There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.

The mental organization of phonotactic knowledge and its role in language comprehension has not been adequately explained to date. Drawing on experimental physiological methods, the author offers evidence for the cognitive reality of phonotactic restrictions, thereby contributing to our understanding of how speech is processed. The book s interdisciplinary approach will also be of interest to scholars in phonology and psycholinguistics."

This book presents a detailed sociolinguistic study of the traditionally Catalan-speaking areas of Southern France, and sheds new light on language attitudes, phonetic variation, language ideologies and minority language rights. The region's complex dual identity, both Catalan and French, both peripheral and strategic, is shown to be reflected in the book's attitudinal findings which in turn act as reliable predictors of phonetic variation. The author's careful discursive analysis paints a clear picture of the linguistic ideological landscape: in which French dominates as the language of status and prestige. This innovative work, employing cutting-edge mixed methods, provides an in-depth account of an under-examined language situation, and draws on this research to propose a number of policy recommendations to protect minority rights for speakers of Catalan in the region. Combining language attitudes, sociophonetics, discourse studies, and language policy, this will provide an invaluable reference for scholars of French and Catalan studies and minority languages around the world.

Referencing new developments in cognitive and functional linguistics, phonetics, and connectionist modeling, this book investigates various ways in which a speaker/hearer's experience with language affects the representation of phonology. Rather than assuming phonological representations in terms of phonemes, Joan Bybee adopts an exemplar model, in which specific tokens of use are stored and categorized phonetically with reference to variables in the context. This model allows an account of phonetically gradual sound change that produces lexical variation, and provides an explanatory account of the fact that many reductive sound changes affect high frequency items first.

This book addresses important issues of speech processing and language learning in Chinese. It highlights perception and production of speech in healthy and clinical populations and in children and adults. This book provides diverse perspectives and reviews of cutting-edge research in past decades on how Chinese speech is processed and learned. Along with each chapter, future research directions have been discussed. With these unique features and the broad coverage of topics, this book appeals to not only scholars and students who study speech perception in preverbal infants and in children and adults learning Chinese, but also to teachers with interests in pedagogical applications in teaching Chinese as Second Language.

This book explores the dynamics of language changes from sociolinguistic and historical linguistic perspectives. With in-depth case studies from all around the world, it uses diverse approaches across sociolinguistics and historical linguistics to answer questions such as: How and why do language changes begin?; how do language changes spread?; and how can they ultimately be explained? Each chapter explores a different component of language change, including typology, syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, lexicology, discourse strategies, diachronic change, synchronic change, how the deafblind modify sign language, and the accommodation of language to song. This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of language change over time, simultaneously advancing current research and suggesting new directions in sociolinguistic and historical linguistic approaches.

The sounds of language can be divided into consonants, vowels, and tones--the use of pitch to convey meaning. Seventy percent of the world's languages use pitch in this way. Assuming little or no prior knowledge of the topic, this textbook provides a clearly organized introduction to tone and tonal phonology. Comprehensive in scope, it examines the main types of tonal systems found in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, using examples from the widest- possible range of tone languages.

This textbook is a clear and concise introduction to phonology that assumes no prior knowledge and provides an overall view of the field which can be covered within a year. It also does not confine itself to any specific theoretical approach. Each chapter focuses on a particular set of theoretical issues including segments, syllables, feet, and phonological processing. Gussmann explores these areas using data drawn from a variety of languages including English, Icelandic, Russian, Irish, Finnish, Turkish, and others.

