The present volume is intended as an introductory textbook in field analysis of unstudied languages. Chapters discuss (1) language and sound systems; (2) taxonomy and its uses; (3) characterization and breath, rhythmic, syllabic, and phonetic segments; (4) frames; (5) segments; (6) discrimination; (7) classification; (8) matching; and (9)…

This paper presents a linguistic discussion of play-languages--designated as ludlings by the author and tentatively defined as the result of a transformation or a series of transformations acting regularly on an ordinary language text, with the intent of altering the form, but not the content of the original message, for purposes of concealment or…

This paper investigates the acquisition of compound vs. phrasal stress ("hot dog" vs. "hot dog") in English. This has previously been shown to be acquired quite late, in contrast to recent research showing that infants both perceive and prefer rhythmic patterns in their own language. Subjects (40 children in four groups the averages ages of which…

This paper focuses on linguistic prosodic units related to boundaries between syntactic units. Specifically, rules for predicting the location of such boundaries, and factors affecting their location, are discussed. Examples are given on how prosodies can be used for syntactic analysis. Addressing the question of prosodic units and their…

This paper deals with methods and models appropriate to the systematic linguistic study of the child's acquisiton of phonology. Sections I through IV present a review of previous studies in the field, discuss the usefulness of the concept of "innateness," discriminate between phonetic and phonological ability, and discuss the concept of discrete…

Analysis of the distributional properties of non-syllabic vowels within word boundaries in Italian demonstrates: the role of phonological constraints on the distribution of non-syllabic words; the syllabification possibilities within each type of sequence by setting up a structural model; and the phonemic occurrences in vowel sequences collected…

Two experiments sought to extend the demonstration of English-learning infants' abilities to segment nouns from fluent speech to a new lexical class: verbs. Moreover, we explored whether two factors previously shown to influence noun segmentation, stress pattern (strong-weak or weak-strong) and type of initial phoneme (consonant or vowel), also…

At an employer's request, a course was developed to improve the speech skills, and remediate fossilized speech, of six Asian engineers and scientists. All had spoken English for many years, and averaged 10 years of residence in the United States. These students were recorded reading a dialogue as well as in free speech. A needs assessment was…

This book presents an acoustical and physiological Investigation of contemporary standard Arabic as spoken in Iraq. Spectrograms and X-ray sound films are used to perform the analysis for the study. With this equipment, the author considers the vowels, consonants, pharyngealized consonants, pharyngeals and glottals, duration, gemination, and…

This study investigated the encoding of syllable boundary information during speech production in Dutch. Based on Levelt's model of phonological encoding, we hypothesized segments and syllable boundaries to be encoded in an incremental way. In a self-monitoring experiment, decisions about the syllable affiliation (first or second syllable) of a…

University students were the subjects of three experiments designed to determine the usefulness of elliptic speech in investigating the perception of the phonological structure of continuous speech. Five naturally spoken and five synthesized paragraphs were recorded in two different randomizations of phonological distortions and at two different…

Linguistic research has paid little attention to "fillers." These so-called "hesitation forms" can be classified as being either "buffers" or "back channel elicitors," the former being self-primers, and the latter being other-directed. These forms are difficult to distinguish without access to kinesic and…

This report covers research conducted between July 1972 and March 1973. Experiments were conducted on the automatic detection of constituent boundaries and location of stressed syllables by analysis of fundamental frequency and energy contours, for recordings of six talkers reading the Rainbow Script, two talkers reading a paragraph composed of…

Reports on the perceptual discrimination of segmental and suprasegmental phones by Japanese learners of English. Results reveal that early learners showed better discrimination performance than normal learners and confirmed the usefulness of learning English at an early age. (16 references) (Author/CK)

This pronunciation manual for the study of English as a foreign/second language can be used with beginning as well as intermediate or advanced students. The text is organized in three parts or cycles. Part One is an introduction to selected features of pitch and stress and an inventory of the vowels and consonants, with contextual illustrations of…