Ferdinand de Saussure (26 November 1857 - 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. Saussure is widely considered to be one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics, and his ideas have had a monumental impact on literary and cultural theory and interpretation.
§ Biography §
Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure, born in Geneva in 1857, showed early signs of considerable talent and intellectual ability. After a year of studying Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and a variety of courses at the University of Geneva, he commenced graduate work at the University of Leipzig(萊比錫) in 1876. Two years later at 21 years Saussure studied for a year at Berlin, where he wrote his only full-length work, Mémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes (Thesis on the Primitive Vowel System in Indo-European Languages). He returned to Leipzig and was awarded his doctorate in 1880. Soon afterwards he relocated to Paris, where he would lecture on ancient and modern languages. He taught in Paris for 11 years before returning to Geneva in 1891. Saussure lectured on Sanskrit and Indo-European at the University of Geneva for the remainder of his life. It was not until 1906 that Saussure began teaching the Course of General Linguistics that would consume the greater part of his attention until his death in 1913.
§ Course in General Linguistics §
Saussure's most influential work, Course in General Linguistics (Cours de linguistique générale), was published posthumously in 1916 by former students Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye on the basis of notes taken from Saussure's lectures at the University of Geneva. The Course became one of the seminal linguistics works of the 20th century, not primarily for the content (many of the ideas had been anticipated in the works of other 19th century linguists), but rather for the innovative approach that Saussure applied in discussing linguistic phenomena.
Its central notion is that language may be analyzed as a formal system of differential elements, apart from the messy dialectics of real-time production and comprehension. Examples of these elements include the notion of the linguistic sign, the signifier, the signified, and the referent.
In 1996, a manuscript of Saussure's was discovered in his house in Geneva. This text was published as Writings in General Linguistics, and offers significant clarifications of the Course.
§ Laryngeal theory§
While a student, Saussure published an important work in Indo-European philology(語文學，語文研究) that proposed the existence of a class of sounds in Proto-Indo-European called sonant coefficients. The Danish scholar Hermann Möller suggested that these might actually be laryngeal consonants, leading to what is now known as the laryngeal theory. It has been argued that the problem Saussure encountered, of trying to explain how he was able to make systematic and predictive hypotheses from known linguistic data to unknown linguistic data, stimulated his development of structuralism. Saussure's predictions about the existence of sonant coefficients/laryngeals and their evolution proved a resounding success when the Hittite texts were discovered and deciphered, some 20 years later.
§ Legacy §
The impact of Saussure's ideas on the development of linguistic theory in the first half of the 20th century cannot be overstated. Two currents of thought emerged independently of each other, one in Europe, the other in America. The results of each incorporated the basic notions of Saussurian thought in forming the central tenets of structural linguistics. (1)In Europe, the most important work was being done by the Prague School(布拉格學派). Most notably, Nikolay Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson headed the efforts of the Prague School in setting the course of phonological theory in the decades following 1940. Jakobson's universalizing structural-functional theory of phonology, based on a markedness hierarchy of distinctive features, was the first successful solution of a plane of linguistic analysis according to the Saussurean hypotheses. Elsewhere, Louis Hjelmslev and the Copenhagen School(哥本哈根學派) proposed new interpretations of linguistics from structuralist theoretical frameworks. (2)In America, Saussure's ideas informed the distributionalism of Leonard Bloomfield and the post-Bloomfieldian Structuralism of those scholars guided by and furthering the practices established in Bloomfield's investigations and analyses of language, such as Eugene Nida, Bernard Bloch, George L. Trager, Rulon S. Wells III, Charles Hockett, and through Zellig Harris, the young Noam Chomsky. In addition to Chomsky's theory of Transformational grammar, other contemporary developments of structuralism include Kenneth Pike's theory of tagmemics, Sidney Lamb's theory of stratificational grammar, and Michael Silverstein's work.
Outside linguistics, the principles and methods employed by structuralism were soon adopted by scholars and literary critics, such as Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and implemented in their respective areas of study. However, their expansive interpretations of Saussure's theories, which contained ambiguities to begin with, and their application of those theories to non-linguistic fields of study such as sociology or anthropology, led to theoretical difficulties and proclamations of the end of structuralism in those disciplines.
2009年4月28日 星期二
Syllable weight.(quoted from wikipedia)
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments(=phonemes) in the rime(=rhyme. The rime/rhyme of a syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda.). In classical poetry, both Greek and Latin, distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter(=metre. The basic rhythmic structure of a verse.) of the line.
