Much of today's communication is carried out through various kinds of humor, and we therefore need to be able to understand its many aspects. Here, two of the world's leading pioneers in humor studies, Alleen and Don Nilsen, explore how humor can be explained across the numerous sub-disciplines of linguistics. Drawing on examples from language play and jokes in a range of real-life contexts, such as art, business, marketing, comedy, creative writing, science, journalism and politics, the authors use their own theory of 'Features, functions and subjects of Humor' to analyze humor across all disciplines. Each highly accessible chapter uses a rich array of examples to stimulate discussion and interaction even in large classes. Supplemental PowerPoints to accompany each of the 25 chapters are available online, taking many of the insights from the chapters for further interactional discussions with students.

For decades, a small set of major world languages have formed the basis of the vast majority of linguistic theory. However, minoritized languages can also provide fascinating contributions to our understanding of the human language faculty. This pioneering book explores the transformative effect minoritized languages have on mainstream linguistic theory, which, with their typically unusual syntactic, morphological and phonological properties, challenge and question frameworks that were developed largely to account for more widely-studied languages. The chapters address the four main pillars of linguistic theory - syntax, semantics, phonology, and morphology - and provide plenty of case studies to show how minoritized language can disrupt assumptions, and lead to modifications of the theory itself. It is illustrated with examples from a range of languages, and is written in an engaging and accessible style, making it essential reading for both students and researchers of theoretical syntax, phonology and morphology, and language policy and politics.

This collection of papers by an international group of authors honors Jonathan Kaye's contributions to phonology by expanding some of Kaye's ideas to a variety of theoretical topics and languages. The set of ideas discussed or used in this collection includes: empty categories, licensing relationships and constraints, a restrictive two-levelled approach to phonology (without rule ordering or constraint ranking), a restrictive theory of syllabic representation (without the codas constituent and with exclusively binary branching), theories of the phonology-phonetics interface in which phonology is motivated independently of phonetics, and the metatheoretical flaws in a number of widely accepted but rarely questioned views on phonology.

Using an innovative approach, this book focuses on a widely debated area of phonetics and phonology: intonation, and specifically its relation to metrics, its interface with syntax, and whether it can be attributed more to phonetics or phonology, or equally to both. Drawing on data from six Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Romanian), whose rich intonation patterns have long been of interest to linguists, Philippe Martin challenges the assumptions of traditional phonological approaches, and re-evaluates the data in favour of a new usage-based model of intonation. He proposes a unified description of the sentence prosodic structure, focusing on the dynamic and cognitive aspects of both production and perception of intonation in speech, leading to a unified grammar of Romance languages' sentence intonation. This book will be welcomed by researchers and advanced students in phonetics and phonology.

The term 'Maya', in Indian traditions, refers to our sensory perception of the world and, as such, to a superficial reality (or 'un-reality') that we must look beyond to find the inner reality of things. Applied to the study of language, we perceive sounds, a superficial reality, and then we seek structures, the underlying reality in what we call phonology, morphology, and syntax. This volume starts with an introduction by the editors, which shows how the various papers contained in the volume reflect the spectrum of research interests of Andrea Calabrese, as well as his influence on the work of colleagues and his students. Contributors, united in their search for the abstract structures that underlie the appearances of languages include linguists such as Adriana Belletti, Paola Beninca, Jonathan Bobaljik, Gugliemo Cinque, David Embick, Mirko Grimaldi, Harry van der Hulst, Michael Kenstowicz, Maria Rita Manzini, Andrew Nevins, Elizabeth Pyatt, Luigi Rizzi, Leonardo Savoia, Laura Vanelli, Bert Vaux, Susi Wurmbrand, as well as a few junior researchers including Mariachiara Berizzi, Giuliano Bocci, Stefano Canalis, Silvio Cruschina, Irina Monich, Beata Moskal, Diego Pescarini, Joseph Perry, Roberto Petrosino, and Kobey Schwayder.

This edition of Professor Allen's highly successful book is on the pronunciation of Attic Greek in classical times. In this third edition, Allen has revised the section on stress in classical Greek, the chapter on quantity has been recast, and the author has added an appendix on the names and letters of the Greek alphabet, to provide a parallel and historical background to the similar appendix in the second edition of his Vox Latina. The total amount of revision since the first edition has made it necessary to reset the whole book, so in addition to the new material, the supplementary notes of the second edition are now incorporated into the main text making this book much more convenient to use.

