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.

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.

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.

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.

In this important study, A. M. Devine and Laurence D. Stephens interpret the evidence of Greek verse texts, inscriptions, and musical settings in the framework of a theory of prosody based on cross-linguistic evidence and experimental phonetic and psycholinguistic data, and reconstruct the syllable structure, rhythm, accent, phrasing, and intonation of classical Greek speech. The authors employ sophisticated statistical analyses to support an impressive range of new findings which relate not only to phonetics and phonology, but also to pragmatics and the syntax-phonology interface. Introductory and background material is provided for the benefit of general classicists and nonspecialist readers, making the work an indispensable resource for both students and scholars in the fields of classics and linguistics. A pioneering study, The Prosody of Greek Speech offers a new paradigm for the reconstruction of the prosody of dead languages.

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

The terminology used in linguistics can be confusing for those encountering the subject for the first time. This dictionary provides accessible and authoritative explanations of the terms and concepts currently in use in all the major areas of language and linguistics, (pronunciation, word structure, sentence structure, meaning) as well as in the study of the social, anthropological, psychological and neurological aspects of language. Entries are clear and unambiguous, and helpful examples are used to clarify where appropriate. Particular attention is given to the terminology of traditional grammar. There are entries for the names of major language families, and there are also brief biographical entries for the major figures in the field, past and present. An extensive cross-referencing system makes the book easy to use: an invaluable annotated bibliography of texts on linguistics makes it an ideal guide for everyone beginning the study of language and linguistics.

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.

In this activity-based text, Rebecca Hughes invites the reader to examine the differences between spoken and written English. Instead of presenting a bewildering array of 'facts' about variety in English, she encourages the reader to actively investigate the differences between these two modes of communication by comparing actual speech patterns with literary ones. This indispensable guide to the basic methods of analysis provides both an overview of the relationship between speech and writing and an introduction to a central theoretical issue in language studies. By the end of the book, readers will have had the opportunity to consider material from an extensive selection of spoken and written varieties - including boxing commentaries, detective novels and film scripts - while being encouraged to formulate their own opinions with regard to lexis and structure. In addition, the tasks that have been incorporated into the end of every chapter provide suggestions for further self-study and follow-up work.

Phonology in English Language Teaching is an introductory text, specifically directed at the needs of language teachers internationally. Combining an overview of English phonology with structured practical guidance, this text shows how phonology can be applied in the classroom. An introductory chapter provides the philosophical framework, followed by separate chapters on the phonology of consonants, vowels and prosody. As well as presenting core material on English phonology, the book explores the relationship of orthography to the English sound system from a historical and a present-day perspective. The final chapter focuses on lesson design and provides practical advice to teachers on diagnosing and responding to students' pronunciation difficulties. As central themes, the book examines English seen from the perspective of international usage and considers the relationship of phonology to communication and the broader language curriculum. Consistent with its practical and communicative orientation each chapter concludes with pedagogical exercises and ideas for classroom and community research projects.

This work provides 50,000 words of prosodically-transcribed text from a variety of sources. The introduction explains fully the transcription conventions, the structure of the corpus and its relationship to other computer corpora, and provides examples of different versions of texts.

This volume contains the revised texts of papers given at the Nordic Prosody XI conference that was held at the University of Tartu, Estonia, in August 2012. The 42 contributions deal mainly with the prosody of Scandinavian and Finno-Ugric languages, but also of some other languages spoken within and even beyond the Baltic Sea area. The three languages that receive most attention are Swedish, Finnish and Estonian. The themes cover a wide array of aspects of prosodic research from phonetic and phonological analyses of stress, word accents, quantity, intonation and rhythm to the study of discourse functions of prosody, neurophysiological processing of prosodic features, prosodic transfer in second language acquisition, sign language prosody, and emotional and multimodal facets of prosody.

This book discusses the phonology of glides and nasals in Polish and English on the basis of spelling and pronunciation errors. The aim of this study is to show the relatedness between spelling and pronunciation errors and the phonological systems of both languages in Standard Generative Phonology and Optimality Theory. The rule-based phonology, where the intricacies of gliding and nasalization are resolved by the application of fully productive rules, gives a coherent analysis of the investigated data corpus. Similarly, the constraint-based phonology, where the solution is offered by the system of universal constraints, successfully accounts for the examined phenomena. However, for generalizations concerning the insertion of the back glide, Standard Optimality Theory does not provide conclusive results. This study proves that the introduction of a two-level evaluation, as envisaged by Derivational Optimality Theory, satisfactorily handles the ongoing changes.

Combining a variety of sounds to form words that can be understood by other individuals, language is one of the defining characteristics of the human species. However, since even highly educated people, great writers, and poets are not consistent regarding the meanings of words, we are unlikely to find consistent rules regarding word meanings by examining human language use. Therefore, deep semantics aims to study of the meanings of individual sounds and their role in creating the meanings of words. Deep Semantics and the Evolution of New Scientific Theories and Discoveries provides innovative insights into the mental processing of word meanings and lack of consistency in human use, while providing examples from different language sources such as, the Quran and Arabic text. This publication presents word roots, the human cognitive system, sound function, and knowledge process, and is designed for linguists, educators, speech professionals, researchers, students, and academics whose interests include topics on the study of people's imperfect views, feelings, and habits in using words.

