Sonority is a central notion in phonetics and phonology and it is essential for generalizations related to syllabic organization. However, to date there is no clear consensus on the phonetic basis of sonority, neither in perception nor in production. The widely used Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) represents the speech signal as a sequence of discrete units, where phonological processes are modeled as symbol manipulating rules that lack a temporal dimension and are devoid of inherent links to perceptual, motoric or cognitive processes. The current work aims to change this by outlining a novel approach for the extraction of continuous entities from acoustic space in order to model dynamic aspects of phonological perception. It is used here to advance a functional understanding of sonority as a universal aspect of prosody that requires pitch-bearing syllables as the building blocks of speech.This book argues that sonority is best understood as a measurement of pitch intelligibility in perception, which is closely linked to periodic energy in acoustics. It presents a novel principle for sonority-based determinations of well-formedness – the Nucleus Attraction Principle (NAP). Two complementary NAP models independently account for symbolic and continuous representations and they mostly outperform SSP-based models, demonstrated here with experimental perception studies and with a corpus study of Modern Hebrew nouns. This work also includes a description of ProPer (Prosodic Analysis with Periodic Energy). The ProPer toolbox further exploits the proposal that periodic energy reflects sonority in order to cover major topics in prosodic research, such as prominence, intonation and speech rate. The book is finally concluded with brief discussions on selected topics: (i) the phonotactic division of labor with respect to /s/-stop clusters; (ii) the debate about the universality of sonority; and (iii) the fate of the classic phonetics–phonology dichotomy as it relates to continuity and dynamics in phonology.

The Handbook of the Syllable presents a broad range of empirical studies, offering a comprehensive survey of the syllable in phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics. It is a seminal reference book for researchers exploring any empirical area where the notion of “the syllable” is invoked.

The syllable is a natural unit of organization in spoken language whose strongest cross-linguistic patterns are often explained in terms of a universal preference for the CV structure. Syllable patterns involving long sequences of consonants are both typologically rare and theoretically marginalized, with few approaches treating these as natural or unproblematic structures. This book is an investigation of the properties of languages with highly complex syllable patterns. The two aims are (i) to establish whether these languages share other linguistic features in common such that they constitute a distinct linguistic type, and (ii) to identify possible diachronic paths and natural mechanisms by which these patterns come about in the history of a language. These issues are investigated in a diversified sample of 100 languages, 25 of which have highly complex syllable patterns. Languages with highly complex syllable structure are characterized by a number of phonetic, phonological, and morphological features which serve to set them apart from languages with simpler syllable patterns. These include specific segmental and suprasegmental properties, a higher prevalence of vowel reduction processes with extreme outcomes, and higher average morpheme/word ratios. The results suggest that highly complex syllable structure is a linguistic type distinct from but sharing some characteristics with other proposed holistic phonological types, including stress-timed and consonantal languages. The results point to word stress and specific patterns of gestural organization as playing important roles in the diachronic development of these patterns out of simpler syllable structures.

The volume represents a state-of-the-art snapshot of the research on prosody for phoneticians, linguists and speech technologists. It covers well-known models and languages. How are prosodies linked to speech sounds? What are the relations between prosody and grammar? What does speech perception tell us about prosody, particularly about the constituting elements of intonation and rhythm? The papers of the volume address questions like these with a special focus on how the notion of context-based coding, the knowledge of prosodic functions and the communicative embedding of prosodic elements can advance our understanding of prosody.

The Handbook of Phonological Theory, second edition offers an innovative and detailed examination of recent developments in phonology, and the implications of these within linguistic theory and related disciplines. Revised from the ground-up for the second edition, the book is comprised almost entirely of newly-written and previously unpublished chapters Addresses the important questions in the field including learnability, phonological interfaces, tone, and variation, and assesses the findings and accomplishments in these domains Brings together a renowned and international contributor team Offers new and unique reflections on the advances in phonological theory since publication of the first edition in 1995 Along with the first edition, still in publication, it forms the most complete and current overview of the subject in print

Phonologically prominent or "strong" positions are well known for their ability to resist positional neutralization processes such as vowel reduction or place assimilation. However, there are also cases of neutralization that affect only strong positions, as when stressed syllables must be heavy, default stress is inserted into roots, or word-initial onsets must be low in sonority. In this book, Jennifer Smith shows that phonological processes specific to strong positions are distinct from those involved in classic positional neutralization effects because they always serve to augment the strong position with a perceptually salient characteristic. Formally, positional augmentation effects are modeled by means of markedness constraints relativized to strong positions. Because positional augmentation constraints are subject to certain substantive restrictions, as seen in their connection to perceptual salience, this study has implications for the relationship between functional grounding and phonological theory.

Doing Optimality Theory brings together examples and practical, detailed advice for undergraduates and graduate students working in linguistics. Given that the basic premises of Optimality Theory are markedly different from other linguistic theories, this book presents the analytic techniques and new ways of thinking and theorizing that are required. Explains how to do analysis and research using Optimality Theory (OT) - a branch of phonology that has revolutionized the field since its conception in 1993 Offers practical, in-depth advice for students and researchers in the field, presented in an engaging way Features numerous examples, questions, and exercises throughout, all helping to illustrate the theory and summarize the core concepts of OT Written by John J. McCarthy, one of the theory’s leading proponents and an instrumental figure in the dissemination and use of OT today An ideal guide through the intricacies of linguistic analysis and research for beginning researchers, and, by example, one which will lead the way to future developments in the field.

The Chinese language has the longest well-documented history among all human languages, making it an invaluable resource for studying how languages develop and change through time. Based on a twenty-year long research project, this pioneering book is the English version of an award-winning study originally published in Chinese. It provides an evolutionary perspective on the history of Chinese grammar, tracing its development from its thirteenth-Century BC origins to the present day. It investigates all the major changes in the history of the language within contemporary linguistic frameworks, and illustrates these with a wide range of examples taken from every stage in the language's development, showing how the author's findings are relevant to contemporary descriptive, theoretical, and historical linguistics. Shedding light on the essential properties of Chinese and, ultimately, language in general, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students of Asian linguistics, historical linguistics and syntactic theory.

Current Research in African Linguistics recognizes and honors Ọladele Awobuluyi’s contributions to African linguistics. The contributors, an international group of scholars, represent four generations of African linguists who have been influenced by Awobuluyi’s work as a scholar and teacher. The papers are organized into three thematic sections, namely applied linguistics and sociolinguistics; phonology and morphology; and syntax and semantics and their interfaces. The wide range of topics investigated in this volume will enhance the reader’s understanding of current issues in the field of African linguistics today. Indeed, the book marks an important contribution to the expanding work on language documentation and comparative linguistics by presenting data and linguistic analysis from a number of different African languages.