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Lexicon projects (LPs) are large-scale data resources in different languages that present behavioral results from visual word recognition tasks. Analyses using LP data in multiple languages provide evidence regarding cross-linguistic differences as well as similarities in visual word recognition. Here we present the first LP in a Semitic language—the Hebrew Lexicon Project (HeLP). HeLP assembled lexical decision (LD) responses to 10,000 Hebrew words and nonwords, and naming responses to a subset of 5000 Hebrew words. We used the large-scale HeLP data to estimate the impact of general predictors (lexicality, frequency, word length, orthographic neighborhood density), and Hebrew-specific predictors (Semitic structure, presence of clitics, phonological entropy) of visual word recognition performance. Our results revealed the typical effects of lexicality and frequency obtained in many languages, but more complex impact of word length and neighborhood density. Considering Hebrew-specific characteristics, HeLP data revealed better recognition of words with a Semitic structure than words that do not conform to it, and a drop in performance for words comprising clitics. These effects varied, however, across LD and naming tasks. Lastly, a significant inhibitory effect of phonological ambiguity was found in both naming and LD. The implications of these findings for understanding reading in a Semitic language are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hearing impairment alters the sound input received by the human auditory system, reducing speech comprehension in noisy multi-talker auditory scenes. Despite such difficulties, neural signals were shown to encode the attended speech envelope more reliably than the envelope of ignored sounds, reflecting the intention of listeners with hearing impairment (HI). This result raises an important question: What speech-processing stage could reflect the difficulty in attentional selection, if not envelope tracking? Here, we use scalp electroencephalography (EEG) to test the hypothesis that the neural encoding of phonological information (i.e., phonetic boundaries and phonological categories) is affected by HI. In a cocktail-party scenario, such phonological difficulty might be reflected in an overrepresentation of phonological information for both attended and ignored speech sounds, with detrimental effects on the ability to effectively focus on the speaker of interest. To investigate this question, we carried out a re-analysis of an existing dataset where EEG signals were recorded as participants with HI, fitted with hearing aids, attended to one speaker (target) while ignoring a competing speaker (masker) and spatialised multi-talker background noise. Multivariate temporal response function (TRF) analyses indicated a stronger phonological information encoding for target than masker speech streams. Follow-up analyses aimed at disentangling the encoding of phonological categories and phonetic boundaries (phoneme onsets) revealed that neural signals encoded the phoneme onsets for both target and masker streams, in contrast with previously published findings with normal hearing (NH) participants and in line with our hypothesis that speech comprehension difficulties emerge due to a robust phonological encoding of both target and masker. Finally, the neural encoding of phoneme-onsets was stronger for the masker speech, pointing to a possible neural basis for the higher distractibility experienced by individuals with HI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eye movements (EM) during naming alphabetic versus logographic stimuli in children with and without developmental dyslexia (DD) were examined for each stimulus separately to identify conspicuous characteristics that influence naming performance. 40 children (group DD = 18; control group C = 22) were taught Chinese characters. EM were recorded during naming alphabetic words, pictures and Chinese characters. Main variables were articulation latencies, numbers and durations of fixations, secondary variables were fixation locations and error rates. Group DD showed significantly longer latencies and more fixations while reading words, but only insignificantly more fixations while naming pictures and Chinese characters. However, their error rate was significantly higher during naming Chinese characters but correlated neither with severity of phonological deficit nor with visual complexity. Their first fixation was significantly more often on the center of characters, in group C on the left. In both groups, EM variables were influenced by conspicuous features of characters, such as visual complexity, composition and structure. EM variables and scanning behavior while naming Chinese characters indicate holistic processing in the visuo-spatial pathway and were affected by conspicuous features of characters. The higher error rate in group DD could be determined by several factors, without a major role of the phonological deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phonological knowledge plays a pivotal role in many aspects of language processing, but it remains controversial whether it is required for writing. In the present study, we examined the issue by focusing on written production in an opaque logographic script (kanji) with highly irregular pronunciation rules, which allowed for a rigorous test of whether or not phonology contributes to writing. Using a phonological priming paradigm in two experiments, we measured response latency while participants orally named target pictures or wrote down their names in kanji. Each target was preceded by a phonographic character (kana) which represented the same sound (mora) as the beginning of the target name or a different mora. By manipulating the degree of phonological overlap between primes and target names (i.e., morae, consonants and vowels), we found that only the moraic overlap could speed up word production in logographic writing (Experiment 1). In contrast, naming response was facilitated by mora-overlap as well as vowel-overlap. This between-task difference in phonological encoding suggests that phonological codes for spoken production do not necessarily precede orthographic access during logographic writing. In Experiment 2, we further found that the facilitatory effects of moraic information did not differ in magnitude between writing and naming when primes were masked and presented more briefly, suggesting a net component of bottom-up phonological activation which contributes to logographic writing. Collectively, we propose that orthographic codes of kanji are accessed directly from semantics, whereas phonology plays a non-specific modulatory role to enhance neurocognitive systems involved in writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most models of language comprehension assume that the linguistic system is able to pre-activate phonological information. However, the evidence for phonological prediction is mixed and controversial. In this study, we implement a paradigm that capitalizes on the fact that foreign speakers usually make phonological errors. We investigate whether speaker identity (native vs. foreign) is used to make specific phonological predictions. Fifty-two participants were recruited to read sentence frames followed by a last spoken word which was uttered by either a native or a foreign speaker. They were required to perform a lexical decision on the last spoken word, which could be either semantically predictable or not. Speaker identity (native vs. foreign) may or may not be cued by the face of the speaker. We observed that the face cue is effective in speeding up the lexical decision when the word is predictable, but it is not effective when the word is not predictable. This result shows that speech prediction takes into account the phonological variability between speakers, suggesting that it is possible to pre-activate in a detailed and specific way the phonological representation of a predictable word. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Eye movements (EM) during naming alphabetic versus logographic stimuli in children with and without developmental dyslexia (DD) were examined for each stimulus separately to identify conspicuous characteristics that influence naming performance. 40 children (group DD = 18; control group C = 22) were taught Chinese characters. EM were recorded during naming alphabetic words, pictures and Chinese characters. Main variables were articulation latencies, numbers and durations of fixations, secondary variables were fixation locations and error rates. Group DD showed significantly longer latencies and more fixations while reading words, but only insignificantly more fixations while naming pictures and Chinese characters. However, their error rate was significantly higher during naming Chinese characters but correlated neither with severity of phonological deficit nor with visual complexity. Their first fixation was significantly more often on the center of characters, in group C on the left. In both groups, EM variables were influenced by conspicuous features of characters, such as visual complexity, composition and structure. EM variables and scanning behavior while naming Chinese characters indicate holistic processing in the visuo-spatial pathway and were affected by conspicuous features of characters. The higher error rate in group DD could be determined by several factors, without a major role of the phonological deficit.

