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The Functional Load (FL) principle predicts that a high FL phonemic substitution lowers the intelligbility more than a low FL phonemic substitution. However, as yet no study has comprehensively investigated whether contextual information could attenuate any loss of intelligibility due to FL phonemic substitutions. As such, this study investigates the triangular relationship among the FL principle, word level intelligibility, and contextual information within a sentence. A Chinese speaker of English recorded sentences with more and with less contextual information that also had words with no FL substitutions, low FL substitutions, and high FL substitutions. Japanese university students transcribed the missing words from each sentence. The central hypothesis of this study is that missing words with more contextual information within their sentences will be more intelligible than missing words with less contextual information, regardless of any FL substitution. The results supported some of the hypotheses of this study, but not all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounts of phonological contrast traditionally invoke a binary distinction between unpredictable lexically stored phonemes and contextually predictable allophones, whose patterning reveals speakers' knowledge about their native language. This paper explores the complexity of contrasts among Italian mid vowels from a multifaceted perspective considering the lexicon, linguistic structure, usage, and regional variety. The Italian mid vowels are marginally contrastive due to a scarcity of minimal pairs alongside variation in phonetic realization. The analysis considers corpus data, which indicate that the marginal contrasts among front vowels vs. back vowels are driven by different sources and forces. Functional loads are low; while front /e ɛ/ have the weakest lexical contrast among all Italian vowels, back /o ɔ/ are separated by somewhat more minimal pairs. Among stressed front vowels, height is predicted by syllable structure and is context-dependent in some Italian varieties. Meanwhile, the height of back mid vowels is predicted by lexical frequency, in line with expectations of phonetic reduction in high-frequency contexts. For both front and back vowels, the phonetic factor of duration predicts vowel height, especially in closed syllables, suggesting its use for contrast enhancement. The results have implications for a proposed formalization of Italian mid vowel variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses five proposals for the development of Tibetic zl , which has modern reflexes including Lhasa Tibetan /_(ⁿ)d/. My assessment considers on their ability to account for zl 's modern reflexes, their plausibility from the perspective of phonetics, and their congruence with typological observations. I conclude that, at present, Bialek (2018)'s proposal is the most plausible. However, future research may produce comparative evidence that support Gong (2016)'s proposal. At the end, I outline a methodology for investigating the role of functional load in Tibetic consonant cluster mergers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to assess the impact of cyanobacteria on mollusks under experimental conditions, the interaction of toxic and nontoxic strains of the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa (Kützing) Kützing and bivalve mollusks Unio pictorum (Linnaeus, 1758) has been studied. Cyanobacteria have a negative effect on bivalve mollusks: the 40% death of mollusks and deterioration of their adaptive capacity are recorded when cocultivated with M. aeruginosa at a high cell concentration. At the same time, there is no difference in the mortality of mollusks incubated with toxic and nontoxic cyanobacteria. A decrease in the content of microcystin-LR in the presence of bivalves is revealed. No statistically significant increase in the number of cyanobacteria in the water is noted after transit passage through the digestive system of bivalves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The beginnings of words are, in some informal sense, special. This intuition is widely shared, for example, when playing word games. Less apparent is whether the intuition is substantiated empirically and what the underlying organizational principle(s) might be. Here, we answer this seemingly simple question in a quantitatively clear way. Based on arguments about the interplay between lexical storage and speech processing, we examine whether the distribution of information among different speech sounds of words is governed by a critical computational unit for online speech perception and production: syllables. By analyzing lexical databases of twelve languages, we demonstrate that there is a compelling asymmetry between syllable beginnings (onsets) versus ends (codas) in their involvement in distinguishing words stored in the lexicon. In particular, we show that the functional advantage of syllable onset reflects an asymmetrical distribution of lexical informativeness within the syllable unit but not an effect of a global decay of informativeness from the beginning to the end of a word. The converging finding across languages from a range of typological families supports the conjecture that the syllable unit, while being a critical primitive for both speech perception and production, is also a key organizational constraint for lexical storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounts of phonological contrast traditionally invoke a binary distinction between unpredictable lexically stored phonemes and contextually predictable allophones, whose patterning reveals speakers’ knowledge about their native language. This paper explores the complexity of contrasts among Italian mid vowels from a multifaceted perspective considering the lexicon, linguistic structure, usage, and regional variety. The Italian mid vowels are marginally contrastive due to a scarcity of minimal pairs alongside variation in phonetic realization. The analysis considers corpus data, which indicate that the marginal contrasts among front vowels vs. back vowels are driven by different sources and forces. Functional loads are low; while front /e ɛ/ have the weakest lexical contrast among all Italian vowels, back /o ɔ/ are separated by somewhat more minimal pairs. Among stressed front vowels, height is predicted by syllable structure and is context-dependent in some Italian varieties. Meanwhile, the height of back mid vowels is predicted by lexical frequency, in line with expectations of phonetic reduction in high-frequency contexts. For both front and back vowels, the phonetic factor of duration predicts vowel height, especially in closed syllables, suggesting its use for contrast enhancement. The results have implications for a proposed formalization of Italian mid vowel variation.

