This study aims to extend statistical learning (SL) research to multilinguals and provide an insight into what could facilitate word segmentation. We studied how the number of cues available in the input as well as the number of languages spoken influence SL and word segmentation. We used two SL tasks: one involving the tracking of transitional…

This article reports a study that aimed to find out whether F0 patterns of L2 English produced by Vietnamese speakers are different to those of native English speakers, whether the non-native F0 patterns are transferred from Vietnamese, and to what extent English and Vietnamese F0 profiles differ. Ten native/L1 Australian English speakers, 20…

This dissertation investigates the lexical f[subscript 0] control in Mandarin within the framework of Articulatory Phonology (AP) in two experiments: an imitation study (Experiment 1) and an Electromagnetic Articulography production study (Experiment 2). Empirical results are accounted for by making reference to a gestural model of f[subscript o]…

Purpose: The objective was to investigate acoustic cue processing in lexical-tone recognition by pediatric cochlear-implant (CI) recipients who are native Mandarin speakers. Method: Lexical-tone recognition was assessed in pediatric CI recipients and listeners with normal hearing (NH) in 2 tasks. In Task 1, participants identified naturally…

This dissertation aims to extend our knowledge of prosody--in particular, what kinds of information may be conveyed through prosody, which prosodic dimensions may be used to convey them, and how individual speakers differ from one another in how they use prosody. Four production studies were conducted to examine how various factors interact with…

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…

This study investigated the effects of first language prosodic transfer on the perception and production of English lexical stress and the relation between stress perception and production by second language learners. To test the effect of Thai tonal distribution rules and stress patterns on native Thai speakers' perception and production of…

The author discusses his concept of "tonal spelling" for Chinese. This system spells out the patterns for the tone classes without marking their tone values; the same spelling formation spells out the same tone class and makes tonal orthography a "regular, striking, neat and clean-shaven script." Following a discussion of the…

Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Language and Linguistic Studies, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 20-21, 1972. Work supported in part by the Research Board of the Graduate College and by the Center for Asian Studies, both at the University of Illinois. (VM)

A study examined the tonal patterns in Komo, a sub-Bantu language of about 200,000 speakers in Zaire. It investigated: (1) the minimal lexical specifications necessary for Komo tones; (2) what sort of tonal alternations exist and how they may be accounted for most simply with rules; (3) how tonal phenomena interact with Komo morphology; and (4) at…

An analysis of tone in language begins with the observation that the structural approach taken in segmental phonology, analyzing complex tones in terms of sequences of level tones, is not necessarily appropriate with tone languages. A different approach is proposed, a "dynamic-tone" theory that represents tone contours entirely in terms…

An analysis of the Dinka (Sudan) vowel system consists of: (1) an overview of Dinka phonological structure, including the phonological sentence, the phonological word, the syllable, and the consonantal and vocalic features of the sound system; (2) an examination of breathy versus nonbreathy vowels, including a review of previous research using a…

Explores the semantic distinctions and tonal behaviors of four types of "lai" in Taiwanese. It is concluded that some types cannot be fully understood without reference to the underlying structure, the surface structure being often insufficient for determining the tonal shape of the syllable in utterance. (CLK)

Tone-based classification rules for Igbo nouns need modification because: (1) class 1 nouns (monosyllables with high tones) do not, as claimed, operate differently from other terminal high-tone nouns; and (2) class 6 nouns (di-syllabic with downstep tones) can be accounted for within class 2 and class 3 nouns known as HH and LH nouns). The proper…

In a tone language, tonal distinctions between words in sequence can often be analyzed using the same devices that are applied within the word (e.g., downdrift or downstep). However, it is proposed here that Sandawe is a tone language in which the tonal relationships between constituents in clause structure, and between constituents in phrase…