Regelbasierte Modellierung Fremdsprachlich Akzentbehafteter Aussprachevarianten

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Regelbasierte Modellierung Fremdsprachlich Akzentbehafteter Aussprachevarianten Regelbasierte Modellierung fremdsprachlich akzentbehafteter Aussprachevarianten Grundlagen, Entwurf und Implementierung eines Regelsystems für sprachtechnologische Anwendungen Dissertation zum Erwerb des akademischen Grades Dr. phil. vorgelegt von Stefan Schaden, geb. in Essen im Fach Kommunikationswissenschaft Fachbereich Geisteswissenschaften Universität Duisburg-Essen Gutachter der Arbeit: Prof. Dr. Achim Eschbach, Prof. Dr. Ute Jekosch Datum der Disputation: 16. Juni 2006 Vorwort Die vorliegende Arbeit entstand im Rahmen meiner Tätigkeit am Institut für Kommunikationsakustik (IKA) der Ruhr-Universität Bochum von 1999 bis 2004. Wesentliche Teile der Arbeit wurden von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) im Rahmen des Projektes Typisierung und regelbasierte Modellierung akzentgefärbter Aussprachevarianten für die maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung (BL189/27-1) finanziell gefördert. Mein Dank gilt allen ehemaligen Kollegen am IKA, insbesondere Prof. Ute Jekosch (heute TU Dresden) für die Übernahme der Betreuung der Arbeit, die Unterstützung bei der Realisierung des damit verbundenen Forschungsprojektes und fachliche Diskussionen, die dazu beitrugen, die Zielrichtung dieser Arbeit klarer hervortreten zu lassen. Danken möchte ich auch Prof. Jens Blauert für die Möglichkeit, diese Arbeit am IKA durchzuführen. Unter den Kollegen am IKA möchte ich mich besonders bei Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Möller, Dr.-Ing. Alexander Raake, Dr.-Ing. Jörg Buchholz und Dipl.-Ing. Jan Krebber für die angenehme Ar- beitsatmosphäre und die Unterstützung in vielen kleinen und größeren Dingen bedanken. Herrn Dr.-Ing. Hans-Wilhelm Rühl (Wetzlar) gebührt der Dank für den ersten Anstoß zur Behandlung des Themas dieser Arbeit sowie auch für ihre Förderung in der Anfangsphase. Prof. Achim Eschbach (Universität Duisburg-Essen) gilt mein ganz besonderer Dank nicht nur für die Übernahme des Referates, sondern vor allem auch für die Ermutigung zur Aufnahme eines Dissertationsprojektes und die freundschaftliche Unterstützung in den vergangenen Jahren. Keinesfalls unerwähnt lassen möchte ich den Einsatz der studentischen Mitar- beiterinnen und Mitarbeiter, ohne deren Hilfe die umfangreiche Datengrundlage der Arbeit nicht zustande gekommen wäre: Andreea Niculescu für die Durchfüh- rung von Sprachaufnahmen und die Betreuung von „Versuchspersonen“ sowie Anders Krosch für die unermüdliche Anwerbung von Sprechern, die Realisierung von Sprachaufnahmen in Bochum und Udine sowie die Bearbeitung der Audio- daten. Mein besonderer Dank gilt zudem Katja Keßelmeier und Anneli von Kö- nemann, die mit Sachkenntnis (und Geduld!) die phonetische Transkription der Sprachdaten übernommen haben und sich dabei trotz zum Teil unlösbarer pho- netischer Detailfragen nicht entmutigen ließen. Schließlich geht mein Dank auch an Nino Peterek und Alena Böhmová (Prag) für ihre freundliche Hilfe bei der Transkription tschechischer Namen. Und obwohl sie von den fachlichen Details dieser Arbeit (weitgehend) ver- schont geblieben sind, haben Dr. Thorsten Kieren und Melanie Elsner dennoch einen ebenso großen Anteil an ihrer Fertigstellung. Danke auch an Euch. Dolcédo, im Mai 2006 INHALT 1 Einleitung 1 1.1 Ausgangspunkt: Variabilität gesprochener Sprache............................ 1 1.2 Ziel dieser Arbeit ................................................................................. 3 1.3 Eingrenzung des Untersuchungsgebietes............................................ 5 1.4 Übersicht der Kapitel........................................................................... 6 I. HINTERGRUND UND PROBLEMSKIZZE 9 2 Fremdsprachlicher Akzent: Sprachwissenschaftliche Perspektiven 10 2.1 „Akzent“: Eine erste Begriffsbestimmung......................................... 11 2.1.1 Akzente aus der Perspektive des Sprechers........................ 11 2.1.2 Akzente aus der Perspektive des Hörers............................ 12 2.2 Sprachvergleich und Fehlerprognosen.............................................. 13 2.2.1 Kontrast, Transfer und Interferenz..................................... 13 2.2.2 Interferenz und Fehler im Fremdsprachenerwerb............. 17 2.2.3 Beispiel einer kontrastiven Analyse .................................... 18 2.2.4 Kritik der Kontrastivhypothese........................................... 21 2.3 Interlanguage und approximative Systeme ....................................... 25 2.3.1 Lernersprachen als eigenständige Sprachsysteme.............. 25 2.3.2 Approximationen und Übergangsstufen ............................ 26 2.4 Perzeptive Assimilation und Äquivalenzklassifizierung..................... 28 2.4.1 Einfluß der Perzeption auf die Produktion........................ 