Natural Phonology

The aim of the study was to analyze the acquisition of nine initial sC clusters /sp-, st-, sk-, sm-, sn-, sl-, sr-, sʋ-, sj-/ in typically developing Croatian children. Data collection included 30 participants (15 boys and 15 girls) aged between 26 and 48 months (mean: 38 months) in a picture naming task. The results were analyzed for percentage of correct responses and patterns of errors. As a group, /s/+NASAL clusters were produced most correctly (71%), followed by /s/+STOP (66%), with cluster reduction to the second member as the most frequent error. Retention of the first member, i.e. /s/, was the most frequent error in /s/+APPROXIMANT clusters /sʋ-/, /sj-/ and /sl-/, with the average of 57% correct responses across the three clusters. The most difficult was the /sr-/ cluster (24% correct), with substitution of /r/ with another sound being the most frequent error.

An experiment with Polish participants was run to shed light on 'intersegmental cohesion hierarchy', with special regard to CC clusters. This hierarchy regulates the strength of the segments' mutual attraction, obeying both universal and language-specific tendencies. The results show that Polish speakers, as contrasted to Italian ones, exhibit a finer cohesion scale due to the richer phonotactics to which they are attuned. In the authors' approach, syllabic structure is assumed to emerge as an epiphenomenon from this hierarchy.

The paper reports on an investigation of wordmedial consonant clusters in English. Medial clusters are further subdivided into phonotactic on es, i.e. intramorphemic, and morphonotactic ones, which are morphologically complex – arising as a result of derivation or compounding. In this study we concentrate on morphonotactic clusters. We put forward the following hypothesis: since compounds may ultimately lose transparency and lexicalize, th medial clusters in compounds will tend to be relatively less marked than the medial clusters produced by derivation. In the latter, signalling a morphological boundary is a priority. In this approach, markedness is defined on the basis of the criteria of consonant description: manner and place of articulation (MoA and PoA) as well as the sonorant / obstruent distinction (S/O) between the neighbouring elements. The verification of this hypothesis has been conducted within the Beats & Binding phonotactics, which operates with the Net Auditory Distan...

This paper investigates the ways in which universal phonotactic constraints describing consonant clusters are reflected in early first language acquisition. I looked for frost appearances of clusters in children's speech. Data from a number of typologically different languages has been considered. The predictions as to which clusters were expected to appear in the young phonologies stemmed from universal phonotactic constraints. These constraints have the nature of preferences and were formulated within the phonotactic model of the beats-and-binding phonology, in the naturalist framework. A general tendency for cluster reduction in child language is shaped by such constraints. Thus, it is possible to predict the phonotactic behaviour of a language system in fIux, e.g. in L 1 acquisition (or in L2 acquisition, phonostylistics, aphasia). On the other hand, systems in flux belong to the areas of external evidence against which the model of phonotactics proposed in the paper may be verified.

An experiment with Polish participants was run to shed light on 'intersegmental cohesion hierarchy', with special regard to CC clusters. This hierarchy regulates the strength of the segments' mutual attraction, obeying both universal and language-specific tendencies. The results show that Polish speakers, as contrasted to Italian ones, exhibit a finer cohesion scale due to the richer phonotactics to which they are attuned. In the authors' approach, syllabic structure is assumed to emerge as an epiphenomenon from this hierarchy.

Ever since Jakobson (or, shall we say, Plato?) linguists have been searching for universals (eg [1]). Their views on the role of universals in language and linguistics have varied widely, though. In this session we want to concentrate on the question of the existence of ...

