Research supported by the Institute of Latin American Studies and the Canada Council. (DD)

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)

Presents a five-step phonological analysis which relies on experimental phonetics. (AM)

Investigation of data regarding the use of "so'n" in authentic German speech situations suggests that speakers used the form as a hedging expression indicating uncertainty or discomfort, enabling them to indicate their attitudes about various aspects of the speech situation. (21 references) (Author/CB)

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)

Analysis of the structural, semantic, and textual aspects of a corpus of 330 English examples of the postpositive conjunctions "though,""as," and "that" focuses on concessive clauses, clauses of reason, clauses of manner, and clauses with postpositive conjunctions and normal clauses. (CB)

Intended for the use of teachers or diagnosticians, this booklet presents charts that list various phonic patterns, word families, or "rimes" associated with specific vowel patterns. Lists in the booklet are arranged according to the 14 basic vowel phonemes in English (including long a, long e, long i, long aw, short ah, and short u).…

Vowel quality in pretonic syllables seems to result both from the interaction of the four main parameters of stress within the syllable and from the relationship of these values to those of the tonic vowel. (Author/MSE)

The major consonant assimilation processes occurring in Classical and Colloquial Arabic are listed (classified as progressive or regressive, partial or complete), and an autosegmental analysis is performed on them. It is argued, on the basis of the autosegmental approach to the underlying representation of segments and to the application of…

Spectral compositions of voiced initial stops reveal that these consonants are longer in intensity than those in medial or final position. In final stops the vocal cords are more closed than they are in initial stops and oscillation is richer. (SC)

IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES THE TECHNIQUE OF COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS (TAKEN FROM THE FIELD OF FORMAL SEMANTICS) IS APPLIED TO A SET OF TERMS WHICH FORM A CULTURALLY RELEVANT DOMAIN. THIS METHOD PROCEEDS BY RECOGNIZING SEMANTIC DISTINCTIONS (COMPONENTS) WHICH APPORTION THE TERMS OF THE SET INTO CONTRASTING SUB-SETS SUCH THAT EVERY ITEM IS…