Search

We give a simple proof of some explicit formulas of periodic continuants by Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind given by R´ozsa. We also mention an application of these explicit for- mulas to q-analogue of rationals and continued fractions introduced by Morier-Genoud and Ovsienko.

Valiant, in his seminal paper in 1979, showed an efficient simulation of algebraic formulas by determinants, showing that VF, the class of polynomial families computable by polynomial-sized algebraic formulas, is contained in VDet, the class of polynomial families computable by polynomial-sized determinants. Whether this containment is strict has been a long-standing open problem. We show that algebraic formulas can in fact be efficiently simulated by the determinant of tetradiagonal matrices, transforming the open problem into a problem about determinant of general matrices versus determinant of tetradiagonal matrices with just three non-zero diagonals. This is also optimal in a sense that we cannot hope to get the same result for matrices with only two non-zero diagonals or even tridiagonal matrices, thanks to Allender and Wang (Computational Complexity'16) which showed that the determinant of tridiagonal matrices cannot even compute simple polynomials like x_1 x_2 + x_3 x_4 + ⋯ + x_15 x_16. Our proof involves a structural refinement of the simulation of algebraic formulas by width-3 algebraic branching programs by Ben-Or and Cleve (SIAM Journal of Computing'92). The tetradiagonal matrices we obtain in our proof are also structurally very similar to the tridiagonal matrices of Bringmann, Ikenmeyer and Zuiddam (JACM'18) which showed that, if we allow approximations in the sense of geometric complexity theory, algebraic formulas can be efficiently simulated by the determinant of tridiagonal matrices of a very special form, namely the continuant polynomial. The continuant polynomial family is closely related to the Fibonacci sequence, which was used to model the breeding of rabbits. The determinants of our tetradiagonal matrices, in comparison, is closely related to Narayana’s cows sequences, which was originally used to model the breeding of cows. Our result shows that the need for approximation can be eliminated by using Narayana’s cows polynomials instead of continuant polynomials, or equivalently, shifting one of the outer diagonals of a tridiagonal matrix one place away from the center. Conversely, we observe that the determinant (or, permanent) of band matrices can be computed by polynomial-sized algebraic formulas when the bandwidth is bounded by a constant, showing that the determinant (or, permanent) of bandwidth k matrices for all constants k ≥ 2 yield VF-complete polynomial families. In particular, this implies that the determinant of tetradiagonal matrices in general and Narayana’s cows polynomials in particular yield complete polynomial families for the class VF., LIPIcs, Vol. 241, 47th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2022), pages 65:1-65:14

Because of its regularity, it is relatively easy to learn to read and spell in Finnish. However, a specific hurdle in spelling acquisition seems to be the doubling of consonant letters. In this study on consonant letter doubling spelling in Finnish children (91 Grade 1 and 191 Grade 2 children), we asked two questions. First, are items with double consonant letters (e.g., “kissa” [ˈkisːɑ] ‘cat’) indeed harder to spell than single consonant items (e.g., “kisa” [ˈkisɑ] ‘contest’)? Second, is consonant doubling harder for stop consonants (e.g., “takki” [ˈtɑkːi] ‘coat’) than for continuant consonants (e.g., “kissa” [ˈkisːɑ] ‘cat’)? We found that Finnish children made more errors on items with double consonant letters than on items with single consonant letters and that this effect was larger for stop than for continuant consonant letters. Exploratory analyses showed that these effects were stronger for younger and poorer spellers. Post hoc analyses of the errors made on double consonant items showed that the children predominantly made nonlexical errors (>90%). When they did make a lexical error, these errors typically did not map on the type of errors that would be expected from a corpus analysis of the higher-frequency orthographic neighbors. Overall, lexical influences on spelling of Finnish children seem to be minimal and unpredictable. We discuss two potential reasons why it is more difficult to spell items with double consonant letters than with single consonant letters and suggest how these could be investigated in future research.

