This work is an investigation of the relation between prosodic structure, intonational structure and focus realisation in European Portuguese and is discussed from a cross-linguistic perspective, with special reference to languages like English, Dutch, German, different varieties of Italian, and Bengali. Also relevant to a general understanding of the prosodic reflexes of focus are languages like Hungarian, Korean, Basque and Wolof.

Volume I is the first of two volumes that document the three components of the CHILDES Project. It is divided into two parts which provide an introduction to the use of computational tools for studying language learning. The first part is the CHAT manual, which describes the conventions and principles of CHAT transcription and recommends specific methods for data collection and digitization. The second part is the CLAN manual, which describes the uses of the editor, sonic CHAT, and the various analytic commands. The book will be useful for both novice and experienced users of the CHILDES tools, as well as instructors and students working with transcripts of child language.
Volume II describes in detail all of the corpora included in the CHILDES database. The conversational interactions in the corpora come from monolingual children and their caregivers and siblings, as well as bilingual children, older school-aged children, adult second-language learners, children with various types of language disabilities, and aphasic recovering from language loss. The database includes transcripts in 26 different languages.
The CD-ROM that accompanies these volumes includes the transcript files described in Volume II. It runs on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. For more information or updates to the files, visit the CHILDES Web site at http: //childes.psy.cmu.edu

Australian English is perhaps best known for its colourful slang, but the variety is much richer than slang alone. This collection provides a detailed account of Australian English by bringing together leading scholars of this English variety. These scholars provide a comprehensive overview of Australian English's distinctive features and outline cutting-edge research into the variation and change of English in Australia. Organised thematically, this volume explores the ways in which Australian English differs from other varieties of English, as well as examining regional, social and stylistic variation within the variety. The volume first explores particular structural features where Australian English differentiates itself from other English varieties. There are chapters on phonetics and phonology, socio-phonetics, lexicon and discourse-pragmatics as these elements are core to understanding any variety of English, especially within the World Englishes paradigm. It then considers what are arguably the most salient aspects of variation within Australian English and finally focuses on historical, attitudinal and planning aspects of Australian English. This volume provides a thorough account of Australian English and its users as complex, diverse and worthy of study. Perhaps more importantly, this volume's scholars provide a reimagining of Australian English and the paradigm through which future scholars may proceed.

The Sounds of Language provides an accessible, general introduction to phonetics with a special emphasis on English.

Tuvaluan is a Polynesian language spoken by the 9000 inhabitants of the nine atolls of Tuvalu in the Central Pacific, as well as small and growing Tuvaluan communities in Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. This grammar is the first detailed description of the structure of Tuvaluan, one of the least well-documented languages of Polynesia. While the language shares features commonly found amongst Polynesian languages, it exhibits a number of divergent features of interest to scholars of Pacific languages, comparative linguistics, language typology, and language universals. The text explores the syntax, morphology, and phonology of the language, as well as selected features of the lexicon. It pays particular attention to discourse and sociolinguistics factors at play in the structural organization of the language.

This book is as much about phonological theory as about the phonology of English. It is primarily designed as a university-level text for use on intermediate and advanced courses, but it will be of value to anyone interested in recent theoretical developments in the field.

The book is virtually unique among theoretical treatments of English phonology in drawing on material from a wide range of dialects. This orientation derives from the view that phonological differences between grammars, no less than syntactic differences, are constrained by universal principles and occur within fixed bounds defined by a small number of parameters. Against this background, this book analyses a wide range of variables in English which offer revealing insights into the limits of phonological variation. The reader is introduced to recent innovations in non-linear theory, particularly those concerning the internal composition of segments and their organization in constituent structure. Phenomena discussed include vowel length, syllabic structure, stress, consonantal weakening and vowel reduction and syncope.

