Journal articles on the topic 'Consonant cluster reduction'

ABSTRACTThis study examines the well-known process of consonant cluster reduction in the English of residents of a San Antonio, Texas, barrio. The study compares Tejano patterns of /-t, d/ deletion with the pan-English pattern summarized by Labov (1989). Results of VARBRUL analysis show that /-t, d/ deletion in Tejano English is constrained by many of the same factors as in other English dialects, including Los Angeles Chicano English. Results also suggest, however, a complex pattern of convergence and divergence. Younger Tejanos are converging toward other dialects of English with respect to the effect of the morphological class on cluster simplification. Yet there is some evidence that they are diverging from other dialects with respect to the effect of syllable stress. On this latter dimension, younger Tejanos replicate the pattern found by Santa Ana (1991) among Los Angeles Chicanos. Finally, the study compares /-t, d/ deletion in Tejano/Chicano English in San Antonio and Los Angeles and shows that, despite many similarities, Mexican American varieties exhibit regional as well as generational differences.

The article describes the realization of frequent words with the intervocalic consonant clusters [gd] and [ljk] in the oral speech of three groups of informants: adult native speakers of the Russian language, children aged four to six years and Chinese students learning Russian as a second language (929 realizations of 11 words). The data obtained confirm the hypothesis that the most frequent form of reduction of the analyzed combinations of consonants in Russian speech is the loss of the first consonant. However, the variants with the reduction of the consonant and without it are equally probable in the speech of native Russian speakers for the majority of the analyzed words. In adult native speakers of Russian, there is a tendency to maintain a consonant cluster when the word is at the absolute beginning of the inter-pause interval. Children aged four to six years tend to use only one variant of the consonant clusters in each of the considered words. The main distinctive feature of Russian speech for Chinese students is the large number of sound changes in both intervocalic consonant combinations, as well as the statistically significant prevalence of the full pronunciation over the variant with the loss of the first consonant in the intervocalic cluster for all words with the [ljk] combination. The results can be used to improve existing automatic speech recognition systems, as well as in teaching Russian as a second language.

AbstractThis article reports on between-individual and within-individual variation in consonant cluster reduction strategies (where C1C2 is realised as C( or C2) among young children. The empirical base of the study is a Dutch database with over 9,000 instances of C1 and C2 realisations of 23 word-initial consonant clusters from 45 children aged between two and three years old. The study finds that within-child variation is very limited, whereas between-child variation occurs. It is also shown that there are typological implications; that is, realising C2 in cluster y, implies realising C2 in cluster y, but not vice versa. The data provide support for the position that variation can be accounted for by a finer grained notion of sonority where the sonority distance between the two consonants in a cluster plays a crucial role in establishing prosodic constituency.

The errors on word-initial consonant clusters made by children in the Iowa-Nebraska Articulation Norms Project (Smit, Hand, Freilinger, Bernthal, & Bird, 1990) were tabulated by age range and frequency. The error data show considerable support for Greenlee’s (1974) stages in the acquisition of clusters: the youngest children show cluster reduction, somewhat older children show cluster preservation but with errors on one or more of the cluster elements, and the oldest children generally show correct production. These stages extended to three-element clusters as well. Typical cluster reduction errors were (a) reduction to the obstruent in obstruent-plus-approximant clusters and (b) reduction to the second element in /s/-clusters. When clusters were preserved, but one member was in error, the error was typically the same as for the singleton consonant. Cluster errors are discussed in terms of theories of phonologic development, including open genetic programs and feature geometry. These data are expected to be useful in evaluation and treatment of disorders of phonology.

Purpose We sought to provide valid and reliable data on the acquisition of consonant sounds in speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Method The sample comprised 733 typically developing monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (ages 3;0–8;11 [years;months]). The presence of surface speech error patterns, the revised percentage consonants correct, and the age of sound acquisition were evaluated using phonological assessment software. The normative values for these variables were reported using means and standard deviations. Results Age had a significant impact on phoneme production. Increasing age was generally associated with an increase in correct phoneme production, a reduction in error patterns, and an increase in scores on revised percentage consonants correct. Phonological error patterns persisted for a longer time in consonants and consonant clusters acquired later in development. The 2 youngest age groups differed from the remainder of the sample on the frequency of the following phonological patterns: cluster reduction, liquid gliding, fricative deletion–coda, and weak-syllable deletion. Performance was similar between groups starting at 5;0 years old. Conclusion This study confirmed that nasal and stop consonants are acquired first, followed by fricatives and, finally, liquids. We suggest that future studies replicate our investigation in larger samples and younger age groups.

AbstractThis article is a reanalysis of cluster simplification in Quebec French (QF) in terms of government-licensing, a condition which requires non-nuclear governing heads to be licensed by a following vowel. It is suggested, contra Côté (1997, 1998), that simplification is triggered by a structural constraint rather than a constraint on sonority. It is shown that in QF, simplification does not apply to word internal clusters such asappartementandvendredibecause the following vowel is realized, but applies to forms liketableandcasque, and converts them into [tab] and [kas] respectively at the surface level due to the lack of a final vowel. However, cluster reduction does not apply to final clusters such asbarbe, gorge, andsoldein which the first member is a liquid. To account for why simplification applies in one case and not in the other, it is suggested that the two types of final clusters differ with respect to syllabification: liquids are within branching nuclei, whereas the first member of other clusters is within a branching rhyme. The case of word-final cluster simplification attested in Haitian Creole is also examined.

An investigation was conducted to compare the effects of single word and connected speech sampling conditions on the production of consonant clusters. Speech samples were obtained from 40 children with speech sound impairments who were aged 3 years: 6 months to 5 years. The children’s productions of 36 commonly occurring consonant clusters were compared across the two sampling conditions. Overall, children’s productions were more similar than different. Differences between the sampling conditions were apparent for three of the eight phonological processes studied, namely, cluster reduction, final consonant deletion, and epenthesis. Of 12 fine phonetic variations, only aspirated stops showed a significant difference between the sampling conditions. There was a wide range of individual variation.

