We show that infants' long-term memory representations for melodies are not just reduced to the structural features of relative pitches and durations, but contain surface or performance tempo- and timbre-specific information. Using a head turn preference procedure, we found that after a one week exposure to an old English folk song, infants…

Researchers have hypothesized that words that are highly related semantically are more likely to occur within the same intonational phrase (F. zzaq;, 1988; E. O. Selkirk, 1984). D. Watson and E. Gibson (2004) proposed that semantic closeness can be captured by using the argument/adjunct distinction, such that intonational boundaries are more…

Prosodic information in the speech signal carries information about linguistic structure as well as emotional content. Although children are known to use prosodic information from infancy onward to assist linguistic decoding, the brain correlates of this skill in childhood have not yet been the subject of study. Brain activation associated with…

An eye-tracking experiment examined whether prosodic cues can affect the interpretation of grammatical functions in the absence of clear morphological information. German listeners were presented with scenes depicting three potential referents while hearing temporarily ambiguous SVO and OVS sentences. While case marking on the first noun phrase…

Both Italian and English have four degrees of stress: emphatic, main, secondary and weak. This paper outlines some similarities, then reviews differences between the languages that can cause difficulties in learning the second language. (CHK)

This research deals with a series of preliminary studies of the management of questions by second language learners of Swedish. Question management here refers to the ability to produce an utterance which successfully elicits a response from an interlocutor, and the ability to determine correctly when a response is required. The three exploratory…

Field research into the Heiltsuk language, part of the Kwakiutlic branch of the Wakashan language family, in British Columbia is reported. Some of the features of Heiltsuk phonetics are discussed. (RM)

THE LANGUAGE OF THE HAUSA TRIBE AND A LINGUA FRANCA FOR MANY INHABITANTS OF NIGERIA'S NORTHERN REGION, HAUSA IS GENERALLY CONSIDERED TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT LANGUAGE OF WEST AFRICA AND HAS MANY DIALECTS. THIS TEXT IS BASED ON THE KANO DIALECT AND IS INTENDED AS A PRELIMINARY STUDY TO A MORE THOROUGH ANALYSIS OF HAUSA MORPHOLOGY, SYNTAX, AND…

This paper examines three aspects of phonological interference observable in the speech of Puerto Rican bilinguals: (1) segmentation patterns, (2) accentual patterns, and (3) pitch patterns. Ten representative speakers, including nine students and one faculty member, were selected to read a story in the original Spanish and in English translation.…

Phonological rules based on "stress-terminal pattern" (the principle that a phonological phrase has one primary stress and one terminal juncture requiring a mark of punctuation) can be used to improve punctuation in composition. These rules require that the writer be able to speak sentences at a normal pace with intonation appropriate to the…

Just as a reader must bring an experiential conceptual background to the printed page, so must he bring an ability to recognize the graphic cues that signal meaning. The graphic cues or structural meaning works as a system the description of which can be outlined in three parts as the vocabulary, the structure, and the sound. What has been…

This article presents a description of intonation in English in terms of the relationship between the syntactic surface structure of a given sentence and certain distinctive intonative features.

It is shown that a sentence spoken in a foreign language (here, English), though grammatically and lexically correct, may not evoke the proper reaction, because of incorrect intonation. Teaching texts have neglected this field. Some suggestions are given for avoiding misunderstandings caused by faulty intonation. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

This article discusses the various types of expression of emphasis used for nominals in a variety of languages: raising or alteration of the voice, word order, use of a morpheme for an emphatic function, and nominalization of a part of the sentence not being emphasized. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

A report on a diagnostic study of the Sicilian way of pronouncing the French /y/. On the basis of this study, a quantitative analysis of verbo-tonal methods of correction is made. Some such methods are based on intonation, rhythm, syllabication and combinatory phonetics. (Text is in French.) (AMH)