Investigação sobre o perfil fonológico das crianças portuguesas com alterações fonológicas é ainda escassa. No presente artigo, contribui-se para o avanço do trabalho nesta área, estudando-se a aquisição do contraste de ponto de articulação coronal [±anterior] na classe das sibilantes, com base em dados relativos a sete crianças com alterações fonológicas primárias (associadas a perturbações dos sons da fala ou a perturbação do desenvolvimento da linguagem). Os dados foram recolhidos através da aplicação do teste CLCP‑PE, tendo sido transcritos e analisados no software de análise fonológica PHON. Os resultados demonstraram a existência de padrões preferenciais e ordens de aquisição quanto à emergência e estabilização dos contrastes inerentes ao ponto de articulação das sibilantes ([-soante; -contínuo; coronal [±anterior]] >> [-soante; +contínuo; coronal [±anterior]] >> [+soante; +contínuo; coronal [±anterior]]) e ao vozeamento ([-vozeado]>>[+vozeado]), assim como o impacto da constituência silábica (Ataque >> Coda), tendo sido observada uma inesperada preferência por [s] para a Coda fricativa.

El presente trabajo describe y analiza todas las secuencias segmentales posibles dentro de las lenguas mazatecas a nivel de sílaba. El patrón básico es CV, aunque en palabras nativas se permite un inicio complejo de fricativa más plosiva (secuencias consonánticas de segmentos [+continuo][-continuo]). Esta estructura silábica simple se mantiene a pesar de su notable complejidad laríngea, realizada como rasgos secundarios. Este análisis determina en gran medida las posibles estructuras silábicas de estos sistemas. Esta investigación se sustenta en un amplio corpus y documentación lingüística fruto del proyecto Nanginá. Partimos de la propuesta de que la agrupación lingüística mazateca consta de 10 lenguas, o zonas inteligibles, y 20 variantes lingüísticas. Esta propuesta dialectal se ilustra con una gran cantidad de ejemplos a lo largo del trabajo, sus posibles secuencias consonánticas y ejemplos de cada zona.

Este artículo describe algunos de los procesos morfofonológicos y una restricción morfofonológica atestiguados en la variedad del idioma chiquitano (familia macro-ye) hablada en San Miguel de Velasco (Santa Cruz, Bolivia), con base en datos recogidos en campo con cinco hablantes nativos. Se describen detalladamente la nasalización a distancia de las consonantes continuas y de las vocales altas; la africación de |t k| en determinados ambientes; la palatalización progresiva de |p β̞ m t k x|; las restricciones de minimalidad que aplican a los temas nominales; cinco tipos de armonía vocálica que afectan afijos o clíticos específicos; el proceso de elevación de |o| a /u/ delante de una sílaba que contiene /a/; el proceso de descenso de |i| a /ɛ/ delante de /s ts/; la elisión morfofonológica de vocales orales altas. Algunos de los procesos documentados son compartidos por otras variedades del chiquitano, mientras que otros no tienen equivalentes conocidos en los demás dialectos.

This study reports on the developmental patterns of /ʃC/ clusters in 145 normally developing monolingual German-speaking children between 2;00 and 2;11. All children completed a picture naming task to allow a systematic qualitative analysis of the production patterns. Children’s reductions of target /ʃC/clusters are examined and are evaluated with respect to two models, ‘factorial typology’ and ‘headedness’, to account for them. The results reveal expected patterns of C2 retention for ‘/ʃ/+[−continuant]’ (e.g. ‘/ʃ/+stop’ and ‘/ʃ/+nasal’) targets, and a rather indeterminate pattern for /ʃl/ and /ʃʁ/. The results for /ʃv/, a clear-cut preference of C2 retention, were rather unexpected, as the C2 is a [+continuant]. The explanation offered for the retention of /v/ is related to a place constraint. The study also examines the data from children who reached an advanced stage of cluster formation with differential targets. More specifically, in several children, one target, /ʃv/, is found to have stayed behind in the reduction phase while all others have advanced to the ‘cluster stage’. Neither the type nor the token frequencies seem satisfactory in accounting for the specific behaviour of /ʃv/. The explanation offered for the uniqueness of this target may be its non-abidence to the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) because of its flat sonority and the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) [continuant], because of the unchanging ‘continuance’ which is demanded by the OCP. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