Cameron et al. (2010) and Fruehwald & Gorman (2011) present the pattern of homorganic consonant cluster reduction in Catalan as a challenge to Baković’s (2005) theory of antigemination, which predicts that any feature ignored in the determination of consonant identity for the purposes of antigemination in a given language must independently assimilate in that language. I argue that the pattern in Catalan is not a counterexample to this prediction if the reduction process is analyzed as coalescence, following Wheeler (2005), rather than as deletion.

The way children acquire syllable structure of words characterizes the level of their speech development. It is assumed that 3=year=olds without any disorders do not have any difficulties with constructing syllables. The current paper describes the results of an acoustic study of word syllable structure in the speech of twenty Russian 3=year=old subjects. 75% of them demonstrated from 3 to 7 syllable structure changes. The maximum of 13,2% of the total of 53 words were characterized by those changes. There were examples of word-initial single-consonant elision, syllable elision, syllable transposition, sounds transposition, insertions of hard and soft forelingual /l/ and /lʲ/ into a syllable, and anticipation. Consonant cluster reduction was also noticed; it did not change the number of syllables in words. Clusters that were more and less resistant to reduction were determined.

In a multiple baseline across behaviors design, two children with articulation errors were trained to suppress the phonological processes of weak syllable reduction and consonant cluster reduction. Results of this investigation indicated that the treatment was effective in increasing correct responses on target words, and that training generalized to phonetically similar untrained words.

The speech productions of 19 hard of hearing children between 5 and 12 years of age were examined for errors related to phonological process categories. For comparison, the subjects were divided into groups of 9 with Profound and 10 with Moderate to Severe hearing losses. There was a significant relationship between hearing loss and phonological errors. Seven phonological processes were evident in at least 33% of obligatory contexts. Prevalent processes included final consonant deletion and cluster reduction. The most prevalent deficiencies included / r/ and /1/ phonemes. Subjects with Profound hearing losses produced more errors over-all as well as more errors in each phonological process category. Subjects with Profound hearing losses frequently deleted entire consonant clusters, whereas subjects with Moderate to Severe hearing losses did not. Results are also discussed in relation to normal development.

Purpose This review evaluated whether 9 single-word tests of phonological error patterns provide adequate content coverage to accurately identify error patterns that are active in a child's speech. Method Tests in the current study were considered to display sufficient opportunities to assess common phonological error patterns if they provided at least 4 opportunities for each of 11 error patterns. The target phonemes for these error patterns had to occur as singletons (except for final consonant deletion and cluster reduction) and in stressed syllables (except for weak syllable deletion). Error patterns for which positional asymmetries have been documented (velar fronting, stopping of fricatives and affricates, and cluster reduction) required 4 opportunities in both word-initial and word-final position to meet the study's criterion. Results None of the tests provided 4 opportunities for every error pattern, the criterion level used in this study. Error patterns that tended to be underrepresented across tests included weak syllable deletion, reduction of word-final clusters, fronting of velars, gliding of liquids, and deaffrication. Conclusion This review will allow clinicians to gain a deeper understanding of the methods used to assess phonological error patterns in single-word tests.

Little is known about the acquisition of phonology by children with hearing loss who learn languages other than English. In this study, the phonological abilities of 12 Cantonese-speaking children (ages 4:2 to 6:11) with prelingual hearing impairment are described. All but 3 children had almost complete syllable-initial consonant repertoires; all but 2 had complete syllable-final consonant and vowel repertoires; and only 1 child failed to produce all nine tones. Children’s perception of single words was assessed using sets of words that included tone, consonant, and semantic distractors. Although the performance of the subjects was not age appropriate, they nevertheless most often chose the target, with most errors observed for the tone distractor. The phonological rules used included those that characterize the speech of younger hearing children acquiring Cantonese (e.g., cluster reduction, stopping, and deaspiration). However, most children also used at least one unusual phonological rule (e.g., frication, addition, initial consonant deletion, and/or backing). These rules are common in the speech of Cantonesespeaking children diagnosed as phonologically disordered. The influence of the ambient language on children’s patterns of phonological errors is discussed.

ABSTRACTThis article is a quantitative study of the variable deletion of post-obstruent /l/ and /R/ in word-final obstruent-liquid clusters (OLC) in French (capable [kapab(l)], cidre [sid(ʁ)]). The analysis of over a thousand tokens extracted from a corpus of interviews gathered in Nancy and Rennes shows that the reduction of word-final OLCs is a stable sociolinguistic marker in northern, standardised metropolitan French. Patterns of stylistic and social stratification in age, gender, and social class and interaction with following phonological context are attested, but OLC reduction does not appear to be an ongoing change. It is argued that the data provide further evidence of variable morpheme-final consonant clusters as a ‘primitive’ feature of vernacular dialects.

Phonological process analysis forms were developed for the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation and selected items from the Templin-Darley Tests of Articulation. These forms were used to describe the articulation of a 3-year-old child with multiple articulation errors. Both forms identified backing, final consonant deletion, stopping, and cluster reduction as processes affecting the child's speech. Procedures for scoring the forms are provided. For clinicians not familiar with phonological processes, the use of these forms should prove helpful in deriving phonological information.

Purpose The production of speech sound classes in adult language learners is affected by (a) interference between the native language and the target language and (b) speaker variables such as time speaking English. In this article, we demonstrate how phonological process analysis, an approach typically used in child speech, can be used to characterize adult target language phonological learning. Method Sentences produced by 2 adult Japanese English language learners were transcribed and coded for phoneme accuracy and analyzed according to the percent occurrence of phonological processes. The results were interpreted relative to a contrastive analysis between Japanese and English phonetic inventories and developmental norms for monolingual English children. Results In this pilot study, common consonant processes included vocalization, final consonant devoicing, and cluster reduction. These are processes commonly observed in the speech of children who are typically developing. Conclusions The process analysis can inform clinical approaches to pronunciation training in adult English language learners. For example, the cycles approach (Hodson & Paden, 1981) may provide more clinical efficacy than an articulatory approach in which phonemes are targeted individually. In addition, a process analysis can enable clinicians to examine the principles of within-class and across-class generalization in adult pronunciation instruction.