This thorough study of the expression of contrast in the world's vowel systems examines phonetic and phonological differences between so-called strong and weak positions, bringing the full range of data from positional neutralization systems to bear on central questions at the interface between phonetics and phonology. The author draws evidence from a diverse array of sources, bringing together cross-linguistic typological surveys, detailed investigations of the diachrony of specific languages (Slavic, Turkic, Uralic, Austronesian, among many others) and original studies in experimental phonetics. Devoted at once to empirical coverage and to theoretical investigation, this is the first work to compile so exhaustive a study of positional neutralization patterns in the languages of the world. On the basis of this catalog of evidence, the author argues for a diachronically oriented approach to the phonetic motivations behind phonological patterns, with phonologization as its central mechanism. Three pairs of traditionally-identified strong and weak positions for the realization of vowel contrasts are selected and examined in detail: stressed and unstressed syllables, domain final and non-final syllables, and domain initial and non-initial syllables. Neutralization patterns in each position are extracted from survey data, and analyzed in light of the phonetic characteristics of each pair of positions. Both the nature of the patterns identified as well as the variety and sources of exceptions have important consequences for formal phonology, phonetics, and historical linguistics as well.

This work elucidates the nature of the notion of Locality in phonology, describing the minimal conditions under which sounds assimilate to one another. The central thesis is that a sound can assimilate to another sound only if gestural contiguity is established between these two sounds. The argument supporting the central thesis of this book is unique in bringing evidence from articulatory dynamics, electromyography, and cross-linguistic sound patterns to converge on the same notion.

This book focuses on a century of language change, starting early in the 20th century when Standard Afrikaans first emerged. Different areas of language use are explored, such as pronoun use, tenses, possession, and connectives. The changes in these areas are divided into three categories of types of change: paradigmatic changes, grammaticalization, and discursive and socio-cultural changes. The book also includes a short history of the standardization of Afrikaans and brief discussions of some relevant ideological issues. The second and final chapters include an in-depth discussion of the theory of language change and language evolution, as well as reflections on what language change is and how it proceeds. The role of language contact in language change, and language-external influences, are also considered.

The ideal stage-specific companion to Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction In keeping with the authors' belief that the hands-on, word sorting approach to word study is invaluable to teachers and students alike, this volume presents prepared sorts and activities covering the full curriculum of word study for students who are in the emergent stage of spelling development. Complete with 26 sorts, and dozens of other activities and assessments, this book provides all of the resources needed to teach phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, initial letter sounds, concepts about print, and concept of word in text. Together, the Words Their Way core text and this supplement provide teachers with the knowledge and tools to meet the wide range of needs in today's classrooms. The 3rd Edition includes enhanced step-by-step directions for each sort; additional assessments; expanded syllable, rhyme, and font sorts; and reorganised chapters to make word study more teacher- and student-friendly. Samples Download the detailed table of contents and sample pages to Letter and Picture Sorts for Emergent Spellers, Global Edition

Success in mastering any language requires knowledge in speaking, reading, and writing the language. The speaking component requires the understanding and use of correct pronunciation, emphasis, and syntactic patterns. The written component requires mastery of the alphabet, spelling, and the ability to write, print, or type the pattern. Very early in the learning process, speakers of the English language become keenly aware of the language's lack of sound to symbol correspondence. To help speech/language researchers, media personnel, individuals learning English as a second language, and others interested in correct pronunciation, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was devised.
Extensively class tested, this book offers a practical understanding approach to phonetics and the IPA in a workbook format. It will be welcomed by professionals, students, and trainees in the fields of communication science, communication disorders, speech pathology, and linguistics.