This article is concerned with imperfective suffixes in Russian. It argues that there are at least three imperfective suffixes, the progressive morpheme, the iterative marker and the habitual suffix. It is shown that they differ in morphosyntactic and semantic properties. As to their structural properties, the progressive suffix is the lowest marker; the iterative morpheme attaches in a higher position; and the habitual morpheme is structurally the highest element. Thus, the article argues against a unitary approach to the iterative suffix and the habitual morpheme. Semantically, the iterative suffix has a pluractional meaning, whereas the habitual suffix is a vague generic quantifier. As to their phonological properties, the three markers are homophonous; they are spelled out as an -yva- allomorph. In this respect, the suffixes differ from the morphological aspect operator encoding (im)perfectivity in the aspectual head, which is phonologically empty. Further, it is shown that there are certain prefixes in the verbal morphosyntactic structure that are placed between the progressive projection and the iterative projection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how languages change is important not only for the reconstruction of protolanguages and for estimating diversification dates (i.e. the dates when languages split), but also for the inference of evolutionary trees (or phylogenetic networks) of language families. We propose a parametric model of language change that addresses lexical polymorphism (two or more words for a given basic meaning) based on what is known about how languages change. Under our model, changes of state in lexical characters occur only due to semantic shift or borrowing, leading to (potentially brief) periods in which polymorphism is present. Across a wide range of model conditions, we find that a simple and natural modification to the maximum parsimony (MP) criterion (which seeks the tree with the fewest number of changes) to allow it to handle polymorphic characters has the best accuracy, substantially improving on well‐known Bayesian methods based on appearances and disappearances of words. We also provide a new analysis of Indo–European that takes polymorphism into account, finding support for a previous tree (Nakhleh et al., 2006) and a new tree that differs from the previous tree in the relationship between Italo‐Celtic and Tocharian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the hypothesis of nonselective access to phonological representations in an integrated lexicon across logographic and alphabetic writing systems among Chinese L1 (first language)–English L2 (second language) bilinguals. We employed three experiments to test this hypothesis, including a lexical decision task (LDT) and a word naming task in Experiments 1 and 2 using the masked priming paradigm, and a self-paced sentence reading task in Experiment 3. Results from the LDT and the word naming task showed a significant homophone priming effect from L1 to L2, but not from L2 to L1. In the sentence reading task, we compared processing time between homophone error words and control words in the critical and spill-over regions. A slower processing effect in the homophone condition was observed in the spill-over region. Overall, these findings suggest that phonological priming occurs across a logographic and an alphabetic script in different tasks, whether reading isolated words or sentences. Bilingual reading involves an integrated bilingual lexicon that is independent of script similarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binomial expressions (e.g., hocus-pocus; dribs and drabs) are irreversible sequences of two types: reduplicative binomials (e.g., pitter-patter) and conjoined binomials (e.g., wheeling and dealing). Both types exhibit similar phonological features such as rhyme, alliteration and ablaut alternation. The present study investigates English and French speaker preferences for phonological templates in binomials. Elicitation of preferences was carried out using nonsense sequences exemplifying the templates Simple Rhyme (e.g., fiply-biply; fudette-budette), Complex Onset Rhyme (e.g., settip and slettip; ni cougui ni crougi), and Ablaut (e.g., gesky and gosky; fudette-fudotte), which were pitted against each other, e.g., gesky and gosky (Ablaut) versus gesky and glesky (Complex Onset Rhyme). Results of two experiments – the first involving nonce sequences containing disyllabic terms, the second involving nonsense items with monosyllabic constituents – reveal that English speakers prefer Simple Rhyme in items containing disyllabic constituents, and Ablaut for items containing monosyllabic terms. In contrast, French speakers prefer Ablaut in both the disyllabic term and the monosyllabic term conditions. In both experiments, Simple Rhyme is preferred to Complex Onset Rhyme. The experimental results for English align with statistical distributions of phonological templates in the Thun (1963. Reduplicative words in English: A study of formations of the types tick-tick, hurly-burly and shilly-shally. Lund: Carl Bloms) corpus of binomials. Our testing of English and French respondents further reveals that certain preferences are dissimilar across languages. Our findings lead us to propose that constraint rankings for reduplicatives in English and French under Optimality Theory should be sensitive to the number of syllables in constituent terms. In sum, the study of binomial expressions is enhanced by experimental evidence of speakers' preferences when presented with competing sequencing patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L2 learning is influenced by both individual learner variables and contextual factors. Contextual factors have been extensively researched, but although internal learner-specific variables have received attention, this has been to a lesser extent. Among these internal variables, L2 motivation and L2 aptitude are likely the most significant predictors of L2 learning progress and listening performance. This study explored the effects of (i) L2 motivation, following the L2 Motivational Self-System model; (ii) L2 aptitude; and (iii) phonological short-term memory (PSTM) on L2 listening performance. These variables combined have not yet been studied with reference to L2 listening. In this correlational study, a listening test was taken as a pre- and post-test in a sample of 104 Year 1 and Year 2 English language pre-service teachers from a Chilean University three months apart. L2 aptitude and PSTM measures were taken using the first two sections of the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) for the former variable, and a non-word repe- tition task for the latter. The results suggest that PSTM, but not L2 aptitude, predicted listening performance at time 2. Also, the results indicate that after adjusting for listening performance at time 1, the only motivational factor predicting listening performance at time 2 was learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces an experimental study of glottal stops that are generated by h aspiré (H) in French (il [ʔ] hoche la tête). To date the phenomenon is merely mentioned in passing, and evidence only comes from native speaker intuitions and cursory personal observation. Participants pronounced verbs that either did (hocher) or did not (aimer) begin with an H, whereby the left context was controlled for: the preceding word could end in a vowel (tu hoches/aimes), in a consonant (il hoche/aime) or in a liaison consonant (LC nous hochons/aimons). Results confirm the observation made in the literature regarding the high variability of H: lexical (elision is much more frequent in j'harcèle than in j'hais), inter-speaker (some participants chose unelided je for 10 out of 12 H verbs, while others only for 4 H verbs) and intra-speaker (participants pronounced vous [z] hissez with liaison, while they chose je hisse in a multiple choice-based pretest). Results also confirmed that H is indeed a glottal stop creator: glottal stops occur much more often before H-initial than before V-initial words. The glottal stop rate also depended on the left context: while LC + H (nous hochons) and C + H (il hoche) are statistically indistinguishable, both are significantly distinct from V + H (tu hoches). This suggests that glottal stop insertion is sensitive to all types of preceding consonants, whether they are pronounced (C + H) or not (LC + H). This result is relevant in the debate on French liaison where it was claimed that (some) LCs are epenthetic, that is absent from phonological computation when unpronounced: this view is challenged by the experimental evidence. On the analytic side, the article argues that all glottal stops that occur stand in Strong Position, i.e. word-initially or after a consonant {#,C}__ (Ségéral, Philippe & Tobias Scheer. 