Ruben van de Vijver

The syllable in optimality theory

1. Introduction Caroline Fery and Ruben van de Vijver Part I. Syllable Structure and Prosodic Structure: 2. Sympathy, cumulativity, and the Duke-of-York gambit John McCarthy 3. The controversy over geminates and syllable weight Stuart Davis 4. The syllable as a unit of prosodic organization in Japanese Haruo Kubozono 5. Prosodic weight Draga Zec Part II. Non-moraic Syllables and Syllable Edges: 6. Syllables and moras in Arabic Paul Kiparsky 7. Semi-syllables and universal syllabification Young-mee Cho and Tracy Holloway King 8. Onsets and non-moraic syllables in German Caroline Fery 9. Extrasyllabic consonants and onset well-formedness Antony Dubach Green 10. Beyond codas: word and phase-final alignment Caroline Wiltshire Part III. Segments and Syllables: 11. On the sources of opacity in OT: coda processes in German Junko Ito and Armin Mester 12. Ambisyllabicity and fricative voicing in West-Germanic dialects Marc van Oostendorp 13. The CiV generalization in Dutch: what Petunia, Mafia, and Sovjet tell us about Dutch syllable structure Ruben van de Vijver 14. The relative harmony of/s+stop/onsets: obstruent clusters and the sonority sequencing principle Frida Morelli Part IV. How Concrete is Phonotactics?: 15. The independent nature of phonotactic constraints: an alternative to syllable-based approaches Juliette Blevins.

Variation and gradience in phonetics and phonology

This book brings together researchers from sociolinguistics, phonetics and phonology and provides an overview of current issues in variation and gradience in phonetics and phonology. In this book, variation at every level of phonological representation is addressed. It contributes to the growing interest in gradience and variation in theoretical phonology by combining research on the factors underlying variability and systematic quantitative results with theoretical phonological considerations.

Word processing at 19 months and its relation to language performance at 30 months: A retrospective analysis of data from German learning children

Recent research has shown that the early lexical representations children establish in their second year of life already seem to be phonologically detailed enough to allow differentiation from very similar forms. In contrast to these findings children with specific language impairment show problems in discriminating phonologically similar word forms up to school age. In our study we investigated the question whether there would be differences in the processing of phonological details in normally developing and in children with low language performance in the second year of life. This was done by a retrospective study in which in the processing of phonological details was tested by a preferential looking experiment when the children were 19 months old. At the age of 30 months children were tested with a standardized German test of language comprehension and production (SETK2). The preferential looking data at 19 months revealed an opposite reaction pattern for the two groups: while the children scoring normally in the SETK2 increase their fixations of a pictured object only when it was named with the correct word, children with later low language performance did so only when presented with a phonologically slightly deviant mispronunciation. We suggest that this pattern does not point to a specific deficit in processing phonological information in these children but might be related to an instability of early phonological representations, and/or a generalized problem of information processing as compared to typically developing children.

The Interaction of Language-Specific and Universal Factors During the Acquisition of Morphophonemic Alternations With Exceptions

Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance (phonetic motivation), and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning.

The effect of phonotactic constraints in German-speaking children with delayed phonological acquisition: Evidence from production of word-initial consonant clusters

In this study the effect of phonotactic constraints concerning word-initial consonant clusters in children with delayed phonological acquisition was explored. Twelve German-speaking children took part (mean age 5;1). The spontaneous speech of all children was characterized by the regular appearance of the error patterns fronting, e.g., Kuh“cow” /ku:/ →[tu:], or stopping, e.g., Schaf“sheep” /a:f/ →[ta:f], which were inappropriate for their chronological age. The children were asked to produce words (picture naming task, word repetition task) with initial consonant clusters, in which the application of the error patterns would violate phonotactic sequence constraints. For instance, if fronting would apply in /kl-/, e.g., Kleid“dress”, it would be realized as the phontactically illegal consonant cluster /tl-/. The results indicate that phonotactic constraints affect word production in children with delayed phonological developments. Surprisingly, we found that children with fronting produced the critical consonants correctly significantly more often in word-initial consonant clusters than in words in which they appeared as singleton onsets. In addition, the results provide evidence for a similar developmental trajectory of acquisition in children with typical development and in children with delayed phonological acquisition.

Acquisition of nominal morphophonological alternations in Russian

Morphophonological alternations can make target-like production of grammatical morphemes challenging due to changes in form depending on the phonological environment. This article explores the acquisition of morphophonological alternations involving the interacting patterns of vowel deletion and stress shift in Russian-speaking children (aged 4;0–7;11) using a ‘wug’ test with real and nonce words. Depending on the phonological context, participants were expected to either delete vowels (e.g. ko’mokNom,sg – kom’kaGen,sg) or preserve them (e.g. pji’lotNom,sg – pji’lotaGen,sg). The results showed that children’s sensitivity to morphophonological patterns increases with age: 4-year-olds tended to preserve underlying vowels and stress across conditions, whereas older children demonstrated growing accuracy, at least with real words. Stressed vowels were more appropriately alternated and preserved across conditions, suggesting suprasegmental effects on the acquisition of segmental alternation patterns in Russian.