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mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;ＭＳ 明朝&quot;; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">This paper aims to determine the behavior of secondary clusters in Swiss French child language and, in doing so, provide a first step towards the identification of the order of acquisition of primary and secondary clusters. The data first of all reveal that the variant with schwa is in a global fashion preferred to the variant without schwa, and this regardless of the child&rsquo;s mastery of primary clusters. The data further reveal that the occasional production of the non-preferred variant without schwa entails modifications of the secondary cluster in conformity with the child&rsquo;s relative mastery of consonant sequencing. While secondary clusters pattern with primary clusters when it comes to repair strategies such as gliding and realization of an interconsonantal reduced vowel, they diverge from the latter when it comes to cluster reduction: there is a general preference for the preservation of C2, irrespective of the sonority profile of the cluster.</span><!--EndFragment-->

Abstract The aim of this study was an attempt to verify whether Polish speakers of English insert a vowel in the word-final clusters containing a consonant and a syllabic /l/ or /n/ due to the L1–L2 transfer. L1 Polish speakers are mostly unaware of the existence of syllabic consonants; hence, they use the Polish phonotactics and articulate a vocalic sound before a final sonorant which is deprived of its syllabicity. This phenomenon was examined among L1 Polish speakers, 1-year students of English studies, and the recording sessions were repeated a year later. Since, over that time, they were instructed with regard to phonetics and phonology but also the overall practical language learning, the results demonstrated the occurrence of the phenomenon of vowel insertion on different levels of advanced command of English. If the vowels were inserted, their quality and length were monitored and analysed. With regard to the English system, pronouncing vowel /ə/ before a syllabic consonant is possible, yet not usual. That is why another aim of this study is to examine to what extent the vowels articulated by the subjects differ from the standard pronunciation of non-final /ə/. The quality differences between the vowels articulated in the words ending with /l/ and /n/ were examined as well as the potential influence from the difference between /l/ and /n/ on the occurrence of vowel reduction. Even though Polish phonotactics permit numerous consonantal combinations in all word positions, it proved to be challenging for L1 Polish speakers to pronounce word-final consonantal clusters containing both syllabic sonorants. This result carries practical implications for the teaching methodology of English phonetics.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the English phonological skills of English language learners (ELLs) over 5 time points. Method Sound class accuracy, whole-word accuracy, percentage of occurrence of phonological patterns, and sociolinguistic correlational analyses were investigated in 19 ELLs ranging in age from 5;0 (years;months) to 7;6. Results Accuracy across all samples was over 90% for all sound classes except fricatives and increased for all sound classes across time. Whole-word accuracy was high and increased across time. With the exception of cluster reduction, stopping, and final consonant deletion, the frequency of occurrence for phonological patterns was less than or equal to 5% at every time point. Sociolinguistic variables such as age of arrival, age of exposure, and age were significantly related to phonological skills. Conclusions The results were consistent with the hypotheses outlined in Flege's (1995) speech learning model in that the phonological skills of ELLs increased over time and as a function of age of arrival and time. Thus, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) also should expect phonological skills in ELLs to increase over time, as is the case in monolingual children. SLPs can use the longitudinal and connected-speech results of this study to interpret their assessments of the phonological skills of ELLs.

This paper presents an empirical study of errors of various types committed in consonant realization by 20 Russian male and female 3-year-olds. We aimed at ranging Russian consonants according to the difficulty of their articulation focusing on common error tendencies and idiosyncratic error features. The results of the acoustic study of phoneme opposition phonetic manifestation showed that /г/, /rV, /1/, /IV, /J7, /JV, /3/, /tJ7 were the most difficult for 3-year-olds performance. A further finding was high across-speaker variability in the studied age group as far as the level of native language acquisition. Coronals and some labials, but not velars, were consistently palatalized. Doubly articulated /JV, /J7, /3/, /tJ7 underwent [si], [s], [z], [z] and [ts] fronting. Realization of certain consonant clusters involved reduction and a number of errors found for single consonants including gliding, fronting, and palatalizing.

Quasi-spontaneous dialogues from six languages which, according to recent discussion of rhythmic types, belong to three rhythmic groups – Russian and Bulgarian as ‘stress-timed’, Italian and Greek as ‘syllable-timed’ and Polish and Czech as an intermediate ‘mixed’ type – were examined for the following segmental reduction phenomena: reduction of consonant clusters, weakening of consonant articulation, residual properties from elided consonants in the original context segments, phonetic schwa-isation and syllable elision. The hypothesis tested was that there are comparable reduction phenomena in all languages since all languages allow for variation in the time and effort invested in any given part of an utterance as a means to support the relative weight of elements within the information structure. This hypothesis was borne out in principle, though there were a small number of exceptions across the six languages to the occurrence of reduction types examined.

ABSTRACTVariationist treatments of phonological processes typically provide precise quantitative accounts of the effects of conditioning environmental factors on the occurrence of the process, and these effects have been shown to be robust for several well-studied processes. But comparable precision in theoretical explanation is usually elusive, at the current state of the discipline. That is, the analyst is usually unable to say why the parameters should have the particular values that they do, although one can often explain relative ordering of environments. This article attempts to give a precise explanation — in the form of a quantitative theoretical prediction — of one robust quantitative observation about English phonology. The reduction of final consonant clusters (often called -t,d deletion) is well-known to be conditioned by the morphological structure of a target word. Deletion applies more in monomorphemic words (e.g., mist) than in inflected words (e.g., missed). In the theory of lexical phonology, these classes of words are differentiated by derivational history, acquiring their final clusters at different levels of the morphology. The theory further postulates that rules may apply at more than one level of the derivation. If -t,d deletion is treated as a variable rule with a fixed rate of application (p0) in a phonology with this architecture, then higher rates of application in underived forms (where the final cluster is present underlyingly and throughout the derivation) are a consequence of multiple exposures to the deletion rule, whereas inflected forms (which only meet the structural description of the rule late in the derivation) have fewer exposures and lower cumulative deletion. This further allows a precise quantitative prediction concerning surface deletion rates in the different morphological categories. They should be related as an exponential function of p0, depending on the number of exposures to the rule. The prediction is empirically verified in a study of -t,d deletion in seven English speakers.