There is debate about how coarticulation is represented in speakers' mental grammar, as well as the role that coarticulation plays in explaining synchronic and diachronic sound patterns across languages. This Element takes an individual-differences approach in examining nasal coarticulation in production and perception in order to understand how coarticulation is used phonologically in American English. Experiment 1 examines coarticulatory variation across 60 speakers. The relationship between speaking rate and coarticulation is used to classify three types of coarticulation. Experiment 2 is a perception study relating the differences in realization of coarticulation across speakers to listeners' identification of lexical items. The author demonstrates that differences in speaker-specific patterns of coarticulation reflect differences in the phonologization of vowel nasalization. Results support predictions made by models that propose an active role by both speakers and listeners in using coarticulatory variation to express lexical contrasts and view coarticulation as represented in an individual's grammar.

The discovery of sound laws by comparing attested languages is the method which has unlocked the history of European languages stretching back thousands of years before the appearance of written records, e.g. Latin p- corresponds to English f- (pes, foot; primus, first; plenus, full). Although Burmese, Chinese, and Tibetan have long been regarded as related, the systematic exploration of their shared history has never before been attempted. Tracing the history of these three languages using just such sound laws, this book sheds light on the prehistoric language from which they descend. Written for readers with little linguistic knowledge of these languages, but fully explicit and copiously indexed for the specialist, this work will serve as the bedrock for future progress in the study of these languages.

The first description of voice quality production in forty years, this book provides a new framework for its study: The Laryngeal Articulator Model. Informed by instrumental examinations of the laryngeal articulatory mechanism, it revises our understanding of articulatory postures to explain the actions, vibrations and resonances generated in the epilarynx and pharynx. It focuses on the long-term auditory-articulatory component of accent in the languages of the world, explaining how voice quality relates to segmental and syllabic sounds. Phonetic illustrations of phonation types and of laryngeal and oral vocal tract articulatory postures are provided. Extensive video and audio material is available on a companion website. The book presents computational simulations, the laryngeal and voice quality foundations of infant speech acquisition, speech/voice disorders and surgeries that entail compensatory laryngeal articulator adjustment, and an exploration of the role of voice quality in sound change and of the larynx in the evolution of speech.

Of all of the African language families, the Chadic languages belonging to the Afroasiatic macro-family are highly internally diverse due to a long history and various scenarios of language contact. This pioneering study explores the development of the sound systems of the 'Central Chadic' languages, a major branch of the Chadic family. Drawing on and comparing field data from about 60 different Central Chadic languages, H. Ekkehard Wolff unpacks the specific phonological principles that underpin the Chadic languages' diverse phonological evolution, arguing that their diversity results to no little extent from historical processes of 'prosodification' of reconstructable segments of the proto-language. The book offers meticulous historical analyses of some 60 words from Proto-Central Chadic, in up to 60 individual modern languages, including both consonants and vowels. Particular emphasis is on tracing the deep-rooted origin and impact of palatalisation and labialisation prosodies within a phonological system that, on its deepest level, recognises only one vowel phoneme */a/.

This is the first full-scale discussion of English phonology since Chomsky and Halle's seminal The Sound Pattern of English (SPE). The book enphasizes the analysis using ordered rules and builds on SPE by incorporating lexical and metrical and prosodic analysis and the insights afforded by Lexical Phonology. It provides clear explanations and logical development throughout, introducing rules individually and then illustrating their interactions. These features make this influential theory accessible to students from a variety of backgrounds in linguistics and phonology. Rule-ordering diagrams summarize the crucial ordering of approximately 85 rules. Many of the interactions result in phonological opacity, where either the effect of a rule is not evident in the output or its conditions of application are not present in the output, due to the operation of later rules. This demonstrates the superiority of a rule-based account over output oriented approaches such as Optimality Theory or pre-Generative structuralist phonology.

This is the first full-scale discussion of English phonology since Chomsky and Halle's seminal The Sound Pattern of English (SPE). The book enphasizes the analysis using ordered rules and builds on SPE by incorporating lexical and metrical and prosodic analysis and the insights afforded by Lexical Phonology. It provides clear explanations and logical development throughout, introducing rules individually and then illustrating their interactions. These features make this influential theory accessible to students from a variety of backgrounds in linguistics and phonology. Rule-ordering diagrams summarize the crucial ordering of approximately 85 rules. Many of the interactions result in phonological opacity, where either the effect of a rule is not evident in the output or its conditions of application are not present in the output, due to the operation of later rules. This demonstrates the superiority of a rule-based account over output oriented approaches such as Optimality Theory or pre-Generative structuralist phonology.

