The present dissertation examined the initial state of L3 phonology in native speakers of French and German who were Spanish-English bilinguals. The present work analyzed perception (Chapter 3), production (Chapter 4) and the perception production interface (Chapter 5). The results revealed that these bilinguals are influenced by both of their…

This dissertation is concerned with how elliptical sentences are generated. To be specific, I investigate when and in what module ellipsis occurs, and what is elided as a result of ellipsis. With regard to the first research question, I propose that XP ellipsis occurs as soon as all the featural requirements of the licensor of XP ellipsis are…

This dissertation examines the interface between music and language in "Huju", which is a Shanghai dialect based regional opera. Chapter I is a short introduction. Chapter II presents a thorough review of the studies on linguistic tone and music tune, and provides descriptive background information about "Huju" and Shanghai…

Many languages have processes which lengthen or shorten a vowel or consonant. In this dissertation, I concentrate on Open Syllable Lengthening, Closed Syllable Shortening, Monosyllabic Lengthening and Trochaic Lengthening, and present a formal model which captures these lengthenings and shortening as the insertion, deletion or reassignment of a…

This dissertation investigates the effect of phonetically cued emotional information (i.e., emotional prosody) on spoken word recognition. Even words whose meanings are not emotionally laden (e.g., "pineapple") can be uttered in a way that conveys anger, happiness, or sadness through phonetic modulation, and the current work investigates…

Late second language (L2) learners often struggle with L2 prosody, both in perception and production. This may result from first language (L1) interference or some property of how a second language functions in a late learner independent of what their L1 might be. Here we investigate prosody's role in determining information structure through…

The study of definite descriptions has been a central part of research in linguistics and philosophy of language since Russell's seminal work "On Denoting" (Russell 1905). In that work Russell quickly dispatches analyses of denoting expressions with forms like "no man," "some man," "a man," and "every…

This dissertation aims to extend our knowledge of prosody--in particular, what kinds of information may be conveyed through prosody, which prosodic dimensions may be used to convey them, and how individual speakers differ from one another in how they use prosody. Four production studies were conducted to examine how various factors interact with…

This thesis presents a comprehensive phonological analysis of the Weledeh dialect of Dogrib, a Northern Athabaskan language spoken in the Northwest Territories, Canada, based on the author's own fieldwork. The phonology of Northern Athabaskan languages, and Dogrib in particular, has to date been regarded as highly irregular, and subject to…

This study investigates the adaptation of word prosody in loanword phonology. First, it explicates several influential loanword theories and reviews some representative cases of prosodic adaptation from different languages. Then, it turns to the focus on the prosodic adaptation of Japanese borrowings into Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM or Taiwanese).…

The study of language production by adults who are learning a second language (L2) has received a good deal of attention especially when it comes to omission of inflectional morphemes within L2 utterances. Several explanations have been proposed for these inflectional errors. One explanation is that the L2 learner simply does not have the L2…

Sarcasm, or sarcastic irony, involves expressing a message that is often opposite of the literal meaning of what is being said, in a way that may sound bitter, or caustic (Gibbs, 1986). In the past, sarcasm has been viewed as a method of introducing the possibility of alternative interpretations of a discourse, by creating ambiguity as to the…

The current work offers a comprehensive examination of stress and tone in ten Indo-Aryan languages, providing novel analyses within Optimality Theory. The languages are divided into three categories: those in which tone is attracted to stress; those in which stress is attracted to tone; and those in which no interaction between stress and tone…

This thesis has two broad goals. The first is to contribute to the study of Arabic phonology particularly syllable structure and syllabification. This will be achieved through examining phenomena related to syllable structure and syllabic weight such as syllabification, stress assignment, epenthesis, syncope, and sonority in three different…

This dissertation takes a Minimalist approach to phonology, treating the phonological module as a system of abstract symbolic computation, divorced from phonetic content. I investigate the position of the phonological module within the architecture of grammar and the evolutionary scenario developed by Hauser et al. (2002a) and Fitch et al. (2005).…