Phonological Complexity

Purpose: The Index of Phonological Complexity and the Word Complexity Measure are two measures of the phonological complexity of a word. Other phonological measures such as phonological neighborhood density have been used to compare stuttered versus fluent words. It appears that in preschoolers who stutter, the length and complexity of the utterance is more influential than the phonetic features of the stuttered word. The present hypothesis was that in school-age children who stutter, stuttered words would be more phonologically complex than fluent words, when the length and complexity of the utterance containing them is comparable. School-age speakers who stutter were hypothesized to differ from those with a concomitant language disorder. Methods: Sixteen speakers, six females and ten males (M age = 12;3; Range = 7;7 to 19;5) available from an online database, were divided into eight who had a concomitant language disorder (S + LD) and eight age-and sex-matched speakers who did not (S-Only). Results: When all stuttered content words were identified, S + LD speakers produced more repetitions, and S-Only speakers produced more inaudible sound prolongations. When stuttered content words were matched to fluent content words and when talker groups were combined, stuttered words were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) higher in both the Index of Phonological Complexity and the Word Complexity Measure and lower in density ("sparser") than fluent words. Conclusions: Results corroborate those of previous researchers. Future research directions are suggested, such as cross-sectional designs to evaluate developmental patterns of phonological complexity and stuttering plus language disordered connections. Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (a) Define and describe phonological complexity; (b) Define phonological neighborhood density and summarize the literature on the topic; (c) Describe the Index of Phonological Complexity (IPC) for a given word; (d) Describe the Word Complexity Measure (WCM) for a given word; (e) Summarize two findings from the current study and describe how each relates to studies of phonological complexity and fluency disorders.

This paper provides a tutorial on the selection of complex target sounds for treatment following from known principles of language learnability. The focus is on syllable structure in recommending onset consonant clusters for treatment. The stepby-step procedure of cluster selection is illustrated for one child, Jarrod, who presented with a phonological disorder. Target selection procedures are guided by universal principles that govern the phonotactics of onset clusters and experimental evidence that supports the efficacy of phonologically complex targets. The prediction is that treatment of onset clusters will facilitate Jarrod's learning of both complex and simple properties of the sound system.

The Index of Phonological Complexity and the Word Complexity Measure are two measures of the phonological complexity of a word. Other phonological measures such as phonological neighborhood density have been used to compare stuttered versus fluent words. It appears that in preschoolers who stutter, the length and complexity of the utterance is more influential than the phonetic features of the stuttered word. The present hypothesis was that in school-age children who stutter, stuttered words would be more phonologically complex than fluent words, when the length and complexity of the utterance containing them is comparable. School-age speakers who stutter were hypothesized to differ from those with a concomitant language disorder. Methods: Sixteen speakers, six females and ten males (M age = 12;3; Range = 7;7 to 19;5) available from an online database, were divided into eight who had a concomitant language disorder (S + LD) and eight age-and sex-matched speakers who did not (S-Only). Results: When all stuttered content words were identified, S + LD speakers produced more repetitions, and S-Only speakers produced more inaudible sound prolongations. When stuttered content words were matched to fluent content words and when talker groups were combined, stuttered words were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) higher in both the Index of Phonological Complexity and the Word Complexity Measure and lower in density ("sparser") than fluent words. Conclusions: Results corroborate those of previous researchers. Future research directions are suggested, such as cross-sectional designs to evaluate developmental patterns of phonological complexity and stuttering plus language disordered connections. Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (a) Define and describe phonological complexity; (b) Define phonological neighborhood density and summarize the literature on the topic; (c) Describe the Index of Phonological Complexity (IPC) for a given word; (d) Describe the Word Complexity Measure (WCM) for a given word; (e) Summarize two findings from the current study and describe how each relates to studies of phonological complexity and fluency disorders.