of the right-hand side of the relation 3., i.e. sondis (C 1 ,C 2)< sondis (C 2 ,V 2). 5.3.3.2. Graphic derivation of the left-hand side of the relation 3., i.e. sondis (V, C 1) ≥ sondis (C 1 ,C 2). 5.3.4. Cluster Space for doubles 5.3.5. Initial triple clusters 5.3.6. Final triple clusters 5.3.7. Medial triple clusters 5.3.8. Cluster Space for triples 5.4. Scopes of the phonotactic well-formedness conditions 5.5. On the potential of the presented model of phonotactics 5.6. Advantages of the presented model of phonotactics over Sonority Sequencing Principle PART II. INTERNAL LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE FOR THE MODEL CHAPTER SIX. LANGUAGE-SPECIFIC PHONOTACTICS 6.1. Polish 6.1.1. Generative phonotactics of Polish 6.1.2. Descriptive phonotactics of Polish 6.1.3. Polish phonotactics and the universal phonotactic preferences 6.2. English 6.2.1. Descriptive phonotactics of English 6.2.2. English phonotactics and the universal phonotactic preferences 6.3. German 6.3.1. Descriptive phonotactics of German 6.3.2. German phonotactics and the universal phonotactic preferences 6.4. Processes 'repairing' phonotactics

Phonotactics determines phonological conditions on the co-occurrence of sounds within words or syllables. Morphonotactics is a subcomponent of morphonology concerned with the co-occurrence of sounds at morphological boundaries. Due to the semiotic priority of morphology over phonology, morphonotactics allows us to explain the motivation for those consonant clusters that phonotactics has failed to account for. The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of universal phonotactic and morphonotactic preferences on the acquisition of consonant clusters in the process of second language acquisition. We hypothesize that phonotactically unmarked lexical clusters will be easier to learn and less susceptible to modifications than phonotactically marked ones. Phonotactic markedness will be measured according to the Net Auditory Distance Principle. As for the morphonotactic clusters, it is assumed that in spite of their phonotactically dispreferred status, second language learners will put some effort into their acquisition. The subjects in the study are Korean and Chinese learners of Polish.

The question of how (or even whether) speakers store speech sounds (segment-sized linguistic units) has been a contentious one for over a century. Since the concept of the phoneme was first introduced as a synchronic notion in the late nineteenth century, conflicting views have proliferated and contended with each other. Along with the mental target view of Baudouin, Sapir and Stampe, the distinctive feature view of Trubetzkoy and various flavors of generativeoriented phonology, including OT, a few new views have gained hold recently, incuding a much more concrete storage-heavy view termed 'usage-based' (Bybee et al.) and one based on exemplar theory (Pierrehumbert and others), as well as historically-based explanations such as Blevins. The issues raised by these competing theoretical standpoints differ along a number of dimensions related to how speech is stored, produced and perceived, and how those three issues relate to each other. Some of the dimensions include:

/gl/ were weaker. Experiment 2 tested speakers of American English, which also disallows initial /tl, dl/ but realizes stop-voicing differently than French or Hebrew, to examine possible contributions of language-specific phonetic settings. Their performance was similar to that of French listeners, though they had significantly greater difficulty with /dl-/gl/. The results support the proposal of language-specific phonotactic perceptual assimilation, with modest contributions from language-specific phonetic settings.

French listeners tend to hear illegal utterance-initial /tl/ and /dl/ clusters as /kl/ and /gl/, respectively, when speech is produced by French speakers [1, 5]. We reexamined this phenomenon, once called “phonotactic perceptual assimilation,” in a cross-linguistic design using Modern Hebrew. In Hebrew, virtually all the obstruent-liquid clusters are permissible, including /dl, tl/. French and Israeli listeners were tested on their discrimination performance for the /dl/-/gl/ and /tl/-/kl/ contrasts, using monosyllables such as /tla, kla/ produced by a native speaker of Hebrew. French listeners showed substantial difficulty at discriminating these contrasts –especially /tl/-/kl/– whereas Israeli listeners experienced a slight difficulty only for /tl/-/kl/. French listeners categorised as velar the initial consonant of the /tl/ items and, but much less often, that of the /dl/ items. Altogether then, the /tl/-to-/kl/ perceptual assimilation is largely language-specific. Yet, it might ...