Malay is one of the major languages in the world, but there has been relatively little detailed research on its phonetics. This Element provides an overview of existing descriptions of the pronunciation of Standard Malay before briefly considering the pronunciation of some dialects of Malay. It then introduces materials that may be used for studying the phonetics of Malay: a short text, the NWS passage; and a map-task, to generate conversational data. Based on recordings using these materials by two female and two male consultants who are academics at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, the Element next offers an acoustic analysis of the consonants and vowels of Malay, the syllable structure arising from fast speech processes, as well as the rhythm and intonation of the Standard Malay that is spoken in Brunei. Finally, it suggests directions for further research on the phonetics of Malay.

With more than sixty million speakers across Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Ghana Hausa is one of the most widely spoken African languages. It is known for its rich phonology and complex morphological and verbal systems. Written by the world's leading expert on Hausa, this ground-breaking book is a synthesis of his life's work, and provides a lucid and comprehensive history of the language. It describes Hausa as it existed in former times and sets out subsequent changes in phonology, including tonology, morphology, grammar, and lexicon. It also contains a large loanword inventory, which highlights the history of Hausa's interaction with other languages and peoples. It offers new insights not only on Hausa in the past, but also on the Hausa language as spoken today. This book is an invaluable resource for specialists in Hausa, Chadic, Afroasiatic, and other African languages as well as for general historical linguists and typologists.

Making New Words provides a detailed study of the 200 or so prefixes and suffixes which create new words in today's English. Alongside a systematic discussion of these forms, Professor Dixon explores and explains the hundreds of conundrums that seem to be exceptions to general rules. Why, for instance, do we say un-distinguished (with prefix un-) but in-distinguishable (with in-); why un-ceasing but in-cesssant? Why, alongside gold-en, do we say silver-y (not silver-en)? Why is it wood-en (not wood-ic) but metall-ic (not metall-en)? After short preliminary chapters, which set the scene and outline the criteria employed, there are accounts of the derivation of negative words, of other derivations which do not change word class, on making new verbs, new adjectives, new nouns, and new adverbs. The final chapter deals with combinations of suffixes, of prefixes, and of the two together. Within each chapter, derivational affixes are arranged in semantic groups, the members of which are contrasted with respect to meaning and function; for example, child-less and child-free. For each affix there is an account of its genetic origin (from Old English, Greek, Latin, French, and so on), its phonological form and implications for stress placement, the roots it can be attached to (and why), and how its range of meanings has developed over the centuries. The book is written in the author's accustomed style - clear and well-organised, with easy-to-understand explanations. The exposition is illustrated by examples, ranging from Shakespeare, W. S. Gilbert, and modern novels to what was heard on the radio. It will be an invaluable text and sourcebook for scholars and students of the English language and of general linguistics, from undergraduate level upwards. The many fascinating facts presented here, in such a lucid and accessible manner, will also appeal to the general reader interested in picking to pieces the English language to see how it works.

What is the role of prosody in the generation of sentence structure? A standard notion holds that prosody results from mapping a hierarchical syntactic structure onto a linear sequence of words. A radically different view conceives of certain intonational features as integral components of the syntactic structure. Yet another conception maintains that prosody and syntax are parallel systems that mutually constrain each other to yield surface sentential form. The different viewpoints reflect the various functions prosody may have: On the one hand, prosody is a signal to syntax, marking e.g. constituent boundaries. On the other hand, prosodic or intonational features convey meaning; the concept "intonational morpheme" (as e.g. an exponent of information structural notions like topic or focus) puts prosody and intonation squarely into the syntactic representation. The proposals collected in this book tackle the intricate relationship of syntax and prosody in the encoding of sentences. The contributions build their cases on the basis of solid empirical evidence, adducing data from experiments or from the careful analysis of natural speech. The volume thus represents a state of the art survey of research on the syntax-phonology interface.

Nearly half a century has passed since Hymes proposed the concept of communicative competence to describe the knowledge and skills required for the appropriate use of language in a social context. During these decades, a number of scholars have applied and refined this concept. In language education, communicative competence has been identified as a major objective of learning. This book will inform readers about communicative competence as a highly complex construct encompassing an array of sub-competencies such as linguistic skills and proficiencies, knowledge of socio-cultural and socio-pragmatic codes, and the ability to engage in textual and conversational discourse. Findings from research in related disciplines have pointed to the significance of factors that can contribute to the attainment of communicative competence. Various teaching practices and relevant Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools will be also introduced and discussed to achieve communicative competence as a complex ability. It is a timely contribution to current research on key areas in the teaching, learning and acquisition of second/foreign languages.