This book addresses various aspects of acoustic-phonetic analysis, including voice quality and fundamental frequency, and the effects of speech fluency and non-native accents, by examining read speech, public speech, and conversations. Voice is a sexually dimorphic trait that can convey important biological and social information about the speaker, and empirical findings suggest that voice characteristics and preferences play an important role in both intra- and intersexual selection, such as competition and mating, and social evaluation. Discussing evaluation criteria like physical attractiveness, pleasantness, likability, and even persuasiveness and charisma, the book bridges the gap between social and biological views on voice attractiveness. It presents conceptual, methodological and empirical work applying methods such as passive listening tests, psychoacoustic rating experiments, and crowd-sourced and interactive scenarios and highlights the diversity not only of the methods used when studying voice attractiveness, but also of the domains investigated, such as politicians' speech, experimental speed dating, speech synthesis, vocal pathology, and voice preferences in human interactions as well as in human-computer and human-robot interactions. By doing so, it identifies widespread and complementary approaches and establishes common ground for further research.

This study is the first to examine the prosodic structure of everyday sung language and its relevance for language acquisition. Using extensive authentic recordings in German, Russian and French, the author demonstrates how language and music interact with each other and how singing promotes small children s acquisition of language. The book provides far-reaching insights into the interfaces of language and music, and is thus of interdisciplinary relevance. In addition, it offers entry-points into language acquisition research, speech therapy and language typology. Editorial board Dr. habil.Kai Alter (Newcastle University Medical School) Prof. Dr. Thomas Pechmann (Universitat Leipzig) Prof. em. Dr. Anita Steube (Universitat Leipzig)"

Morphological productivity has, over the centuries, been a major factor in providing the huge vocabulary of English and remains one of the most contested areas in the study of word formation and structure. This book takes an eclectic approach to the topic, applying the findings for morphology to syntax and phonology. Bringing together the results of twenty years' work in the field, it provides new insights and considers a wide range of linguistic and psycholinguistic evidence.

This book presents a comparative reconstruction of the common phonology of the Chinese dialects using representative data from living dialects. The resulting phonology includes all categories and phonological distinctions that are represented in the dialect data. It departs from the tradition of using philological sources and non-Chinese borrowings as the basis for a reconstructed system. Based on a strict comparative methodology, the phonology presented encapsulates the shared phonology of the dialects and reflects the real-world distinctions and categories found in the living dialects. For example, the initials preserve the tripartite division that includes voiced obstruents seen in Wu dialects; the finals are comparatively drawn based on the collective dialect data; and the syllable codas preserve the three-way contrasts of consonant stop endings seen in the Cantonese dialects. The data presented allows readers to observe the basis for all of the distinction and categories included in the common phonology and the relationship of that phonology to all of the dialects, and as a result to identify the dialects' disparate developments and evolution. The English translation also includes innovative elements that render it even more useful for researchers than the Chinese original. The book is primarily intended for scholars and researchers investigating the Chinese dialects and their relationships, and the history of Chinese. It is also useful for scholars of Chinese history and literature who need a handy resource providing essential information on the historical phonology of Chinese.

This book is designed to provide students of phonology with an accessible introduction to the phonological architecture of words. It offers a thorough discussion of the basic building blocks of phonology--in particular features, sounds, syllables and feet--and deals with a range of different theories about these units. The book provides a more detailed analysis of this subject than previously available in introductory textbooks and is an invaluable and indispensable first step toward understanding the major theoretical issues in modern phonology at the word level.

This book is a comprehensive guide to the International Phonetic Alphabet, widely used for over a century to transcribe the sounds of languages. The Handbook is in three parts: Part I contains an introduction to phonetic description and exemplification of the use of phonetic symbols; Part II consists of twenty-nine "Illustrations" of the application of the International Phonetic Alphabet to a range of languages; and Part III covers speech pathology, computer codings, and the history of the IPA. This is an essential reference work for phoneticians and linguists more generally.