This study reports on an experiment carried out to investigate native English speakers' perception of selected Arabic phonemes after first exposure to a controlled naturalistic input of a weather report. It closely follows Brown's model of L2 speech perception and L1 feature geometry (1998), which seeks to relate theories of segmental phonology to L2 speech perception and the first exposure treatment of Gullberg et al. (2010). Eight Arabic sounds were carefully selected for the experiment: /b/-/d/ which are found in both English and Arabic; /x/-/ɣ/ which are not found in English but are distinguished by features which are distinctive in English [dorsal, voice, continuant], and lastly the contrastive pairs /ʔ/-/ʕ/ and /h/-/ħ/, where the latter phoneme in each pair is alien to the phonemic inventory of English. These pairs are distinguished by the feature [RTR (retracted tongue root)] which is lacking in the feature geometry of English. Participants were divided into an Arabic control group, English+ group with prior exposure to Arabic, and an English group with no prior exposure to Arabic. The results from an AX discrimination task confirmed Brown's hypothesis that L2 perception of non-native contrasts is constrained by the L1 feature geometry.

In sound symbolism, a word's sound induces expectations about the nature of a salient aspect of the word's referent. P. Walker (2016a) proposed that cross-sensory correspondences can be the source of these expectations, and the present study assessed three implications flowing from this proposal. First, sound symbolism will embrace a wide range of referent features, including heaviness. Second, any feature of a word's sound able to symbolize one aspect of the word's referent will also be able to symbolize corresponding aspects of the referent (e.g., a sound feature symbolizing visual pointiness will also symbolize lightness in weight). Third, sound symbolism will be independent of the sensory modality through which a word's referent is encoded (e.g., whether heaviness is felt or seen). Adults judged which of two contrasting novel words was most appropriate as a name for the heavier or lighter of two otherwise identical hidden novel objects they were holding in their hands. The alternative words contrasted in their vowels and/or consonants, one or both of which were known to symbolize visual pointiness. Although the plosive or continuant nature of the consonants did not influence the judged appropriateness of a word to symbolize the heaviness of its referent, back/open vowels, compared to front/close vowels, were judged to symbolize felt heaviness. The symbolic potential of back/open vowels to represent felt heaviness, predicted on the basis of their symbolism of visual roundedness, supports the proposal that cross-sensory correspondences contribute to sound symbolism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

National audience; Nous posons les bases d'une ontologie de haut niveau de particuliers dont les principes de structuration sont radicalement différents de l'opposition 'continuant' vs 'occurrent' classiquement retenue en Ontologie Appliquée. Ces principes découlent d'une analyse nouvelle de l'ontologie des entités « survenantes » ou « occurrentes ». L'analyse intègre d'une part des travaux récents en ontologie des processus, rapprochant ces derniers des objets, en les assimilant à des substances continuantes (Stout, Galton). Elle propose par ailleurs de distinguer nettement processus et événements, identifiant ces derniers à des objets abstraits de pensée côtoyant les propositions. Enfin, nous ouvrons notre inventaire ontologique aux propriétés et aux faits dont l'existence réelle est admise (Fine, Armstrong). Ce cadre permet de rendre compte tout à la fois du monde physique dans ses aspects statiques et dynamiques et de la façon dont des agents conçoivent son histoire, en faisant jouer aux primitives le rôle suivant : les faits rendent compte de la vie des substances – objets et processus physiques – tandis que les événements rendent compte, pour des sujets cognitifs, de l'histoire de la vie de ces substances.