On the Role of Phonetic Motivation and Frequency in the Acquisition of Alternations

German nouns may alternate in two ways: a final word-final voiceless obstruent in the singular may correspond to a voiced one in the plural and a back vowel in the singular may correspond to a front one in the plural. We investigate the role of phonetic motivation and frequency in the acquisition of these alternations. The voicing alternation has a phonetic motivation, but the vowel alternation does not. On the basis of two corpus studies, we conclude that both alternations occur with equal frequency in the ambient language. In two production experiments, one with 5-yearolds and one with adults, we asked both populations to form plurals for given singular words and nonces. The children produce more voicing alternations in nonces than adults and fewer vowel alternations than adults. We conclude that children rely more on phonetic motivation than adults.

The Syllable in Optimality Theory: Contents

1. Introduction Caroline Fery and Ruben van de Vijver Part I. Syllable Structure and Prosodic Structure: 2. Sympathy, cumulativity, and the Duke-of-York gambit John McCarthy 3. The controversy over geminates and syllable weight Stuart Davis 4. The syllable as a unit of prosodic organization in Japanese Haruo Kubozono 5. Prosodic weight Draga Zec Part II. Non-moraic Syllables and Syllable Edges: 6. Syllables and moras in Arabic Paul Kiparsky 7. Semi-syllables and universal syllabification Young-mee Cho and Tracy Holloway King 8. Onsets and non-moraic syllables in German Caroline Fery 9. Extrasyllabic consonants and onset well-formedness Antony Dubach Green 10. Beyond codas: word and phase-final alignment Caroline Wiltshire Part III. Segments and Syllables: 11. On the sources of opacity in OT: coda processes in German Junko Ito and Armin Mester 12. Ambisyllabicity and fricative voicing in West-Germanic dialects Marc van Oostendorp 13. The CiV generalization in Dutch: what Petunia, Mafia, and Sovjet tell us about Dutch syllable structure Ruben van de Vijver 14. The relative harmony of/s+stop/onsets: obstruent clusters and the sonority sequencing principle Frida Morelli Part IV. How Concrete is Phonotactics?: 15. The independent nature of phonotactic constraints: an alternative to syllable-based approaches Juliette Blevins.

The Syllable in Optimality Theory: NONMORAIC SYLLABLES AND SYLLABLE EDGES

1. Introduction Caroline Fery and Ruben van de Vijver Part I. Syllable Structure and Prosodic Structure: 2. Sympathy, cumulativity, and the Duke-of-York gambit John McCarthy 3. The controversy over geminates and syllable weight Stuart Davis 4. The syllable as a unit of prosodic organization in Japanese Haruo Kubozono 5. Prosodic weight Draga Zec Part II. Non-moraic Syllables and Syllable Edges: 6. Syllables and moras in Arabic Paul Kiparsky 7. Semi-syllables and universal syllabification Young-mee Cho and Tracy Holloway King 8. Onsets and non-moraic syllables in German Caroline Fery 9. Extrasyllabic consonants and onset well-formedness Antony Dubach Green 10. Beyond codas: word and phase-final alignment Caroline Wiltshire Part III. Segments and Syllables: 11. On the sources of opacity in OT: coda processes in German Junko Ito and Armin Mester 12. Ambisyllabicity and fricative voicing in West-Germanic dialects Marc van Oostendorp 13. The CiV generalization in Dutch: what Petunia, Mafia, and Sovjet tell us about Dutch syllable structure Ruben van de Vijver 14. The relative harmony of/s+stop/onsets: obstruent clusters and the sonority sequencing principle Frida Morelli Part IV. How Concrete is Phonotactics?: 15. The independent nature of phonotactic constraints: an alternative to syllable-based approaches Juliette Blevins.

The Syllable in Optimality Theory: SEGMENTS AND SYLLABLES

1. Introduction Caroline Fery and Ruben van de Vijver Part I. Syllable Structure and Prosodic Structure: 2. Sympathy, cumulativity, and the Duke-of-York gambit John McCarthy 3. The controversy over geminates and syllable weight Stuart Davis 4. The syllable as a unit of prosodic organization in Japanese Haruo Kubozono 5. Prosodic weight Draga Zec Part II. Non-moraic Syllables and Syllable Edges: 6. Syllables and moras in Arabic Paul Kiparsky 7. Semi-syllables and universal syllabification Young-mee Cho and Tracy Holloway King 8. Onsets and non-moraic syllables in German Caroline Fery 9. Extrasyllabic consonants and onset well-formedness Antony Dubach Green 10. Beyond codas: word and phase-final alignment Caroline Wiltshire Part III. Segments and Syllables: 11. On the sources of opacity in OT: coda processes in German Junko Ito and Armin Mester 12. Ambisyllabicity and fricative voicing in West-Germanic dialects Marc van Oostendorp 13. The CiV generalization in Dutch: what Petunia, Mafia, and Sovjet tell us about Dutch syllable structure Ruben van de Vijver 14. The relative harmony of/s+stop/onsets: obstruent clusters and the sonority sequencing principle Frida Morelli Part IV. How Concrete is Phonotactics?: 15. The independent nature of phonotactic constraints: an alternative to syllable-based approaches Juliette Blevins.