2001. La Coda-Miroir. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 96. 107–152). The word-initial position is in fact domain-initial, and it is a long standing observation in the literature that H sets off its word into a separate domain. Thus even glottal stops in V + H (tu hoches) that appear to occur in intervocalic position may in fact be domain-initial V + [H]. The question then is what kind of domain could be responsible for the (rare) presence of glottal stops in V + V (tu aimes): such a domain V + [V] cannot stem from H, nor can it be of morpho-syntactic origin. It is argued that these domains are production planning domains in the sense of Wagner (2012. Locality in phonology and production planning. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics 22. 1–18 and following). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on generalisations drawn from the author's historical analysis of a sample of some five thousand words, which reflect more than two hundred lexical items from up to sixty-six Central Chadic languages and language varieties. The paper provides illustrative examples from present-day languages with explicit diachronic analyses of the evolution of their synchronic segmental and 'prosodic' suprasegmental structures. Four typologically characteristic prosodies (i.e., palatalisation, labialisation, nasalisation, glottalisation) operate across words, which are – in synchronic perspective – mostly monomorphemic, while in diachronic perspective they are mostly polymorphemic. The paper shows that, and how the four reconstructed prosodies lead to the diachronic emergence of innovative phonemes in the modern languages, which were not part of the segmental phonological inventories of the common proto-language. This empirical fact poses considerable challenges to the application of the well-established 'comparative method' as originally developed by the Neogrammarian school of historical linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been widely accepted that developmental dyslexia (DD) exhibits deficits in reading and spelling. However, the role of phonology and semantics in reading and spelling in dyslexia has not been systematically investigated. In Experiment 1, 45 Chinese children with DD and 43 age-matched controls read two tests with Chinese characters. One test controlled character's familiarity and regularity, and the other test controlled character's phonological consistency and semantic transparency. In Experiment 2, 43 Chinese children with DD and 41 controls spelled a sublist of characters in the two tests in Experiment 1. Our results support two main facts. Firstly, typically developing Chinese children can utilize more lexical or semantic information in reading characters when phonetic regularity or consistency in characters are absent, but Chinese children with DD cannot, indicating an impairment in the division of labor between phonology and semantics in reading in Chinese DD. Secondly, the division of labor between phonology and semantics in spelling have different patterns in Chinese DD compared with controls. Controls utilize semantics as a compensation for the absence of phonetic regularity or consistency when spelling characters, while children with DD do not, indicating an impairment in the division of labor between phonology and semantics in spelling in Chinese DD. The research supports the triangle model and provides empirical evidence for the division of labor between phonology and semantics in reading and spelling in Chinese children with and without reading disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to experimentally capture the semantic, syntactic, and phonological properties of recursive compounds in English. We asked 22 native speakers of English to judge the semantic, syntactic, and phonological properties of 20 recursive compounds that are inherently ambiguous in interpretation (e.g., university entrance exam). We found variations among the participants in each of these three basic aspects. For semantic interpretation, there was a tendency among the participants to prefer left-branching interpretation ('an exam for university entrance') over right-branching interpretation ('an entrance exam in a university'). Using a lexical integrity effect for the syntactic tests, it was found that certain recursive compounds allow for coordination inside. Phonologically, speaker variation was observed in whether and how recursive compounds were pronounced, with 16 participants obeying the Lexical Category Prominence Rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In laryngeal realism (LR), laryngeal specification of stops is explained by direct maps of cues (e.g. VOT) onto privative phonological laryngeal features [voice] or [spread glottis]. Phonetic realization of the segments and speakers' 'control' (e.g. the degree of intervocalic voicing and speech rate manipulation effects on VOT duration) are used as diagnostics of phonological specification. Similar to some Arabic vernacular dialects (e.g. Qatari Arabic), Khuzestani Arabic in Iran presents a case where three voiced stops /b d ɡ/ are in contrast with voiceless stops /p t k/, but two voiceless guttural plosives /tˁ q/ have no voiced homorganic counterparts. In this paper we examine the phonetic realization of voicing in these stops at word-initial and intervocalic position, as well as the effects of speech rate manipulation on VOT and closure voicing. The data came from 12 native speakers recorded in Khorramshahr, Iran. Our findings suggest an over-specified voicing system in this Arabic variety. We found that voiced /b d ɡ/ were produced with voicing lead in initial position and complete closure voicing word medially, voiceless /p t k/ had long lag VOT, while guttural /tˁ q/ had short lag VOT. Speech rate manipulation revealed that only duration of (pre)voicing and duration of aspiration increased in slower speech. Also, f0, F1, and F2 were measured at vowel onset to evaluate the glottal state in production of stops. The results support the predictions of LR that voiced stops are specified by [voice], voiceless stops are [sg], while gutturals lack underlying specification for voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During language comprehension, the processing of each incoming word is facilitated in proportion to its predictability. Here, we asked whether anticipated upcoming linguistic information is actually pre-activated before new bottom-up input becomes available, and if so, whether this pre-activation is limited to the level of semantic features, or whether extends to representations of individual word-forms (orthography/phonology). We carried out Representational Similarity Analysis on EEG data while participants read highly constraining sentences. Prior to the onset of the expected target words, sentence pairs predicting semantically related words (financial "bank" – "loan") and form-related words (financial "bank" – river "bank") produced more similar neural patterns than pairs predicting unrelated words ("bank" – "lesson"). This provides direct neural evidence for item-specific semantic and form predictive pre-activation. Moreover, the semantic pre-activation effect preceded the form pre-activation effect, suggesting that top-down pre-activation is propagated from higher to lower levels of the linguistic hierarchy over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key assumption of some leading memory theories is that information about the relative order of events is automatically encoded whenever memories are formed and automatically retrieved whenever events are remembered. This information