28 2.4.2 Äquivalenzklassifizierung und Stabilisierung von Lautkategorien..................................................................... 30 2.5 Überwindung von Akzenten und „Fossilisierung“............................ 34 2.6 Weitere Einflüsse ............................................................................... 37 2.7 Implikationen für die vorliegende Arbeit ......................................... 39 2.7.1 Systematizität der L2-Produktion........................................ 39 2.7.2 Direkte Implikationen für die Modellbildung ................... 41 3 Varietäten und Akzente in der Sprachtechnologie 43 3.1 Automatische Spracherkennung........................................................ 44 3.1.1 Grundprobleme ................................................................... 44 3.1.2 Adaptionstechniken............................................................. 47 3.1.3 Spracherkennung und fremdsprachliche Akzente.............. 49 3.2 Generierung von Varietäten in der Sprachsynthese ......................... 53 3.3 Exkurs: Eigennamen als sprachtechnologisches Problem............... 56 3.3.1 Linguistische Besonderheiten von Eigennamen................. 56 3.3.2 Sprachtechnologische Studien zu Eigennamen.................. 60 3.4 Varietäten und Akzente in der Sprachtechnologie: Zwischenbilanz................................................................................... 62 4 Vorüberlegungen zu einer regelbasierten Modellierung 65 4.1 Grundproblem: Die Bestimmung von Zielformen........................... 65 4.2 Das Verfahren der lexikalischen Adaption ....................................... 66 4.3 Interindividuelle Variabilität als Modellierungsproblem.................. 70 4.3.1 Die Situation bei Dialekten................................................. 70 4.3.2 Die Situation bei fremdsprachlichen Akzenten.................. 73 4.3.3 Finite-State-Modelle............................................................. 73 4.4 Das Modell prototypischer Akzentstufen ......................................... 78 II. DATENERHEBUNG UND ANALYSE 83 5 Erstellung einer domänenspezifischen Sprachdatenbank 84 5.1 Zur Rolle von Sprachdatensammlungen in Linguistik und Sprachtechnologie ...................................................................... 84 5.2 Beschreibung der Datenbank ............................................................ 87 5.2.1 Sprachen, Sprachenpaare und Sprachrichtungen............... 87 5.2.2 Vorbemerkung zur Selektion von Sprechern...................... 90 5.2.3 Sprecher ............................................................................... 92 5.2.4 Sprachmaterial ..................................................................... 93 5.2.5 Versuchsdesign und -durchführung .................................... 96 5.2.6 Teilaufgaben/Szenarien....................................................... 98 5.3 Lexikon und phonetische Transkription ........................................ 100 5.3.1 Kanonische Transkription................................................. 100 5.3.2 Transkription der Sprachdaten......................................... 101 5.4 Von sprachlichen Daten zu Regeln................................................. 103 5.5 Sprachdatensammlung: Grenzen, Probleme, Ausblick................... 105 6 Fehlertypen und Implikationen für eine regelbasierte Modellierung 108 6.1 Grundlage und Motivation der Fehlertypologie............................. 108 6.2 Substitutionen, Einfügungen, Elisionen .......................................... 109 6.2.1 Vorbemerkung: Die segmentale Betrachtungsweise ........ 109 6.2.2 Typen des Lautersatzes ..................................................... 110 6.2.3 Alternationen der Vokalqualität........................................ 112 6.2.4 Alternation allophonischer Realisierungen ...................... 114 6.2.5 Elisionen ............................................................................ 116 6.2.6 Einfügungen....................................................................... 117 6.2.7 Kontextfaktoren bei Lautsubstitutionen........................... 118 6.3 Die Rolle phonologischer Regeln aus L1 oder L2......................... 119 6.3.1 Sprachspezifische phonologische Regeln ......................... 119 6.3.2 Transfer phonologischer Regeln aus L1 auf L2 .............. 123 6.3.3 Nichtanwendung phonologischer Regeln aus L2............ 126 6.4 Einflüsse der Schriftaussprache ....................................................... 129 6.4.1 Transfer der Graphem-Phonem-Beziehungen .................. 129 6.4.2 Interferenz der Graphem-Inventare und Diakritika ......... 132 6.4.3 Einflüsse der Schriftaussprache: Vorläufiges Fazit........... 136 6.5 Einflüsse der Morphologie.............................................................. 137 6.5.1 „Dual Route“-Strategien bei der Aussprache von Eigennamen ......................................................................
