This dissertation examines the relative effects of phonetic salience and phonological prominence on speech sound processing. Three test cases, respectively, investigate the processing of consonants versus vowels by speakers of German, Hebrew, and Amharic; the processing of aspirated versus unaspirated stops by speaker of Spanish and Thai; and the…

This dissertation begins with the observation of a typological asymmetry within phonological patterns related to phonetic naturalness. Patterns that are rooted within existing tendencies of perception and/or production--in other words, patterns that are phonetically "natural"--are common in phonological typology and seen in a variety of…

Karbi is a Tibeto-Burman (TB) language spoken by half a million people in the Karbi Anglong district in Assam, Northeast India, and surrounding areas in the extended Brahmaputra Valley area. It is an agglutinating, verb-final language. This dissertation offers a description of the dialect spoken in the hills of the Karbi Anglong district. It is…

Providing evidence for the universal tendencies of patterns in the world's languages can be difficult, as it is impossible to sample all possible languages, and linguistic samples are subject to interpretation. However, experimental techniques, such as artificial grammar learning paradigms, make it possible to uncover the psychological reality of…

North Kyungsang Korean (NKK) is a pitch accent language in which each word has one of a restricted set of possible tonal patterns, and where the tonal pattern of a given lexical word is not fully predictable. This dissertation reports on a corpus study of accent patterns in existing words and the results of a study in which NKK speakers were asked…

Conclusion of an article begun in the December 1972--January 1973 issue. (DS)

Examined accentuation patterns that appear in Japanese adaptation of French words. Argues that these patterns reflect the default accentuation of Japanese grammar; they correspond to accent patterns found in some marginal sectors of Japanese vocabulary where the accent is predictable. (Author/VWL)

A type of sound symbolism that has influenced the composition of modern Spanish vocabulary is discussed. Rates of lexical retention and loss are attributed to the degree to which verbs fit the developing morphophonemic and semantic patterns. (EJS)

Second part of the series will appear in the next issue. (.dS)

Supports the theory that phonic units cannot be delimited without reference to conceptual units, and that there must be a mutual dependence of sound and meaning in language. (DS)

The proverbial language of Spanish provides a resource for teaching and testing various aspects of phonetics, syntax, vocabulary, and cultural features of the language. Incorporation of these features into the Spanish curriculum can enrich the classroom experience. Specific suggestions for their use are provided. (Author/MSE)

All second language (L2) learning theories presuppose that learners learn the target language from the speech signal (or written material, when learners are reading), so an understanding of learners' ability to detect and represent novel patterns in linguistic stimuli will constitute a major building block in an adequate theory of second language…

Purpose: The variable deletion of word-final consonants is a well-known feature of African American English (AAE). This study aimed to show whether African American children exhibit an alveolar bias in their deletion of final voiceless stops as has been observed for their production of final nasals. Method: The data were extracted from more than…