Este libro ofrece una introduccion a la diversidad linguistica del mundo hispano. Viajamos de manera virtual desde Espana a America para conocer los principales rasgos linguisticos de cada region y pais. En cada capitulo, el lector puede aprender sobre la pronunciacion, la gramatica, algunas palabras tipicas y todo lo que hace, linguisticamente hablando, diferente a cada pais hispano. Generalmente, el espanol se ve como una sola entidad, destacandose mayormente el espanol de Espana, y olvidandose de la enorme riqueza linguistica que ofrece cada pais y region hispana. Asimismo, en este libro introducimos algunos terminos basicos del estudio de la variacion linguistica, la dialectologia y la sociolinguistica. Ademas de la parte teorica, este libro incluye una variedad de ejercicios practicos e informacion sobre recursos adicionales disponibles en la red. Esta escrito en un espanol apropiado para hablantes de espanol intermedio alto, avanzado o superior (idealmente de tercer ano de carrera en EE. UU.) y para aquellos con o sin conocimientos previos de linguistica.Este libro es el perfecto companero de viaje a Espana o cualquier pais de Hispanoamerica.

Este libro ofrece una introduccion a la diversidad linguistica del mundo hispano. Viajamos de manera virtual desde Espana a America para conocer los principales rasgos linguisticos de cada region y pais. En cada capitulo, el lector puede aprender sobre la pronunciacion, la gramatica, algunas palabras tipicas y todo lo que hace, linguisticamente hablando, diferente a cada pais hispano. Generalmente, el espanol se ve como una sola entidad, destacandose mayormente el espanol de Espana, y olvidandose de la enorme riqueza linguistica que ofrece cada pais y region hispana. Asimismo, en este libro introducimos algunos terminos basicos del estudio de la variacion linguistica, la dialectologia y la sociolinguistica. Ademas de la parte teorica, este libro incluye una variedad de ejercicios practicos e informacion sobre recursos adicionales disponibles en la red. Esta escrito en un espanol apropiado para hablantes de espanol intermedio alto, avanzado o superior (idealmente de tercer ano de carrera en EE. UU.) y para aquellos con o sin conocimientos previos de linguistica.Este libro es el perfecto companero de viaje a Espana o cualquier pais de Hispanoamerica.

This is the first comprehensive study of the intonation of different languages of the world, written by a team of leading scholars in the field, most of whom are native speakers of the language in question. Surveying twenty languages, the volume introduces a new system for the multilingual transcription of intonation patterns. The chapters are organized following the same general outline to highlight the differences among languages. The emphasis is on description and comparison, rather than on theory, making this an invaluable sourcebook for researchers in the field.

A proper understanding of intelligibility is at the heart of effective pronunciation teaching, and with it, successful teaching of speaking and listening. Far from being an optional 'add-it-on-if-we-have-time' language feature, pronunciation is essential because of its tremendous impact on speech intelligibility. Pronunciation dramatically affects the ability of language learners to make themselves understood and to understand the speech of others. But not all elements of pronunciation are equally important. Some affect intelligibility a great deal, while others do not. With a strong emphasis on classroom practice and how pronunciation teaching can be more effectively approached in different teaching contexts, this book provides an important resource for pronunciation researchers, with a distinctly practical focus. It shows how intelligibility research informs pronunciation teaching within communicative classrooms, enabling language teachers to incorporate intelligibility findings into their teaching. Professionals interested in oral communication, pronunciation, and speech perception will find the book fascinating.

Was der Verhaltensbiologie gelungen ist - namlich die Entwicklung von einer beschreibenden zu einer erklarenden Wissenschaft - das sollte auch Ziel der Linguistik sein. Der Autor zeigt auf, wie sich dieses Ziel im systemtheoretischen Rahmen erreichen lasst. Zunachst ist das Grundlagenproblem unzureichender Begriffsdefinitionen und Testverfahren zu loesen, um zu korrekten Beschreibungen und induktiv abgeleiteten Gesetzmassigkeiten zu gelangen. Dadurch lassen sich bereits viele neue Erkenntnisse gewinnen. Sodann kann man fur empirisch ermittelte Sachverhalte nach Erklarungen suchen, die auf allgemeinen Prinzipien oder Erwartungen beruhen. Diese Suche ist unter anderem dann zumeist erfolgreich, wenn sie durch Symmetriebruche und eine konsequente Faktorenanalyse erleichtert wird.