Recommended publications
  • Using 'North Wind and the Sun' Texts to Sample Phoneme Inventories
    Blowing in the wind: Using ‘North Wind and the Sun’ texts to sample phoneme inventories Louise Baird ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The Australian National University [email protected] Nicholas Evans ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The Australian National University [email protected] Simon J. Greenhill ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, The Australian National University & Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History [email protected] Language documentation faces a persistent and pervasive problem: How much material is enough to represent a language fully? How much text would we need to sample the full phoneme inventory of a language? In the phonetic/phonemic domain, what proportion of the phoneme inventory can we expect to sample in a text of a given length? Answering these questions in a quantifiable way is tricky, but asking them is necessary. The cumulative col- lection of Illustrative Texts published in the Illustration series in this journal over more than four decades (mostly renditions of the ‘North Wind and the Sun’) gives us an ideal dataset for pursuing these questions. Here we investigate a tractable subset of the above questions, namely: What proportion of a language’s phoneme inventory do these texts enable us to recover, in the minimal sense of having at least one allophone of each phoneme? We find that, even with this low bar, only three languages (Modern Greek, Shipibo and the Treger dialect of Breton) attest all phonemes in these texts.
    [Show full text]
  • Swedish Word Accents in Sentence Perspective Bruce, Gösta
    Swedish word accents in sentence perspective Bruce, Gösta 1977 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Bruce, G. (1977). Swedish word accents in sentence perspective. Liber. Total number of authors: 1 General rights Unless other specific re-use rights are stated the following general rights apply: Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Read more about Creative commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 TRAVAUX DE L'INSTITUT DE LINGUISTIQUE DE LUND PUBLIEs PAR BERTIL MALMBERG ET KERSTIN RADDING XII , SWEDISH WORD ACCENTS IN SENTENCE PERSPECTIVE BY GÖSTA BRUCE CWK GLEERUP 1977 Unh ~rsltetsbiblioteket LUND TRA VAUX DE L'INSTITUT DE LINGUISTIQUE DE LUND PUBLIEs PAR BERTIL MALMBERG ET KERSTIN HADDING XII SWEDISH WORD ACCENTS IN SENTENCE PERSPECTIVE BY GÖSTA BRUCE CWK GLEERUP 1977 CWK Gleerup is the imprint for the scientific and scholarly publications of LiberLäromedel Lund © Gösta Bruce ISBN 91-40--{)4589-7 Gotab Malmö Sweden 1977 TRA VAUX DE L'INSTITUT DE LINGUISTIQUE DE LUND PUBLIEs P AR BERTIL MALMBERG ET KERSTIN RADDING XII SWEDISH WORD ACCENTS IN SENTENCE PERSPECTIVE AV GÖSTA BRUCE m.