Sound changes are changes in speakers' phonetic abilities The distinction in N. American English between the low labial vowel [0] of caught, dawn, hawk and the low non-labial vowel [a] of cot, Don, hock is an old one, going back to early English aw versus short o. But in dialects of Canada and various parts of the United States of America, the [0] is pronounced [a], and the two sets of words are no longer distinguished. This sound change [0] > [a] was a historical event, but it remains a synchronic constraint that characterizes the phonetic capacities of the speakers of the innovating dialect: without additional learning, they cannot perceive or pronounce the [0] of other speakers, and even if they learn to perceive it, they often continue to pronounce it as [a] (at least in unguarded moments) or as some other substitute, e.g. [0] or [09] or [oQ]. It is significant that children learning the conservative dialect also typically at first cannot perceive and pronounce [0]. When they learn to perceive it, they still use [0] or [0] or [09] or [oQ] until they learn also to pronounce it. Thus speakers of the conservative dialect acquire a phonetic ability that speakers of the innovating dialect do not. But some adult speakers of dialects with [0] in fact never learn to perceive it or to pronounce it without substitution. They are innovators, though their innovation lies in not doing something their fellow speakers do do, namely learn to perceive and pronounce [0]. And some speakers, having learned to hear and say [0] as children, may move to an innovative dialect area and, under peer influence, lose the ability to even to hear [0] as distinct from [a]. One such person, whose childhood distinction of [0] and [0] was well attested in a linguist'S diary, later forgot

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Linguists referring to 'fast speech' and to 'normal speech' often do not share the same definitions of the two terms. 'Fast speech' is normally intended as increase in speech tempo that affects the normal/slow norm, but it is also recognized that 'fast speech phenomena' occur in casual speech that is not necessarily rapid, and that 'casualness' of speech is a complex sociolinguistic notion the components of which are hard to isolate (see, for instance, Dressler, 1974, and Yanecek et ai, 1975, for a discussion of the correlation between decreased attention and phonological casualness, and other factors referred to in Dressler, 1975). It is not at all clear what 'normal speech' is either. It is usually identified with 'maximally distinct/differentiated speech', but as pointed out to me by Arnold Zwicky, this is probably not the case, since there are processes that apply to gi\'e 'careful' or 'emphatic' speech (as when the I in please is made syllabic). Zwicky believes that normal speech 'is related to whateyer leyel of representation (roughly the phonemic) figures in normal rhyming (hat and had will not count as rhymes, e\'en if they are pronounced the same, while stepped and slept will count as rhymes, even if they are pronounced differently, say without the t in slept), (personal communication). This paper does not attempt to tackle the problem in its entirety; it will only deal with the tempo aspect of fast speech and with the theoretical implications of increase in rate of speech. The reason for concentrating on tempo is that it can be isolated more easily than the various factors, social and other, inyolnd in casual speech. It will also be assumed that speech tempo is relative, i.e. that one man's normal rate of speech may be another man's fast speech tempo, and that although increase in speech tempo may sometimes result in increased attention and thus in retention of the oyeralllevel of formality ('-anecek et 01, 1975), the common tendency is for increased reduction and assimilation with the increase in the rate of articulation. Since the paper will deal with fast speech (as a function of speech tempo) [I) This is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented at the se,-enth meeting of the :-\orth Eastern Linguistic Society, held at Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 197 6. I wish to thank Joan Hooper, Charles Kisseberth, Robert Lees, James !\1cCawley, Blair Rudes and Arnold Z\\'ick~' for their useful comments on the earlier version.

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Este estudio combina desarrollos recientes de la tipología areal con información fonológica de 48 lenguas indígenas de Colombia. Como criterio esencial, emplea los tipos de alternancias sonoras, que permiten precisar qué fenómenos guardan una motivación fonética exclusiva y cuáles se ven restringidos por factores léxicos o gramaticales a pesar de conserven algún rastro de origen articulatorio, acústico o perceptual.

Díaz, C. (2022). Exploración sobre la pronunciación en el español hablado por indígenas inga, nasa yuwe y tikuna en Colombia: el caso de los sonidos róticos y sus procesos fonológicos asociados en el habla de entrevista. En A. Correa (Ed.), Estudios actuales de fonética y fonología del español de Colombia (pp. 13-47). Instituto Caro y Cuervo.

Naturalism in linguistics has a history of opposition: to abstractness, to generative linguistics, to formalist approaches. The present approach concentrates on a key feature of Natural Linguistics and Natural Phonology in particular, namely the empirical centrality of external evidence. A step further than traditional naturalism is taken, in replacing the Viennese schools of philosophy of science, specifically Logical Empiricism and Critical Rationalism, which typically underlie the metatheory of Natural Phonology, by an ecological view that science is evaluated-intellectually and by the taxpayer-in terms of its operational functionality in personal, social, political and economic environments. The ecological perspective on science is related to applications of linguistics in speech technology.

