskrit grammar, coined in 1866 the labels of internal sandhi and external sandhi. Such labels gained momentum thanks to the works of Whitney in the 19th century and Bloomfield in the 20th century and eventually became common parlance in Western linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies on the Tibeto-Burman Ngwi (Lolo) language family describe tone behavior in the framework of tonogenesis/historical reconstruction among the different languages, but synchronic tonal analyses are rare or are lacking in specifics. After laying out the phoneme inventory, this paper presents a look at the tone of Pyen, belonging to the Bisoid subgroup of Southern Ngwi, spoken in Myanmar. We focus especially on tone sandhi and phrase-final intonation. Its three contrastive tones, high, mid, and low, occur on every word type. Verbal suffixes differ from this pattern; they carry only the high or low tone, depending on the tone of either the preceding verb stem or any preceding tone-bearing suffix. A non-lexical intonational-phrase-final boundary tone is frequently used to express exclamation or emphasis, and is often found in conjunction with phrasal affixes indicating grammatical mood. This falling boundary tone is associated with a greater excursion of pitch than the low boundary tone found in neutral expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined pinyin (the official phonetic system that transcribes the lexical tones and pronunciation of Chinese characters) invented spelling and English invented spelling in 72 Mandarin-speaking 6th graders who learned English as their second language. The pinyin invented spelling task measured segmental-level awareness including syllable and phoneme awareness, and suprasegmental-level awareness including lexical tones and tone sandhi in Chinese Mandarin. The English invented spelling task manipulated segmental-level awareness including syllable awareness and phoneme awareness, and suprasegmental-level awareness including word stress. This pinyin task outperformed a traditional phonological awareness task that only measured segmental-level awareness and may have optimal utility to measure unique phonological and linguistic features in Chinese reading. The pinyin invented spelling uniquely explained variance in Chinese conventional spelling and word reading in both languages. The English invented spelling uniquely explained variance in conventional spelling and word reading in both languages. Our findings appear to support the role of phonological activation in Chinese reading. Our experimental linguistic manipulations altered the phonological awareness item difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the implications of the distribution of tone sandhi domains in Yixing Chinese (a largely undescribed Wu variety) for the syntactic analysis of a type of compound, labelled a non-compositional compound (NCC). Various diagnostics identify these compounds as a well-defined type in Yixing, including non-compositional/idiomatic semantics and opacity in coreference and coordination. NCCs also undergo a particular tone sandhi process, Pattern Substitution (PS). These diagnostics, we show, suggest an analysis whereby NCCs are formed by Merging two uncategorised roots. The root Merge is symmetric, leading to questions of how the resulting structure is to be linearised and labelled. The linearisation, we suggest, is determined post-syntactically by an Encyclopedia entry imposing an order due to the diachronic reanalysis of a compositional structure. This Encyclopedia entry is also the source of the non-compositional semantics of these structures, permitted by the encyclopedic search (en-search) of Borer (2013a). Symmetric root Merge cannot yield a compositionally derived meaning, which we show follows from the theory of labelling of Chomsky (2013, 2015). Our account explains proposals by authors such as Arad (2003) and Borer (2013a), who stipulate that a first-categorisation domain receives non-compositional, atomic content. The paper also includes a preliminary description of the Yixing tonal system in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studies in Polish Linguistics is the property of Jagiellonian University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Consonant cluster simplification in Tundra Nenets coexists with other consonantal alternations, such as fricative strengthening, lenition of stops, and a variety of NC-effects, which all apply within the same phrasal domain. These processes interact with each other, suggesting an opaque ordering within the same post-lexical domain and thus presenting a challenge not only for inherently parallel theories like classical Optimality Theory, but also for the cyclic derivational approaches such as Stratal OT. We analyze all instances of Tundra Nenets cluster simplification as coalescence and show that a variety of apparently opaque alternations accompanying cluster simplification can be seen as transparent on this account. We also argue that strengthening in consonant clusters is caused by an intermediate stage where coda obstruents lose their place and turn into a glottal stop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acquisition of the third tone (T3) in Chinese is one of the most challenging tasks for adults who are learning Chinese as a second language. This paper looks at how assumptions made in theoretical linguistics shape current teaching methods, and investigates the effect of those teaching methods on the acquisition of tones. This study examines the perception and production of the three allophones of T3 by speakers of English who have been taught in the 'Full-T3 First' method. By examining the performance of beginner, intermediate and advanced learners, this study proposes that seemingly contradictory phenomena observed in learners' tonal phonologies can be ascribed to the overproduction of Full-T3. It is argued that this overproduction can be traced back to assumptions made within theoretical linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a presentation of the consonantal system of the La Forêt Fouesnant speech and a discussion of the choices made, the author illustrates how speakers adapt to the contexts of neutralization, when communicative needs seem to contradict the limitation of the distinctive possibilities of the system that neutralization implies. It then discusses the link between neutralization and certain facts of assimilation in the chain. What is called external sandhi presupposes the existence of contexts of neutralization. The hypothesis is that these are cases where the constraints of the spoken chain can play with a great deal of freedom, without threatening the useful phonological oppositions, which probably compensates - from the point of view of the general economy of the system - for the decrease in the functional yield of phonological oppositions induced by neutralization.