The Functional Load (FL) principle predicts that high FL phonemic contrasts, such as /i:/ and /ɪ/, contribute more to the mutual intelligibility of pronunciation than low FL phonemic contrasts, such as /u:/ and /ʊ/. In order to assess whether the FL principle accurately predicts intelligibility under English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) conditions, this study partially replicated the first study to empirically support the FL principle: Munro and Derwing (2006). Chinese speakers of English recorded 24 sentences containing target words with high and low FL phoneme substitutions, and 171 Japanese university students listened to the sentences and transcribed the target words into standard orthography. The hypothesis of this study is that the target words with high FL phoneme substitutions will be less intelligible than the target words with low FL phoneme substitutions. The results showed that the target words with high FL phoneme substitutions were indeed lower in intelligibility than the target words with low FL phoneme substitutions, and furthermore cumulative high FL phoneme substitutions lower intelligibility even more. The results are consistent with Munro and Derwing's (2006) finding that high FL phoneme substitutions lower comprehensibility more than low FL phoneme substitutions, and thus this study claims to have replicated one aspect of their study even under ELF conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accurate identification of likely segmental pronunciation errors produced by nonnative speakers of English is a longstanding goal in pronunciation teaching. Most lists of pronunciation errors for speakers of a particular first language (L1) are based on the experience of expert linguists or teachers of English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL). Such lists are useful, but they are also subject to blind spots for less noticeable errors while suggesting that other more noticeable errors are more important. This exploratory study tested whether using a database of read sentences would reveal recurrent errors that had been overlooked by expert opinions. We did a systematic error analysis of advanced L1 Arabic learners of English (n = 4) using L2 Arctic, a publicly available collection of 1,132 phonetically-balanced English sentences read aloud by 24 speakers of six language backgrounds. To test whether the database was useful for pronunciation error identification, we analysed Arabic speakers' sentence readings (n = 599), which were annotated in Praat for pronunciation deviations from General American English. The findings give an empirically supported description of persistent pronunciation errors for Arabic learners of English. Although necessarily limited in scope, the study demonstrates how similar datasets can be used regardless of the L1 being investigated. The discussion of errors in pronunciation in terms of their functional loads (Brown, 1988) suggests which persistent errors are likely to be important for classroom attention, helping teachers focus their limited classroom time for optimal learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective To assess the biomechanical effects of different prosthetic/implant configurations and load directions on 3-unit fixed prostheses supported by short dental implants in the posterior mandible using validated 3-D finite element (FE) models. Methods Models represented an atrophic mandible, missing the 2nd premolar, 1st and 2nd molars, and rehabilitated with either two short implants (implant length-IL = 8 mm and 4 mm) supporting a 3-unit dental bridge or three short implants (IL = 8 mm, 6 mm and 4 mm) supporting zirconia prosthesis in splinted or single crowns design. Load simulations were performed in ABAQUS (Dassault Systèmes, France) under axial and oblique (30°) force of 100 N to assess the global stiffness and forces within the implant prosthesis. Local stresses within implant/prosthesis system and strain energy density (SED) within surrounding bone were determined and compared between configurations. Results The global stiffness was around 1.5 times higher in splinted configurations vs. single crowns, whereby off-axis loading lead to a decrease of 39%. Splinted prostheses exhibited a better stress distribution than single crowns. Local stresses were larger and distributed over a larger area under oblique loads compared to axial load direction. The forces on each implant in the 2-implant-splinted configurations increased by 25% compared to splinted crowns on 3 implants. Loading of un-splinted configurations resulted in increased local SED magnitude. Conclusion Splinting of adjacent short implants in posterior mandible by the prosthetic restoration has a profound effect on the magnitude and distribution of the local stress peaks in peri-implant regions. Replacing each missing tooth with an implant is recommended, whenever bone supply and costs permit.

