Jean-François Prunet

The Mental Representation of Semitic Words

This article is concerned with external evidence bearing on the nature of the units stored in the mental lexicons of speakers of Semitic languages. On the basis of aphasic metathesis errors we collected in a single case study, we suggest that roots can be accessed as independent morphological units. We review documented language games and slips of the tongue that lead to the same conclusion. We also discuss evidence for the morphemic status of templates from aphasic errors, language games, and slips of the tongue. We conclude that the available external evidence is best accounted for within a morpheme-based theory of morphology that forms words by combining roots and templates.

On coronal transparency

This article is concerned with the internal structure of coronals. Although coronals are often considered the least marked consonants on the basis of frequency and acquisition, current models of feature geometry assign coronality no special status among places of articulation. 1 In this paper, we argue that the structure of coronals differs from that of other consanats in that coronals lack a Place node altogether.

INTRODUCTION: ASYMMETRY AND VISIBILITY IN CONSONANT ARTICULATIONS

Publisher Summary This chapter provides an overview of asymmetry and visibility in consonant articulations. It reviews the theoretical problems posed by the behavior of coronals and the overall conclusions that can be drawn from the research. Most of the research presented in the chapter assumes a hierarchical model of feature organization. Most current research assumes that some feature specifications are absent from underlying representation (UR) and are filled in either during derivations or at a later stage. Theories of underspecification diverge as to what feature specification is absent from UR and when it is filled in. Two types of theories of underspecification can be distinguished: (1) radical and (2) contrastive. Radical underspecification is essentially a theory of markedness, while contrastive specification is essentially a theory of redundancy. Nasalization of a vowel when this vowel is preceded by a nasal consonant consists of adding an association line between the [+nasal] feature of the consonant and the following oral vowel, a process called spreading.

On the Mental Representation of Arabic Roots

In Prunet, Bland, and Idrissi 2000, we presented evidence from an aphasic subject that argued for the morphemic status of Arabic consonantal roots. We predicted that inaudible glides in weak roots should resurface in metathesis and template selection errors, but at the time the relevant data were unattested. Here, we present such data, obtained from a new series of experiments with the same aphasic subject. Arabic hypocoristic formation offers another case of glide resurfacing. Both sources of data confirm that Arabic consonantal roots are abstract morphemic units rather than surface phonetic units.

The Sound of Mute Vowels in Auditory Word-Stem Completion

Some studies have argued that orthography can influence speakers when they perform oral language tasks. Words containing a mute vowel provide well-suited stimuli to investigate this phenomenon because mute vowels, such as the second in , are present orthographically but absent phonetically. Using an auditory word-stem completion task, we tested whether subjects were influenced by the presence of mute vowels. We ran experiments in two languages which contain numerous mute-vowel words: Tigrinya, which uses a syllabic/moraic writing system, and French, which uses an alphabetic writing system. We argue that Tigrinya and French speakers based their completion on the sound form of words, rather than the written one. We suggest that the presence of mute vowels at the underlying phonological level, rather than their orthographic representation, influences speakers in the word-stem completion task. Some effects previously attributed to orthography may instead be attributable to underlying phonological representations.