Initial /s/-stop clusters occur frequently in the world’s languages, but initial stop-/s/ clusters are relatively infrequent. Furthermore, there appear to be no languages that contain initial stop-/s/ clusters, but not /s/-stop clusters, while the reverse is not true [Morelli, (1999) and (2003)]. This study aims at uncovering a perceptual explanation for these patterns by examining the salience of initial /s/-stop and stop-/s/ clusters in Greek, where both sequences are common. Twenty naïve Greek adult listeners identified syllables beginning with /sp/, /st/, /sk/, /ps/, /ts/, or /ks/, in two vowel contexts, /a/ and /i/, in real words spoken by ten Greek adult native speakers. The syllables were mixed with parts of Greek multitalker babble using SNRs of −6, 0, and +6 dB and presented to listeners for identification. Results showed significantly poorer identification for the /ps/ and /ks/ clusters than the /ts/ and /s/-stop clusters, particularly in the −6 and 0 SNRS. There was also ...

The question of how (or even whether) speakers store speech sounds (segment-sized linguistic units) has been a contentious one for over a century. Since the concept of the phoneme was first introduced as a synchronic notion in the late nineteenth century, conflicting views have proliferated and contended with each other. Along with the mental target view of Baudouin, Sapir and Stampe, the distinctive feature view of Trubetzkoy and various flavors of generativeoriented phonology, including OT, a few new views have gained hold recently, incuding a much more concrete storage-heavy view termed 'usage-based' (Bybee et al.) and one based on exemplar theory (Pierrehumbert and others), as well as historically-based explanations such as Blevins. The issues raised by these competing theoretical standpoints differ along a number of dimensions related to how speech is stored, produced and perceived, and how those three issues relate to each other. Some of the dimensions include:

After a brief review of the history of the phoneme, from its origins in the nineteenth century to Optimality Theory, including some Cognitive Linguists' views of the concept. I argue that current 'usage-based' theorists views of the phoneme may not be able to explain some facts about how naïve speakers process language, both consciously and subconsciously. These facts include the invention of and worldwide preference for alphabetic writing systems, and language processing evidence provided by Spoonerisms, historical sound changes affecting all (or most) lexical items in a language and each other, and the fact that allophonic processes normally do not show lexical conditioning. I further suggest that storing speech in terms of a small number of production/perception units such as phonemes could be due to the fact that phonemes seem to optimize both efficiency and informativeness in much the same way as other basic-level categories.

If we turn now to the actuating principles that determine the general changeability of human speech habits, we shall find that the moving power everywhere is an impetus starting from the individual, and that there is a curbing power in the mere fact that language exists not for the individual alone but for the whole community. The whole history of language is, as it were, a tug-of-war between these two principles, each of which gains victories in turn (Jespersen 1964: 261).

We discuss what factors influence the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations. What mechanisms are available to the learner; what is the basis for grammatical generalizations? Using the Artificial Language Paradigm we compared the acquisition of three alternations differing in phonetic substance, locality, and amount of exposure: one alternation was substantively based and structurally l ocal, another one was structurally local but not substantively based, and the last alternation was neither substantively based nor structurally local. Within each alternation we exposed the experimental groups to a greater or smaller number of instances. Results show a clear advantage for the substantively based alternation during acquisition. In addition, the local dependency has an advantage over the non-local one and alternations that are presented frequently have an advantage over those that are presented infrequently. We show that all three factors influence the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations, but they do so to a different d egree. Phonetic substance causes the strongest boost in the acquisition process and builds on locality, which also plays a role, and amount of exposure influences the acquisition process independent of the nature of the alternation. We argue that acquisition models should take the interaction of these factors into account.