The nature of second language pronunciation research often precludes its application to the classroom. And even when research findings do have direct applicability to classroom practice, open channels of communication between researchers and practitioners are often lacking. We have subtitled this issue of The CATESOL Journal “Pronunciation: Research Into Practice, and Practice Into Research”—indicating our belief that research and practice comprise a 2-way street, with research results definitely informing practice but with practice helping to confirm these results and providing an additional, real-world test of their validity. The contributing authors of this theme issue (both researchers and practitioners), through their research and insights into best classroom practices, provide teachers of pronunciation much to ponder. This article seeks to draw from the authors’ insights a set of core principles, firmly anchored in research results, on which to base pronunciation teaching decisions.

Frequency often predicts when children will acquire unitsof language such as words or phones. An additionalpredictor of language development may be a phone’sfunctional load (FL), or the contrastive work a soundperforms in a language. A higher FL may correlate withearlier phone emergence in child speech as childrenselectively converge upon the most meaningful contrasts intheir input. This hypothesis is tested across fivetypologically diverse languages that vary by phoneinventory size and structure as well as word composition.Consonant FL was calculated over more than 390,000words of child-directed speech. Results demonstrate thatthe relationship of frequency and FL to speechdevelopment is dependent upon the language of exposure.Models fit to bootstrapped corpus data suggest thatfrequency may be the stronger of the two parameters.

Functional load (FL) quantifies the contributions by phonological contrasts to distinctions made across the lexicon. Previous research has linked particularly low values of FL to sound change. Here, we broaden the scope of enquiry into FL to its evolution at higher values also. We apply phylogenetic methods to examine the diachronic evolution of FL across 90 languages of the Pama–Nyungan (PN) family of Australia. We find a high degree of phylogenetic signal in FL, indicating that FL values covary closely with genealogical structure across the family. Though phylogenetic signals have been reported for phonological structures, such as phonotactics, their detection in measures of phonological function is novel. We also find a significant, negative correlation between the FL of vowel length and of the following consonant—that is, a time-depth historical trade-off dynamic, which we relate to known allophony in modern PN languages and compensatory sound changes in their past. The findings reveal a historical dynamic, similar to transphonologization, which we characterize as a flow of contrastiveness between subsystems of the phonology. Recurring across a language family that spans a whole continent and many millennia of time depth, our findings provide one of the most compelling examples yet of Sapir's 'drift' hypothesis of non-accidental parallel development in historically related languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the biomechanical effects of different prosthetic/implant configurations and load directions on 3-unit fixed prostheses supported by short dental implants in the posterior mandible using validated 3-D finite element (FE) models. Methods: Models represented an atrophic mandible, missing the 2nd premolar, 1st and 2nd molars, and rehabilitated with either two short implants (implant length-IL = 8 mm and 4 mm) supporting a 3-unit dental bridge or three short implants (IL = 8 mm, 6 mm and 4 mm) supporting zirconia prosthesis in splinted or single crowns design. Load simulations were performed in ABAQUS (Dassault Systèmes, France) under axial and oblique (30°) force of 100 N to assess the global stiffness and forces within the implant prosthesis. Local stresses within implant/prosthesis system and strain energy density (SED) within surrounding bone were determined and compared between configurations. Results: The global stiffness was around 1.5 times higher in splinted configurations vs. single crowns, whereby off-axis loading lead to a decrease of 39%. Splinted prostheses exhibited a better stress distribution than single crowns. Local stresses were larger and distributed over a larger area under oblique loads compared to axial load direction. The forces on each implant in the 2-implant-splinted configurations increased by 25% compared to splinted crowns on 3 implants. Loading of un-splinted configurations resulted in increased local SED magnitude. Conclusion: Splinting of adjacent short implants in posterior mandible by the prosthetic restoration has a profound effect on the magnitude and distribution of the local stress peaks in peri-implant regions. Replacing each missing tooth with an implant is recommended, whenever bone supply and costs permit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been observed that many users of English in Iraq do not possess the desired level of competence in their use of English language, with its attendant high functional load. This paper seeks to discover the role of literature in using English language proficiently so it explores English literature as an authentic source for achieving the desired proficiency among Iraqi users of English as a foreign language. To this end, final year students of the Department of English Language at Mazaya University College in Dhi Qar, Iraq were selected for this study. Questionnaires and participant observation were employed as data collection instruments. It was discovered that students who have more exposure to literary works are more proficient in using English language. It is, therefore, concluded that