This paper is a response to the suggestion that processes provide a better framework for interpreting science, biological science especially, than do substances. The philosopher of substance is ill-prepared, it has been suggested, for the question ‘how a combination of processes can maintain the appearance of stability and persistence in an entity that is fundamentally only a temporary eddy in a flux of change’. In response, I defend a plural ontology of process, activity, event and continuant, and show how a sortalist philosophy of substance that makes Hilary Putnam's distinction of ‘realism’ from ‘metaphysical realism’ can treat disputed questions concerning the identity and individuation of colonial siphonophores, slime moulds and plant-colonies.

In this paper, I explore the question what a continuant is, in the context of a very interesting suggestion recently made by Rowland Stout, as part of his attempt to develop a coherent ontology of processes. Stout claims that a continuant is best thought of as something that primarily has its properties at times, rather than atemporally—and that on this construal, processes should count as continuants. While accepting that Stout is onto something here, I reject his suggestion that we should accept that processes are both occurrents and continuants; nothing, I argue, can truly occur or happen (unless it is instantaneous), which does not have temporal parts. I make an alternative suggestion as to how one might deal with the peculiar status of processes without jettisoning a very natural account of occurrence; and assess the consequences for the category of continuant.

ballers of distinct ontological categories? Well, football may be a game of two halves, but the first half of a football match is not itself a football match, whereas (ignoring the distinction between phase and substance sortals for the moment) as endurantists (all those who accept that continuants endure in the original sense defined in the text) would agree, every temporal part of a footballer is a footballer. Not ignoring the distinction between phase and substance sortals, we can say that if a substance sortal ‘F’ is a term for a type of continuant, every temporal part of an F is an F. That is the distinction between continuant terms and event-or-process terms and therewith between continuants and events-or-processes themselves.

In Galician geada a voiced velar fricative or approximant surfaces as a voiceless fricative in all contexts except post-nasally, e.g., pega [pexa] ⿿magpie⿿ (non-geada dialects [peɣa]) vs. longo [loſgo] ⿿long⿿. Although geada seems to be a rather basic phonological problem, existing analyses are complex. This paper shows that the analysis becomes quite straightforward once the connection of geada with voiced obstruent alternations is recognized. The proposed account obviates the need to resort to controversial mechanisms such as constraint conjunction and sheds light into the allophonic realizations of voiced obstruents. One crucial aspect of voiced obstruent allophones in Galician is their predictability and their underspecification for continuancy. Underspecification is argued to be compatible with Optimality Theory, as long as the underspecified input is not stipulated, but derived from the constraints and constraint ranking. In Galician the phonological system reveals the need for a three-way contrast in obstruents: [⿿continuant], [+continuant] and underspecified [continuant]. The findings about voiced obstruents have consequences for NC heterosyllabic clusters, showing that there is no voicing requirement at stake, rather a continuancy one, according to which voiced obstruents must be [⿿continuant] after nasals. Only voiced obstruents agree in continuancy with nasals, because only voiced obstruents are underspecified for continuancy. Constraint reranking accounts for dialectal variation.

The paper considers and opposes the view that processes are best thought of as continuants, to be differentiated from events mainly by way of the fact that the latter, but not the former, are entities with temporal parts. The motivation for the investigation, though, is not so much the defeat of what is, in any case, a rather implausible claim, as the vindication of some of the ideas and intuitions that the claim is made in order to defend � and the grounding of those ideas and intuitions in a more plausible metaphysics than is provided by the continuant view. It is argued that in addition to a distinction between events (conceived of as count-quantified) and processes (conceived of as mass-quantified) there is room and need for a third category, that of the individual process, which can be illuminatingly compared with the idea of a substance. Individual processes indeed share important metaphysical features with substantial continuants, but they do not lack temporal parts. Instead, it is argued that individual processes share with substantial continuants an important property I call �modal robustness in virtue of form�. The paper explains what this property is, and further suggests that the category of individual process, thus understood, might be of considerable value to the philosophy of action.

