First Published in 2002. This volume is part of the 'Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics' series, and focuses on phonetics, phonology and diachrony of compensatory lengthening. The term compensatory lengthening (CL) refers to a set of phonological phenomena wherein the disappearance of one element of a representation is accompanied by a corresponding lengthening of another element. This study focuses on descriptive and formal similarities and divergences between CL of vowels triggered by consonant and by vowel loss.
First Published in 2002. This volume is part of the 'Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics' series, and focuses on phonetics, phonology and diachrony of compensatory lengthening. The term compensatory lengthening (CL) refers to a set of phonological phenomena wherein the disappearance of one element of a representation is accompanied by a corresponding lengthening of another element. This study focuses on descriptive and formal similarities and divergences between CL of vowels triggered by consonant and by vowel loss.
The Handbook of the Syllable approaches the study of the phonology and phonetics of the syllable with theoretical, empirical and methodological heterogeneity as its guiding principle. Since the mid-nineteenth century, scholars in the phonetic and phonological sciences have found it convenient to refer to the syllable, but definitions are scarce and none apply to all areas where the syllable is frequently invoked. The Handbook’s seventeen chapters focus on empirical studies of the syllable by presenting both new data and new kinds of data. The work addresses the syllable in phonology, phonetics, experimental psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, diachronic linguistics, and orthography. It is a seminal reference book for researchers exploring any empirical area where the notion of 'the syllable' is invoked.
The concept of the 'onset', i.e. the consonant(s) before the vowel of a syllable, is critical within phonology. While phonologists have examined the segmental behaviour of onsets, their prosodic status has instead been largely overlooked. In fact, most previous accounts have stipulated that onsets are insignificant when it comes to the 'heaviness' of syllables. In this book Nina Topintzi presents a new theory of onsets, arguing for their fundamental role in the structure of language both in the underlying and surface representation, unlike previous assumptions. To capture the weight behaviour of onsets, a novel account is proposed that relates their interaction with voicing, tone and stress. Using numerous case-studies and data from a variety of languages and phenomena (including stress, compensatory lengthening, gemination and word minimality), the book introduces a model that reflects the true behaviour of onsets, demonstrating profound implications for syllable and weight theories.
The present volume presents scholarly study into Old French as it is practiced today, in all of its forms, within a variety of theoretical frameworks, from Optimality Theory to Minimalism to Discourse Analysis. Many of the chapters are corpus-based, reflecting a new trend in the field, as more electronic corpora become available. The chapters contribute to our understanding of both the synchronic state and diachronic evolution, not only of Old French, but of language in general. Its breadth is extensive in that contributors pursue research on a wide variety of topics in Old French focusing on the various subsystems of language. All examples are carefully glossed and the relevant characteristics of Old French are clearly explained, which makes it uniquely accessible to non-specialists and linguists at all levels of training.
This monograph, which evolved from the first linguistic dissertation to be written on Chaha (an Ethiopian Semitic language), is also the first book to deal exclusively with the phonology and morphology of the language. It is an exhaustive description and analysis, by a native speaker, of the sound patterns of this often misdescribed language and deserves to be the standard reference on the phonology of Chaha. The book presents a vast amount of new data and it unearths some fascinating new generalizations about double linking, geminate devoicing, nasalization of liquid consonants, phonotactic constraints within morphemes, and palatalization and labialization triggered by decomposition of a single back high round vowel. The book also challenges the categorization of Semitic subject affixes into prefix and suffix sets, instead proposing a novel classification in which all prefixes and some suffixes form a set that excludes the remaining suffixes. The generalizations and analyses are significant not only for the study of Chaha and Semitic languages, but also for phonological theory in general.
For more than a quarter of a century the Annual conference on African Linguistics (ACAL) has provided a lively forum for the confrontation of ideas on theoretical linguistics with descriptive data on African languages.