motivating students to read literary works, listen, dramatize, and recite them will acquaint them with the competence they need to use language efficiently and confidently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this article, the current Persian phonological contrast system is addressed under the framework of functionalism. The Degree of Phonological Contrast (DC), as a quantitative index, is determined for consonants in terms of sonority, manner, and place of articulation, and tongue height, place, and length for vowels. The findings of this study demonstrate that DC can be explained for consonants and vowels in similar and dissimilar phonological classes. Keywords: minimal pairs, degree of contrast, functional load, sonority, phonological class Introduction The main question in this article concerns the extent to which Persian phonology employs the contrast of a pair of phonemes in the word formation. This question is already reported for consonants and vowels. The hypothesis of the research implies that decreasing the similarity of the opposition members in phonological features increases the prevalence of minimal pairs and vice versa. For this purpose, the phonological contrast and functional load of the functionalism are quantified according to the formula of the DC. Then, the DC mean is determined for consonants in terms of initial, middle, and final positions within words, and the number of syllables for vowels using non-linear mathematical functions. Findings confirmed that the dissimilarity of vowels in length, along with the similarity of consonants in non-sonority and coronality, are among the pervasive factors in Persian word formation. Materials and Methods Research data include 41718 minimal pairs extracted from the generative lexicon(Eslami et al., 1383) with a volume of 52858 entries using a computer program. In this program, each entry’s phonological form is compared with phonological forms of approximately the same length (with one unit of length error). If the difference is one, the two words are considered a minimal pair. Minimal pairs that differed in consonants were classified according to their beginning, middle, and end. Moreover, those that differed in vowels were classified according to the number of syllables. Diagrams of exponential and logistic functions were employed to study the relationship between the DC in consonants and the position of consonants at the beginning, middle, and end of words on the one hand, along with the relationship between the DC of vowels and the number of syllables on the other. To evaluate the research hypothesis, a comparison between the values ​​of DCs, as well as their descending order, was performed. Discussion and Conclusion Examining the minimal pairs in the Persian lexicon shows that the DC of Persian consonants increases as we move from the beginning to the end of the word. Moreover, as the number of syllables increases, the DC of vowels decreases, and the inflection point of DC mean variations rest on three-syllable words. Conversely, as the number of syllables increases, the DC of consonants decreases, while there is no inflection point of DC mean variations on three-syllable words. Overall, DC for dissimilar classes is greater than that of similar classes. Specifically, the DC of vowels (in terms of tongue height and length) for dissimilar classes is more than that of similar classes, while it is the opposite for the place of articulation. However, the DC of consonants varies according to sonority, manner, and place of articulation for both similar and dissimilar classes. Therefore, the members of minimal pairs tend to be non-sonorant and coronal.

The paradox of the existence of something that was presented in the experience of man is that every phenomenon is variable and unchanging at one time. Consequently, it becomes clear why the relevance of the study of "eternal" questions, which it seemed could be found unambiguously, is constantly maintained. And so stop any searches by establishing the truth. At least the research is always in changing circumstances and conditions, and therefore their acquisitions constantly highlight different faces of the same. This statement, of course, also applies to the phenomenon of culture and art. Being irrefutable companions of the existence of man as a personality, and on the other hand - in its plural, these phenomena are constantly changing. Meanwhile, the establishment of their optimal functional load in the discrete period of human existence promotes the fullest possible orientation of the last in the current being. In particular, it allows us to form, so to speak, a productive impression of the permanent content of the existence of both: a particular person and the human community as a whole. This way helps people to maximally use their efforts and energy throughout their existence, directing them to the path of self-realization (implementation of their own projects) and (self) improvement. Therefore, the main focus of the article is on understanding culture as such an existential continuum of man / mankind, which is at the same time a "creation" of a subject different from man and a "product" of the creative activity of man in his own weight. In this case, culture appears to be some global and profound cause of social improvement and (or degradation) of man / mankind, since it is somehow opposed to the pure nature of man. That is, there is a certain incompatibility between the pure nature of man and the cultural form of its existence, which gives rise to stress, and the latter becomes the driving force for change. Art, in this case, serves as a kind of intermediary between the integral, that is, perfect in the context of any value-moral system, and ordinary person. In addition, art is a kind of litmus test that allows you to determine the level of "toxicity" of the cultural environment in particular.