This study has investigated the development of English and Arabic cluster in the speech of a bilingual child. Data was related to several recording sessions of spontaneous and non-spontaneous speech between the author and the child. The gradual development of English and Arabic onset cluster was traced in the production of a bilingual child aged between 1 year 04 months and 4 years 06 months. A comparative description of the repair strategy types used by the child to break English and Arabic consonants clustering in word-initial position has been provided. English onset clusters started to appear before the Arabic clusters. Arabic core clusters appeared before the plateau and reversal clusters. Cluster reduction and epenthesis were used to get rid of the clusters in both languages and prosthesis was used to get rid of clusters in Arabic.

English as spoken as a second language in India (IE) has developed different sound patterns from other varieties of English. While most descriptions of IE have focused on the English of speakers whose first languages belong to the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian families, in this study, I examine the phonetic and phonological characteristics of the English produced by speakers of three Indian L1s from the Tibeto-Burman language family (Angami, Ao, and Mizo). In addition to describing aspects of Tibeto-Burman Indian English, a previously unreported Indian English variety, I also examine how and why this variety of English differs from General Indian English. The English of Tibeto-Burman L1 speakers seems to form a variety distinct from Indian English, most noticeably in terms of the lack of retroflexion of coronal consonants, the devoicing of word-final obstruents, the simplification of consonant clusters, the presence of post-vocalic [p], and the reduced set of vowel contrasts. Most of these can be traced to transfer from the L1 phonology, with the coda devoicing and cluster reductions reflecting simplification in terms of markedness, following developmental sequences found in second language acquisition.

Purpose: There is a paucity of information detailing the phonological skills of Spanish-English bilingual children and comparing that information to information concerning the phonological skills of predominantly English-speaking (PE) and predominantly Spanish-speaking (PS) children. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between amount of output (i.e., percentage of time each language was spoken) in each language and phonological skills in Spanish-English bilingual children and PE and PS children. Method: Fifteen typically developing children, ranging in age from 5;0 (years;months) to 5;5 (mean=5;2), participated in the study. The participants consisted of 5 PE speakers, 5 PS speakers, and 5 bilingual (Spanish-English) speakers. A single-word assessment was used to gather information on phonological skills (consonant accuracy, type and frequency of substitutions, frequency of occurrence of phonological patterns [e.g., cluster reduction], accuracy of syllable types [e.g., CV, CVC, CCV, etc.]), and type and rate of cross-linguistic effects. Results: The results indicated that there was no significant correlation between amount of output in each language and phonological skills either in the Spanish skills of PS children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers or in the English skills of PE children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers. In addition, there was no significant difference in segmental accuracy, syllabic accuracy, or percentage of occurrence of phonological patterns between either the Spanish skills of PS children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers or the English skills of PE children and Spanish-English bilingual speakers. Finally, the children showed a limited number of cross-linguistic effects. Clinical Implications: Results from this study indicate no link between parent estimates of language output and phonological skill and demonstrate that Spanish-English bilingual children will have commensurate, although not identical, phonological skills as compared to age-matched PS and PE children.

Recent studies of bi-ethnic enclave dialect communities in the American South suggest that earlier versions of African American speech both accommodated local dialect norms and exhibited a persistent substratal effect from the early African-European contact situation. We examine this hypothesis by considering the sociolinguistic situation in Texana, North Carolina, a small African American community in the Smoky Mountain region of Appalachia. Though its population is only about 150 residents, it is the largest African American community in the Smoky Mountains. This study considers diagnostic sociolinguistic variables for Texana residents in order to examine the extent to which the members of this African American community align their speech with local dialect norms as the basis for evaluating the status of earlier and contemporary African American English (AAE) in Appalachia. Morphosyntactic variables examined are 3rd pl. -s attachment, 3rd sg. -s absence, copula absence, and past tense be leveling; phonological variables include rhoticity, syllable coda consonant cluster reduction, and /ai/ glide weakening. When compared to cohort white Appalachian speakers, data from older Texana residents confirm the regional accommodation of earlier AAE and at the same time point toward substrate influence in the historical development of AAE. However, unlike AAE in other enclave regional contexts, we find that the dialect of younger residents is not moving toward a supraregional norm of AAE. Instead, young speakers are accommodating several key features of Southern American English, specifically the Southern Appalachian English (AppE) variety that is characteristic of the Smoky Mountain region of North Carolina. Explanations for the attested diachronic changes as well as future trajectories of change for Texana speakers must appeal to sociopsychological factors such as regional identity and orientation to explain local community language norms.

In natural conversations, words are generally shorter and they often lack segments. It is unclear to what extent such durational and segmental reductions affect word recognition. The present study investigates to what extent reduction in the initial syllable hinders word comprehension, which types of segments listeners mostly rely on, and whether listeners use word duration as a cue in word recognition. We conducted three experiments in Dutch, in which we adapted the gating paradigm to study the comprehension of spontaneously uttered conversational speech by aligning the gates with the edges of consonant clusters or vowels. Participants heard the context and some segmental and/or durational information from reduced target words with unstressed initial syllables. The initial syllable varied in its degree of reduction, and in half of the stimuli the vowel was not clearly present. Participants gave too short answers if they were only provided with durational information from the target words, which shows that listeners are unaware of the reductions that can occur in spontaneous speech. More importantly, listeners required fewer segments to recognize target words if the vowel in the initial syllable was absent. This result strongly suggests that this vowel hardly plays a role in word comprehension, and that its presence may even delay this process. More important are the consonants and the stressed vowel.