This study is a cross-linguistic examination of the patterns of reduction of two-member /s/-clusters. Data from six languages (English, Dutch, Norwegian, Croatian, Hebrew, and Polish) gathered from the productions of typically developing children and from children with phonological disorders are analyzed. While the languages belong to three different families, the results point to a universal tendency. Specifically, in the reductions of "s+stop" and "s+nasal" targets, the preference is the retention of C2, whereas in /sl/ and /sw/ targets, the clear pattern is in favor of the retention of C1. These patterns suggest that the continuancy of C2, not sonority, is the determining factor; C2 prevailed in "/s/+[-continuant]" targets, whereas C1 is retained in "/s/+[+continuant]" targets.

Previous research argues that depalatalization frequently occurs in computer-mediated Korean, while palatalization is one of the least frequent processes (Jeon 2002, 2004; Park 2006). Hence, this paper aims to provide a uniform analysis toward these two phonological processes within the framework of Optimality Theory. Additionally, it is proposed that they are in fact different from the typical palatalization and depalatalization detected in many natural languages (i.e. Spanish, Japanese, Nyamwezi, and so on). Along the lines of Sagey (1986) and van Oostendorp (2005), present research suggests that palatals in computer-mediated Korean are contour segments specified for [+continuant] and [-continuant], while [-anterior] under the Coronal Node does not need to be specified because it is redundant. On the other hand, this paper also facilitates Kiparsky’s (1993) lexical prespecification system and argues that palatals that undergo depalatalization are prespecified for [- anterior]. Then, unlike previous research (Jeon 2002, Park 2006, Lee 2010), depalatalization in computer-mediated Korean is defined as the decomposition of palatals c, c’, ch into the corresponding alveolars followed by a glide, assuming that alveolars are underspecified for the Coronal Node, whereas palatals and a glide are specified for [-anterior] under the Coronal Node. In addition, palatalization in computer-mediated Korean is analyzed as a phonological process that restrictively applies to some selected words where alveolars followed by i are specified for [+anterior]. Furthermore, within the framework of Optimality Theory, this paper posits that constraints Palatal-i (palatalizing alveolars before [i]) and Integrity-IO (banning a multiple realization of an input) are ranked low, while Coronal-Have[anterior] (which is a lexically specific constraint), Max-Palatal, Identity-[-anterior], and *C-Palatal[-anterior] are undominated.

It is argued that Cimbrian German requires reference to the natural class of affricates and fricatives and that this grouping is captured by analyzing both sets of sounds as [+continuant]. This finding is problematic for theories that treat affricates as strident stops without a [+continuant] component.*

Universalism (the thesis that for any ys, those ys compose a further object) is an answer to the Special Composition Question. In the literature there are three arguments – what I call the arguments from elegance – that universalists often rely upon, but which are rarely examined in-depth. I argue that these motivations cannot be had by the perdurantist, for to avoid a commitment to badly behaved superluminal objects perdurantists must answer the ‘Proper Continuant Question’. Any answer to that question necessarily ensures that there is a restricted answer to the Special Composition Question that is just as elegant as universalism. Thus, if you are a perdurantist, the arguments from elegance fail to motivate universalism for there will always be a restricted composition that is just as good.

The present study investigates the instability of adjacent liquids in a variety of Southern Bavarian German. The focus is a synchronic process converting /r/ to [d] before or after /l/—a process argued to involve a dissimilation of the phonological feature [liquid], which itself is triggered by a specific OCP constraint, *[liquid][liquid]. In addition to providing evidence for the feature [liquid], the present article also supports a model of segment structure in which the traditional feature [sonorant] is replaced with the privative node [Sonorant Voice] (SV). The Bavarian dialect also displays a number of OCP-motivated constraints that ban other sequences of identical manner features, namely, [continuant], [nasal], [strident].*