is often used to guide memory search: Remembering one event tends to trigger the retrieval of other events previously experienced nearby in time (temporal contiguity effect). The retrieved context framework attributes this temporal contiguity effect to automatic encoding and retrieval processes, predicting temporal contiguity even in incidental encoding and implicit retrieval. There is strong evidence of temporal contiguity following incidental encoding, but does the prediction hold for implicit retrieval? In this experiment, we tested the framework's predictions for recall and repetition priming. Across 30 trials, undergraduates ( n = 603 ) read a series of words aloud as they appeared onscreen. In each trial, two words were repeated (cue and target), initially separated by |lag | = 1, 2, or 5. On their second presentation, the cue word was presented first, immediately followed by the target word. We found a strong temporal contiguity effect in a surprise free recall test, replicating previous work with explicit retrieval. For implicit retrieval, we compared repetition priming (how quickly subjects began reading a word on its first versus second presentation) for cue and target words. Repeating a cue word enhanced repetition priming for its associated target word, and this effect varied with the initial lag between the cue and target. These results support theories that assume temporal information is encoded and retrieved automatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the comparison constructions in two Northern Talyshi varieties: in Anbarāni, used in the Islamic Republic of Iran; and the Northern Talyshi dialects spoken in the Republic of Azerbaijan. These constructions have been poorly studied in previous research dealing with this North-western Iranian language and this article aims to fill that gap. In contrast with a number of Western Iranian languages, Northern Talyshi (and the Talyshi language in general) does not have special morphological markers for expressing the degrees of comparison. The comparative grades are marked syntactically using various adpositions and function words. Having long been under the influence of neighbouring languages such as Persian and Azerbaijani, both Anbarāni and the Talyshi dialects spoken in the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan have been affected by these languages at some level in the ways to make comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to distinguish the degree of sharing of representations between different modalities by investigating whether a word encountering experience in one modality impacts word processing in another modality. In three experiments, participants experienced some words frequently in the auditory modality (Experiment 1, sample size 30, mean age 23.4, 56.7% female, all participants were native Chinese speakers) or visual modality (Experiment 2, sample size 30, mean age 22.4 years, 63.3% female, all participants were native Chinese speakers) in the training session, and were tested whether the word encountering experience impacts the results of Chinese word segmentation in the visual modality in the test session. In Experiment 3 (sample size 30, mean age 24.6 years, 76.7% female, all participants were native Chinese speakers), we used a within-subjects design, in which each participant received both auditory and visual training tasks. The results of the three experiments showed that encountering a word frequently in a short period of time in the auditory modality or visual modality can affect word segmentation in Chinese reading, with a recently experienced word being more likely to be segmented as a word. This effect was long-lasting, as it could still be observed after 7 days. The results suggest that the effect of a word encountering experience in listening can be transferred to reading. Thus, word encountering experiences should be stored at a location in the mind that is used for both listening and reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading‐while‐listening (RWL) has been suggested to facilitate reading comprehension by establishing letter‐to‐sound correspondences in the word recognition process. However, previous findings are inconsistent regarding the effect of RWL on foreign language (L2) reading comprehension. To understand why such inconsistency occurs, the moderating role of L2 orthographic characteristics in the effects of RWL on L2 propositional comprehension was examined. The orthographic characteristics of a language are of particular relevance as languages differ in the time course and the degree to which visual and phonological coding strategies are involved in word recognition. L1 Korean (alphabetic, shallow orthography) intermediate undergraduate learners of Chinese (nonalphabetic), English (alphabetic, deep orthography), and Spanish (alphabetic, shallow orthography) read and read‐while‐listened to authentic reading texts in their target language, and solved a set of written, untimed multiple‐choice questions to test their propositional comprehension. Results indicated that learners of an L2 with a larger distance (i.e., Chinese) from the L1 benefitted more from RWL, indicating that L2 orthographic characteristics interacted with input modality. Pedagogical implications for the use of RWL are discussed coupled with qualitative findings of students' perceptions. The Challenge: The instructional practice of reading‐while‐listening (RWL) has been encouraged with a belief in its efficacy to promote L2 reading comprehension but previous research rendered mixed findings. How should then RWL be used? To understand why such inconsistency occurs and guide ways to use RWL in a more nuanced way, the present study deconstructs the nature of RWL by means of examining the moderating role of the cross‐linguistic orthographic distance between learners' L1 and L2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing body of evidence suggests that phonological processes exhibit both categorical and gradient effects. This study investigates categorical and gradient effects observed in /w/-deletion in Seoul Korean and how the patterns differ by context. Using ultrasound and a side-view camera, midsagittal images of the tongue and lip protrusion of four participants were recorded. The speakers participated in the task of explaining the semantic differences between 18 words of CV and CwV sequence (e.g. tweji ‘pig’ vs. teji ‘earth’). Optical Flow Analysis was used to quantify the magnitude of lip and tongue movement. Results show that different patterns of categorical and gradient effects of /w/-deletion are observed by context. When /w/ is preceded by a bilabial, /w/ tends to delete categorically, while both categorical deletion and gradient reduction appear to occur when /w/ is preceded by an alveolar or a velar. I argue that the categorical and gradient effects of a related phonological process can be present simultaneously, which can be accounted for by diachronic development of sound patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Middle Ages, a new verb class was formed within the Catalan 2nd conjugation, characterized by the presence of a velar augment (/g/ or /sk/) in the L-pattern (first-person present indicative and present subjunctive) and PYTA (preterite, old conditional and imperfect subjunctive). In this paper, we study three verbs that avoided, totally or partially, the analogical velarization undergone by most 2nd conjugation verbs: haver 'to have', ser 'to be', and voler 'to want'. Based on a corpus of Catalan works ranging from the 13th to the 19th century, we test the extent to which the L- and PYTA-patterns of these three verbs are psychologically real for speakers. The results confirm what some authors have already observed for other languages, pointing out that the high frequency of these specific verbs or the need for phonological congruence could inhibit the morphomic pattern or even block analogical levelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the influence of induced mood on the phonological encoding involved in Chinese spoken word production with a picture-word inference task while concurrently recorded electrophysiological signals. In the experiment, young and older participants watched videos for inducing positive, negative, or neutral mood, and then they were instructed to name target picture while ignoring phonologically related or unrelated distractor words. A phonological facilitation effect was observed in young adults but not in older adults, suggesting an age-related decline of phonological encoding. Both groups showed an inhibition effect in negative mood but not in positive mood, suggesting