Though frequent recourse has been made to the functional load (or FL) principle in establishing priorities for L2 pronunciation teaching, it remains an under-theorized and relatively under-utilized concept. This is despite the existence of empirical evidence pointing to correlations between the FL ranking of phonemic contrasts and a) the effect that the absence of particular contrasts has on the comprehensibility of speech, and b) their occurrence at different levels of proficiency. Previous studies have found that errors involving high FL sound contrasts are linked with educed comprehensibility, and have also found that high FL errors are less common in learners at higher proficiency levels. Taken together, these findings suggest that language learners tend to pay more attention to high FL contrasts and incorporate them into their repertoires more readily than low FL contrasts, possibly because the high FL contrasts are more salient in terms of contrastive potential and frequency of occurrence. The concept of FL therefore appears to be relevant in considering the relative ease (or difficulty) of learning and teaching particular features, and in understanding the relationship between learning and teaching. Frequent calls have been made for FL considerations to inform the setting of priorities in L2 pronunciation teaching, for example. In this mini-review I will explore and re-evaluate the concept of FL in terms of both theoretical formulation and empirical application, aiming to identify both its contributions and its limitations.

Despite the efforts of existing studies in the domain of L2 phonology to examine ESL learners’ pronunciation development, little research has comprehensively demonstrated ESL learners’ pronunciation improvement in academic immersion contexts. Similarly, few studies have focused on learners’ proficiency levels linked to their developmental success. The current exploratory study investigated the changes of learners’ pronunciation constructs as a result of their ESL program. Seventy-five newly arrived ESL students (25 in each proficiency; beginner, intermediate, and advanced) enrolled in an Intensive English Program in the United States provided their speech responses (to the placement and exit tests from the program). One hundred fifty speaking samples were linguistically analyzed for the following suprasegmental features: fluency (speech rates and pauses) and prosody (prominence and pitch range). Segmental features were analyzed by employing a functional load approach with randomly selected 90 speech files. Findings revealed different developmental patterns among phonological features and proficiency levels; that is, the upper-level learners improved more in fluency and prominence than the lower-level learners. Segmental changes were minimal, suggesting that both high functional and low functional load sounds involve a complex process in learning. Overall findings provide important implications for ESL curriculum planning and development: 1) intonation acquisition can be difficult; 2) skill improvement differs by proficiency level; and 3) level-specific curriculum may be needed.

Methods of quantifying distance between sound sequences are known as phonological distance measures. Despite the wide application across subfields, phonological distance has been calculated mainly with features related to consonants and vowels. This research report establishes new measurements of phonological distance that incorporate lexical tone through experimental approaches and modeling, using Hong Kong Cantonese as a case study. Results show correspondences between the experimental data and predictions from information-theoretic measures, including entropy measures and functional load, suggesting that lexical components which play a more crucial role in phonological distance judgments are lexically less predictable as well. Implications for phonological distance measures are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional load (FL) quantifies the contributions by phonological contrasts to distinctions made across the lexicon. Previous research has linked particularly low values of FL to sound change. Here, we broaden the scope of enquiry into FL to its evolution at higher values also. We apply phylogenetic methods to examine the diachronic evolution of FL across 90 languages of the Pama–Nyungan (PN) family of Australia. We find a high degree of phylogenetic signal in FL, indicating that FL values covary closely with genealogical structure across the family. Though phylogenetic signals have been reported for phonological structures, such as phonotactics, their detection in measures of phonological function is novel. We also find a significant, negative correlation between the FL of vowel length and of the following consonant—that is, a time-depth historical trade-off dynamic, which we relate to known allophony in modern PN languages and compensatory sound changes in their past. The findings reveal a historical dynamic, similar to transphonologization, which we characterize as a flow of contrastiveness between subsystems of the phonology. Recurring across a language family that spans a whole continent and many millennia of time depth, our findings provide one of the most compelling examples yet of Sapir’s ‘drift’ hypothesis of non-accidental parallel development in historically related languages.