We discuss what factors influence the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations. What mechanisms are available to the learner; what is the basis for grammatical generalizations? Using the Artificial Language Paradigm we compared the acquisition of three alternations differing in phonetic substance, locality, and amount of exposure: one alternation was substantively based and structurally local, another one was structurally local but not substantively based, and the last alternation was neither substantively based nor structurally local. Within each alternation we exposed the experimental groups to a greater or smaller number of instances. Results show a clear advantage for the substantively based alternation during acquisition. In addition, the local dependency has an advantage over the non-local one and alternations that are presented frequently have an advantage over those that are presented infrequently. We show that all three factors influence the acquisition of morphophonemic ...

Morphophonology is the interaction between morphology and phonology, and these two linguistic disciplines are defined in section 2 within a structuralist tradition of linguistics. Section 3 presents three case studies of morphophonological interaction, departing from phonotactics (regular inflectional morphology of English), prosody (the Danish laryngeal prosody stød in its relation to word structure), and phonological variation (German and Danish stem change in plural formation). In section 4, finally, the stages in a morphophonemic analysis are outlined, predominantly as part of a discovery procedure and within a structuralist tradition. Keywords phonology morphology phonetics morphophonology morphonology morphophonemics analysis alternations phonotactics prosody stem change inflection English German Danish

Lexical stratification, indicated by diacritic features such as (foreignj, [Romance], [learned], etc., is a widespread characteristic of contemporary phonological descriptions. This paper outlines some of the evidence distinguishing the learned from the non-learned lexical stratum in MoQern French. When the learned voca'3ulary is incorporated into a standard phonological description of the language, the resulting analysis is highly abstract and not weli correlated with data from language acquisition. Several aspects of the analysis of French PhOnOiogy presented tn Schane, .i"renc!; !?+~:onoIo;n, 2 nd .&TO. nhology: _ 7,. _ are discussed from this perspective, and an alternative dealing with strata1 differences in a more concrete and lexically oriented manner is suggested. * ' aire lezve aside the possibility of analogous distinctions in syntax and semantics, although there are obviouc 'stylistically' conditioned distinctions in the more restricted occurrence of z passive sentences, for example. The question of learned syntactic borrowing is less clear. The term "learned' hds both dliachronic and synchronic: uses. Originally the term was historically oriented, but it now also seems well-established in a synchronic sense. We will keep it since no fully satisfactory synchronic alternative is available, but its ambiguity should be kept in mind. ' ' See Prideaux Cl 371) for a demonstration that the notion 'linguistically significant generalizazation' does not have empirical content.

The report describes the principles of contrastive studies of different languages at the level of phonology and suggests the methods of comparison of their phonological systems taking into account the hierarchy of distinctive features of phonemes. Based on ideal language type we develop also a step-by-step guide for the description of the phonological pecularities in the Ukrainian and German.

Stav prema logičkom problemu usvajanja jezika opredeljuje lingvističko istraživanje kao takvo za tip paradigmatskog barjaka pod kojim će ono nadalje nastupati. Pre svake nauke samo logičko ispostavlja se kao prethodnica njene konstitucije, kao seme njene ukupne metodološke rasejanosti. Stoga je vrlo važno steći jasan i sveobuhvatan uvid u srž dotičnog problemau okviru lingvistike. Autor nastoji izolovati samu logičku strukturu problema usvajanja jezika. Načini kojima se u literaturi samo donekle preklapaju različita podvajanja logičkog problema usvajanja jezika čine dodatnu poteškoću za razumevanje strukture koja je ovde na delu. Suočen sa tom poteškoćom, autor nalazi sintezu jezgra dotične logičke struktureu nezaobilaznoj okolnosti gramatičke dvosmislenosti pozitivnog inputa. Ključne reči: siromaštvo inputa, pozitivni input, negativni input, gramatička dvosmislenost, usvajanje bez grešaka, problem podskupa, prestanak pojave hipergeneralizacija 2 Miličević Petrović, M., J. Grubor ("Input i postignuće u usvajanju drugog jezika", Anali Filološkog fakulteta 31(1) (2019), str. 184) isto prevode i određuju kao: "'Argument o siromaštvu inputa' […] centralni je deo nativističkog viđenja usvajanja jezika uopšte i podrazumeva shvatanje da input sadrži manje informacija o jeziku nego što ih govornici usvajaju, te da moraju postojati dodatni izvori znanja (v. npr. Chomsky, [Lectures on Government and Binding] 1981)." 3 Dotične skraćenice (kao i deo njihovog određenja) preuzimamo iz Fodor,

If we turn now to the actuating principles that determine the general changeability of human speech habits, we shall find that the moving power everywhere is an impetus starting from the individual, and that there is a curbing power in the mere fact that language exists not for the individual alone but for the whole community. The whole history of language is, as it were, a tug-of-war between these two principles, each of which gains victories in turn (Jespersen 1964: 261).

