The Possible Word Constraint, or PWC, is a speech segmentation principle prohibiting to postulate word boundaries if a remaining segment contains only consonants. The PWC was initially formulated for English where all words contain a vowel and claimed to hold universally after being confirmed for various other languages. However, it is crucial to…

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 presents a comprehensive instrumental acoustic analysis of phonation type distinctions in Marathi, an Indic language with numerous breathy voiced sonorants and obstruents. Important new facts about breathy voiced sonorants, which are crosslinguistically rare, are established: male and female speakers cue breathy phonation in…

The Phonological Permeability Hypothesis (PPH, Cabrelli Amaro & Rothman, 2010) attempts to reconcile evidence suggesting some L2 learners, however rare, attain native-like L2 phonological systems with the observation that most do not. Considering existing L2 phonology research, it is not clear that phonological differences between early and…

In this paper we analyzed some of the phonological rules of Russian loanword adaptation in Persian, on the view of Optimal Theory (OT) (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004). It is the first study of phonological process on Russian loanwords adaptation in Persian. By gathering about 50 current Russian loanwords, we selected some of them to analyze. We…

The central goal of this dissertation is to explore the relative perceptibility of vowel epenthesis in English onset clusters by second language learners whose native language is averse to onset clusters. The dissertation examines how audible vowel epenthesis in different onset clusters is, whether this perceptibility varies from one cluster to…

Responds to criticisms raised in John Coleman's critique of Charm Theory in "Charm Theory Defines Strange Vowel Sets." (GLR)

A continuation of the controversy concerning Charm Theory reexamines the theory through further critical analysis in the areas of right-branching expressions, elements vs. binary features, combination of charmless segments, charm and syllabic position, and unmarked vowels and vowel systems. (GLR)

The present study addresses the question of how within-word prosodic constituent boundaries constrain V-to-V coarticulation in Japanese. The smallest prosodic unit that might affect V-to-V coarticulation is the bimoraic foot. The effect of the foot boundary is observed in the present study: the bimoraic foot constrains the extent of V-to-V…

A purely segmental or suprasegmental analysis of vowel harmony in Arabic is inadequate because it leaves some questions unanswered. An approach based primarily on the metrical structure of the utterance and addressing an independent structural category, the "foot" of the word, that phonological rules may refer to, is preferred,…

Discusses the use of mechanical validation of formal, combinatorial theories in phonetics, and uses a computational tool in analyzing the implementation of the Charm and Government theory of phonology. (GLR)

Describes what happens phonetically when the posterior A-vowel in French loses its phonemic significance. Posterior /A/ and anterior /a/ are contrasted using new information on the current phonetic status of this vowel. (NCR)

The desirability of the exploitation of experimental phonetics by the phonologist is discussed, and research on vowel duration in Thai is described in support of this contention. (RM)

In the light of current morphological theory, this paper examines analogical leveling of long/short vowel oppositions in certain inflectional and derivational alternations in a number of modern Swiss German dialects. The regular occurrence of leveling is shown to depend on the extent to which the alternation in question is "perceptually…

The acoustic effects of the syllable-final /l/ significantly alter the vocalic timbre of the preceding vowel in Catalan. Vowel quality is modified anticipatory to the articulatory gestures required by the /l/, resulting in a lowered second formant. Syllable-final /l/ in Catalan is heavily velarized as a result of tongue tip-tongue back coupling…