This paper presents a model that connects phonotactic exceptionality to perceptibility, more specifically to functional load and acoustic detail. I identify two patterns in exceptionality: lexical exceptions and phonotactic vacillation, where the former is restricted to specific lexical items, while the latter affects two contrastive sound categories as a whole. Through the example of Hungarian word-final phonotactics, the Model of Perceptual Categorization associates these two patterns with different functional load and acoustic properties of contrasts, that lead to two categorizational malfunctions. On the one hand, phonotactic vacillation is a result of a frequent failure to categorize ambiguous tokens: low functional load coinciding with little acoustic difference. On the other hand, lexical exceptions are systematic categorizational mistakes brought about by salient categories – in this case distributional generalizations are hindered by interference from mislabeled tokens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phonological analysis increasingly involves the quantification of various lexical and/or usage statistics, such as phonotactic probabilities, the functional loads of various phonemic contrasts, or neighbourhood densities. This paper presents Phonological CorpusTools, a free, open-source software for conducting such phonological analyses on transcribed corpora. The motivations for creating the software are given, along with an overview of the structure of the program, its analysis algorithms, and its applications within phonology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is general agreement on the main features of the process through which the phonology of modern standard Chinese has evolved over three millennia from that of Old Chinese. However, according to general linguistic theory, that phonological history is impossible: the theory claims that no human language can evolve in the manner in which Chinese is believed to have evolved. Furthermore, this particular strand of general linguistic theory has recently been corroborated through stringent statistical testing. Thus there is a glaring contradiction between two areas of scholarship, and to date there has been little recognition by the scholarly community of the need to resolve this contradiction, indeed little willingness to admit its existence. I argue that the contradiction is real and serious, and needs resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In vivo measurements of vertical forces and bending moments during biting and chewing were carried out on 10 three-unit prostheses in the posterior mandibles of five patients. Each patient had two prostheses, one supported by two implants and the other supported by one implant and one tooth. The results demonstrated no major difference in functional load magnitudes related to the support type. The distribution of load between the abutments was influenced more by the prosthesis geometry and implant placement than by the difference in load characteristics of tooth and implant. This conclusion, however, is limited to one implant connected to a tooth, because multiple implants form a considerably stiffer unit than do teeth. An increase in vertical load resulting from cantilever extensions on the prostheses was documented, both at bite fork measurements and during chewing. No substantial lateral bending was registered, probably because the flat occlusal surfaces and the presence of the opposing complete denture reduced lateral forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between speech perception and linguistic experience in Kaqchikel, a Guatemalan Mayan language. Our empirical focus is the perception of plain, ejective, and implosive stops. Drawing on an AX discrimination task, a corpus of spoken Kaqchikel, and a text corpus, we make two claims. First, we argue that speech perception is mediated by phonemic representations which include acoustic detail drawn from prior phonetic experience, as in Exemplar Theory. Second, segmental distributions also condition speech perception: The perceptual distinctiveness of a pair of phonemes is affected by their functional load and relative contextual predictability. These top-down factors influence phoneme discrimination even at relatively fast response times. We take this result as evidence that distributional factors like functional load may affect speech perception by shaping perceptual tuning during linguistic development. This study replicates and extends some key findings in speech perception in the context of a language (Kaqchikel) which is structurally and sociolinguistically different from the majority languages (like English) which have served as the basis of most work in the speech perception literature. At the practical level, our research illustrates methods for conducting corpus-based laboratory phonology with lesser-studied and under-resourced languages.

The beginnings of words are, in some informal sense, special. This intuition is widely shared, for example, when playing word games. Less apparent is whether the intuition is substantiated empirically and what the underlying organizational principle(s) might be. Here, we answer this seemingly simple question in a quantitatively clear way. Based on arguments about the interplay between lexical storage and speech processing, we examine whether the distribution of information among different speech sounds of words is governed by a critical computational unit for online speech perception and production: syllables. By analyzing lexical databases of twelve languages, we demonstrate that there is a compelling asymmetry between syllable beginnings (onsets) versus ends (codas) in their involvement in distinguishing words stored in the lexicon. In particular, we show that the functional advantage of syllable onset reflects an asymmetrical distribution of lexical informativeness within the syllable unit but not an effect of a global decay of informativeness from the beginning to the end of a word. The converging finding across languages from a range of typological families supports the conjecture that the syllable unit, while being a critical primitive for both speech perception and production, is also a key organizational constraint for lexical storage.