Copyright of Concentric: Studies in Linguistics is the property of National Taiwan Normal University, Department of English and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Early language acquisition is potentially complicated by the presence of many sources of variability in the speech signal. A frequent example of variability is phonological alternations, which can lead to context-driven changes in the realization of a word. The aim of the current study was to investigate effects of a highly frequent yet scarcely researched type of suprasegmental phonological alternation -- tone Sandhi -- on early spoken word recognition. The tone Sandhi rule investigated herein involves a tone change of the first syllable in a disyllabic unit. In accordance with third tone Sandhi, when two dipping tone syllables are juxtaposed in connected speech, the first syllable is dissimilated to a high rising tone. For example, 'flour mill' (unaltered pre-Sandhi form [fǝn(214) tʂhaŋ(214)]) undergoes tonal alternation resulting in the altered post-Sandhi form [fǝn(35) tʂhaŋ (214)]. In the current study, preschoolers' sensitivity to the effects of tone Sandhi when processing familiar words was investigated via a preferential looking paradigm. Words varied in their phonological form: one set of words was labeled with a phonological alternation due to Sandhi (Post Sandhi), one set of words was labeled with an unaltered Sandhi form (Pre Sandhi), one set consisted of non Sandhi words (Correct Pronunciation, and one set were labeled with a tonal alternation not associated with Sandhi rules (Mispronunciation). Post-Sandhi forms and correct pronunciations were associated with visual referents with comparable strength, with only a subtle processing cost observed for post-Sandhi forms in the time course of lexical selection. Likewise, pre-Sandhi forms and true mispronunciations were rejected as labels for visual references with comparable strength, with only subtle differences observed in the time course of lexical selection. Findings are discussed in terms of their impact on prevailing theories of lexical representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phonological descriptions often make reference to prosodic boundaries without exploring the origins of those boundaries. In the Onset Prominence representational framework, prosodic boundaries fall out from the same mechanisms that govern word-internal phonology. These mechanisms are parametric. Opposing settings for these parameters in Polish and English allow for a unified analysis of apparently diverse phonological phenomena including cluster phonotactics, the behavior of post-vocalic consonants, the realization of word-initial vowels, and the application or non-application of external sandhi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The f 0 realization of lexical tones is known to vary greatly due to contextual tonal variation processes such as tone sandhi and tonal coarticulation. This study set out to investigate the f 0 variability induced by these two different sources with well-controlled acoustic data from Tianjin Mandarin. Tianjin Mandarin is known for its complex patterns of tonal variation over disyllabic constituents, as well as for the conflicting directionality of sandhi alternations and possible iterative application of disyllabic sandhi rules over trisyllabic constituents. Previous studies on Tianjin tone sandhi have often been based on impressionistic descriptions of speech produced by speakers of older generations. In this study, we investigated the f 0 realization of disyllabic and trisyllabic tonal sequences in Tianjin Mandarin produced by younger speakers (born in the 1980s). Through examining f 0 variation of lexical tones as a function of different following tones, we observed an interesting anticipatory raising effect of the lexical low-falling tone (T1). Furthermore, we confirmed three tonal sequences with tone sandhi changes: (1) two low-falling tones (T1T1), (2) a high-falling tone followed by a low-falling tone (T4T1), and (3) two low-dipping tones (T3T3). These disyllabic tone sandhi patterns, however, were not consistently observed within trisyllabic sequences, as claimed in the literature. Specifically, while T3T3 showed sandhi application regardless of its position within a trisyllabic sequence, T1T1 and T4T1 sequences showed sandhi changes only when they were right aligned. Last but not least, no tonal neutralization was observed over any of the sandhi processes. Rather, we argue that T3T3 is a near-merger sandhi case, while T1T1 and T4T1 can be classified as no-merger sandhi sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disyllabic sequences in Shanghai Wu undergo different types of tone sandhi depending on their structure: phonological words (e.g., modifier–nouns) spread the initial tone across the disyllable, while phrases (e.g., non-lexicalized verb–nouns) maintain the final tone and level the contour of the nonfinal tone. We investigated the productivity of the two tone sandhi types through 48 speakers’ productions of real and nonce disyllables. Our results show that (a) the word-level tone sandhi in Shanghai indeed involves tone spreading, while the phrase-level sandhi is better interpreted as phonetic contour reduction, (b) the spreading sandhi generally applies productively to nonce words, but there are some differences in tone production between real and nonce words that are attributable to