    [Show full text]
  • Language Games and Swedish Phonology*
    Rorövovarorsospoproråkoketot: Language Games and Swedish Phonology* Samuel Andersson Yale University 1 Introduction This paper examines the phonology of language games (see Bagemihl 1988, 1995, Davis 1993, and Vaux 2011, among others), using two case studies from the Swedish language game Rövarspråket. The framework adopted here is a rule-based implementation of Substance-Free Phonology (see Bale and Reiss forthcoming, Hale and Reiss 2008, Reiss 2018, Samuels 2009, 2011, among others). I focus specifically on Standard Central Swedish (SCSw.), spoken in Stockholm and surrounding areas. It is shown that Rövarspråket can shed light on problems in Swedish phonology, as well as on issues of general theoretical relevance. Using Rövarspråket data, I argue that the newly-discovered process of pre-palatal raising (Andersson 2017a) has been phonologized. This has implications for nasal assimilation, which, because of its interaction with pre-palatal raising, must also have also been phonologized. The argument illustrates the possibility of using language games to investigate whether a process is phonetic or phonological. A formalization of nasal assimilation in terms of phonetic underspecification is proposed, following work on Japanese by Kuroda (1965) and Kochetov (2014). I also discuss the question of productive phonological opacity, hypothesized not to exist in much recent work (Green 2004, 2007, Sanders 2003, among others). Rövarspråket can shed light on this debate, as it productively extends patterns found in the regular phonology of Swedish. I show that a counterfeeding interaction in Swedish is fully productive, suggesting that opacity must be accounted for by our theories of phonology. This is in line with earlier work on language games and opacity (Al-Mozainy 1981, Sherzer 1970) and with other work in phonological theory (Ito and Mester 2003, McCarthy 1999 et seq., Vaux 2008 and others).
    [Show full text]
  • F. A. J Ohansson: Immigrant Swedish Phonology. a Study in Multiple Contact Analysis
    Libri F. A. J ohansson: Immigrant Swedish Phonology. A Study in Multiple Contact Analysis. Travaux de l’Institut de Linguistique de Lund 9. Glccrup, Lund 1973. 180 pp. F aith A nn J ohansson’s thesis for a doctorate1 investigates the Swedish pronunciation of 180 immigrants from nine different languages. Her 20 informants from each language represent the following languages: American English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian. The investigation is preceded by a survey of the basic thoughts of contrastive analysis and error analysis (pp. 10-40). These pages are well written and offer a comprehensive bibliography although the important contributions of the German conferences on ‘Contras­ tive Grammar’ in 1969 and 1970 arc not mentioned. The survey is longer than needed in the context of this thesis but it can be read as an instructive introduction by anybody interested in the matter. To avoid interference from written Swedish, the author has chosen an imitation test. The informants are requested to say words and sentences after a Swedish model. The informants, who are at a rather early state of learning, make the impression (at least on the present reviewer) of not being noticeably influenced by the model in the way they pronounce the words and sentences. It seems to require so much of their concentration just to understand what is said that they have no possibility of catching and imitating the nuances of the model. That is why they just seem to provide their normal pronunciation. Be this as it may, the actual pronunciations seem to include just about every imaginable mistake.
    [Show full text]
  • Fre 231 Course Title: Introduction to French
    FRE 231 INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH PHONOLOGY NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA SCHOOL OF ART AND SOCIAL SCIENCE COURSE CODE: FRE 231 COURSE TITLE: INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH PHONOLOGY 60 FRE 231 INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH PHONOLOGY COURSE GUIDE FRE 231 INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH PHONOLOGY Course Team Dr. Paulin Dipe Alo (Course Developer/Writer) – University of Lagos Dr. Christine Ofulue (Programme Leader) – NOUN Ms. Lucy Jibrin (Course Coordinator) – NOUN NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA 61 FRE 231 INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH PHONOLOGY National Open University of Nigeria Headquarters 14/16 Ahmadu Bello Way Victoria Island, Lagos Abuja Office 5 Dar es Salaam Street Off Aminu Kano Crescent Wuse II, Abuja e-mail: [email protected] URL: www.noun.edu.ng Published by National Open University of Nigeria Printed 2013 Reprinted 2014 ISBN: 978-058-342-4 All Rights Reserved 62 FRE 231 INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH PHONOLOGY CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ……………………………………………… iv What you will Learn in this Course …………………….. iv Course Aims …………………………………………….. iv Course Objectives ………………………………………. iv Working through this Course …………………………… v Course Materials ………………………………………… v Study Units ………………………………………………. v Set Textbooks ……………………………………………. vi Assignment File …………………………………………. vii Assessment ……………………………………………… vii Tutor-Marked Assignments (TMAs) …………………… vii Final Examinations and Grading ……………………….. viii Course Marking Scheme ……………………………….. viii Course Overview ……………………………………….. viii How to Get the Most from this Course ………………… viii Summary ………………………………………………… ix 63 FRE 231 INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH PHONOLOGY INTRODUCTION This is a one-semester course in the third year of B.A. (Hons.) in French studies. It is a two-credit unit course which introduces you to the essentials of phonology in French. This course is important and necessary for you because it enables you to better understand the functioning of the French language sound system, so as for them to put into practice the phonological rules they acquire in the course of this programme.
