Vowel allophony in Ness Gaelic: Phonetic and phonological patterns of laxing and retraction

The vowel system of the dialect of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Ness, Lewis differs from that of other dialects in several important ways. In particular, several vowels display patterns of allophony that have not been investigated instrumentally and, in some cases, have not been reported before for Scottish Gaelic. This paper documents the Ness system in detail, focusing in particular on the tense–lax opposition in /i e/ and retraction of /a(ː)/ next to velarised consonants. The results of a traditional linguistic fieldwork study are presented first, followed by a detailed acoustic study of nine speakers. The acoustic reality of these allophonic patterns, reflected in F1 and F2 values, is verified statistically using LME modelling. Bimodality in the distribution of tokens in acoustic space, confirmed statistically with Hartigan’s Dip Test, is taken as evidence for the existence of discrete phonological categories (Bermúdez-Otero & Trousdale 2011). It is found that speakers vary as to whether these allophonic oppositions are restricted to the phonetic grammar, or have undergone stabilisation and advanced into the categorical phonology (Bermúdez-Otero 2007, 2015). It is observed that laxing of /i e/ in Ness Gaelic occurs in exactly those contexts where there is a direct transition between the vowel and a following supra-glottal consonant. It is therefore proposed that this tense–lax opposition is grounded in conflicting strategies of contrast enhancement, whereby laxing increases the perceptual distinctiveness of a following consonant by allowing for more distinctive formant transitions, at the expense of the distinctiveness of the vowel itself (Storme 2019).

FUNCTIONING OF MANIPULATIVE ARGUMENTS IN JUDICIAL SPEECH (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF THE PROSECUTOR’S SPEECHES IN THE DEBATE)

Введение. Рассмотрены софизмы в судебной речи одного из томских прокуроров. Значимость исследования определяется сопряжением проблем эффективности современной судебной речи, обозначением ее места в структуре судебного процесса с лингвоперсонологическими категориями. Цель – оценить уместность использования софизмов в речевой практике современного томского прокурора. Материал и методы. Материалом явились устные записи выступлений томского прокурора, адвоката и подсудимого, сделанные в ходе одного судебного процесса. Объем материала составляет около 11,5 тыс. словоупотреблений: речь прокурора в прениях – 7 287 словоупотреблений, реплика прокурора в прениях – 2 053 словоупотребления, речь адвоката в прениях – 925 словоупотреблений, речь подсудимого в прениях – 1 244 словоупотребления. Объект анализа – речевая деятельность языковой личности – томского прокурора (женщина, 38 лет). Метод – наблюдение, научное описание, дискурсивный анализ. Результаты и обсуждение. Описываются различные виды софизмов, отмеченные в речах прокурора: подмена тезиса, произвольные доводы, доводы к человеку и т. д. Использование софизмов является частью традиций современной судебной практики, начало которой положено еще в ХIХ в. Отмечается, что в случае использования манипулятивных доводов наиболее ярко проявляется черта речевого портрета говорящего: субъективная оценочность и эмоциональность. Заключение. Таким образом, выбранная стратегия, предполагающая наличие софизмов, доказала свою ситуативную эффективность, поскольку, вероятно, стала одним из факторов, повлиявших на решение суда, поддержавшего обвинение. Однако рекомендовано исключить из публичных судебных речей доводы к личностным качествам как основанию оценки. Introduction. The article considers the role of sophisms in the judicial speech of one of the Tomsk prosecutors. The significance of the research is determined by the combination of the problems of the effectiveness of modern judicial speech, the designation of its place in the structure of the judicial process with linguistic and phonological categories. The purpose is to assess the relevance of the use of sophisms in the speech practice of the modern Tomsk prosecutor. The object of the analysis is the speech activity of a linguistic personality-the prosecutor of Tomsk, a woman, 38 years old. Material and methods. The following methods were used: observation, scientific description, discursive analysis. The material was oral recordings of speeches of the Tomsk prosecutor, lawyer and the defendant, made during one trial. The volume of the material is about 11.5 words. Results and discussion. The article describes various types of sophisms noted in the speeches of the prosecutor: substitution of the thesis, false arguments, arbitrary arguments, arguments against a person, etc. It is found that rhetorical arguments prevail over logical arguments in the speech in the debate. Actually, manipulative techniques are concentrated in that part of the judicial controversy, which is called a replica. To confirm this postulate, the main theses were highlighted, which were proved and evaluated during the debate. Variants of speculative use of evaluative rhetorical techniques prevail. Less common are “false analogy” and “female logic”. There are few cases of distortion of the thesis: “narrowing-expansion of the thesis”, “substitution of the thesis”. At this stage, it is difficult to assess whether the commitment to manipulative techniques is an individual feature of the speaker, or it is typical for a modern judicial process. The use of sophisms is part of the traditions of modern judicial practice, which began in the nineteenth century. It is noted that in the case of using manipulative arguments, the feature of the speaker’s speech portrait is most clearly manifested: subjective assessment and emotionality. Conclusion. We can say that the chosen strategy, assuming the presence of sophisms, proved its situational effectiveness, since it probably became one of the factors that influenced the decision of the court that supported the prosecution. Each speaker, as a professional language personality, has his own arsenal of effective and ineffective ways of organizing a discussion, it is necessary to replenish his communicative arsenal with the most effective management strategies that influenced the court’s decision.