Based on dialectometric methods, the article discusses the geolect of Plungė in terms of regressive assimilation of vowels i, u. The study material consists of about 9 hours of audio recordings, 57 sentences, recited by nine presenters of younger, middle and older generations. 6 words were chosen in which regressive assimilation of vowels can take place, i. e., the words with vowels i, u in accented, unaccented and shifted accent positions. Quantitative analysis of the material (sentences read by the presenters) was performed with the tools of the computer program Gabmap. Pseudo maps of networks, reference points, cluster analysis, as well as differential dialectal features were analyzed. The analysis performed using dialectometry methods shows that differences in limb reduction, word stem, consonant softening become apparent, but in many cases regressive assimilation of vowels i, u becomes the main variable feature. The operation/inaction of the regressive assimilation of vowels i, u is greatly influenced by accent. When vowels are accented, presenters of all generations pronounce them without regressive vowel assimilation. When the vowel i is unaccented, it is assimilated, and the vowel u is spelled narrowly by only a third of the presenters. Dual behavior exists in cases where vowels receive a shifted accent. The pronunciation of both vowels is approximate. Maintaining the main distinguishing feature of the residents of Plungė from the dialect of the residents of Telšiai, although inconsistent, would allow predicting that the linguistic dialect peculiarity of this area could compete with the language code of Telšiai – based on the Samogitian regiolect – or whether the regiolect itself would be / become dual-core (more detailed research based on a multi-faceted research model is needed to confirm this statement). The effect of regressive assimilation in the Plungė dialect, in the geolectic zone in general, can be both a proof of resemblance to the northern Samogitian Telšiai residents and a sign of a decrease in the importance of assimilation as a distinctive feature of the dialects.

Syllable pattern in Morava e Epërme local dialect of AlbanianThis article summarizes the first part of a research on syllable pattern in Kosovo dialects. It attempts to answer the question, whether Kosovo dialects have one-peak syllable pattern, two-peak syllable pattern or maybe some other type. Facing many theories about the syllabic unit, that have been created until now, for our study we choose the sonority theory, which is a very comfortable model for formulating distributional rules of speech sounds.Standard Albanian language is untypical against other European languages. This is due to the fact that it tolerates two-peak homorganic consonant clusters [NO-] in word initial position (mb-, mp-, nd-, ŋg-, nʣ-, ɲɟ-). Two-peak clusters in word final position are not accepted; consonants are always separated by vowel [ә]. What we observe in Standard Albanian is rather one-peak syllable pattern, where the hierarchy of sonority in the syllable is obeyed, but the least sonorous nasal sonorants should be classified to the distributional group of obstruents. And how does it look like in other Albanian dialects?For our study we have chosen several Kosovo dialects, which seem the most relevant for the examined problems. In this article I deal with the local dialect of Morava e Epërme, where I have studied the following issues:[SO-] initial clusters (including clusters with liquids l and rr),*[-OS] final clusters,Clusters [-OSO-] with an interobstruental sonorant,Consonantal proclitics on strong morphological borders (t’, m’, n’, s’),Occurences of vowel [ә]. Does it have phoneme status in this local dialect?Can sonorants and obstruents be syllabic?Our study has proved, that [NO-] initial clusters have tendency for reduction: [mbyt], [ŋuʃt] instead of [mbyt], [ŋguʃt, whereas sporadic occurence of the two-peak initial clusters lO-, rrO- is phonetically conditioned (it means that this form occurs only after vowels [m‿ka‿ʎʃu:], [mu‿Rʣu:]).Final *[-OS] clusters in Morava e Epërme, as in the standard Albanian, are completely extinct (they are usually split by vowel [ә]: [vetәm ktu], [natәn], [θupәr]). Th same referes to the clusters [-OSO-], which usually occur with the syllabic sonorant or inserted vowel schwa [ә].Dialect of Morava e Epërme tolerates syllabic sonorants and in some contexts also syllabic obstruents.The vowel [ә] appears very often, but never in unmotivated position. Therefore we can conclude that this sound does not have the phoneme status in this dialect.Dialect of Morava e Epërme neither has the typical one-peak syllable pattern (it tolerates two-peak initial clusters), nor it has a two-peak syllable model (it does not tolerate two-peak final clusters). This local dialect can be classified, the same as standard Albanian, as a one with one-peak syllable pattern, where, however, nasal sonorants should be distributionally classified as obstruents (and not as sonorants).