§ Syllable weight in linguistics §
A heavy syllable is a syllable with a branching nucleus or a branching rime. A branching nucleus generally means the syllable has a long vowel or a diphthong; this type of syllable is abbreviated CVV. A syllable with a branching rime is a closed syllable, that is, one with a coda (one or more consonants at the end of the syllable); this type of syllable is abbreviated CVC. In some languages, both CVV and CVC syllables are heavy, while a syllable with a short vowel as the nucleus and no coda (a CV syllable) is a light syllable. In other languages, only CVV syllables are heavy, while CVC and CV syllables are light. Some languages distinguish a third type, CVVC syllables (with both a branching nucleus and a coda) and/or CVCC syllables (with a coda consisting of two or more consonants) as superheavy syllables.
In moraic theory, heavy syllables are analyzed as containing two moras, light syllables one, and superheavy syllables three.
The distinction between heavy and light syllables plays an important role in the phonology of some languages, especially with regards to the assignment of stress. For instance, in the Sezer stress pattern in Turkish, the main stress occurs as an iamb (i.e. penultimate(倒數第二的) stress) one syllable to the left of the final syllable: (L'L)σ. However, when the foot contains a heavy syllable in the first syllable, the iamb shifts to a trochee (i.e. antepenultimate stress) because there is a requirement that main stress fall on a heavy syllable whenever possible: ('HL)σ, and not *(H'L)σ.
§ Syllable weight in linguistics §
A heavy syllable is a syllable with a branching nucleus or a branching rime. A branching nucleus generally means the syllable has a long vowel or a diphthong; this type of syllable is abbreviated CVV. A syllable with a branching rime is a closed syllable, that is, one with a coda (one or more consonants at the end of the syllable); this type of syllable is abbreviated CVC. In some languages, both CVV and CVC syllables are heavy, while a syllable with a short vowel as the nucleus and no coda (a CV syllable) is a light syllable. In other languages, only CVV syllables are heavy, while CVC and CV syllables are light. Some languages distinguish a third type, CVVC syllables (with both a branching nucleus and a coda) and/or CVCC syllables (with a coda consisting of two or more consonants) as superheavy syllables.
In moraic theory, heavy syllables are analyzed as containing two moras, light syllables one, and superheavy syllables three.
The distinction between heavy and light syllables plays an important role in the phonology of some languages, especially with regards to the assignment of stress. For instance, in the Sezer stress pattern in Turkish, the main stress occurs as an iamb (i.e. penultimate(倒數第二的) stress) one syllable to the left of the final syllable: (L'L)σ. However, when the foot contains a heavy syllable in the first syllable, the iamb shifts to a trochee (i.e. antepenultimate stress) because there is a requirement that main stress fall on a heavy syllable whenever possible: ('HL)σ, and not *(H'L)σ.
Phonological hierarchy.(quoted from wikipedia)
Phonological hierarchy describes a series of increasingly smaller regions of a phonological utterance. From larger to smaller units, it is as follows:
(1)Utterance
(2)Prosodic declination unit (DU) / intonational phrase (I-phrase)
(3)Prosodic intonation unit (IU) / phonological phrase (P-phrase)
(4)Prosodic list unit (LU)
(5)Clitic group
(6)Phonological word (P-word, ω)
(7)Foot (F): "strong-weak" syllable sequences such as English ladder, button, eat it
(8)Syllable (σ): e.g. cat (one syllable), ladder (two syllables)
(9)Mora (μ) ("half-syllable")
(10)Segment (phoneme): e.g. [k], [æ] and [t] in cat
(11)Feature
The hierarchy from the mora upwards is also called the prosodic hierarchy.
Phonologists disagree on the arrangement and inclusion of units in the hierarchy. For example, the clitic group is not universally recognised, and the P-phrase and IU come from different traditions and have different definitions.
(1)Utterance
(2)Prosodic declination unit (DU) / intonational phrase (I-phrase)
(3)Prosodic intonation unit (IU) / phonological phrase (P-phrase)
(4)Prosodic list unit (LU)
(5)Clitic group
(6)Phonological word (P-word, ω)
(7)Foot (F): "strong-weak" syllable sequences such as English ladder, button, eat it
(8)Syllable (σ): e.g. cat (one syllable), ladder (two syllables)
(9)Mora (μ) ("half-syllable")
(10)Segment (phoneme): e.g. [k], [æ] and [t] in cat
(11)Feature
The hierarchy from the mora upwards is also called the prosodic hierarchy.
