An often overlooked but fundamental issue for any comprehensive model of visual-word recognition is the representation of diacritical vowels: Do diacritical and nondiacritical vowels share their abstract letter representations? Recent research suggests that the answer is "yes" in languages where diacritics indicate suprasegmental…

This study investigates the perception of the three Mandarin high vowels /i, u, y/ after dental, retroflex, and palatal fricatives and affricates (/s/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate]/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate][superscript voiceless glottal fricative]/; /[voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative]/-/[voiceless alveolar affricate]/-/[voiceless…

Within the field of linguistics, whether considering language contact situations (Weinreich, 1979) or foreign language education (Lado, 1957), the topic of language transfer, especially as it relates to pronunciation, has always been an item of particular interest. While research on such transfer has mostly focused on various phenomena of the L1…

This research is a multi-aspect exploratory investigation of Russian English institutional written discourse and highlights its features demonstrated by Russian native learners, tertiary students of English for the tourism and hospitality industry. The author approaches the theme from the perspectives of World Englishes and the pedagogical agenda.…

Investigates two questions: (1) Will Russian lose its well-developed distinction between hard and soft consonants? (2) What would be the consequences of such a loss for comprehension of sustained discourse in the language? (EKN)

Explores data regarding the elision and epenthesis of the Spanish intervocalic /y/ and the underspecification of Spanish vowels and semivowels. Results lead to the proposal that such elision results from the Obligatory Contour Principle, operating on an autosegmental tier defining front vowels and /y/. (56 references) (CB)

Research supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. (DD)

Presents the main outlines of the phonology of the Arekuna language as it is spoken by the Arekuna Indians of Guyana. (Author/RM)

Research supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, The National Institutes of Health, The American Philosophical Society, and The Fulbright Commission. (DD)

This article focuses on "gheada," a phonetic feature characteristic of certain areas of Galicia (Spain), unknown in Castilian and Portuguese, consists of the pronunciation of /g/ ([g], [y]) as [h]. This phonetic innovation, which is widespread in Western Galicia, has been traditionally stigmatized as a sign of rusticity and lack of…

This treatment of Thai phonology for beginning students begins with a simplified presentation of tones, consonants, and vowels. The descriptions use a minimum of linguistic terminology and the Thai examples appear in phonemic transcription. Following the introductory section on phonology are 18 pronunciation exercises which drill the tones and…

Sequel to an article in "Russisch," v6 n4 p59-64 1972; reviews chapter 3 of K. S. Gorbachevich's, "Izmenenie norm russkogo literaturnovo yazyka" (Variations of Norms of Russian Literary Language), Leningrad, 1971. Article to be continued. (DD)