Der VokalJäger ist eine algorithmische Prozesskette zur automatisierten Klassifikation phonetischer Merkmale in monophthongischen Vokalen. Machine-Learning ermöglicht in diesem neuen Ansatz, Merkmalsunterschiede zwischen dialektalen Sprachproben und einer hochdeutschen Referenz, hier dem Kiel-Korpus, statistisch zu messen.

In exemplarischer Anwendung werden historische und moderne Aufnahmen des Frankfurterischen aus dem Lautdenkmal reichsdeutscher Mundarten und des Projekts Regionalsprache.de (REDE) analysiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen insbesondere das Verschwinden des charakteristischen dunklen velaren A: War es 1937 noch messbar vorhanden, so fehlt es im jüngeren Frankfurter Dialekt.

Als Bezugspunkt wird der Frankfurter Stadtdialekt rekonstruiert – basierend auf bisher noch nicht historisch-phonologisch untersuchten Quellen aus dem Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main. Vor allem die Aufzeichnungen Joseph Oppels (1815–1894) und Ludwig Rauhs (1892–1945) erlauben so die real-time Darstellung eines Lautwandels des Frankfurterischen über 200 Jahre anhand von 600 hier zum ersten Mal gedruckten Belegen.

In the history of phonology, no model of phonology (e.g. Trubetzkoy's model or Optimality Theory) has stayed for any considerable time alone on its own, i.e. without parallel models of syntax and morphology. Thus, Stampean Natural Phonology has been complemented in Europe by Natural Morphology, Natural Syntax and Natural Text Linguistics. In this way, Natural Phonology can be integrated into an overall model of Natural Linguistics. This model has been further unified by giving it the status of a preference theory and by providing functionalist epistemology and a semiotic metatheory for all of its parts, including Natural Phonology. This unity of Natural Linguistics is demonstrated with the universal preference parameters of figure vs. ground sharpening, binarity, iconicity, indexicality and the naturalness scale biuniqueness > uniqueness > ambiguity. The final argumentation focuses on the "weak claim" of universality of preferences (against the "strong claim" of innate phonological processes) by understanding universal preferences (including phonological processes) as plausible constructivist "software" strategies which are constructed in language acquisition for overcoming universal innate "hardware" problems.

In Natural Linguistics a major concern regards conventionalization as opposed to the roll-out of naturalness. In this short homage, I will discuss these issues with the focus on the unstable status of sonorants, discussing a couple of examples coming from Modern Standard German and from Titsch, a Walser German variety spoken in a linguistic island in Aosta Valley.

This work investigates the production of Italian dental affricates /ts dz/ by Irish English learners at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Dental affricates are sounds that are difficult for non-native speakers to acquire, and they vary greatly across Italian dialects. Previous works on the topic have demonstrated that learners tend to reduce affricates to fricatives, and that the voiced /dz/ is often substituted with the voiceless in every context. This survey investigates the production of 7 speakers divided into A2 and B1 levels. Participants were asked to compile a background questionnaire and to read a list of 47 sentences containing 52 dental affricates in different phonological contexts. Phonetic annotation was manually conducted on PRAAT, and the analysis focused on durational cues and realization of voicing. The results showed that voiced affricates were rarely produced and were often substituted with their voiceless counterpart, thus leading to the general non-acquisition of voicing for this class of phoneme. Furthermore, the length of the occlusive segment was shorter than the fricative one, particularly in the post-sonorant context; a gap between the occlusive and fricative portion has also been detected. No substantial differences between the A2 and B1 levels emerged.

