Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Bulgarian – Phonology. Phonology. Linguistics'

Adult second language (L2) learners often experience difficulty producing and perceiving non-native phonological contrasts. Even highly proficient bilinguals, who have been exposed to an L2 for long periods of time, struggle with difficult contrasts, such as /r/-/l/ for Japanese learners of English. To account for the relative ease or difficulty with which L2 learners perceive and acquire non-native contrasts, theories of (L2) speech perception often appeal to notions of similarity. But how is similarity best determined?

In this dissertation I explored the predictions of two theoretical approaches to similarity comparison in the second language, and asked: [1] How should L2 sound similarity be measured? [2] What is the nature of the representations that guide sound similarity? [3] To what extent can the influence of the native language be overcome?

In Chapter 2, I tested a `legos' (featural) approach to sound similarity. Given a distinctive feature analysis of Spanish and English vowels, I investigated the hypothesis that feature availability in the L1 grammar constrains which target language segments will be accurately perceived and acquired by L2 learners (Brown [1998], Brown [2000]). Our results suggest that second language acquisition of phonology is not limited by the phonological features used by the native language grammar, nor is the presence/use of a particular phonological feature in the native language grammar sufficient to trigger redeployment. I take these findings to imply that feature availability is neither a necessary, nor a sufficient condition to predict learning outcomes.

In Chapter 3, I extended a computational model proposed by Feldman et al. [2009] to nonnative speech perception, in order to investigate whether a sophisticated `rulers' (spatial) approach to sound similarity can better explain existing interlingual identification and discrimination data from Spanish monolinguals and advanced L1 Spanish late-learners of English, respectively. The model assumes that acoustic distributions of sounds control listeners' ability to discriminate a given contrast. I found that, while the model succeeded in emulating certain aspects of human behavior, the model at present is incomplete and would have to be extended in various ways to capture several aspects of nonnative and L2 speech perception.

In Chapter 4 I explored whether the phonological relatedness among sounds in the listeners native language impacts the perceived similarity of those sounds in the target language. Listeners were expected to be more sensitive to the contrast between sound pairs which are allophones of different phonemes than to sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Moreover, I hypothesized that L2 learners would experience difficulty perceiving and acquiring target language contrasts between sound pairs which are allophones of the same phoneme in their native language. Our results suggest that phonological relatedness may influence perceived similarity on some tasks, but does not seem to cause long-lasting perceptual difficulty in advanced L2 learners.

On the basis of those findings, I argue that existing models have not been adequately explicit about the nature of the representations and processes involved in similarity-based comparisons of L1 and L2 sounds. More generally, I describe what I see as a desirable target for an explanatorily adequate theory of cross-language influence in L2 phonology.

Yoy is an endangered language of Thailand and Laos. The language belongs to the Tai-Kadai language family; however it has not yet been determined exactly which branch the language belongs to. Yoy has not been studied before and very limited resources are available regarding the classification of this language. The main objective of this thesis is to present a phonological description of Yoy by analyzing a set of 1,000 lexical items from selected speakers of the language. It also presents the grammar sketch which includes a description of word structure and syntactic structure of the language. The sketch structure of the grammar partially follows the outline of the language description from Grammar of Lao by Enfield.

This dissertation offers to make new insights into certain aspects of the tonal phonology in mutually intelligible dialects of the Nko (Mande) language, namely the two major (with larger number of speakers) dialects of, Bamana and Maninka, and the two minor dialects, Jula and Mandingo. Theoretical analyses of tone assignment and tonal interaction in these languages have been diverse, often conflicting, and at times contradictory. The divergence between tonal analyses reported in the literature is likely to have arisen for a variety of reasons including dialectal variation, limited data, and limited speaker access. Among these proposed analyses are those that support the presence of specific tonal configurations considered to be marked structures in the language (Green 2010), as well as those that draw upon the proposition of multiple abstract floating tones whose spreading, deletion, and surface effects are predicted only by complex derivations (cf. Rialland & Badjime 1989). Moreover, an attempt will be made to bring together generalizations that previous analyses did not make regarding the tonal patterns of the Nko dialects. Specifically, I argue for three novel analyses: 1) that the definite marker in Nko is a Mid tone suffix, rather than an abstract Low tone suffix as analyzed in previous literature, 2) that Nko noun forms are derived from an underlying form that I refer to as ‘citation form’ which can be distinct from both the surface definite and indefinite nouns, and 3) that a final High tone is used as a marker of nouns in the major dialects of Nko (Courtenay 1974). These analyses have implications for the understanding of the tonal structure of Nko, especially with respect to the nature of lexical and grammatical tones in both the major and minor dialects. My analysis is consistent with that of other researchers in positing just two lexical tones, Low and High. The posited Mid tone to mark definiteness is a grammatical tone. Further, I agree with previous research in viewing that the surface tonal contours found in these varieties are due to the restricted tonal inventory and are not lexical tones. These result from multiple tones associating to the same syllable. Several analyses of tone in Nko dialects will be discussed and a full picture of the tonal schemas (or melodies) in the language is proposed.

The Sgaw Karen language remains underdocumented and underdescribed; this dissertation attempts to contribute to the understanding of Sgaw Karen phonetics and phonology by examining a variety spoken within a refugee community n Buffalo, New York. It includes an anlysis of the segmental and tonal inventories and relates these findings to previously published analyses of other Sgaw Karen varieties. Special attention is paid to the acoustic phonetics of the tone system, with particular regard to the role played by voice quality.

This dissertation provides a description of aspects of the phonology, morphology, and morphosyntax of Bangime. Bangime is a language isolate spoken in the Dogon language speaking area of Central Eastern Mali. Although the Bangande, the speakers of Bangime, self-identify with the Dogon, their language bears practically no resemblance to the surrounding Dogon languages. Bangime has limited productive morphological processes whereas Dogon languages are agglutinating, with productive morphemes to indicate inflectional and derivational verbal and nominal processes.

Bangime has a complex tonal system. General tendencies of the tonal patterns are described, with the many exceptions which frequently occur also outlined. Nominal tonal melodies are apparent in plural forms. Objects in verb phrases receive tonal agreement with tones on the verb in accordance with the subject of the sentence.

The tense, aspect, and mood system of the language is also complicated. Inflectional marking on the verb, auxiliaries, and the word order all contribute to the indication of the tense, aspect or mood of the sentence. An overview of these multifaceted phonological and morphological processes is provided in this dissertation with hypotheses as to how the language might have evolved.