The issue of research continuance in a scientific discipline was analyzed and applied to the field of terrorism. The growing amount of literature in this field is produced mostly by one-timers who “visit” the field, contribute one or two articles, and then move to another subject area. This research pattern does not contribute to the regularity and constancy of publication by which a scientific discipline is formed and theories and paradigms of the field are created. This study observed the research continuance and transience of scientific publications in terrorism by using obtainable “most prolific terrorism authors” lists at different points in time. These lists designed by several terrorism researchers, presented a few researchers who contributed to the field continuously and many others whose main research interest lay in another discipline. The four lists observed included authors who were continuants, transients, new-comers, and terminators (who left the field). The lack of continuous, full-time research in a research field is typical of many disciplines, but the influence of this research pattern on a field’s growth and stability is different for older, established disciplines than for new and formative fields of study. With in the former, intellectual mobility could contribute to the rise of new topics and probably enrich the particular scientific field; with the latter, by contrast, it could hamper the formation and growth of the field.

Arguing first that the best way to understand what a continuant is is as something that primarily has its properties at a time rather than atemporally, the paper then defends the idea that there are occurrent continuants. These are things that were, are, or will be happening—like the ongoing process of someone reading or my writing this paper, for instance. A recently popular philosophical view of process is as something that is referred to with mass nouns and not count nouns. This has mistakenly encouraged the view that the only way to think of process is as the stuff of events, and has obscured the possibility of thinking of processes as individual continuants.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of sonority in the acquisition of initial /s/-clusters in Hebrew. Data were collected from forty typically developing Hebrew-speaking children between the ages of 1;10 and 3;0. The data were elicited by means of a picture-naming task combined with a sentence completion task. Target words consisted of complex onsets, including #sC clusters. Results revealed that no significant differences were found between the correct productions of different sub-groups among the /s/-clusters. There were no differences in the correct productions of #sC in relation to different C2's or between the productions of SSP-violating clusters and the SSP-following clusters. The only distinction that did emerge was the separate distribution of ‘/s/ + [−continuant]’ versus ‘/s/ + [+continuant]’, a result that supports previous findings for the role of continuity and sonority in the deletion patterns of clusters.

Ambivalent segments are speech sounds whose cross-linguistic patterning is especially variable, creating contradictions for theories of universal distinctive features. This paper examines lateral liquids, whose [continuant] specification has been the subject of controversy because of their ability to pattern both with continuants and with non-continuants, and because phonetically they are situated in the contested ground between two different articulatory definitions for the feature [continuant]. Evidence from a survey of sound patterns in 561 languages shows that lateral liquids, like nasals, pattern with continuants about as often as with non-continuants. Ambivalent phonological behaviour is argued to be natural and expected for phonetically ambiguous segments in a theory of emergent distinctive features where features are the result of sound patterns, rather than the other way around.

Evidence of phonological awareness levels usually comes from English-speaking children. The evidence in Spanish is scarce. The present study examined the phonological awareness of syllables, onsets–rimes, and phonemes, extending the Treiman and Zukowski (1991) results to preliterate and literate Spanish-speaking children. The sample comprised preschoolers, kindergarteners and first-graders. Children found syllables easier than onset–rime units, and onset–rime units easier than phoneme units (Experiments 1 and 2). Preliterate children found ending units easier than beginning units. However, literate children were best at initial linguistic units, particularly initial syllables. Results on the phonological awareness task and on the masked priming lexical decision task support that the phonological awareness development is sensitive to the orthographic units used by children from the time they begin to read (Experiment 3). For all children, initial continuant consonants were easier than stop consonants.

Tumours, abscesses, cysts, scars and fractures are familiar types of what we shall callpathological continuant entities. The instances of such types exist always in or onanatomical structures, which thereby become transformed intopathological anatomical structuresof corresponding types: a fractured tibia, a blistered thumb, a carcinomatous colon. In previous work on biomedical ontologies we showed how the provision of formal definitions for relations such asis_a, part_ofandtransformation_ofcan facilitate the integration of such ontologies in ways which have the potential to support new kinds of automated reasoning. We here extend this approach to the treatment of pathologies, focusing especially on those pathological continuant entities which arise when organs become affected by carcinomas.