According to Population Census 2011, the estimated number of Poles in Latgale was 20,806 (7%). In the city of Rēzekne there were 795 Poles (2.5%) who constituted the third largest national minority after Latvians and Russians (CSP 2012). The Polish language spoken in Latvia belongs to the Northern-Peripheral Polish (in Polish ‘polszcszyzna północnokresowa’) that functions on the territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Ананьева 2004: 103). The aim of the paper is to describe and to analyse the major phonetic peculiarities of the Polish regiolect used by the Poles living in Rēzekne, determining their origin and possible infl uence of Russian and Latvian languages. The author juxtaposes the acquired data with the Standard Polish Language and fi ndings of other researchers considering Peripheral Polish Language. The material for this article has been recorded with a sound recorder at the end of 2011 and at the beginning of 2012 in Rēzekne during structured interviews. The length of the analysed records is 18 hours, which contain speech of thirty informants – three age groups of Poles born from 1932 to 1999 and living in Rēzekne. The data gained during interviews are indicative that since the Second World War there has been a signifi cant decrease in the use of Polish language in all spheres of life. Today the oldest and the middle generation use Peripheral Polish in families and at social events, but the youngest generation learns Standard Polish at school. A very signifi cant and interesting fact is that the representatives of the oldest generation who used and still use the Russian language to communicate with their children (the middle generation born during the Soviet rule), and use Polish when speaking to their grandchildren. After the auditory analysis of the recorded material, the author has selected ten most common and interesting phonetic peculiarities that are characteristic to the speech of Poles in Rēzekne. 1. Considering prosody, in the majority of idiolects the stress falls on the penultimate syllable, which is also characteristic of the Standard Polish, but the stress on ultimate and antepenultimate syllables has also been recorded. 2. The coexistence of the characteristic Standard Polish semi-vowel ṷ and Polish Peripheral dental lateral approximant ł. 3. The use of dental lateral approximant ł instead of the Standard Polish alveolar lateral approximant l. 4. Palatalized pronunciation of alveolar lateral approximant l’ characteristic of Peripheral Polish. 5. Palatalized pronunciation of voiced retroflex affricates č’, ǯ’ instead of the Standard Polish voiced alveolo-palatal ć, ʒ́ , as well as pronunciation of palatalized voiced retroflex č’ instead of the Standard Polish č. 6. Five realisations of “nasal vowels” ǫ, ę: a) synchronous pronunciation ǫ, ę; b) denasalization into o, e; c) asynchronous pronunciation on, on’, en, om, em; d) pronunciation of the sound cluster eŋ with velar nasal consonant ŋ in the ending; e) the realisation of ę with a vowel cluster eu. 7. So called “singing pronunciation” i.e. lengthened pronunciation of vowels in stressed syllables. 8. Merging of unstressed vowels o, e into a. 9. Reduction of unstressed vowel e &gt; i, y. 10. Reduction of unstressed vowel o&gt; u. When describing the Peripheral Polish spoken in the current territory of Lithuania and Belarus, a number of scientists note that various peculiarities of regiolects have emerged under the influence of Russian, Belarusian and Lithuanian languages. The material gathered during the current research allows proposing that phonetic peculiarities of the Polish language used in Rēzekne today are connected with the influence of Russian and Latvian languages. The peculiarities of the oldest generation of speakers were previously recorded by the researcher of Latgalian Polish language Małgorzata Ostrówka, but the current data shows that there are considerable differences in the language of the three studied generations. The main traces of the language spoken by the youngest generation of speakers are palatalized pronunciation of voiced retroflex affricates č’, ǯ’, pronunciation of the Standard Polish semi- vowel ṷ, the use of the dental lateral approximant ł instead of the Standard Polish alveolar lateral approximant l, synchronous realisation of “nasal vowels” ę, ǫ or their realisation with a sound cluster eŋ in the ending. On the contrary, the oldest generation retains dental lateral approximant ł instead of the Standard Polish semi-vowel ṷ, shows traces of “singing pronunciation”, asynchronous and denasalized pronunciation of “nasal vowels”, reduction of unstressed vowels, palatalized pronunciation of alveolar lateral approximant l’, merging of unstressed vowels o, e into a and pronunciation of palatalized voiced retroflex č’ instead of the Standard Polish č. The peculiarities recorded in the speech of the middle generation are a mixture of those of the old and young generations: dental lateral approximant ł and semi- vowel ṷ, various realization of “nasal vowels”, reduction of unstressed vowels, palatalized pronunciation of voiced retroflex č’. Disregarding the fact that the language of the youngest generation is phonetically closer to the Standard Polish language, provisional data gained by the author demonstrate insufficient vocabulary and restricted fluency. The representatives of the oldest and the middle generations are mostly fluent – speak without hesitation. It can be concluded that the Polish language spoken by the Poles in Rēzekne today is an aggregate of idiolects with many common phonetic peculiarities, but their frequency depends on the generation of the speaker and languages s/he uses on everyday basis. Continuation of research on morphology, lexis and syntax of the Polish language spoken in Rēzekne will allow constructing the full picture of the peculiarities of the regiolect.

It is proposed that oc pharyngealized onset consonants—that is, ‘type-A’ onset consonants—arose out of Proto-Sino-Tibetan plain consonants followed by geminate vowels separated by a pharyngeal fricative. When the first copy of the geminate vowel fell, the initial consonants formed clusters with the pharyngeal fricative, evolving into the oc pharyngealized consonants we reconstruct. In the Kuki-Chin branch of Tibeto-Burman, the pharyngeal fricative fell, and long vowels resulted. This proposal supposes a statistical correlation between Kuki-Chin long vowels and oc type-A words on the one hand, and between Kuki-Chin short vowels and oc type-B words on the other, as originally proposed by S. Starostin. A significant statistic bearing on forty-three probable Chinese-Kuki-Chin cognates supports this correlation. Thus reconstructed, a precursor language of Proto-Sino-Tibetan was aligned with Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Austroasiatic in exhibiting a surface constraint against monomoraic free words: by that constraint, the vowel of an underlying monosyllable was realized as a geminate with an intervening parasitic consonant such as a glottal stop or a pharyngeal fricative, while the vowels of a disyllable remained nongeminate. After reduction of disyllables to monosyllables, this process resulted in a pharyngealized vs. nonpharyngealized consonant distinction in oc. 論文提出對上古漢語咽化聲母（即“A類聲母”）來源的一個假設，認為咽化聲母來源於原始漢藏語的無標記輔音，並且此無標記輔音後跟隨著由咽部擦音[ʕ]分割的雙胞元音（geminate vowels）。在雙胞元音的前半部分脫落後，輔音聲母跟咽部擦音形成了複輔音。新形成的複輔音最終演變為上古漢語的咽化聲母。而在藏緬語庫基-欽（Kuki-Chin）語支中，則是咽化擦音脫落，使雙胞元音變為長元音。本文解釋了漢語與庫基-欽語中一個統計學的顯著相關性：一方面，庫基-欽語含長元音的詞與上古漢語含A類聲母的詞呈顯著相關；另一方面，庫基-欽語含短元音的詞與上古漢語含B類聲母的詞呈顯著相關，正如斯塔羅金（S. Starostin）所說。據此構擬，我們提出原始漢藏語、原始南島語與原始南亞語中的一個共同限制（constraint）：禁止在語流中出現單音拍（monomoraic）詞。在這一限制的作用下，單音節詞的單元音發生了雙胞化（germination），雙胞元音中間插入了喉塞音或咽部擦音之類的次聲輔音。而同時，雙音節詞的元音無變化。漢語經過雙音節詞的單音節化，就形成了無標記輔音與咽化輔音的音位對立。(This article is in English.)