Drawing on data from well-known actors in popular films and TV shows, this reference guide surveys the representation of accent in North American film and TV over eight decades. It analyzes the speech of 180 film and television performances from the 1930s to today, looking at how that speech has changed; how it reflects the regional backgrounds, gender, and ethnic ancestry of the actors; and how phonetic variation and change in the 'real world' have been both portrayed in, and possibly influenced by, film and television speech. It also clearly explains the technical concepts necessary for understanding the phonetic analysis of accents. Providing new insights into the role of language in the expression of North American cultural identity, this is essential reading for researchers and advanced students in linguistics, film, television and media studies, and North American studies, as well as the larger community interested in film and television.

Phonetics - the study and classification of speech sounds - is a major sub-discipline of linguistics. Bringing together a team of internationally renowned phoneticians, this handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the most recent, cutting-edge work in the field, and focuses on the most widely-debated contemporary issues. Chapters are divided into five thematic areas: segmental production, prosodic production, measuring speech, audition and perception, and applications of phonetics. Each chapter presents an historical overview of the area, along with critical issues, current research and advice on the best practice for teaching phonetics to undergraduates. It brings together global perspectives, and includes examples from a wide range of languages, allowing readers to extend their knowledge beyond English. By providing both state-of-the-art research information, and an appreciation of how it can be shared with students, this handbook is essential both for academic phoneticians, and anyone with an interest in this exciting, rapidly developing field.

We are fascinated by what words sound like. This fascination also drives us to search for meaning in sound - thereby contradicting the principle of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. Phonesthemes, onomatopoeia or rhyming compounds all share the property of carrying meaning by virtue of what they sound like, simply because language users establish an association between form and meaning. By drawing on a wide array of examples, ranging from conventionalized words and expressions to brand names and slogans, this book offers a comprehensive account of the role that sound symbolism and rhyme/alliteration plays in English, and by doing so, advocates a more relaxed view of the category 'morpheme' that is able to incorporate less regular word-formation processes.

From the physiology and acoustics to their patterning across human languages, tone is one of the fundamental constructs in human languages that is also among the hardest to apprehend. Drawing upon a large number of languages around the world, this volume explores the concept of tone starting from its physical properties of articulation and acoustics to its manifestation in phonology. Designed as a comprehensive study accessible to the novice and useful for the expert, each chapter covers a particular aspect of tone in increasing depth and complexity, weaving together key concepts and theories that provide complementing or competing accounts of tone's phonological intricacies. In the process, one uncovers the underlying laws and principles that inform today's understanding of the subject to form a more synthesized view that also allows us to explore the relation of tone to other important areas of humanity such as literature, history, music and cognition.

Presenting a field-defining overview of one of the most appliable linguistic theories available today, this Handbook surveys the key issues in the study of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), covering an impressive range of theoretical perspectives. Written by some of the world's foremost SFL scholars, including M. A. K. Halliday, the founder of SFL theory, the handbook covers topics ranging from the theory behind the model, discourse analysis within SFL, applied SFL, to SFL in relation to other subfields of linguistics such as intonation, typology, clinical linguistics and education. Chapters include discussion on the possible future directions in which research might be conducted and issues that can be further investigated and resolved. Readers will be inspired to pursue the challenges raised within the volume, both theoretically and practically.

General extenders are phrases like 'or something', 'and everything', 'and things (like that)', 'and stuff (like that)', and 'and so on'. Although they are an everyday feature of spoken language, are crucial in successful interpersonal communication, and have multiple functions in discourse, they have so far gone virtually unnoticed in linguistics. This pioneering work provides a comprehensive description of this new linguistic category. It offers new insights into ongoing changes in contemporary English, the effect of grammaticalization, novel uses as associative plural markers and indicators of intertextuality, and the metapragmatic role of extenders in interaction. The forms and functions of general extenders are presented clearly and accessibly, enabling students to understand a number of different frameworks of analysis in discourse-pragmatic studies. From an applied perspective, the book presents a description of translation equivalents, an analysis of second language variation, and practical exercises for teaching second language learners of English.