    [Show full text]
  • An Optimality-Theoretic Approach to French H Aspiré Words1
    To appear in: Féry, Caroline / Kügler, Frank / van de Vijver, Ruben (eds.): Variation and Gradience in Pho- netics and Phonology. - Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Christoph Gabriel & Trudel Meisenburg (Osnabrück) Silent onsets? An optimality-theoretic approach to French h aspiré words1 This paper reexamines one of the classical problems of French phonology: the phenomenon of h aspiré words (Fouché 1959, Klein 1963, Rothe 1978, Encrevé 1988). These vowel initial items display a special behavior with respect to typical phonological processes of French, such as enchaînement, liaison, and élision. Based on the analysis of experimental data we investigate the phonetic realizations of these items and propose an optimality- theoretic (OT) approach in order to account for this phenomenon as well as for the variation encountered in our data. The paper is organized as follows: We start with an overview of the relevant facts from a rather descriptive point of view (section 1) before presenting the data analyzed for the pre- sent study (section 2). While section 3 reviews selected non OT approaches to French h aspiré words, section 4 goes into the problem of variation from an optimality-theoretic perspective: We give an overview of the proposals under discussion before putting forward our own account that largely relies on the model of Stochastic OT developed by Boersma/Hayes (2001). Section 5, finally, offers some concluding remarks. 1 The phenomenon One of the characteristics of French phonology lies within the strong tendency to create regular CV sequences and to avoid hiatus (V.V) through the application of phonological processes such as enchaînement (syllabification of a fixed final consonant into the empty onset position of the following word, 1.a), liaison (surfacing of a latent final consonant into the onset position of the following word, 2.a) and élision (deletion of certain vowels in pre- vocalic position, 3.a).
    [Show full text]
  • Syllabification and Syllable Changing Rules in French* Roland Noske University Of'amsterdam/'Z
    Syllabification and Syllable Changing Rules in French* Roland Noske University of'Amsterdam/'Z. W. O. 0. 1NTRODUCTION In this paper, a proposal will be formulated concerning the assignment of syllable structure in French. It will be proposed that syllabification takes place according to the following principles: - the prohibition against violating the notion of 'possible French syl­ lable' - the tendency to achieve the lowest possible syllabic markedness. A new concept of syllabic markedness will be developed, which also takes into account the number of syllables of a given form. Then, a principled account will be given concerning two syllable chang­ ing processes in French, viz. the deletion of schwa and the change of high vowels into glides. It will be shown that these processes, which take place in apparently disparate contexts, can be accounted for in a principled and natural way if one assumes that they are governed by precisely the same conditions as those that govern syllabification, viz. the prohibition against violating the notion of 'possible French syllable' and the tendency to achieve the lowest possible syllabic markedness. In section 1, a proposal for syllabification will be formulated. The notion of 'possible French syllable' will be expressed by means of a syl­ lable template and a set of conditions on the cooccurrence of segments. There will be several digressions in order to account for apparent counter- examples to my proposal. In section 2, the following two rules will be formulated accounting for the processes of schwa-deletion and the change of high vowels into glides (semivocalization): (1) Schwa-Deletion 3 -»• 0 * This paper is a revised version of Noske (1981).