The analysis of Old Romance geographical names in early South Slavic confirms that the majority of late Proto-Slavic sound changes were still operative in the period of the earliest Old Romance-Slavic language contacts in the Balkan Peninsula and eastern Alps from the second half of the 6th century and the beginning of the 7th century onwards. Phonetic substitutions of the type Rom. *kE, *gE → Sl. *c, *ʒ (Balk. Rom. *Kersu → Sl. *Cersъ, Balk. Rom. *Gīla → Sl. *Ʒiĺa) and Rom. *auC → Sl. *ovC (Balk. Rom. *Laurentiu > *Laurenču → Sl. *Lovręčь) point to the fact that the first palatalization of velars as well as the monophthongization of the inherited diphthongs were no longer among the ongoing processes. All other late Proto-Slavic sound changes were either still operative or only took place after the borrowing. This is confirmed by the relative chronology of the following set of Romance-Slavic correspondences: simplification of consonant clusters: Rom. *ps → Sl. *s (Balk. Rom. *Apsaru → Sl. *Osorъ), development of prothetic consonants: Rom. *ū- → Sl. *uū- > *vy- (Alp. Rom. *Ūdẹnu → Sl. *(V)ydьnъ), simplification of j-clusters: Rom. *Ci → Sl. *Cʹ (Balk. Rom. *Arsia → Sl. *Orša), delabialization of *o after *r: Rom. *ro → Sl. *ry > *ri (Rom. *Roma → Sl. *Rymъ > *Rimъ), second regressive palatalization of velars (see above Sl. *Cersъ, *Ʒiĺa), rise of nasal vowels: Rom. *ENC, *ONC → Sl. *ęC, *ǫC (Balk. Rom. *Parentiu > *Parenču → Sl. *Poręčь, Balk. Rom. *Karantānu → Sl. *Korǫtanъ), progressive palatalization of velars: Rom. *Ek, *Eg → Sl. *c, *ʒ (Balk. Rom. *Longātẹku → Sl. *Lǫgatьcь), delabialization of *ū1 > *y: Rom. *ū/*o → Sl. *y (Balk. Rom. *Allūviu → Sl. *Olybъ), labialization of *a > *o: Rom. *a → Sl. *o (Balk. Rom. *Kapra → Sl. *Koprъ), vowel reduction of *i, *u > *ь, *ъ: Rom. *ẹ, *ọ → Sl. *ь, *ъ (Balk. Rom. *Kọrẹku → Sl. *Kъrьkъ, Balk. Rom. *Tọrre → Sl. *Tъrъ).

This paper provides a detailed description of the pronunciation of English by fifteen fourth-year undergraduates at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. First, the occurrence of American features of pronunciation is considered. Then there is an analysis of the pronunciation of initial TH, initial and final consonant clusters, L-vocalisation, conflation between initial [n] and [l], monophthong vowels, the vowels in FACE and GOAT, vowel reduction, rhythm and sentence stress. Finally, the status of Hong Kong English is considered, particularly the extent of its continuing alignment with an exonormative standard.

The influence of development and literacy upon syllabification in French was evaluated by comparing the segmental behavior of 4- to 5-year-old preliterate children and adults using a pause insertion task. Participants were required to repeat bisyllabic words such as “fourmi” (ant) by inserting a pause between its two syllabic components (/fur/-/mi/). In the first experiment we tested segmentation over a range of 49 double intervocalic consonant clusters. A similar general segmentation behavior was observed in both age groups, with a pattern that fit the predictions from a legality principle-based model of syllabification. Experiment 2 revealed that opacity between phonological and orthographic representations lead to increased ambisyllabic responses and a reduction in segmentation consistency in adults. In total, these findings indicate that syllabic forms are consistently represented from an early age, but that segmentation in metalinguistic tasks is susceptible to contamination from spelling and etymological knowledge.

Abstract This study probed the relationship between productive phonotactic repair and speech production, by asking whether the natural variability found in speech, through phonetic reduction, may include apparent illicit sequences requiring repair, even though the target words are licit. Spanish productively repairs word-initial /s/-consonant clusters (#sC) with a prothetic [e] in both production and perception. We asked whether the initial vowel in Spanish #VsC words like espalda ‘back’ is prone to reduction, and whether or not /e/, which matches the default repair vowel, is more susceptible to reduction than other vowels (e.g. in aspirina ‘aspirin’) due to its predictability. We explore these hypotheses in the speech of 11 speakers of Andalusian Spanish who produced #VsC words in isolation. Initial vowels showed lower intensity, greater devoicing, and less modal voicing compared to control #pVs-initial words, and initial /e, i, o/ were occasionally deleted, leading to the occurrence of apparently illicit sequences in actual speech, e.g. espalda produced as [spalda]. However, evidence that the default vowel, [e], was reduced more than other vowels was weak. These results suggest that variation in speech may contribute to the well-known illusory vowel effects, where listeners perceive illicit sequences as though the repair vowel had been present.

This paper reports the results of a study of the persistence of individual differences in the phonological development of 10 normally developing children observed at age 1 year and again at age 3 years. Data were based on ½-hr audio and video recordings of weekly spontaneous mother-child interaction sessions in the home between 9 and 17 months and at 36 months. In addition, phonological and cognitive probes were administered at age 3. At age 1 the children were compared at four times selected on the basis of the number of different word types used in a session. Preferences for particular phonological categories (fricatives, liquids, final consonants) were found not to correspond to relative mastery of those categories at age 3. Based on both babble and words, high use of vocalizations containing true consonants was found to be predictive of greater phonological advance at age 3. Phonological errors of two kinds were distinguished for age 3: those resulting from difficulty with specific segments and those more typical of younger children, involving the rearrangement, assimilation, or deletion of segments or syllables (prosodic errors). The children differed in intelligibility and in specific segment substitutions and cluster reductions. They also differed in the proportion of prosodic errors made and in consistency in segmental errors. Lastly, aspects of cognitive or learning style as expressed in phonological organization were found to be recognizable at both age 1 and age 3.