that speakers have different processing styles in different moods. ERP data revealed a phonological effect around the time window of 250-- 350ms in both groups. Meanwhile, young adults showed a phonological effect around 350--450ms in negative mood and positive mood which may reflect self-monitoring in speech production. We suggest that the former effect may reflect phonological encoding while the latter reflects self-monitoring of internal syllables or phonemes. Furthermore, induced-moods influence the phonological effect in older and young adults differently. Behavioral and ERP results provide consistent evidence for the aging decline of phonological encoding in spoken word production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document serves as an introduction to a special issue of the journal "Languages" that focuses on the relationship between syntax and prosody in various languages. The articles included in the issue explore topics such as the mapping mechanisms between syntax and prosody, the existence of recursion in prosodic structure, and the role of different prosodic constituents in recursive structures. The authors present different perspectives and controversies on these topics, providing a comprehensive overview of current research in the field. The document highlights the need for more data and detailed proposals to advance our understanding of the syntax-prosody interface. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Developmental dyslexia is characterized by reading and writing deficits that persist into adulthood. Dyslexia is strongly associated with academic underachievement, as well as impulsive, compulsive, and criminal behaviors. The aims of this study were to investigate impulsive or compulsive reading comprehension, analyzing the differences in reading errors between two distinct groups —one with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) and another with Obsessive–Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) and examine their correlation with criminal behavior within a prison population. Methods: We gathered data from 194 participants: 81 with ASPD and 113 with OCPD from a prison center. Participants took part in interviews to gather data on demographic, criminal, and behavioral data. Additionally, the participants underwent various assessments, including the International Examination for Personality Disorders; Symptom Inventory, and Battery for the Assessment of Reading Processes in Secondary and High School – Revised. Results: Our analysis revealed differences in reading skills between the ASPD and OCPD groups. Specifically, the OCPD group showed poorer performance on lexical selection, semantic categorization, grammar structures, grammatical judgements, and expository comprehension when compared with the ASPD group. Conversely, the OCPD group obtained higher scores on narrative comprehension relative to the ASPD group. Conclusions: The OCPD group showed slow lexical-phonological coding and phonological activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts the processing of primary stress in Brazilian Portuguese pseudowords based on the Cascade Dual Route Model (Coltheart; Rastle, 1994; Rastle; Coltheart, 2000). The Model postulates the existence of two processing routes depending on the type of word: familiar real words are processed via the lexical route and unfamiliar real words and pseudowords are processed via the non-lexical route. To verify whether stress in Portuguese can be analyzed from this perspective, two experimental studies were carried out to evaluate whether speakers, when reading a pseudoword, apply the general rule (Bisol’s Metric Hypothesis, 1994) through the activation of the lexical route; or if they make use of lexical information, such as phonological similarity with a real word, morphological information and final segments, through the activation of the non-lexical route. Experiment 1 evaluated phonological similarity and experiment 2 evaluated morphological derivational patterns, both in relation to the general rule. The results indicate that pseudowords retrieve lexical, segmental and morphological information when processed, calling into question processing based solely on the existence of two routes guided by the type of word. There is evidence that the activation of the stress pattern can occur through different mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This study reviews the reduction of disyllabic Proto-Vietic words to monosyllabic Vietnamese words and the development of Vietnamese voiced fricative onsets. Thompson (1976:1131-1133) in reconstructing Proto-Viet-Muong, and later Ferlus (1982 & 1992) based on his Proto-Vietic reconstructions, hypothesized the spirantization of stops *p/t/c/k and *b/d/j/g in previous intervocalic positions and the loss of presyllables, resulting in Vietnamese onsets 'v' [v], 'd' [z] (from hypothesized Middle Vietnamese *ð), 'gi' [z] (from hypothesized Middle Vietnamese *Ʒ), and 'g/gh' [Ɣ] in monosyllabic words.3 For this study, relevant Proto-Vietic and Old Chinese lexical reconstructions were compared, and the phonological data partially supports this claim while revealing a more complex picture. First, the changes involve classes of sounds rather than specific consonants (e.g., Vietic labial material (excluding nasals or implosives) in intervocalic position becomes Vietnamese ' v' [v] in onset position). Also, while this tendency is dominant in available data, some exceptions exist: (a) reconstructed disyllabic words for which modern Vietnamese items lack lenited onsets and (b) reconstructed monosyllabic words for which Vietnamese items have voiced fricative onsets, but without apparent conditioning factors. Evidence shows these features in modern Vietnamese developed many centuries later than in Sinitic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following essay starts with a poem produced by ChatGPT after being prompted to "write a poem using combinations of words not found anywhere on the Internet as far as your data knows." The poem includes the word "amorphigrist," which inspired a second prompt stating, "Now write a long academic styled essay about ontology as the amorphigrist." The essay was then edited and revised by this author to add philosophical background and complexity. Further prompts such as "Add a paragraph where the duality between thought and material encounters is put into conversation with the duality between permanence and change" were given. What results is a human-nonhuman philosophy, an Amorphigrist Ontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Replacive overwriting by morphological tone has been used as major evidence for cyclic construction approaches to phonology (Hyman 2013 , Inkelas 2018 , Rolle 2018). In this article, I show that this argument is unwarranted: tonal overwriting can be derived by simple concatenation of tonal morphemes, general phonological constraints, and minimal access to morphological information—in Autosegmental Colored Containment Theory. In detailed analyses, I demonstrate that neither morpheme-specific phonology nor cyclicity is necessary to capture tonal overwriting, whereas cyclic analyses actually make wrong predictions on possible overwriting patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Working memory is considered to be essential for higher-level cognition and phonological encoding. The N-back task is a popular test for evaluating working memory capacity. Phonological working memory which is involved in temporary storage and manipulation of information plays an important role in speech fluency. Previous investigations have revealed a reduced phonological working memory in English-speaking adults with stuttering (AWS). No studies to date have explored the role of phonological memory in Kannada-speaking AWS. The present study aimed to compare the working memory performance in auditory two back tasks between AWS and adults with no stuttering (AWNS). Methods: Participants included were 15 AWS (14 males and 1 female) and 16 AWNS (8 males and 8 females). The present study comprised of two tasks, namely auditory 2 back task for meaningful words (task 1) and auditory 2 back for nonwords (task 2). The participants performed two back tasks for the meaningful words and nonwords and were instructed to say "yes" whenever the same stimulus was heard 2 stimulus back and "no" for the different stimulus. Every accurate response received a score of 1, while an incorrect or no response received a score of 0. Results: The results revealed that AWS performed significantly poorer than AWNS in both tasks 1 and 2, which indicate that AWS has impaired working memory skills. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated poorer performance of stutterers in auditory n-back test of phonological working memory. This shows that individuals with stuttering having an inadequate phonological working memory when compared to that of their counterparts. This could be due to their inaccurate phonological representations or attentional deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case marking alignment has been assumed to reflect principles of optimization: dedicated case marking is limited to arguments more in need of disambiguation, and semantically or pragmatically similar arguments are encoded by the same case forms. This view is based on the synchronic properties of the relevant alignment patterns and the cross-linguistic rarity of other logically possible ones, not diachronic phenomena involved in their emergence or cross-linguistic distribution. This paper explores several developmental processes that recurrently give rise to accusative, ergative, and active case marking alignment cross-linguistically, including reanalysis of argument structure, the development of case forms through grammaticalization or phonological reduction, and the extension of an existing case form to novel contexts. These processes appear to be driven by inherent or contextual properties of particular source constructions, independent of principles of optimization in the use of case marking. The synchronic properties of the resulting alignment patterns cannot be taken as evidence for such principles either, because they are due to inheritance (a case form inherits the distribution of particular source elements or developmental processes, which is unrelated to the assumed optimization principles) or residue (a case form becomes restricted to particular arguments as a new form develops for the other arguments, also independently of these principles). These facts call for a source-oriented approach to case marking alignment and recurrent cross-linguistic patterns in general, one where the focus shifts from the synchronic properties of individual patterns to unraveling the effects of several different diachronic phenomena that give rise to individual patterns and shape their cross-linguistic distribution over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article has two aims: (1) to survey the main developments of labial fricatives in the history of Frisian; (2) to explain the varied developments of the voiced labial fricative more effectively based on the evidence Old Frisian spellings and reflexes in Modern Frisian dialects. As to the latter aim, it is argued that the currently accepted structural phonological explanation for the emergence of a systematic voicing alternation /f ~ v/ in early Old Frisian is too rigid. In agreement with Theodor Siebs, variable retention and lenition of the voiced bilabial fricative [ β ] presents another way of accounting for many of the Old Frisian spellings and Modern Frisian dialectal forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to investigate how syllables and lexical tones are processed in Cantonese speech production using the picture-word interference task with concurrent recording of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Cantonese-speaking participants were asked to name aloud individually presented pictures and ignore an accompanying auditory word distractor. The target and distractor either shared the same word-initial syllable with the same tone (Tonal-Syllable related), the same word-initial syllable without the same tone (Atonal-Syllable related), the same tone only (Tone alone related), or were phonologically unrelated. Participants' naming responses were faster, relative to an unrelated control, when the target and distractor shared the same tonal- or atonal-syllable but null effect was found in the Tone alone related condition. The mean ERP amplitudes (per each 100-ms time window) were subjected to stimulus-locked (i.e., time-locked to stimulus onset) and response-locked (i.e., time-locked to response onset) analyses. Significant differences between related and unrelated ERP waves were similarly observed in both Tonal-Syllable related and Atonal-Syllable related conditions in the time window of 400–500 ms post-stimulus. However, distinct ERP effects were observed in these two phonological conditions within the 500-ms pre-response period. In addition, null effects were found in the Tone alone related condition in both stimulus-locked and response-locked analyses. These results suggest that in Cantonese spoken word production, the atonal syllable of the target is retrieved first and then associated with the target lexical tone, consistent with the view that tone has an important role to play at a late stage of phonological encoding in tonal language production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical learning (SL) plays a key role in literacy acquisition. Studies have increasingly revealed the influence of distributional statistical properties of words on visual word processing, including the effects of word frequency (lexical level) and mappings between orthography, phonology, and semantics (sub-lexical level). However, there has been scant evidence to directly confirm that the statistical properties contained in print can be directly characterized by neural activities. Using time-resolved representational similarity analysis (RSA), the present study examined neural representations of different types of statistical properties in visual word processing. From the perspective of predictive coding, an equal probability sequence with low built-in prediction precision and three oddball sequences with high built-in prediction precision were designed with consistent and three types of inconsistent (orthographically inconsistent, orthography-to-phonology inconsistent, and orthography-to-semantics inconsistent) Chinese characters as visual stimuli. In the three oddball sequences, consistent characters were set as the standard stimuli (probability of occurrence p = 0.75) and three types of inconsistent characters were set as deviant stimuli (p = 0.25), respectively. In the equal probability sequence, the same consistent and inconsistent characters were presented randomly with identical occurrence probability (p = 0.25). Significant neural representation activities of word frequency were observed in the equal probability sequence. By contrast, neural representations of sub-lexical statistics only emerged in oddball sequences where short-term predictions were shaped. These findings reveal that the statistical properties learned from long-term print environment continues to play a role in current word processing mechanisms and these mechanisms can be modulated by short-term predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is a contrastive study which shows the scientific description of the syllable as a phonological unit in English and Arabic. One of the main problems in learning a foreign language is developing a unique set of transfer-related first language behaviours. So, the current study attempts to: 1. give an overview of the syllable in Phonology as a branch of linguistics, 2. define the syllable in English and Arabic, 3. state the most prominent theories on which the syllable in English and Arabic is based, and 4. show the structures and functions of the syllable in English and Arabic. In light of comparisons between both English and Arabic languages in terms of similarities and differences, this kind of contrastive analysis aids in the prediction of the characteristics that would indicate difficulty or ease in learning English. In terms of such comparisons between both aforementioned languages, the researchers draw conclusions about all the issues mentioned above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qaqet (Glottocode qaqe1238; ISO 639-3: byx) is a Papuan (i.e. non-Austronesian) Baining language that is spoken by an estimated 15,000 people in Papua New Guinea's East New Britain Province. Figure 1 shows a map of where Qaqet and the four other known Baining languages (Mali, Kairak (also spelt Qairaq – see map), Simbali and Ura) are spoken (see Stebbins, Evans & Terrill 2017 for an overview of Baining; for phonological descriptions, see Stanton 2007 on Ura, and Stebbins 2011 on Mali). The wider affiliations of the Baining languages are unknown. They share typological features with other East Papuan languages (i.e. the non-Austronesian languages of Island Melanesia), but there is no historical-comparative evidence to establish genealogical relationships. In terms of phonology, there are no structures shared across all of East Papuan, but Baining languages have