A central difficulty for any theory of musical relation than the type/token relation. And what I works is reconciling the fact that a single mean to argue is that a similar theory of musical musical work can be performed on a number of works can reconcile the competing demands distinct occasions with the (putative) fact that facing any adequate account of works. musical works are created and, hence, do not preexist compositional activity.1 The most prominent model of the work/performance I. CREATION ON THE CHEAP relationship-the type/token model-however, seems to render the problem of composer creBefore subjecting Levinson's account of ation intractable. Since types preexist composer musical works to critical scrutiny, it is worth creative activity, they can hardly be the pausing for a moment to consider exactly what products of it. Nevertheless, there have been an indicated sound/performance-means strucattempts to rescue the type/token model from ture is. A sound structure consists of individual this objection. Jerrold Levinson, for example, sound types (abstractly) arranged in a certain defends the curious view that musical works are way.4 A simple arrangement might be a temporal what he calls "indicated sound/performanceordering of sound types. A performancemeans structures," hybrid entities consisting of means structure consists of types of soundtwo sorts of abstract structural types as well as producing activities similarly arranged. A individual composers and times.2 Taking sound/performance-means structure (S/PM musical works to consist in part of structural structure) is an amalgam of two such structures. types enables Levinson to model the work/ It consists of an arrangement of pairs of sound performance relation on the type/token relation. types and sound-producing activity types. An And taking works to consist in part of cominstance of an S/PM structure occurs when (1) a posers and times ensures that they come into token of each sound type in the structure is existence as a result of (and only after) the produced by a token of the sound-producing compositional process. activity with which it is paired and (2) the sound The trouble with Levinson' s view is that tokens occur in (or form) a pattern corresponding taking musical works to be in part constituted to the arrangement of sound types in the S/PM by composers and times does not suffice for structure. their being created in a suitably robust sense. Indicated S/PM structures are entities that are This is because indicated sound/performancebrought into existence by means of composimeans structures are merely new facts brought tional acts. A compositional act is one in which into existence with composer activity. The a composer indicates an S/PM structure by source of these difficulties is the type/token means of "producing an exemplar of the strucmodel, a model that will have to be abandoned. ture involved, or a blueprint of it."5 The art An alternative can be found, however, in David object brought into existence by this activity, Kaplan's account of the nature of words.3 the musical work, is a hybrid entity consisting According to Kaplan, the word/occurrence relaof the S/PM structure, the composer, and the tion is better modeled on the continuant/stage time-an "S/PM structure-as-indicated-by-X

This paper discusses alternations between [t] and [ts] in Modern German which require a process of assibilation whereby /t/ surfaces as [ts] before [j]. Although many German words have surface [tj] sequences which appear to be exceptional, it will be shown that the overwhelming number of these examples are systematic exceptions; by contrast, truly idiosyncratic exceptions to the process are rare. The process of assibilation will be argued to involve the change from [-strident] /t/ to [+strident] [ts]; hence, the German data support the claim in the literature on other languages that affricates are strident stops which have no [+continuant] component. It will be demonstrated that an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of the German data is superior to any possible rule-based one because only the former theory can account for all of the German facts.

Summary One of the most interesting problems in second-language (L2) phonology is how to account for differential substitution. This is the phenomenon by which speakers who lack a certain segment (sequence) in their first language (L1) may adopt alternative language-specific replacement strategies in the L2 they are attempting to acquire. It has recently been claimed by Weinberger (1997) that the reason why, for example, Japanese learners of English systematically replace English /θ ð/ by /s z/ while their Russian counterparts always substitute /t d/ is that fricatives are unspecified for the feature [continuant] in Japanese while in Russian, the stops constitute the default obstruents. What is argued here is that this analysis in terms of Underspecification Theory cannot possibly work in the case of European and Canadian French which evince an equally systematic differential substitution of /θ ð/ to /s z/ and /t d/ respectively even though they have an identical system of underlying obstuents. It is also suggested that a perception-based approach to the thorny problem of differential substitution would appear to be a much more promising avenue of research.