Prosodic Disambiguation in First and Second Language Production: English and Korean

This study investigates the use of prosodic cues for syntactic ambiguity resolution by first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers. In a production experiment, sentences with relative clause attachment ambiguity were elicited in three language conditions: native English speakers’ L1 productions as well as Korean-English bilingual speakers’ L1 Korean and L2 English productions. The results show that English uses both boundary marking (pause) and relative word prominence (elevated pitch and intensity) for disambiguation, while Korean mainly relies on boundary marking (pre-boundary lengthening and pause). The bilingual speakers have learned to use the English phonological categories such as pitch accents for disambiguation, but their use of phonetic cues to realize these categories still differed from that of native English speakers. In addition, they did not show a significant use of boundary cues. These results are discussed in relation to the typological differences between the prosody of English and of Korean.

Language and Learner Specific Influences on the Emergence of Consonantal Place and Manner Features

This article focuses on the emergence of consonantal place and manner feature categories in the speech of first language learners. Starting with an overview of current representational approaches to phonology, we take the position that only models that allow for the emergence of phonological categories at all levels of phonological representation (from sub-segmental properties of speech sounds all the way to word forms represented within the child’s lexicon) can account for the data. We begin with a cross-linguistic survey of the acquisition of rhotic consonants. We show that the types of substitutions affecting different rhotics cross-linguistically can be predicted from two main observations: the phonetic characteristics of these rhotics and the larger system of categories displayed by each language. We then turn to a peculiar pattern of labial substitution for coronal continuants in the speech of a German learner. Building on previous literature on the topic, we attribute the emergence of this pattern to distributional properties of the child’s developing lexicon. Together, these observations suggest that our understanding of phonological emergence must involve a consideration of multiple, potentially interacting levels of phonetic and phonological representation.

The Development of Categorical Perception of Segments and Suprasegments in Mandarin-Speaking Preschoolers

This study investigated the developmental trajectories of categorical perception (CP) of segments (i.e., stops) and suprasegments (i.e., lexical tones) in an attempt to examine the perceptual development of phonological categories and whether CP of suprasegments develops in parallel with that of segments. Forty-seven Mandarin-speaking monolingual preschoolers aged four to six years old, and fourteen adults completed both identification and discrimination tasks of the Tone 1-2 continuum and the /pa/-/pha/ continuum. Results revealed that children could perceive both lexical tones and aspiration of stops in a categorical manner by age four. The boundary position did not depend on age, with children having similar positions to adults regardless of speech continuum types. The boundary width, on the other hand, reached the adult-like level at age six for lexical tones, but not for stops. In addition, the within-category discrimination score did not differ significantly between children and adults for both continua. The between-category discrimination score improved with age and achieved the adult-like level at age five for lexical tones, but still not for stops even at age six. It suggests that the fine-grained perception of phonological categories is a protracted process, and the improvement and varying timeline of the development of segments and suprasegments are discussed in relation to statistical learning of the regularities of speech sounds in ambient language, ongoing maturation of perceptual systems, the memory mechanism underlying perceptual learning, and the intrinsic nature of speech elements.

Sounds like a dynamic system: a unifying approach to Language

While nativist linguistic theory readily captures the regular processes of adult language, it struggles to account for often-unwieldy data collected from children. Any theory of language must house both the predictable and unpredictable turns a linguistic system takes. Some usage-based theories make strides in accounting for connections between multiple linguistic factors contributing to linguistic representation. Dynamic systems theory (DST) is capable of describing the interaction between numerous factors both linguistic and extra-linguistic. Grounded in embodiment, DST accounts for continuity between bodily and cognitive processes, which together are crucial in understanding the development of language. Conceptualizing systems as self-organizing, DST allows for the emergence of novel forms alongside the predictable. Furthermore, DST explains both continuity between unexpected child forms and eventual target forms and also apparent discontinuity that gives the illusion of discrete developmental stages. To illustrate the advantages of DST in describing language processes, this paper presents data from one American English-acquiring child, which comes from a larger study investigating phonological development beginning at the onset of word production. The data demonstrate the role of phonological templates in development as part of a dynamic system, entailing the interaction between developing phonological categories, lexical representation, and linguistic environment.

The perception of non-native phonological categories in adult-directed and infant-directed speech: An experimental study

In the present study, we test whether adult listeners detect phonological contrasts faster and more accurately in non-native infant-directed speech (IDS) than in non-native adult-directed speech (ADS). 21 participants listened to pairs of speech signals and their task was to decide as quickly as possible whether the signals constitute the same or different words. Each pair of signals contained target vowels or consonants representing a certain category of contrast that was phonologically relevant in a given language but not in Polish, i.e., the native language of the participants of the listening test. The signals were presented in a random order, and each pair occurred in the material twice. Although we demonstrated significant acoustic-phonetic differences between the utterances realized in the IDS and ADS speaking styles, the listeners in our study were not significantly more accurate or faster in the identification of contrasts in either IDS or ADS stimuli.