DZIUBALSKA-KOLACZYK-ROSSELLA SPINA 1. Markedness: theoretical background The basic question of our paper is why and how marked phenomena arise in a natural language. The main approach to answering it is to inspect external evidence mainly from diachrony, but also first language acquisition and socio-cultural Variation. The theoretical frameworks are naturalness theory, a building-block model of complexity theory, a semiotic metatheory and the epistemology of functionalism (cf. Dressler 1995, Dressler-Dziubalska-Kolaczyk 1994). Within naturalnes theory, äs elaborated for both Natural Phonology and Natural Morphology in Dressler (1985a, cf. the volumes Hurch-Rhodes 1996 and Dziubalska-Kolaczyk 1996), marked corresponds to unnatural. This concept is relative in the sense of "less natural than" (more marked than) and theoretically specified. Within the subtheory of universal markedness, which is a preference theory, marked means universally dispreferred on a given parameter. Within the second subtheory of type adequacy, it means less adequate for a specific language type. And within the third subtheory of language-specific system-adequacy, it means marginal in some respect. For example, unproductive phonological or morphological patterns do not belong to the core of language-specific phonology or morphology (cf. Dressler 1997b). In this contribution we will focus on Natural Morphology (cf. Dressler et al. 1987; Kilani-Schoch 1988) and on Natural Phonology (cf. Dressler 1984; Dziubalska-Kolaczyk 1995, in press) and, within these two fields, on the first and third subtheories. We understand complexity theory (cf. Bar-Yam 2000, Lemke 1999, Zurek 1990) äs a theory of dynamic complex Systems, äs used for describing complexity and emergence of complexity across all traditional Systems of science, from physics through economics to sociology, specifically in a tradition which goes back to Prigogine (1961). Among the various approaches to complexity theory, one consists in distingushing between positive and negative complexity. This distinction may be

Most individuals with expressive communication disorders have at least some difficulty at the phonological level of language, that is, in their knowledge of phonetic segments and phonological rules, or in the ways they implement that knowledge. This difficulty typically impairs their intelligibility, and there are many whose speech cannot be understood at all. It is imperative that such individuals have access to competent professional help; and to be competent, clinicians must have access to helpfill research. In this paper I will discuss some problems surrounding the conceptualization of children's speech sound disorders, suggest a solution to a major terminological difficulty, and stress the critical role of explanation in this important area of study and social service.

Atomic Phonology is a theory constraining phonological rules and phonological components of grammars which has been developed largely by Daniel Dinnsen in a number of papers since 1978. The basic principles of Atomic Phonology are set out in the following quotation:(1) The theory of atomic phonology maintains that all linguistic variation requiring distinctly varied formulations of phonological rules is predictable from a set of atomic rules and universal principles of grammar… Atomic rules are entirely independent rules of grammar which are presumed to be the most basic, most specific rules that can be motivated on empirical grounds… Atomic rules thus specify all the necessary initial conditions from which any correct variation on that process for any natural language can be predicted by universal principles. Non-atomic rules are dependent on atomic rules. The dependence on atomic rules derives from the requirement that non-atomic rules are all and only those rules which are comple...

Der philologischen Ausspracheschulung liegen wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse aus dem Bereich der Pho-nologie und der Phonetik zugrunde, die dann noch in der sog. Phonodidaktik herausgearbeitet werden. Nicht selten sind aber phonologische Vorgehensweisen in der Fremdsprachendidaktik kaum anwendbar. Als Paradebeispiel gilt in diesem Zusammenhang die bekannte Theorie der distinktiven Merkmale. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden Prinzipien formuliert, die die Effektivität einer fremdsprachendidaktischen Phonetik optimieren. The philological pronunciation training is based on scientific knowledge from the field of phonology and phonetics, which are then worked out in the so-called phonodidactics. However, it is not uncommon for phonological approaches to be hardly applicable in foreign language didactics. In this context, the well-known theory of distinctive features is a prime example. In this article, principles are formulated that optimize the effectiveness of foreign language didactic pho...