In Spanish, /b, d, [vvplosive]/ are usually spirantized to voiced approximants in all syllabic contexts after a continuant sound. However, in North-Central Peninsular Spanish (NCS), spirantization interacts with coda devoicing, yielding voiceless fricatives. In the majority of cases, coda /b, d, [vvplosive]/ occur in stressed syllables. This work examines whether or not stress is a factor in the likelihood of frication and devoicing of coda /b, d, [vvplosive]/ in this dialect. An acoustic study was conducted of nine native speakers from NCS. These speakers were tested on nonce words with /b, d, [vvplosive]/ in coda position in both stressed and unstressed syllables. Measurements were made of vowel and consonant duration, presence and absence of frication and voicing, and voicing duration. The results show that frication is more likely in stressed syllables than in unstressed syllables. This suggests that in stressed syllables, a higher subglottal pressure produces higher airflow across the glottis, thereby favoring frication. In turn, frication inhibits voicing due to conflicting aerodynamic requirements between the two. We conclude that stress is a factor in spirantization and that it may indirectly affect the voicing properties of /b, d, [vvplosive]/.

Moroccan Arabic /r/ and its pharyngealized counterpart exhibit a wide range of variability in their pronunciation, with reported articulations ranging from apical trills to uvular fricatives. Using an phonetic dataset elicited from speakers of the dialect of Fes (reported to traditionally have a uvular variant), I assess the distribution and acoustic properties of rhotic variants, including coarticulatory effects. The data present three distinct rhotic articulations: (1) an apical trill or tap, (2) an apical continuant produced together with high-frequency sibilant noise, and (3) a dorsal sonorant or rhotacized vowel similar to English “burred /r/.” Despite claims in the literature, no uvular fricative was observed in the data, and the dorsal sonorant was identified by speakers as the idiosyncratic local pronunciation. Variants (1) and (2) further exhibit devoiced positional variants. Lowered F2 of adjacent vowels and of sonorant portions of the rhotic signal differentiate the pharyngealized phoneme /rʕ/ ...

The effects of varying linguistic manipulations on the difficulty level of phonological awareness tasks were examined. Participants included 32 kindergarten and 35 first-grade students who were administered two alternate forms of five different phonological awareness tasks (Rhyme-Providing, Sound-Providing, Blending, Segmentation, and Initial Deletion). Items within the tasks were selected and ordered using the following linguistic manipulations: continuant vs. noncontinuant sounds, number of phonemes within a word, and number of phonemes within an initial consonant cluster. Results suggested that significant differences in item difficulty varied depending on the type of task. However, four out of five tasks had some combination of manipulations that was easier or more difficult than others. Implications for creating new or evaluating existing measures of phonological awareness are discussed.

Commonsense ontology contains both continuants and occurrents, but are continuants necessary? I argue that they are neither occurrents nor easily replaceable by them. The worst problem for continuants is the question in virtue of what a given continuant exists at a given time. For such truthmakers we must have recourse to occurrents, those vital to the continuant at that time. Continuants are, like abstract objects, invariants under equivalences over occurrents. But they are not abstract, and their being invariants enables us toinfer both their lack of temporal parts and that non-invariant predications about them must be relativized to times. [E]ndurance is the property of finding its pattern reproduced in the temporal parts of the total event. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 189.

The article discusses the process of continuant dissimilation that derives [k] from /x/ in Chaha (a Western Gurage language of Ethiopia) and its implications for reduplicative identity. It is argued that two correspondence relations are crucial to an adequate analysis of the process: base-reduplicant correspondence and output-output correspondence. Chaha provides a clear instance of “back copy” in which the output of reduplication triggers a change in the base.