similarities to the East Papuan language Kuot spoken on neighbouring New Ireland (i.e. the intervocalic lenition of voiceless plosives; pitch movements at the right edge of intonation units). Furthermore, language contact is known to have taken place across the entire region, and Baining languages share typological features with Oceanic languages. This includes phonemic contrasts between voiceless and voiced plosives and between /r/ and /l/; as well as a number of morphosyntactic structures (e.g. a large inventory of definite and indefinite articles, AVO/SV constituent order, prepositions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vowel system of the dialect of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Ness, Lewis differs from that of other dialects in several important ways. In particular, several vowels display patterns of allophony that have not been investigated instrumentally and, in some cases, have not been reported before for Scottish Gaelic. This paper documents the Ness system in detail, focusing in particular on the tense–lax opposition in /i e/ and retraction of /a(ː)/ next to velarised consonants. The results of a traditional linguistic fieldwork study are presented first, followed by a detailed acoustic study of nine speakers. The acoustic reality of these allophonic patterns, reflected in F1 and F2 values, is verified statistically using LME modelling. Bimodality in the distribution of tokens in acoustic space, confirmed statistically with Hartigan's Dip Test, is taken as evidence for the existence of discrete phonological categories (Bermúdez-Otero & Trousdale 2011). It is found that speakers vary as to whether these allophonic oppositions are restricted to the phonetic grammar, or have undergone stabilisation and advanced into the categorical phonology (Bermúdez-Otero 2007, 2015). It is observed that laxing of /i e/ in Ness Gaelic occurs in exactly those contexts where there is a direct transition between the vowel and a following supra-glottal consonant. It is therefore proposed that this tense–lax opposition is grounded in conflicting strategies of contrast enhancement, whereby laxing increases the perceptual distinctiveness of a following consonant by allowing for more distinctive formant transitions, at the expense of the distinctiveness of the vowel itself (Storme 2019). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the extent to which the changing morphological and phonological properties of the -ile suffix illuminates change in the genetic language relationships among four languages in the Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor. Scholarly works indicate that based on lexical similarity, Nyiha, Malila, Nyakyusa and Ndali are so closely related genetically that one may regard these pairs of languages as dialects and not distinct languages. Beyond lexical similarity, this article contributes to the existing knowledge on genetic classification by comparing changes in the -ile suffix in Nyiha, Malila, Nyakyusa and Ndali. Data collection techniques involved a review of written texts, narrative stories and interviews. The analysis in this article considered two major aspects, namely the Nyiha-Malila and Nyakyusa-Ndali genetic relationships. The findings indicate that although Nyiha and Malila demonstrate striking lexical similarity, we have noted significant differences between the two languages on the change involving the -ile suffix. Also, Nyakyusa and Ndali demonstrate differences caused by the change involving the -ile suffix. Therefore, this article concludes that the morphological and phonological evolution of the -ile suffix illuminates change in the genetic relationship of Nyakyusa, Ndali, Nyiha and Malila. The languages develop distinctive features which made them depart from their Proto-Bantu, and among themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature of contact linguistics, phonology is known as the most affected by the contact. Long-standing situation and intense contact between Indonesian and Arabic and Dutch have led to extensive borrowed words yielding phonological change to accomodate foreign sounds that Indonesian inventory did not have. This article looks at the phonological change in Arabic and Dutch loanwords. Consonants from Arabic and Dutch are adapted into the closest consonants in Indonesian phonology while the consonant clusters are repaired by a vowel insertion. This study employed the descriptive qualitative method. The data are mainly from two dictionaries of Indonesian loanwords, Arabic Loanwords in Indonesian by Jones (1978) and Loanwords in Indonesian and Malay by Jones (2007). I also use my intuition as a native speaker of Indonesian to justify the lexicon items. The result of the analysis shows that there are four loan phonemes (/f/,/z/,/ʃ/, and/x/) imported from Arabic and and phoneme/f/from Dutch Dutch in the Indonesian phonological system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowing a language involves knowing a large number of idiosyncratic units such as individual words and collocations which must be learned from the input. This study explores the role of implicit and explicit memory, as well as language experience, and specifically print exposure, with regard to adult native English speakers' knowledge of vocabulary and collocations. Consistent with prior research, our findings reveal a strong correlation between print exposure and performance on both language tasks. However, contrary to predictions, there were no significant effects of either implicit or explicit memory on either task. We argue that this is most likely due to the fact that language learning relies primarily on memory for associations between form and meaning and between words rather than memory sequences of meaningless phonological forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes the Yong-deng dialect as a case study to investigate the phenomenon of tonal merging observed in Northwest Chinese dialects. It begins by examining the various monosyllabic tone patterns of the Yong-deng dialect, then supplements this with a review of the relevant literature, comparisons with the tone patterns of the neighbouring dialects, and an analysis of its tone sandhi in disyllabic and trisyllabic combinations. Each step of the dialect's tonal variation is scrutinised, allowing for the identification of pertinent phonetic biases and the derivation of associated phonological rules. The central argument advanced here is that both synchronic tonal variation and diachronic tone change are governed by specific phonological rules. Despite the ostensibly variable phonetic manifestations, these rules can enable the prediction of the trajectory of tone change. The paper contributes to the understanding of tone merger and highlights its systemic and rule-bound nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the phonological tendency of Ancient Greek to anticipate word-internal aspiration to a word-initial segment (vowel, voiceless stop, or /w/). Special attention is paid to the relationship of this tendency with hiatus resolution. A close look at the philological data shows that several processes of h-anticipation should be distinguished: in particular, various kinds of perceptually-driven leftward migration of aspiration (sporadically lexicalized) must be kept apart from a later synchronic rule that moved h to the new onset when two syllabic nuclei coalesced. The hypothesis that the latter phenomenon could accompany not only vowel coalescence but other types of hiatus resolution as well, including elision and glide-formation, may provide explanation for some hitherto obscure cases. The results of this study also have implications for the theoretical discussion of sporadicity in sound change, as they could provide further evidence for the controversial category of phonetically-conditioned sound change with probabilistic conditioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is a key human faculty for communication and interaction that provides invaluable insight into the human mind. Previous work has dissected different linguistic operations, but the large-scale brain networks involved in language processing are still not fully uncovered. Particularly, little is known about the subdomain-specific engagement of brain areas during semantic, syntactic, phonological, and prosodic processing and the role of subcortical and cerebellar areas. Here, we present the largest coordinate-based meta-analysis of language processing including 403 experiments. Overall, language processing primarily engaged bilateral fronto-temporal cortices, with the highest activation likelihood in