Phonologists disagree on the arrangement and inclusion of units in the hierarchy. For example, the clitic group is not universally recognised, and the P-phrase and IU come from different traditions and have different definitions.
2009年4月18日 星期六
Mora (quoted from wikipedia)
Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages. Like many technical linguistics terms, the exact definition of mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D. McCawley in 1968: a mora is “Something of which a long syllable consists of two and a short syllable consists of one.” The term comes from the Latin word for “linger, delay”, which was also used to translate the Greek word chronos (time) in its metrical sense.
A syllable containing one mora is said to be monomoraic; one with two moras is called bimoraic.
In general, moras are formed as follows:
(1)A syllable onset (the first consonant[s] of the syllable) does not represent any mora.
(2)The syllable nucleus represents one mora in the case of a short vowel, and two moras in the case of a long vowel or diphthong. Consonants serving as syllable nuclei also represent one mora if short and two if long. (Slovak is an example of a language that has both long and short consonantal nuclei.)
(3)In some languages (for example, Japanese), the coda represents one mora, and in others (for example, Irish) it does not. In English, the codas of stressed syllables represent a mora (thus, the word cat is bimoraic), but for unstressed syllables it is not clear whether the codas do (the second syllable of the word rabbit might be monomoraic).
(4)In some languages, a syllable with a long vowel or diphthong in the nucleus and one or more consonants in the coda is said to be trimoraic (see pluti).
In general, monomoraic syllables are said to be light syllables, bimoraic syllables are said to be heavy syllables, and trimoraic syllables (in languages that have them) are said to be superheavy syllables. Most linguists believe that no language uses syllables containing four or more moras.
In India, the mora was an acknowledged phenomenon well over two millennia ago in ancient Indian linguistics schools studying the dominant scholarly and religious lingua franca of Sanskrit. The mora was first expressed in India as the mātrā. For example, the short vowel "a" (pronounced like a schwa) is assigned a value of one mātrā, the long vowel "ā" is assigned a value of two mātrās, and the complex vowel "ai" (which is composed of three simple short vowels, namely "a"+"a"+"i", or one long and one short vowel, namely "ā"+"i") is assigned a value of three mātrās. Sanskrit prosody and metrics has a deep history of taking into account moraic weight, as it were, rather than straight syllables, divided into "laghu" ("light") and "guru" ("heavy") feet based on how many moras can be isolated in each word. Thus, for example, the word "kartṛi", meaning "agent" or "doer", does not contain, contrary to intuitive English prosodic principles, simply two syllabic units, but rather contains, in order, a "guru"/"heavy" foot and a "laghu"/"light" foot. The reason is that the conjoined consonants 'rt' render the normally light 'ka' syllable heavy.
Japanese is a language famous for its moraic qualities. Most dialects, including the standard, use moras (in Japanese, onji) as the basis of the sound system rather than syllables. For example, haiku(三行俳句詩) in modern Japanese do not follow the pattern 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables, as commonly believed, but rather the pattern 5 moras/7 moras/5 moras. As one example, the Japanese syllable-final n is moraic, as is the first part of a geminate consonant. For example, the word Nippon (one of the pronunciations of 日本, the name for "Japan" in Japanese) has four moras (ni-p-po-n); the four characters used in the hiragana spelling にっぽん match these four moras one to one. Thus, in Japanese, the words Tōkyō (to-o-kyo-o とうきょう), Ōsaka (o-o-sa-ka おおさか), and Nagasaki (na-ga-sa-ki ながさき) all have four moras, even though they have two, three, and four syllables, respectively.
In Luganda, a short vowel constitutes one mora while a long vowel constitutes two moras. A simple consonant has no moras, and a doubled or prenasalised consonant has one. No syllable may contain more than three moras. The tone system in Luganda is based on moras.
In Hawaiian, both syllables and moras are important. Stress falls on the penultimate(倒數第二的) mora, though in words long enough to have two stresses, only the final stress is predictable. However, although a diphthong, such as oi, consists of two moras, stress may only fall on the first, a restriction not found with other vowel sequences such as io. That is, there is a distinction between oi, a bimoraic syllable, and io, which is two syllables.
A syllable containing one mora is said to be monomoraic; one with two moras is called bimoraic.
In general, moras are formed as follows:
(1)A syllable onset (the first consonant[s] of the syllable) does not represent any mora.