Resumen En esta investigación demostramos que la duración silábica permite distinguir diferentes variedades de habla en los llanos venezolanos, región comprendida por los estados: Apure, Barinas, Cojedes, Guárico y Portuguesa, según la clasificación prosódica que establece Mora (1996). Basándonos en esta clasificación grabamos 10 informantes de cada uno de esos estados del país y tomamos las siguientes variables: i) dependiente: duración silábica y, ii) independientes: a) los estados Apure, Barinas, Guárico, Cojedes, Portuguesa y, b) las diferentes posiciones silábicas dentro de las unidades de sentido con las variantes: inicial, final, primera sílaba acentuada, última sílaba y sílabas acentuadas. Los datos fueron analizados estadísticamente por medio del test ANOVA. Los análisis de los resultados obtenidos en esta investigación nos permiten proponer tres patrones rítmicos presentes en el habla de los llanos venezolanos, y según los cuales podemos agrupar los estados que conforman esta región del país de la siguiente forma: i) Apure-Guárico; ii) Barinas-Cojedes, y, iii) Portuguesa. Como vemos, la clasificación prosódica de Mora (1996) constituida por cinco estados, podría reordenarse en nuestro estudio según el parámetro acústico duración silábica en tres grupos. Nuestros resultados corroboran, una vez más, la idea de que el parámetro acústico duración juega un rol fundamental en la estructuración rítmica de las lenguas.

This work investigates the production of Italian dental affricates /ts dz/ by Irish English learners at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Dental affricates are sounds that are difficult for non-native speakers to acquire, and they vary greatly across Italian dialects. Previous works on the topic have demonstrated that learners tend to reduce affricates to fricatives, and that the voiced /dz/ is often substituted with the voiceless in every context. This survey investigates the production of 7 speakers divided into A2 and B1 levels. Participants were asked to compile a background questionnaire and to read a list of 47 sentences containing 52 dental affricates in different phonological contexts. Phonetic annotation was manually conducted on PRAAT, and the analysis focused on durational cues and realization of voicing. The results showed that voiced affricates were rarely produced and were often substituted with their voiceless counterpart, thus leading to the general non-acquisition of voicing for this class of phoneme. Furthermore, the length of the occlusive segment was shorter than the fricative one, particularly in the post-sonorant context; a gap between the occlusive and fricative portion has also been detected. No substantial differences between the A2 and B1 levels emerged.

U radu se slogovni akcenat posmatra kao reprezentativni fenomen interfejsa fonologije odnosno prozodije i drugih jezičkih modula, na primeru akcenatskog sistema albanskoga jezika. Iznosi se sinteza dosadašnje teorijske literature o slogovnom akcentu uopšte, kao i literature o slogovnom akcentu u albanskom jeziku. Teorijski pristupi slogovnom akcentu razmatraju se u odnosu na njihovu deskriptivnu i eksplanatornu adekvatnost, kao i u vezi sa pitanjima koja pokreću i u širem teorijskom, morfološkom i sintaktičkom kontekstu.

Sound changes are changes in speakers' phonetic abilities The distinction in N. American English between the low labial vowel [0] of caught, dawn, hawk and the low non-labial vowel [a] of cot, Don, hock is an old one, going back to early English aw versus short o. But in dialects of Canada and various parts of the United States of America, the [0] is pronounced [a], and the two sets of words are no longer distinguished. This sound change [0] > [a] was a historical event, but it remains a synchronic constraint that characterizes the phonetic capacities of the speakers of the innovating dialect: without additional learning, they cannot perceive or pronounce the [0] of other speakers, and even if they learn to perceive it, they often continue to pronounce it as [a] (at least in unguarded moments) or as some other substitute, e.g. [0] or [09] or [oQ]. It is significant that children learning the conservative dialect also typically at first cannot perceive and pronounce [0]. When they learn to perceive it, they still use [0] or [0] or [09] or [oQ] until they learn also to pronounce it. Thus speakers of the conservative dialect acquire a phonetic ability that speakers of the innovating dialect do not. But some adult speakers of dialects with [0] in fact never learn to perceive it or to pronounce it without substitution. They are innovators, though their innovation lies in not doing something their fellow speakers do do, namely learn to perceive and pronounce [0]. And some speakers, having learned to hear and say [0] as children, may move to an innovative dialect area and, under peer influence, lose the ability to even to hear [0] as distinct from [a]. One such person, whose childhood distinction of [0] and [0] was well attested in a linguist'S diary, later forgot