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This book provides an overview of current issues in variation and gradience in phonetics, phonology and sociolinguistics. It contributes to the growing interest in gradience and variation in theoretical phonology by combing research on the factors underlying variability and systematic quantitative results with theoretical phonological considerations. Variation is inherent to language, and one of the aims of phonological theory is to describe and explain the mechanisms underlying variation at every level of phonological representation. Variation below the segment concerns articulatory, acoustic and perceptual cues that contribute to the formation of natural classes of sounds. At the segmental...
Prosody as a system of suprasegmental linguistic information such as rhythm and intonation is a prime candidate for looking at the relation between language and music in a principled way. This claim is based on several aspects: First, prosody is concerned with acoustic correlates of language and music that are directly comparable with each other by their physical properties such as duration and pitch. Second, prosodic accounts suggest a hierarchical organization of prosodic units that not only resembles a syntactic hierarchy, but is viewed as (part of) an interface to syntax. Third, prosody provides a very promising ground for evolutionary accounts of language and music. Fourth, bilateral tr...
The relationship between diachronic change and synchronic variation at the articulatory, auditory, acoustic and social level is one of the greatest puzzles in the study of language. Even though plentiful examples exist to suggest that dynamics of synchronic variation and diachronic change are tightly interconnected, a unified theory to account for language change in its relationship to all layers of synchronic variation remains a desideratum. This volume compiles new evidence from articulatory, acoustic, auditory, sociolinguistic, and phonological analyses of segmental and prosodic data and computational modelling, and offers a refreshing theoretical angle on the ongoing debates in language ...
Velar Fronting (VF) is the name for any synchronic or diachronic phonological process shifting the velar place of articulation to the palatal region of the vocal tract. A well-known case of VF in Standard German is the rule specifying that the fricative [x] assimilates to [ç] after front segments. VF also refers to the change from velar sounds like [ɣ k g ŋ] to palatals ([ʝ c ɟ ɲ]). The book provides a thorough investigation of VF in German dialects: Data are drawn from over 300 original sources for varieties that are (or were) spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and other countries. VF differs geographically along three parameters: (A) triggers, (B) targets, and (C) outputs. VF t...
This series consists of collected volumes and monographs about specific issues dealing with interfaces among the subcomponents of linguistic structure: phonology-morphology, phonology-syntax, syntax-semantics, syntax-morphology, and syntax-lexicon. Recent linguistic research has recognized that the subcomponents of grammar interact in non-trivial ways. What is currently under debate is the actual range of such interactions and their most appropriate representation in grammar, and this is precisely the focus of this series. Specifically, it provides a general overview of various topics by examining them through the interaction of grammatical components. The books function as a state-of- the-art report of research.
The study of epenthesis, or the insertion of a non-etymological segment, has been at the core of phonological theory from the start, and recent approaches extend beyond phonology to include phonetic considerations, as well as morphological, morphosyntactic, and lexical interactions. This volume includes 12 of the many papers presented at the workshop “Epenthesis and Beyond” held at Stony Brook University in 2021, whose goal was to provide a forum for scholars who approach epenthesis and other types of insertion from new perspectives. The articles selected for this volume represent the exciting new approaches to epenthesis that linguists are engaged in. They cover a wide range of research...
For many different reasons, speakers borrow words from other languages to fill gaps in their own lexical inventory. The past ten years have been characterized by a great interest among phonologists in the issue of how the nativization of loanwords occurs. The general feeling is that loanword nativization provides a direct window for observing how acoustic cues are categorized in terms of the distinctive features relevant to the L1 phonological system as well as for studying L1 phonological processes in action and thus to the true synchronic phonology of L1. The collection of essays presented in this volume provides an overview of the complex issues phonologists face when investigating this phenomenon and, more generally, the ways in which unfamiliar sounds and sound sequences are adapted to converge with the native language s sound pattern. This book is of interest to theoretical phonologists as well as to linguists interested in language contact phenomena."
This volume brings together two under-investigated areas of intonation typology. While tone languages make up to 70 percent of the world’s languages, only few have been explored for intonation. And even though one third of the world’s languages are spoken in Africa, and most sub-Saharan languages are tone languages, recent collections on tone and intonation typology have almost entirely ignored African languages. This book aims to fill this gap.
Over the last two decades, focus has become a prominent topic in major fields in linguistic research (syntax, semantics, phonology). Focus Strategies in African Languages contributes to the ongoing discussion of focus by investigating focus-related phenomena in a range of African languages, most of which have been under-represented in the theoretical literature on focus. The articles in the volume look at focus strategies in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic languages from several theoretical and methodological perspectives, ranging from detailed generative analysis to careful typological generalization across languages. Their common aim is to deepen our understanding of whether and how the infor...
The concept of palatalization has always intrigued linguists trying to find a palatable explanation for one of the most influential processes in the English phonology. Having initiated in Old English, palatalization took Middle English by storm, introducing a variety of forms, some of which have survived well into our modern times. Contrary to the popular belief, however, the process itself was far from palatable, proving lack of consistency observed across different dialects of that period. The present monograph intends to show the true, both palatable and unpalatable, character of palatalization, examining its effects exerted on four high-frequency words: EACH, MUCH, SUCH and WHICH, all of which appear copiously in the texts of the Innsbruck Prose Corpus. The monograph thus aims to analyze the extent of phonological inhomogeneity from the point of view of lexical diffusion, which demonstrates the impossibility to establish any definitive dialectal boundaries underlining the existence of a [k]-dialect and, consequently, the everlasting idea of the north-south divide. LCCN: 2016961737 ISSN: 2373-2652 (print), 2373-2733 (online)