Through experimentation, concurrent articulation was demonstrated to impair native English subject's ability to compare the internal stress patterns of written words. It was determined that the articulators' movements specifically affected stress analysis of words and this reflected postlexical, off-line processing. (25 references) (JL)

An analysis of the linguistic and social contexts of the occurrence of verbal "-s" marking in early Black English, within a historical and comparative perspective, shows that both third person singular and nonconcord "-s" are subject to regular, parallel environmental conditioning. (68 references) (Author/CB)

Various acoustic measures of speaking rate were calculated for 40 adult speakers of New Zealand English (NZE). These measures were then compared to a group of 40 adult speakers of American English (AE). Results of the analysis identified significantly faster overall speaking rate and articulation rate for the NZE group compared to the AE group. No…

The theory of articulatory setting, originally published in 1964, is outlined and expanded on, drawing on experiences with Polish and English. The theory proposes that each language has a unique configuration of articulators accounting for or establishing the natural sounds of that language that give it phonological unity and differentiate it from…

A study examined final vowel qualities in the speech of seven English speakers from the urban Tyneside area of England. It focused on variations in the pronunciation of the final "y" (e.g., city, happy, tiny) and their explanation by way of (1) the resonance characteristics associated with the articulatory gesture, (2) the…

This study progressively examines fundamental principles of articulatory phonetics, French and English phonemics, and theoretical phonetics. The Parisian accent is examined at great length. Vowel charts and phonetically transcribed sample lexical items are included. For a companion document see FL 001 799. [Hard copy not available due to marginal…

The objectives of this project were the instrumental analysis and detailed description of the phonetic features of American English and of the foreign languages most commonly taught in the United States--German, Spanish, and French. Eleven prosodic features, 13 vocalic features, and 16 consonant features of each are compared to English. A…

This investigation is a comprehensive acoustic study of 4 voiceless fricatives (/f [theta] s [esh]/) in English produced by adults and pre-and postpubescent children aged 6-14 years. Vowel duration, amplitude, and several different spectral measures (including spectral tilt and spectral moments) were examined. Of specific interest was the pattern…

This study looks for support for the suggestion in the Speech Learning Model that the phonetic category established in childhood for a first language (L1) sound may evolve gradually if it is linked perceptually to a second language (L2) sound. Assessed here is voice onset time (VOT) in two groups of five bilingual (English and Japanese) speakers,…

Examines the relationship between phonetic substitution patterns in child speech and sound change patterns in dialects of adult language, basing an explanation of these phenomena on acoustic data and language universals. (AM)

Phonological neutralization from a generative viewpoint is examined, and the process of solving the problems of representing the products of neutralization is described. First, in generative phonological terms, the product must be morphologically irresoluble in order to be considered a true neutralization. This distinguishes neutralization from…

This is a report on the deviant phonological system of a 4-year-old child. Although this system is characterized by deletions, assimilations, simplifications, and distortions, there is a regularity in the system which lends itself to systematic phonological analysis. Based on an examination of sample phonological deviations, the following rules…

This paper proposes a set of underlying vowels, alternate to those of Chomsky and Halle, to account for vowel alternations. This phonetic representational system, which is to a degree an extension of Chomsky's and Halle's basic framework, is demonstrated in the Laxing Rule and the Vowel Alternation Rule for all vowel variables. An appendix…

This project began with a theory about the prediction of errors in childrens' attempts to pronounce utterances modeled for them by adults. Subjects were children from 15 to 54 months old in all positions in the family. The sample from each child was an unprompted utterance judged to be an attempt to say something in English. Differences between…

Presents two analyses of deviant phonological systems. The one based on production evidence alone accounts for (1) differences in surface behavior of a set of phonetic segments with three possible phoneme sources, and (2) obstruent clusters across morpheme boundaries. The "substitution analysis" identifies the child's underlying representations…