The Communicative Value of Intonation in English, originally published in 1985 by the English Language Research unit in Birmingham and revised in 1992, sets out David Brazil's description of the system of intonation in English.This model of English intonation takes a discourse-based approach and attempts to assign 'meaning' or a communicative value to the different aspects that make up the system of intonation. Chapters within the book descibe parts of the intonation system which vary according to speaker choice: the tone unit as a whole, prominence, key, pitch and orientation. Three chapters are devoted to tones and their communicative value.This is an important and controversial work, which has influenced scholars in the field and ELT materials writers alike.A cassette containing all the examples of intonation features in the book is available.

Kleine Texte sind meist multimodale Erscheinungsformen, die in vielerlei Hinsicht unsere Alltagserwartungen an das, was Texte sind und sein koennen, in Frage stellen. In unserem kommunikativen Alltag sind wir umzingelt von zahllosen Kommunikaten, denen wir uns kaum entziehen koennen. Trotz dieser Allgegenwart sind linguistische Untersuchungen zum Thema "Kleine Texte" immer noch rar gesat. Diese Kluft zwischen alltaglicher Relevanz und textlinguistischem (Des-)Interesse soll der vorliegende Band verringern. Die im Band versammelten Beitrage zeigen zum einen verschiedene Zugriffsmoeglichkeiten auf den Gegenstand Kleine Texte und seine begriffliche Eingrenzung. Das Spektrum der Beitrage reicht dabei zum anderen von theoretisch-begrifflichen uber empirische bis hin zu dezidiert angewandten Arbeiten.

This book aims to provide an account of both what and how onomatopoeia communicate by applying ideas from the relevance theoretic framework of utterance interpretation. It focuses on two main aspects of the topic: the contribution that onomatopoeia make to communication and the nature of multimodal communication. This is applied in three domains (food discourse, visual culture in Asia and translation) in the final sections of the book. It will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of pragmatics, semantics, cognitive linguistics, stylistics, philosophy of language, literature, translation, and Asian studies.

Der Modus Konjunktiv ist einer der wichtigsten und komplexesten Modi vieler Weltsprachen. In dieser Publikation werden zwei nicht eng verwandte Sprachen einander kontrastiv gegenubergestellt und miteinander verglichen - das Spanische und das Russische. Primar ist das Ziel herauszufinden, ob sich die beiden untersuchten Sprachen im Konjunktivgebrauch ahneln, wenngleich sie verschiedenen Sprachstammen angehoeren. Es wird untersucht welche Differenzen und UEbereinstimmungen sie aufweisen. Die kontrastive Analyse des Konjunktivgebrauchs erfolgt anhand von Beispielsatzen aus dem Buch des kolumbianischen Schriftstellers Gabriel Garcia Marquez El amor en los tiempos del colera sowie des russischen Schriftstellers Boris Akunin Azazel' (und der entsprechenden russischen und spanischen UEbersetzung).

El volumen subraya la importancia de la filologia como instrumento de salvaguarda y recuperacion del patrimonio cultural linguistico y literario. Consta de 18 capitulos distribuidos en cuatro secciones, en los que, tras unas reflexiones teoricas sobre el concepto de patrimonio literario actual, autores de distintas areas filologicas de la Facultad de Letras de la Universidad de Malaga abren nuevas perspectivas de estudio para la conservacion y difusion del patrimonio linguistico y una mejor comprension de la historia y la sociedad de las culturas reflejadas en el patrimonio literario de Europa. Se cierra la obra con tres estudios que demuestran como ademas los textos literarios, mediante el analisis filologico que acentua su valor testimonial de epocas pasadas, son documentos indispensables para un mejor conocimiento del patrimonio etnologico, social y artistico transmitido o condicionado por ellos.