the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Whereas we could not detect any syntax-specific regions, semantics specifically engaged left posterior temporal areas (left fusiform and occipitotemporal cortex) and the left frontal pole. Phonology showed highest subdomain-specificity in bilateral auditory and left postcentral regions, whereas prosody engaged specifically the right amygdala and the right IFG. Across all subdomains and modalities, we found strong bilateral subcortical and cerebellar contributions. Especially the right cerebellum was engaged during various processes, including speech production, visual, and phonological tasks. Collectively, our results emphasize consistent recruitment and high functional modularity for general language processing in bilateral domain-specific (temporo-frontal) and domain-general (medial frontal/anterior cingulate cortex) regions but also a high specialization of different subareas for different linguistic subdomains. Our findings refine current neurobiological models of language by adding novel insight into the general sensitivity of the language network and subdomain-specific functions of different brain areas and highlighting the role of subcortical and cerebellar regions for different language operations. Public Significance Statement: Language is a key capacity for human communication. Here, we present the largest meta-analysis of 403 neuroimaging experiments on language production and comprehension, including data from 7,112 participants. We provide novel insight into brain areas contributing to different specific linguistic subdomains and highlight the role of subcortical and cerebellar areas for language processing in general and for specific subdomain-related processes. The cerebellum is often neglected in the study of language and should be included in future models on the neurobiology of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study employing comparative analysis method uncovered the similarities and differences of Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, and Bahasa Melayu languages in terms of orthographic, phonological and semantic features. The words in Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia, and Bahasa Melayu languages were used in this study. The findings revealed that Tagalog orthography is a bit complex to understand for it contains more elements than the others. It possesses extra letters that are not present in the other two languages. Further, in terms of phonological features, the Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu languages have an additional/ə/sound, one will really notice how Tagalog pronunciation is different from the other two languages. This is why when they speak, there is a distinct difference in the stressing of the words because/ə/are not stressed and are unaspirated. In addition, in terms of semantic features, affixation and reduplication play important roles. While all the three languages make use of prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes, they vary in the morphemes that they use. These morphemes can change the lexical category of the words and are subject to a set of rules unique to each language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Despite a history of research in translation-equivalent priming (either cognate or noncognate and phonological priming with cross-script languages), research with Korean–English bilinguals is very scarce. In this study, we report two masked-priming lexical decision tasks in both directions with Korean–English unbalanced bilinguals, investigating whether cross-language activation occurs depending on different types of cognate, noncognate, and homophone prime–target pairs, the degree of phonological similarity between prime and target, and how L2 proficiency influences each type of priming. Methodology: Two experiments were conducted using a masked translation priming paradigm with unbalanced Korean–English bilinguals: Experiment 1 in the L2–L1 direction and Experiment 2 in the L1–L2 direction. Each experiment used a total of 96 prime–target pairs of cognates, noncognates, and homophones, and 60 subjects for each experiment were asked to judge whether the items were real words or not in a lexical decision task. Data and analysis: Linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate the effects of priming in each condition, the effect of phonological similarity on cognate translation priming, and L2 proficiency. Findings/conclusions: Our results showed that both cognate translation priming and noncognate translation priming arose in the L1–L2 direction, but the phonological priming was not found. In the L2–L1 direction, on the contrary, cognate translation priming and phonological priming effects were observed, but not the noncognate translation priming. Also, the degree of phonological similarity influenced the magnitude of cognate translation priming effects in both directions with a different pattern, supporting for the phonological overlap account between different-script languages. The current study is compatible with the language nonselective activation view and suggests the shared phonological representations even between different-script languages. The results are discussed within several current bilingual lexical processing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is the first to report chronometric evidence on Tongan language production. It has been speculated that the mora plays an important role during Tongan phonological encoding. A mora follows the (C)V form, so /a/ and /ka/ (but not /k/) denote a mora in Tongan. Using a picture–word naming paradigm, Tongan native speakers named pictures containing superimposed non-word distractors. This task has been used before in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese to investigate the initially selected unit during phonological encoding (IPU). Compared with control distractors, both onset and mora overlapping distractors resulted in faster naming latencies. Several alternative explanations for the pattern of results—proficiency in English, knowledge of Latin script, and downstream effects—are discussed. However, we conclude that Tongan phonological encoding likely natively uses the phoneme, and not the mora, as the IPU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article follows the situations involving predictability of phonological alternations, considering their large number. The difficulty of delimiting a radical (variable) common to forms from the same paradigm, the possibility of several ways of segmentation in the case of some nouns, the existence of morphological allomorphs lead to a complex system of alternations. Linguistic material is organized according to the morphonological conditioning that is the basis of the distribution in various contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of research seeking to explore how form affects lexical processing in bilinguals has suggested that orthographically similar translations (e.g., English-Portuguese "paper-papel") are responded to more quickly and accurately than words with little to no overlap (e.g., English-Portuguese "house-casa"). One of the most prominent algorithms to estimate orthographic similarity, the normalized Levenshtein distance (NLD), returns an index of the proportion of identical characters of two strings, and is an efficient and invaluable tool for the selection, manipulation, and control of verbal stimuli. Notwithstanding its many advantages for second-language research, the absence of a comparable measure for phonology has resulted in the adoption of different strategies to assess the degree of interlanguage phonological similarity across the literature, with profound implications for the interpretation of results on the relative role of orthographic and phonological similarity in bilingual lexical access. In the present work, we introduce PHOR-in-One, a multilingual lexical database with a set of phonological and orthographic NLD estimates for 6160 translation equivalents in American and British English, European Portuguese, German and Spanish in a total of 30,800 words. We also propose a new measure of phonographic NLD, a pooled index of orthographic and phonological similarity, particularly useful for researchers interested in controlling for and/or manipulating both estimates at once. PHOR-in-One includes a comprehensive characterization of its lexical entries, namely Part-of-Speech-dependent and independent frequency counts, number of letters and phonemes, and phonetic transcription. PHOR-in-One is thus a valuable tool to support bilingual and multilingual research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]