This volume is the most comprehensive reference work to date on Lexical Functional Grammar. The authors provide detailed and extensive coverage of the analysis of syntax, semantics, morphology, prosody, and information structure, and how these aspects of linguistic structure interact in the nontransformational framework of LFG. The book is divided into three parts. The first part examines the syntactic theory and formal architecture of LFG, with detailed explanations and comprehensive illustration, providing an unparalleled introduction to the fundamentals of the theory. Part two explores non-syntactic levels of linguistic structure, including the syntax-semantics interface and semantic representation, argument structure, information structure, prosodic structure, and morphological structure, and how these are related in the projection architecture of LFG. Chapters in the third part illustrate the theory more explicitly by presenting explorations of the syntax and semantics of a range of representative linguistic phenomena: modification, anaphora, control, coordination, and long-distance dependencies. The final chapter discusses LFG-based work not covered elsewhere in the book, as well as new developments in the theory. The volume will be an invaluable reference for graduate and advanced undergraduate students and researchers in a wide range of linguistic sub-fields, including syntax, morphology, semantics, information structure, and prosody, as well as those working in language documentation and description.

Intended as a reference for all those teaching and working with children and adults with severe and profound learning difficulties, this work addresses the theoretical aspects of the development of communication up to and including the beginnings of speech in normally developing children, and those with severe learning difficulties. It also includes an approach to practical assessment.

Investigates the universal categories 'subject', 'theme', and 'agent' with special reference to their functional status in Modern Standard Arabic and how these three distinct functions may or may not coincide in Arabic sentences.

Breaking away from previously rigid descriptions of the linguistic system of the English language, Crossing Linguistic Boundaries explores fascinating case studies which refuse to fall neatly within the traditional definitions of linguistic domains and boundaries. Bringing together leading international scholars in English linguistics, this volume focusses on these controversies in relation to seeking to overcome the temporal and geographical limits of the English language. Approaching tensions in the areas of English phonology and phonetics, pragmatics, semantics, morphology and syntax, chapters discuss not only British and American English but also a wide variety of geographical variants. Containing synchronic and diachronic studies covering different periods in the history of English, Crossing Linguistic Boundaries will appeal to anyone interested in linguistic variation in English.

Provides an account of the complex interaction of intonational phenomena, semantics and pragmatics. Based on examples from German and English, and centred on an analysis of the fall-rise intonation contour, a semantic interpretation for two different pitch accents - focus and topic - is developed. The cross-sentence, as well as the sentence internal semantic effects of these accents, follow from the given treatment. The account is based on Montagovian possible world semantics and Chomskian generative syntax. The theory, based on that of Rooth, allows for a maximally tripartite information structure, consisting of (an optional) sentence-topic, background and focus. Both focus and sentence-topic correspond to distinct tone sequences in the sense of Pierrehumbert's decompositional theory of pitch accents. Rooth's treatment of focus is adopted and supplemented with a theory of sentence-topic interpretation, which consists of topic effect on the appriopriateness conditions and topic implicatures. Among the phenomena discussed are: question-answer congruence; contrastive topics; and topic implicatures.

First Published in 1997. The alternation between high vowels and glides is shown here to follow from the interaction of phonological constraints as defined by Prince and Smolensky's (1993) Optimality Theory. The alternation stems from simultaneously comparing moraic and nonmoraic parses of high vowels for constraint satisfaction

Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Describing Spoken English provides a practical and descriptive introduction to the pronunciation of contemporary English. It presumes no prior knowledge of phonetics and phonology.
Charles Kreidler describes the principal varieties of English in the world today. Whilst concentrating on the phonological elements they share, the author sets out specific differences as minor variations on a theme. Although theoretically orientated towards generative phonology, theory is minimal and the book is clear, comprehensive and accessible to undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics and English Language. Numerous exercises are included to encourage further study.

Describing Spoken English provides a practical and descriptive introduction to the pronunciation of contemporary English. It presumes no prior knowledge of phonetics and phonology.
Charles Kreidler describes the principal varieties of English in the world today. Whilst concentrating on the phonological elements they share, the author sets out specific differences as minor variations on a theme. Although theoretically orientated towards generative phonology, theory is minimal and the book is clear, comprehensive and accessible to undergraduate and postgraduate students of linguistics and English Language. Numerous exercises are included to encourage further study.