This is the first in a series of articles on general phonetic characteristics of American English. Language research techniques of spectrographic analysis, spectrographic synthesis, articulatory motion-picture study, and statistical calculation are briefly described. Thirty-five areas of phonetic difference for comparison of English to Spanish,…

Recent research in experimental phonetics seems to provide evidence for a clear division between language units and speech units. Many researchers have suggested that the consonant-vowel (CV) syllable may be a universal unit of speech production and perception, while language units become criterial only at higher levels of processing. In second…

This book is intended to be an introduction to the sound system of the Spanish language. The book is descriptive in nature and presents a true picture of the language as it is spoken by native speakers from a wide variety of dialect zones. The book is divided into five parts and 25 chapters. Part one, Phonetics and Phonology," includes the…

This is one of a series of reports intended to make the results of research available and to serve as progress reports. The following abstracts are included: (1) "Learning the Phonetic Cues to the Voiced-Voiceless Distinction: Preliminary Study of Four American English Speaking Children," Mel Greenlee; (2) "Learning the Phonetic Cues to the…

Assuming that a child uses a "reduced version" of the adult phonological system, as opposed to an "imperfect" version, a phonological analysis of a five-year-old child's language is conducted. Research procedures are thoroughly described; tables and diagrams are included. (DD)

This paper points out some linguistic and stylistic features of Black English as spoken by children and discusses the occurrence of particular language patterns. Examples of distinct intonation patterns, paralinguistic effects, language rhythm, and other phonological features are all considered. A statistical survey of particular age-group usage…

This study used perceptual and articulatory data to investigate a language specific phonemic inventory, and allophonic rules for homorganic initial voiced stops versus homorganic nasal stops, and oral versus nasal vowels in Taiwanese. Four experiments were conducted: concept formation, gating, and two airflow studies. Results of a first nasal…

This paper focuses on British English. Such rules as might be devised for specification of segment length would have to take into account, among other factors, the lenis/fortis nature of the segments at syllable margins, degree of stress, the relation between a given syllable and others in the same rhythm group, the same relations within the word,…

Human linguistic ability depends, in part, on the gradual evolution of man's supralaryngeal vocal tract. The anatomic basis of human speech production is the result of a long evolutionary process in which the Darwinian process of natural selection acted to retain mutations. For auditory perception, the listener operates in terms of the acoustic…

The ten papers in this collection are based on presentations given during a colloquium held November 14-15, 1969, at the University of Toronto. The papers, written in either English or French, cover various topics related to prosodic feature analysis in general; several concern the analysis of specific languages. General topics include discussions…

A treatment program is described which successfully improved the speech of a 57-year-old apraxic patient. The program was composed of physiologic (nonspeech) and phonetic (articulatory) tasks that began with oroneuromotor control activities and progressed to consonant-vowel syllable, word, and sentence drills, with all activities paced by a…

A discussion of pronunciation instruction in English as a second language begins with comments on preparing for pronunciation work in the classroom and goes on to examine the rhythm of English and the characteristics of intonation. The chapter on preparing for pronunciation work focuses on: accounting for learner variables, motivating learning,…

Chorti, a Mayan language spoken in eastern Guatemala, is analyzed in this paper on the basis of a story text provided by an adult native speaker. A phonological description of Chorti is presented for background information; syllables, suprasegmentals, pause groups, articulation, and phonological rules are all considered. The author presents the…

Acoustical correlates of stress can only be evaluated in comparison with some "standard" specifying which syllables are actually stressed. The Standard should be consistent from time to time, and largely independent of talker and listener idiosyncrasies. Three phonetically-trained subjects listened to repeatedly spoken texts and spontaneous…

This pamphlet presents the content of a workshop on the contrastive analysis of Spanish and English sounds which create pronunciation difficulties for Mexican- American children learning the English language. Introductory remarks lead to teaching procedures for: (1) "ch" (voiceless alveo-palatal affricate, (2) "sh" (voiceless alveo-palatal…