The Index of Phonological Complexity and the Word Complexity Measure are two measures of the phonological complexity of a word. Other phonological measures such as phonological neighborhood density have been used to compare stuttered versus fluent words. It appears that in preschoolers who stutter, the length and complexity of the utterance is more influential than the phonetic features of the stuttered word. The present hypothesis was that in school-age children who stutter, stuttered words would be more phonologically complex than fluent words, when the length and complexity of the utterance containing them is comparable. School-age speakers who stutter were hypothesized to differ from those with a concomitant language disorder. Methods: Sixteen speakers, six females and ten males (M age = 12;3; Range = 7;7 to 19;5) available from an online database, were divided into eight who had a concomitant language disorder (S + LD) and eight age-and sex-matched speakers who did not (S-Only). Results: When all stuttered content words were identified, S + LD speakers produced more repetitions, and S-Only speakers produced more inaudible sound prolongations. When stuttered content words were matched to fluent content words and when talker groups were combined, stuttered words were significantly (p ≤ 0.01) higher in both the Index of Phonological Complexity and the Word Complexity Measure and lower in density ("sparser") than fluent words. Conclusions: Results corroborate those of previous researchers. Future research directions are suggested, such as cross-sectional designs to evaluate developmental patterns of phonological complexity and stuttering plus language disordered connections. Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (a) Define and describe phonological complexity; (b) Define phonological neighborhood density and summarize the literature on the topic; (c) Describe the Index of Phonological Complexity (IPC) for a given word; (d) Describe the Word Complexity Measure (WCM) for a given word; (e) Summarize two findings from the current study and describe how each relates to studies of phonological complexity and fluency disorders.

Repetition data were collected from aphasic patients with differing symptoms: All of the test items were monosyllabic and controlled for their phonological markedness calculated by the sonority ranks of demisyllables. Two types of results were significant: only a small number of errors occurred overall and only errors in three member demisyllables exhibited reduced markedness. We explain this last result by a combination of the mechanism of associating segments to the timing tier of syllables and due to buffer problems by the default operation of a random generator.

"Human languages can differ remarkably in the complexity of their morphophonology, and Australian languages are no exception. However, since the complexity of a linguistic analysis can also be due to the methods and assumptions of the analyst, when we are faced with a particularly complex analysis, it is informative for our understanding of both typology and linguistic practice to evaluate what complexity derives from the language itself, and what from the analyst's choices. We demonstrate the utility of this kind of enquiry by considering the morphophonology of Ngandi (Heath 1978).

Ngandi is an East Arnhem language, formerly spoken by at least five clans in the Rose River area, and one of five languages whose morphophonology was accorded a relatively complex analysis by Heath in a series of grammars written around 1980: Ngandi (1978); Ritharngu (1980); Warndarang (1980); Mara (1981) and Nunggubuyu (1984). Remaining within a rule-based paradigm, we demonstrate that some complexity is due to Heath's analytic choices and therefore can be reduced, though the language is undeniably rather complex itself. In particular, a more perspicuous analysis emerges when morphological conditioning is clearly partitioned from phonological conditioning. This is a practice which we strongly endorse when one's aim is to describe a language's morphophonology as perspicuously as possible. In addition, some complexity is reduced by reordering automatic, feature filling rules to a position late, rather than early, in the derivation, a principle which in various guises has been recognised by phonological theorists since pre-generative times.

Some specifics are as follows. Heath (1978) proposes (P-a) '[tense] feature filling', (Pb) 'morphologically conditioned hardening' and (P-c) 'lenition', which requires complex conditioning on (P-a) to derive a form like (1) where fG/ is underspecified for [tense].

(1) /yaŋ-Garu/ –(P-a)→ yaŋ-garu –(P-b)→ yaŋ-karu –(P-c)→ yaŋ-garu

By noticing that (P-c) serves to re-lenite those stops hardened by (P-b) in the same environment stated in the feature-filling rule (P-a), the analysis can be simplified by eliminating (P-c) and reformulating the 'feature filling rule' (P-a), now at the end of the derivation, as in (2):

(2) /yan-Garu/ –(P-b)→ yaŋ-karu –(P-a)→ yaŋ-garu

In addition, there is no need to characterise occlusive-final prefixes as conditioning hardening rule (P-b), since they are subsumed by the environment of (P-a) which always (re-)produces lenis morpheme-initial stops anyhow. The prefixes and stems which do trigger (P-b) are idiosyncratic and thus in any account of Ngandi, they will need to be specified lexically. Accordingly, following theories such as Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky (1982), Mohanan (1986)), we accord them a separate, morphologically determined stratum in which the hardening of (P-b) would apply; in other morphological contexts this stratum does not apply, and thus the final derivation can be simplified as in (3):

(3) /yan-Garu/ -(P-a)→ yaŋ-garu

Beyond the specifics of Ngandi, our results underscore the value in examining languages from multiple viewpoints. As with other, very well-studied languages, if our aim is to tease out the breadth and true nature of what is happening in the phonologies of human languages, then we will benefit from the availability of multiple analyses. By doing so, we can begin to clarify the impact of linguistic-analytic practice on our understanding of linguistic typology. "