both categorical non-application and gradient application of the sandhi in nonce words, and (c) the structure dependency of Shanghai tone sandhi is also productive, as the speakers produced qualitatively different f 0 patterns in modifier–noun nonce words and verb–noun nonce phrases. These results indicate that in order to arrive at a full picture of tone sandhi patterning, experimental data that shed light on the generalizations that speakers make from the speech input are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tone sandhi in Wuxi Chinese involves "pattern substitution," whereby the base tone on the first syllable is first substituted by another tone, then spread to the sandhi domain. We conducted a wug test to investigate native Wuxi speakers' tacit knowledge of tone sandhi and found that the substituion aspect of the sandhi is not fully productive, but the extension aspect is, and sandhi productivity is influenced by the phonetic similarity between base and sandhi tones. These results are discussed in the context of how phonological opacity, phonetic naturalness, and lexical frequency influence phonological learning, and a grammatical learning model that can predict Wuxi speakers' experimental behavior is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic phonetic studies examine the L1 of Polish speakers with professional level proficiency in English. The studies include two tasks, a production task carried out entirely in Polish and a phonetic code-switching task in which speakers insert target Polish words or phrases into an English carrier. Additionally, two phonetic parameters are studied: the oft-investigated VOT, as well as glottalization vs. sandhi linking of word-initial vowels. In monolingual Polish mode, L2 interference was observed for the VOT parameter, but not for sandhi linking. It is suggested that this discrepancy may be related to the differing phonological status of the two phonetic parameters. In the code-switching tasks, VOTs were on the whole more English-like than in monolingual mode, but this appeared to be a matter of individual performance. An increase in the rate of sandhi linking in the code-switches, except for the case of one speaker, appeared to be a function of accelerated production of L1 target items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study, we examined what forms the phonological knowledge of T3 sandhi among native Mandarin listeners and we ask the question whether there are cognitively based perceptual constraints that relate to T3 sandhi. In Mandarin Chinese, T3 sandhi restricts the co-occurrence of low tones (T3), and neutralizes the rising tone (T2) and T3 when followed by another T3. We tested native Mandarin Chinese listeners and Dutch listeners on bisyllabic tone discrimination tasks. We found that the phonological knowledge of native listeners involves the neutralization between T2T3 and underlying T3T3 sequences, rather than perceiving a boundary between consecutive T3s. Dutch listener, without the phonological knowledge of Chinese tones, also perceive T2T3 as most similar to the underlying T3T3 sequence. Such cross-linguistic consistency in perception suggests a common functional basis, where memory limitation may play a role. Listeners may attend more to the offset of an incoming tone, and as T2T3 and T3T3 share the same offset, they tend to be misperceived as identical. Regardless of the cross-linguistic consistency in perception, the misperception between T2T3 and underlying T3T3 is more pronounced among Mandarin listeners, showing that phonological knowledge shapes perception in return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been argued that Shanghai Chinese has a smaller tonal domain than other Chinese dialects including Standard Chinese, Xiamen, and Taiwanese. The difference has been analyzed by setting an edge parameter (Selkirk and Shen 1990) or by ranking edge-alignment constraints (cf. Truckenbrodt 1999) at the syntax-phonology interface. Unlike these analyses, this paper argues that differences between tonal domains derive from different phonological settings for maintaining Structure Preservation in strong positions, which are defined as the most embedded parts of syntactic constituent structure (cf. Cinque 1993). We claim that Shanghai puts complement in a different tonal domain (in which Tone Deletion suppresses tones following the first contour tone) from head, in order to preserve the citation tone of complement in the strong position. In contrast, tone sandhi rules in other dialects change all the tones except the final tone in a domain; the tone of complement in the strong position is kept intact even when head and complement are in the same domain. This renders both the edge parameter and the ranking of edge-based constraints unnecessary. Thus, tone in Chinese ensures the universal validity of Structure Preservation in strong positions, which has been widely attested in cross-linguistic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper1 deals with the phonology and the lexicology of the Indonesian Bajo language and more specifically with the dialect or variant that can be heard all around the Flores Sea in Kangean, South-East Sulawesi, Sumbawa, and Flores. The phonological survey focuses on vowel lengthening, gemination, pre-nasalized phonemes, and sandhi. The second part of this paper proposes an insight into Bajo lexicology, restricted to nominal and verbal derivation.