(2)The syllable nucleus represents one mora in the case of a short vowel, and two moras in the case of a long vowel or diphthong. Consonants serving as syllable nuclei also represent one mora if short and two if long. (Slovak is an example of a language that has both long and short consonantal nuclei.)
(3)In some languages (for example, Japanese), the coda represents one mora, and in others (for example, Irish) it does not. In English, the codas of stressed syllables represent a mora (thus, the word cat is bimoraic), but for unstressed syllables it is not clear whether the codas do (the second syllable of the word rabbit might be monomoraic).
(4)In some languages, a syllable with a long vowel or diphthong in the nucleus and one or more consonants in the coda is said to be trimoraic (see pluti).
In general, monomoraic syllables are said to be light syllables, bimoraic syllables are said to be heavy syllables, and trimoraic syllables (in languages that have them) are said to be superheavy syllables. Most linguists believe that no language uses syllables containing four or more moras.
In India, the mora was an acknowledged phenomenon well over two millennia ago in ancient Indian linguistics schools studying the dominant scholarly and religious lingua franca of Sanskrit. The mora was first expressed in India as the mātrā. For example, the short vowel "a" (pronounced like a schwa) is assigned a value of one mātrā, the long vowel "ā" is assigned a value of two mātrās, and the complex vowel "ai" (which is composed of three simple short vowels, namely "a"+"a"+"i", or one long and one short vowel, namely "ā"+"i") is assigned a value of three mātrās. Sanskrit prosody and metrics has a deep history of taking into account moraic weight, as it were, rather than straight syllables, divided into "laghu" ("light") and "guru" ("heavy") feet based on how many moras can be isolated in each word. Thus, for example, the word "kartṛi", meaning "agent" or "doer", does not contain, contrary to intuitive English prosodic principles, simply two syllabic units, but rather contains, in order, a "guru"/"heavy" foot and a "laghu"/"light" foot. The reason is that the conjoined consonants 'rt' render the normally light 'ka' syllable heavy.
Japanese is a language famous for its moraic qualities. Most dialects, including the standard, use moras (in Japanese, onji) as the basis of the sound system rather than syllables. For example, haiku(三行俳句詩) in modern Japanese do not follow the pattern 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables, as commonly believed, but rather the pattern 5 moras/7 moras/5 moras. As one example, the Japanese syllable-final n is moraic, as is the first part of a geminate consonant. For example, the word Nippon (one of the pronunciations of 日本, the name for "Japan" in Japanese) has four moras (ni-p-po-n); the four characters used in the hiragana spelling にっぽん match these four moras one to one. Thus, in Japanese, the words Tōkyō (to-o-kyo-o とうきょう), Ōsaka (o-o-sa-ka おおさか), and Nagasaki (na-ga-sa-ki ながさき) all have four moras, even though they have two, three, and four syllables, respectively.
In Luganda, a short vowel constitutes one mora while a long vowel constitutes two moras. A simple consonant has no moras, and a doubled or prenasalised consonant has one. No syllable may contain more than three moras. The tone system in Luganda is based on moras.
In Hawaiian, both syllables and moras are important. Stress falls on the penultimate(倒數第二的) mora, though in words long enough to have two stresses, only the final stress is predictable. However, although a diphthong, such as oi, consists of two moras, stress may only fall on the first, a restriction not found with other vowel sequences such as io. That is, there is a distinction between oi, a bimoraic syllable, and io, which is two syllables.
2009年4月5日 星期日
Experimental Approaches To Phonology---Chapter 1: Methods in Phonology.
In part I, they delineate various theoretical considerations and provide background concerning the application of methods from other sciences.
Chapter 1: Methods in Phonology
John J. Ohala examines the significance of methods in scientific research and in advancing phonological theories, and explores methods as a means of change within a discipline.
Broadly speaking, a scientific discipline can be characterized by:
---the questions it asks;
---the answers given to the questions, that is, hypotheses or theories;
---the methods used to marshal evidence in support of the theories.
The above discipline applies to phonology:
(1)Questions─
1.1 How is language and its parts represented in the mind of
the speaker; how is this representation accessed and used? How can
we account for the variation in the phonetic shape of these elements as
a function of context and speaking style?
1.2 How, physically and physiologically, does speech work─the phonetic mechanisms of speech production and perception, including the structures and units it is built on?