    [Show full text]
  • Catalan Journal of Linguistics
    Centre de Lingüística Teòrica de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Centre de Lingüística Teòrica de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana Vol. 15, 2016 Catalan Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1695-6885 (in press); ISSN 2014-9719 (online) Vol. 15, 2016 http://revistes.uab.cat/catJL ISSN 1695-6885 (in press); ISSN 2014-9719 (online) 15 Vol. http://revistes.uab.cat/catJL Exceptions in Phonology Index 5 Bonet, Eulàlia; Torres-Tamarit, Francesc. Introduction. ATATALAN INGUISTICS C 9 . Exceptionality in Spanish Stress. C Baković, Eric L 27 Mascaró, Joan. Morphological Exceptions to Vowel Reduction L in Central Catalan and the Problem of the Missing Base. 53 Moore-Cantwell, Claire; Pater, Joe. Gradient Exceptionality OURNAL in Maximum Entropy Grammar with Lexically Specific JJ Constraints. 67 Piñeros, Carlos-Eduardo. Exceptional nasal-stop inventories. OURNAL OF C J 101 Rebrus, Péter; Szigetvári, Péter. Diminutives: Exceptions to J OF INGUISTICS M Harmonic Uniformity. LL AN Y 121 Rysling, Amanda. Polish yers revisited. CM 145 Zuraw, Kie. Polarized Variation. ATAL MY AT Volume 15 C C CY 2016 CMY K Exceptions in Phonology Edited by Eulàlia Bonet & Francesc Torres-Tamarit Exceptions in Phonology Coberta CJL 15.pdf 2 24/10/16 12:21 Catalan Journal of Linguistics Editors Centre de Lingüística Teòrica de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana Catalan Journal of Linguistics style sheet Informació general i subscripcions General information and subscriptions • Document format. Manuscripts should be should be listed chronologically, with the CATALAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS és una revista de lingüís- CATALAN JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS is a journal of theoretical written in English.
    [Show full text]
  • English Influence on Swedish Word Formation and Segmentals Abstract
    English Influence on Swedish Word Formation and Segmentals ANDERS LINDSTRÖM Abstract The object of this study is to determine the nature and degree of English influence on contemporary spoken Swedish at the phonological and morphological levels. Particular attention is paid to certain contact- linguistically critical situations of importance for speech technology applications. Several corpora of spoken and written Swedish are analyzed regarding segmental and word formation effects. The results suggest that any description of contemporary spoken Swedish (be it formal, pedagogical or technical) needs to be extended to cover both phonological and morphological material of English origin. Previous studies of socio-linguistic and other underlying factors governing the variability observed have shown that education and age play a significant role, but that individual variability is large. It is suggested that interacting phonological constraints and their relaxation may be one way of explaining this. An attempt at a diachronic comparison is also made, showing that morphological processes involving English material are frequent in contemporary Swedish, while virtually non-existing in two corpora of spoken Swedish from the mid 1960s. Requirements for speech technology applications are also discussed. /. Introduction Contact between cultures is undoubtedly one of the strongest driving forces behind linguistic change and evolution. This has led to bi- or even polylingualism constituting the normal linguistic situation in large parts of the world (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996). In contrast to this, most native speakers of the Scandinavian languages belong to NORDIC JOURNAL OF ENGLISH STUDIES. SPECIAL ISSUE. VOL. 3 No. 2 115 English Influence on Swedish Word Formation and Segmentals largely monolingual cultures, even if this picture is changing as a result of immigration.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonological Problems in Teaching French to American High School Students
    PHONOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN TEACHING FRENCH TO AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS fi. MARJORIE MC LAUGHLIN A. B., Wichita State University, 1942 A MASTER'S REPORT submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF SCIENCE College of Education KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 1968 Major Professor I /fV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Leo F. Engler, of the Interdepartmental Program in Linguistics, for his invaluable assistance in carrying out and reporting this study. Also, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. J. Harvey Littrell, my advisor, and to Dr. Richard E. Owens, of the College of Education, for their sugges- tions and constructive criticism during the preparation of this report. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTROirtJCTION 1 The Problem 2 Statement of the problem 2 Limitations and delimitations 2 Definitions of Terms Used 3 Review of the Literature 6 II. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CONSONANTS OF FRENCH AND OF ENGLISH AND OF THEIR DISTRIBUTION ... 9 Contra stive Consonant Phoneme Inventory ... 9 Articulation of French Consonants 11 Stops /p,t,d,k/ 11 Fricatives /S,3,r,s,a/ 13 Lateral /l/ 16 Nasal consonants /n,n,m/ 16 Semi-vowels /H,w/ 18 Summary 19 III. CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE VOWELS OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH 20 Manner of Classification of Vowels 20 Phonetic Description of the Vowel Phonemes of French and English 22 The twelve French oral vowels 22 The four French nasal vowel phonemes .... 23 iT CHAPTER PAGE The nine simple vowel phonemes of English 25 The twenty-seven complex syllabic nuclei of English 26 Contrast of French Vowels with Their Near- counterparts among the English Vowel Nuclei 27 French /£,3/ 27 French /i,e,u,o/ 29 The low vowels /a/ and /a/ 32 The rounded front vowels /y,(tf,ce/ 33 "Mute" or "fleeting" e 35 The French nasal vowels /a,0,£,ce/ 36 Summary 38 IV.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonological Variation in French: Illustrations from Three Continents
    960 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 89, NUMBER 4 (2013) sign language. Two points are made in this paper: first, that DGS ( Deutsche Gebärdensprache ‘German Sign Language’) uses prosodic levels comparable to those found in oral languages, showing that prosody is a crosslinguistic feature of language in general, and second, that prosody has meanings that are compositionally present, again comparable to what is found in oral lan - guages. Like many papers on sign languages, it introduces a lot of general knowledge on the lan - guage first, leaving only little space for the detailed analysis of prosody and meaning. As should have become clear from these summaries, in most of the articles the role of prosody is taken more seriously than the role of meaning. Only Truckenbrodt’s and Baumann and Ries- ter’s contributions use meaning as a point of departure and investigate how tunes express it, and in these two papers, the role of prosody is kept to a minimum. Most of the contributions use con - ventional information-structural categories and investigate how they are realized by prosody. Frota assumes that in European Portuguese a nuclear high tone is associated with narrow focus and a low tone with broad focus. Bishop is interested in the role of prominence in different focus contexts in American English. Surányi, Ishihara, and Schubö use a broad and narrow focus to in - vestigate prosody in Hungarian, as does D’Imperio for German and Michelas for French. Cal - houn and Schweitzer assume that meaning is associated with words in a one-to-one fashion and that it is a vain task to try to attribute meaning to tones independently of words.
    [Show full text]
  • Feature Specifications for Consonants
    Feature Specifications for Consonants Obstruents P t t c k q b d <l J g G is dZ c j 41 f 9 s I g ~ x X p v Oz 3 Z i Y B cons ++++++++++++ + + ++++++++++++++++++++ syll voice -++++++-+ + +++++++++ w obs ++++++++++++ + + ++++++++++++++++++++ 5i cont - --++++++++++++++++++ del rei + + + + asp lat nas ant ++----++---- + + --++++-----++++----- cor - + + - - - - + + - - - + + + + - - + + + + - - - + + + + - high + + + + + + + - - - - + + + - low back --++----++ -- --- + + - - - + + round stri - + + ++-+-+++--+-+-+++--+ Sonorants m n Q P g N § w v ~ l j A r R r Y " I 1 1: cons + + + + + + + + + + syll voice +++++++++++++++++++++ VJ obs ~ cont + + + + + + + + + + + + + del rei asp lat + + + nas + + + + + + ant + + + + + + + + + + cor + + + + + + + + + high + + + + + + low back + + + + + round + + Sample Answers to Exercises Chapter 1 c. Polish The devoiced allophone occurs between voi~less sounds, and between a voiceless sound and a word boundary. G. Tamil (a) #_; m_; V_V. Pb] 1m} (b) Ipl - [{3] I V V (c) PeJ] I 0- } /kI _ {[g] I g_ } It! - [ts] I V_V [V] I V_V (d) Yes: #_; l'I....- (e) [£1; voiced retroflex fricative: [~]. (f) Yes. [s] is the intervocalic allophone of IC!. 3. Tamil The [w] allophone occurs word-finally when the preceding vowel is unrounded. Chapter 2 C. English Irl _ {0 -. {~} } [~] I vOlceless segment _ E. Japanese Verbs (a) [eba]; [ta] and [da]. (b) [mats] and [mat]; Imat!. (c) [tswkwc] and [tswkwt]; Itwkwcl and Itwkwt!. For Itwkwt!: It! _ [c] I V_V For Itwkwc/: Icl_ [t] I_t (or: a voiceless segment) Both involve assimilation: intervocalic voicing and devoicing before a voiceless segment. 307 308 Sample Answers to Exercises The stem and the provisional form of 'wait' show that Itl does not become [1"] between vowels.
    [Show full text]