Speakers of Standard Dutch increasingly realise coda /r/ (e.g. paar) as a bunched or retroflex approximant. This coda variant is categorically distinct from onset /r/ (e.g. reizen), which is typically pronounced as a uvular trill or fricative, or an alveolar trill or tap. In this study, we investigate whether coda and onset /r/ in Dutch behave as distinct phonological categories. We present new articulatory and acoustic data on the realisation of /r/ in sandhi contexts, including the fake geminate context (e.g. paar reizen). Ultrasound data show that the presence of an onset /r/ conditions the deletion of a bunching gesture (typical of the coda /r/ realisation) from /r#r/ sequences. Nevertheless, the presence of a coda /r/ in such sequences is still acoustically traceable. We interpret these findings as a result of shared phonological identity between onset and coda /r/, and discuss them in the context of the place of allophony within models of grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Liaison is a sandhi phenomenon in French. Over the last four decades, it has given rise to many different models illustrating the whole range of phonological theories. More recently, new studies have documented its acquisition in French-speaking children as well as adult learners of French as a second language. These studies have resulted in the elaboration of two models of the acquisition process: (1) the constructionist model (Chevrot et al., 2009; Nicoladis and Paradis, 2011) developed within the framework of the usage-based theories; (2) the phonological model (Wauquier, 2009) which represents the framework of nonlinear phonology. Our aim is to re-examine the usage-based model in the light of the criticisms and suggestions made by Wauquier (2009). We shall first present the two models and then examine the issues under discussion. After that, we shall present longitudinal data testing a prediction made by the phonological model with regard to the generalization process in L1 and L2 acquisition. To conclude, we shall identify the points that remain to be clarified for each of the models and the directions which future research should take. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This chapter considers some factors that condition elision of /a/ at word boundaries and their interpretation in terms of phonological theory. We focus on the behavior of sequences where the vowel to be deleted follows a high vowel, as in the example dia inteiro "whole day". The discussion is based on the perspective that the elision process is an effect of restrictions in conflict. In sequences of the /...ia #i.../ type, elision of the vowel /a/ yields a sequence [... ii...], which is a marked structure that is undone in other contexts, in Brazilian Portuguese, or has a blocking effect on phonological processes. However, elision is one of the preferred choices in these contexts (d[ii]nteiro), as show data from Ludwig Gayer (2008). The consequences of these findings for a non derivational approach to phonology are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to determine the correlation between the occurrences of postvocalic-r, intrusive-r and linking-r in Singapore English (SgE) and the users' education levels and socioeconomic status. This paper will also investigate the attitudes that SgE speakers hold toward the use of postvocalic-r and intrusive-r in the language. The results show that there is a direct correlation between the education level and socioeconomic status of the speaker and the production of postvocalic-r and intrusive-r in SgE. Speakers of higher education levels and socioeconomic status have a tendency to produce the postvocalic-r; speakers of low education levels and socioeconomic status have a tendency to produce the intrusive-r. The attitudes test also shows that users of postvocalic-r are viewed more positively as compared to users of intrusive-r. The results suggest that postvocalic-r and intrusive-r are not simply concrete, categorical phonological processes, but that their uses are motivated by social factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of tone merger in northern Chinese dialects was first proposed by Wang (1982), and further developed by Lien (1986), the migration of IIb (Yangshang) into III (Qu) being a common characteristic. The present work aims to provide an update on the current state of tone merger in northern Chinese, with a special focus on Dalian, which is a less well-known Mandarin dialect spoken in Liaoning province in Northeast China. According to Song ( 1963), four lexical tones are observed in citation form, i.e. 312, 34, 213 and 53 (henceforth Old Dalian). Our first-hand data obtained from a young female speaker of Dalian (henceforth Modern Dalian) suggest an inventory of three lexical tones, i.e. 51, 35 and 213. The lexical tone 312 in Old Dalian, derived from la (Yinping), is merging with 51, derived from III (Qu), in the modern system. This variation across decades is consistent with dialects spoken in the neighboring Shandong province, where a reduced tonal inventory of three tones is becoming more and more frequent. However, the tone merger in Modern Dalian is incomplete on two grounds. On the one hand, a slight phonetic difference is observed between these two falling tones: both of them have similar FO values, but the falling contour derived from la (Yinping) has a longer duration compared with the falling contour derived from III (Qu). Nevertheless, the speaker judges the contours to be the same. On the other hand, the underlying contrasts of these two contours surface in tone sandhi contexts, such that the lexical tone 312 of Old Dalian emerges in combination forms in Modern Dalian. The above facts attest that sound change is not lexically abrupt, and could take a long period of time to complete its course (Wang 1969). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A phonological analysis of the underlying tone features of tone sandhi in light of feature geometrical theory discovers a complicated phonological opacity in Shaoxing trisyllabic tone sandhi in terms of tone feature spreading or/and delinking. However, it is well-documented that the classic Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993) fails to explain phonological opacity. Based on McCarthy's (2007) new theory--Optimality Theory with Candidate Chains (OT-CC) , this paper presents an explicit explanation of the phonological rules of Shaoxing trisyllabic tone sandhi by examining the underlying tone feature behavior, which strongly suggests that OT-CC is a minimal explanatory approach to phonological opacity cross-linguistically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of an acoustic study of nasal assimilation and gestural overlap at word boundaries in Korean and Korean-accented English. Twelve speakers of Seoul Korean recorded phrases containing obstruent#nasal and obstruent#obstruent sequences in both Korean and English. Nasalization of the word-final obstruent, predicted by the rules of Korean phonology, occurred in 93% of obstruent#nasal sequences in Korean and in 32% of such sequences in Korean-accented English, a rate of application higher than that reported in most other studies of external sandhi alternations in normative speech. Acoustic analysis found categorical nasalization in the LI Korean productions, but both categorical and gradient nasalization, along with a high degree of inter- and intraspeaker variation, in the L2 English productions. For a subset of speakers, there was a significant correlation between quantitative measures of nasalization in English and measures of consonant overlap in the English obstruent#obstruent sequences. An analysis in terms of articulatory gestures and the coupled-oscillator model of speech planning is supported. The analysis is based on the ARTICULATORY PHONOLOGY model (Browman & Goldstein 1990a,b, 1992, 2000, Goldstein et al. 2006), though with modifications. Implications for phonetic and phonological representations, and for speech planning in both LI and L2, are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent studies on productivity have shown that native speakers’ phonological knowledge not only includes statistical patterns in the lexicon, but also patterns that cannot be gleaned from the lexicon. This is demonstrated in speakers’ analytical bias towards abstract phonological representations (), single-feature dependency (), perceptually motivated phonological scales (), as well as their difficulties with exceptionless opaque patterns in wug tests (). Based on the results of a wug-test, we show in this paper that the opaque tone sandhi pattern in Taiwanese reduplication is a case in which the speakers’ knowledge is a combination of more than, less than, and exactly what their lexicon informs them of: the phonetic effects of the sandhis are overlearned, the opaque tone sandhis are underlearned, and the lexical statistics are properly learned. We further argue that a substantively biased Maximum Entropy grammar that encodes learning biases against lexical listing and phonetically unmotivated patterns can model the simultaneous underlearning, overlearning, and proper learning of the lexical patterns by Taiwanese speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phonological patterns often have phonetic bases. But whether phonetic substance should be encoded in synchronic phonological grammar is controversial. We aim to test the synchronic relevance of phonetics by investigating native Mandarin speakers' applications of two exceptionless tone sandhi processes to novel words: the contour reduction 213→21/_T (T≠213), which has a clear phonetic motivation, and the perceptually neutralising 213→35/_213, whose phonetic motivation is less clear. In two experiments, Mandarin subjects were asked to produce two individual monosyllables together as two different types of novel disyllabic words. Results show that speakers apply the 213→21 sandhi with greater accuracy than the 213→35 sandhi in novel words, indicating a synchronic bias against the phonetically less motivated pattern. We also show that lexical frequency is relevant to the application of the sandhis to novel words, but cannot account alone for the low sandhi accuracy of 213→35. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on Greek phonetics. Research in all aspects of Greek phonetics has altered the understanding of spoken Greek, organization of sounds, organization of vowel systems, the structure of intonation, the nature of rhythm, and the relationship between phrasing and sandhi phenomena. Phonetics is usually equated with phonology because it seeks to find general patterns of sound organization in the grammars of diverse language through the examination of language structures and sound systems.