Kashmiri is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India and in some parts of Pakistan. Some phonological and morphological features of this language make it peculiar among Indo-Aryan languages. This write-up provides a phonological sketch of Kashmiri. The description of Vowels and Consonants is given in order to build a general idea of the phonological system of the language. The process of nasalization is phonemic in Kashmiri. The aim of this write-up is to describe and show all the phonological features of the language, particularly those that are uniquely found in this language. In addition, an attempt has been made to describe and explain the various phonological processes such as Palatalization, Epenthesis and Elision, which occur in Kashmiri. All such processes are described with appropriate examples and the data comprising of lexemes and sounds for examples is primary data used by the author who is a native speaker of the language. Given to the peculiar features of this language, the process of homonymy, which is homographic in nature, is described with appropriate examples. References Bhaskararao, P., Hassan, S., Naikoo, I. A., Wani, N. H., T. A., & Ganai, P. A. (2009). A Phonetic Study of Kashmiri Palatalization. In M. e. Minegishi, Field Research, Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Informatics (pp. 1-17). Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Bhat, R. N. (2008). Palatalization : a note on Kashmiri morphophonology. Retrieved 11 14, 2018, from Academia: https://www.academia.edu/6383970/Palatalization_A_Note_on_ Kashmiri_Morphophonology Chomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row . Crowley, T. (1997). An introduction to historical linguistics. Oxford: oxford University Press. Fussman, G. (1972). Atlas linguistique des pariers Dardes et Kafirs. Paris: Ecole Francaise d'Etreme-Orient. Grierson, G. A. (1973). A standard manual of Kashmiri language (Vol. 2). Rohtak: Light and Life Publishers. Grierson, G. A. (1919). Linguistic Survey of India. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing. Kachru, B. B. (1969). Kashmiri and other Dardic languages. (T. A. Sebeok, Ed.) Current Trends in Linguistics, 5, 284-306. Kak, A. A. (2002). Languange maintenance and language shift in Srinagar. New delhi: Un­pub­lished Phd dissertation, University of Delhi. Kak, A. A., & O. F. (2009). Nasality of Kashmiri vowels in Optimality theory. Nepalese Linguistics, 4, 61-68. Koul, O. N. (1996). On the standardization of Kashmiri script. In S. I. Hasnain (Ed.), Standardization and Modernization: Dynamics of Language Planning (pp. 269-278). New Delhi: Bahri Publications. Koul, O. N., & Wali, K. (2006). Modern Kashmiri grammar. Springfield: Dunwoody Press. Ladefoged, P., & Maddieson, I. (1996). The sounds of the worls's languages. Oxford: Blackwell. Lawrence, W. R. (1895). The valley of Kashmir. Srinagar: Kesar Publishers. Leech, G. (1974). Semantics. Middlesex: Penguin Books. Mir, F. A. (2014). Acquisition of deixis among Kashmiri speaking children of 4-5 years of age. Department of Linguistics Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. Aligarh: Unpublished M.Phil Thesis. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. (2018, 10 12). Census,2011. Retrieved 11 12, 2018, from censusindia: http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/C-16_25062018_NEW.pdf Pandey, P. (2018). Types of Phonological Processes. Retrieved from e-Pathshala: http://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/epgpdata/uploads/epgp_content/linguistics/02.introduction_to_phonetics_and_phonology/21._types_of_phonological_processes-_i/et/7664_et_et_21.pdf. Shakil, M. (2012). Academia. Retrieved 11 15, 2018, from Languages of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir: a preliminary study: https://www.academia.edu/6485567/Languages_of_ Erstwhile_State_of_Jammu_Kashmir_A_Preliminary_Study_?auto=download Wheeler, M. W. (2005). Cluster reduction: Deletion or Coalescence? Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 4, 57-82. Retrieved 11 2018, from https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Catalan Journal/article/view/39481

ABSTRACT Purpose: to check the use of phonological processes in preterm infants. Methods: phonological evaluation was performed through the ABFW Child Language Test in 40 children, aged two to four years, i.e., 20 preterm and 20 full-term children, matched according to age, gender and socioeconomic level. Preterm children were evaluated at the State Center for Prevention and Rehabilitation of People with Disabilities - CEPRED; full-term children were selected and evaluated in a municipal nursery in the city of Salvador, BA, Brazil. The pertinent statistical tests were applied adopting the level of significance lower than 0.05%. Results: in the phonology test, the number of productive phonological processes not expected for the chronological age was statistically significant in the preterm group, especially syllable reduction, consonantal harmony, velar backing and liquid reduction. The high prevalence of cluster reduction and final consonant deletion, though still compatible with chronological age, shows the need to follow up the language acquisition of these children, after the age of four. Conclusion: the results evidenced the difficulty found by preterm infants in the development of phonological skills, emphasizing the importance of early diagnosis and speech-language monitoring in language acquisition.

The paper takes the German noun plural formation as an example for different cases of doubt and shows in which circumstances German speakers can have problems to create the "normal" plural form corresponding to the standard. The paper distinguishes between native and non native plural forms. The cases of doubt within the former can be shown to result from either natural change which leads to a reduction of plural classes and explains the decline of the er- and the umlaut plural, or from a strategy of compensation which replaces the non iconic 0-plural by forms in -n or -s. The problems with the non native nouns varying between a plural form in -s and one ending in a schwa suffix are shown to be the consequence of the ongoing assimilation process. The -s is in complementary distribution with the native schwa suffixes of German and a means of integration: The non-syllabic -s allows for highly corresponding, "conservative" forms similar to the singular by adding only a segment, not a syllable to the stem. By contrast, a native plural with a syllabic suffix alters more or less severely the phonological shape of the base. The alterations yield a continuum of similarity that are demonstrated in a diagram. The paper shows that this distribution is functionally motivated. Loan words, nouns not yet fully established in the speech community, can only be altered in their phonological structure after they have gained a certain degree of familiarity. Only the established borrowings apply -en or -e because these allow "better" plural forms as to prosodic and phonological constraints, i.e. trochaic forms without consonant clusters and superheavy syllables. Finally, the paper discusses the consequences of this variation for the layers of the lexicon and for the grammar of German. Three appendixes indicate the statistical development of the plural classes during the last century, token frequencies of some examples and regional differences in the use of the variants.