The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory provides a comprehensive overview of the major contemporary approaches to phonology. Phonology is frequently defined as the systematic organisation of the sounds of human language. For some, this includes aspects of both the surface phonetics together with systematic structural properties of the sound system; for others, phonology is seen as distinct from, and autonomous from, phonetics. The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory surveys the differing ways in which phonology is viewed, with a focus on current approaches to phonology. Divided into two parts, this handbook: covers major conceptual frameworks within phonology, including: rule-based phonology; Optimality Theory; Government Phonology; Dependency Phonology; and connectionist approaches to generative phonology; explores the central issue of the relationship between phonetics and phonology; features 23 chapters written by leading academics from around the world. The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory is an authoritative survey of this key field in linguistics, and is essential reading for students studying phonology.

"Frontiers of Phonology" is a collection of essays that present a selective overview of trends in the linguistic analysis of sound structure. The essays are written by specialists from Europe, Canada and the USA and discuss issues from three broad areas of phonology: the nature and representation of phonological features; the role and structure of the skeletal tier and syllable structure; and the competing claims of derivational and declarative approaches to phonology.
The book provides a forum for lively discussion of important theoretical topics from various standpoints including metrical and autosegmental phonology, dependency phonology and declarative phonology. The contributors, who are protagonists of these different standpoints, compare notes and show the merits of their different approaches. The essays discussing derivational issues offer an excellent introduction to the area of constraints based phonology, and by covering the phonology of many languages the book provides an understanding of how human languages in general use sound.

Frontiers of Phonology is a collection of essays that present a selective overview of trends in the linguistic analysis of sound structure. The essays are written by specialists from Europe, Canada and the USA and discuss issues from three broad areas of phonology: the nature and representation of phonological features; the role and structure of the skeletal tier and syllable structure; and the competing claims of derivational and declarative approaches to phonology. The book provides a forum for lively discussion of important theoretical topics from various standpoints including metrical and autosegmental phonology, dependency phonology and declarative phonology. The contributors, who are protagonists of these different standpoints, compare notes and show the merits of their different approaches. The essays discussing derivational issues offer an excellent introduction to the area of constraints based phonology, and by covering the phonology of many languages the book provides an understanding of how human languages in general use sound.

Encompassing a formidable collection of short essays on phonetics, "Studies in General and English Phonetics" was compiled as a tribute to Professor J. D. O'Connor, one of the world's most renowned teachers and writers of phonetics in the English language.
The book's 38 articles bring together 45 of the most distinguished and respected names in the field of phonetics, and cover a wide range of fascinating topics in descriptive and experimental phonetics and phonology. Aside from familiar topics such as rhythm, intonation, pronunciation and lexicography, "Studies in General and English Phonetics" also addresses issues on the cutting edge of the field, including computer synthesized audio-communications, and procedures in forensic linguistics.
This volume will not only be of interest to readers concerned with linguistics and phonetics, but also to those concerned with the teaching of English as a foreign language and other fields. With its comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography, it will prove an invaluable text to all interested readers.

Covers the intersecting grammatical categories of modality, mood and aspect in spoken Arabic, focusing on features of the verb phrase in the Educated Spoken Arabic of Egypt and the Levant. Material has been selected from informal educated speech, drawn from the middle region of the Arab world.

Foundations of Speech Act Theory investigates the importance of speech act theory to the problem of meaning in linguistics and philosophy. The papers in this volume, written by respected philosophers and linguists, significantly advance standards of debate in this area.
Beginning with a detailed introduction to the individual contributors, this collection demonstrates the relevance of speech acts to semantic theory. It includes essays unified by the assumption that current pragmatic theories are not well equipped to analyse speech acts satisfactorily, and concludes with five studies which assess the relevance of speech act theory to the understanding of philosophical problems outside the area of philosophy of language.

The term Sino-Korean may refer to either the phonological system or vocabulary in Korean that is of Chinese origin. Along with the borrowing of Chinese characters, the Chinese readings of characters must also have been transmitted into Korean. A Study of Sino-Korean Phonology aims to contribute to the field of Sino-Korean phonology by re-examining the origin and layers of Sino-Korean pronunciations from a loanword phonology perspective. The central issues of this book include an ongoing discussion on the questions of which Chinese dialect Sino-Korean is based on and how the source form in Chinese was adapted into Korean. Last is an in-depth analysis of the layers of Sino-Korean.

The first edition of the Practical Orthography of African Languages was a best-seller and this and the following volume re-issues the second edition, in English and French. Originally published in 1930, it provided an invaluable solution to the problem of finding a practical and uniform method of writing African languages. The volume is bound with a small pamphlet which analyses the information on the Semitic and cushitic languages of Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Related languages are grouped together into larger sections which have some linguistic significance. A further pamphlet, the Distribution of the Nilotic and Nilo-Hamitic Languages of Africa, describes the relationship between languages and dialects. For each language, data are given on locality, number of speakers, use for educational and religious purposes and the extent of vernacular literature. The linguistic material is set out in phonetic script with tone marks, though reference is made to current standard orthoraphies where these exist.

Originally published in 1940, this book was the result of 3 years' worth of phonetic research and analysis with the aim of laying foudnations for improved methods of teaching and ascertaining the most scientific basis for current orthography of the Kikuyu language of Kenya.

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.