A crucial question for historical linguistics has been why some sound changes happen but not others. Recent work on the foundations of sound change has argued that subtle distributional facts about segments in a language, such as functional load, play a role in facilitating or impeding change. Thus not only are sound changes not all equally plausible, but their likelihood depends in part on phonotactics and aspects of functional load, such as the density of minimal pairs. Tests of predictability on the chance of phoneme merger suggest that phonemes with low functional load (as defined by minimal pair density) are more likely to merge, but this has been investigated only for a small number of languages with very large corpora and well attested mergers. Here we present work suggesting that the same methods can be applied to much smaller corpora, by presenting the results of a preliminary exploration of nine Australian languages, with a particular focus on Bardi, a Nyulnyulan language from Australia's northwest. Our results support the hypothesis that the probability of merger is higher when phonemes distinguish few minimal pairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One’s native language (L1) is known to influence the development of a nonnative language (L2) at multiple levels, but the nature of L1 transfer to L2 perception remains unclear. This study explored the hypothesis that transfer effects in perception come from L1-specific processing strategies, which direct attention to phonetic cues according to their estimated relative functional load (RFL). Using target languages that were either familiar (English) or unfamiliar (Korean), perception of unreleased final stops was tested in L1 English listeners and four groups of L2 English learners whose L1s differ in stop phonotactics and the estimated RFL of a crucial cue to unreleased stops (i.e., vowel-to-consonant formant transitions). Results were, overall, consistent with the hypothesis, with L1 Japanese listeners showing the poorest perception, followed by L1 Mandarin, Russian, English, and Korean listeners. Two exceptions occurred with Russian listeners, who underperformed Mandarin listeners in identification of English stops and outperformed English listeners in identification of Korean stops. Taken together, these findings support a cue-centric view of transfer based on perceptual attention over a direct phonotactic view based on structural conformity. However, transfer interacts with prior L2 knowledge, which may result in significantly different perceptual consequences for a familiar and an unfamiliar L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to assess the role of functional factors in the development of the /e ∼ε/ unconditioned merger that has taken place in Seoul Korean. We explore several alternative measures of functional load, one measure of phonetic distance evaluated on a perceptual scale, and a simple integrative measure, which combines functional load and phonetic distance into a single ‘contrastivity index.’ Our results show that, while both functional load and perceptual distance hint at the fact that /e ∼ε/ was a weak contrast, this effect is clearest when these two factors are integrated together, especially when functional load is measured as phone-level entropy loss. The proposed metric thus offers a fruitful way of modeling the interaction between functional factors in the development of mergers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present-day Southeastern Yiddish (SEY) is a relatively young dialect, probably formed after the Khmelnytskyy massacres of 1648. Was the primary force in its historical phonology the influence of coterritorial languages, of other dialects, or internal factors? How important was the role of homonymy and the functional load of specific phonemes? Internal factors that may have had the greatest influence on the development of SEY are best sought in the transitional dialects on the fringes of SEY. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this investigation was to identify the players physiological and mechanical load demands in association with the offensive teamwork structure and efficiency at the junior level of basketball performance. Sixteen elite male junior (age 17,4 ± 1,2 years; height 193,7 ± 7,4 cm; mass 84,4 ± 11,1 kg) Estonian basketball players volunteered to participate in this study. The data were gathered from 197 ball possessions in three competitive games played in division 1 of Estonian Championship. The heart rate and mechanical activity values of each player partakes in team ball possession were obtained by the physiological status monitoring device Zephyr™ BioHarness™. The technical/tactical indicators of the team offensive activity, "teamwork intensity" and outcomes were notated to the Microsoft Office Excel table. The last stage of data processing provided the analysis of aggregated data by Data mining method. The sample of associative rules for the team scoring (depended variable) more than the average 0,90 (predicted value) highlights the role of the point guardś high level of heart rate (181 BMP on average) for increasing the offensive efficiency. Furthermore, the efficient possessions are characterized by the high values of mechanical activity (>1) and heart rate (165-191 BMP) of forwards accompanied by a high teamwork "intensity" indicator (0,83-. 1,55). Based on these results, we can conclude that the players higher mechanical activity and heart rate values ensure a higher offensive efficiency of a basketball team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]