***Q: What is speech perception?(The answer is quoted from wikipedia.)
***A: Speech perception refers to the processes by which humans are able to interpret and understand the sounds used in language. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonetics and phonology in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in psychology. Research in speech perception seeks to understand how human listeners recognize speech sounds and use this information to understand spoken language. Speech research has applications in building computer systems that can recognize speech, as well as improving speech recognition for hearing- and language-impaired listeners.
1.3 How and why does pronunciation change over time, thus giving rise to different dialects and languages, and different forms of the same word or morpheme in different contexts? How can we account for common patterns in diverse languages, such as segment inventories and phonotactics?
***Q: What is phonotactics? (The answer is quoted from wikipedia.)
***A: Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints.
Phonotactic constraints are language specific. For example, in Japanese, consonant clusters like /st/ are not allowed, although they are in English. Similarly, the sounds /kn/ and /ɡn/ are not permitted at the beginning of a word in Modern English but are in German and Dutch, and were permitted in Old and Middle English.
Syllables have the following internal segmental structure:
‧Onset (optional)
‧Rime (obligatory, comprises Nucleus and Coda): Nucleus (obligatory);Coda (optional)
Both onset and coda may be empty, forming a vowel-only syllable, or alternatively, the nucleus can be occupied by a syllabic consonant.
1.4 How can we ameliorate communication disorders?
***Q: What is communication disorders? (The answer is quoted from wikipedia.)
***A: A communication disorder - speech and language disorders which refer to problems in communication and in related areas such as oral motor function. The delays and disorders can range from simple sound substitution to the inability to understand or use language.
Examples of communication disorders:
‧Autism(自閉症)--A developmental defect that affects understanding of emotional communication.
‧Aphasia(失語症)--Loss of the ability to produce or comprehend language.
‧Learning disability--Both speaking and listening components of the definition.
‧Dysnomia--Deficit involving word retrieval.
‧Asperger Syndrome--Areas of social and pragmatic language.
‧Semantic Pragmatic Disorder--Challenges with the semantic and pragmatic aspects of language.
‧Blindness--A defect of the eye or visual system.
‧Deafness--A defect of the ear or auditory system.
‧Dyslexia(誦讀困難)--A defect of the systems used in reading.
‧Dyscalculia--A defect of the systems used in communicating numbers.
‧Expressive language disorder--Affects speaking and understanding where there is no delay in non-verbal intelligence.
‧Mixed receptive-expressive language disorder--Affects speaking, understanding, reading and writing where there is no delay in non-verbal intelligence.
‧Speech disorders such as cluttering(組織凌亂), stuttering(結巴), oesophageal voice, speech sound disorder, specific language impairment, dysarthria.
1.5 How can the fuctions of speech be enhanced and amplified?
1.6 How is speech acquired as a first language and as a subsequent language?
1.7 How is sound associated with meaning?
1.8 How did language and speech arise or evolve in our species? Why is the vocal apparatus different as a function of the age and sex of the speaker? What is the relation between human speech and non-human communication?
As soon as any question receives an answer at one level, more detailed questions arise no matter how good an answer is provided at any given level.
(2) Theories─
2.1 There has been an abundance of theories regarding the psychological representation of sound patterns in language and the operations performed on them.
2.2 There have been many theories concerning the mechanisms of sound change.
‧Involve teleological elements: some suggest that sound change represented a
continual competition between the goals of making speech easier to produce and making it easier to perceive.
‧ Eliminate a teleological element: other emphasize the role played by listeners’ misperception or misparsings of the speech signal.
(3) Methods─
3.1 It is the methods employed by scientific discipplines─especially those that are experimental or fundamentally empirical─that constitute the principal engine for refinement and productive change in a discipline, helping to moderate the pace with which one theory supplants another. Methods tend to accumulate in a discipline. Occasionally the development of new methods can revolutionize a discipline.
3.2 Three key elements of what has been called the "scientific method" are:
First, to present data in an objective way. With minimal or no influence from the act of observing, especially that from the observer will help to insulate the data from the biases and beliefs of those who espouse the theories.
Second, data presented quantitatively, that is numerically. Data presented in a quantified way will avoid ambiguity; it is more precise, less likely to be misinterpreted. Moreover, it is optimal if the hypothesis or theory or model being tested is also expressed quantitatively.
Third, to present evidence that overcomes doubt as to its relevance to a particular hypothesis or theory.
(4) A “methodological revolution” has occurred within phonology:
4.1 The emergence of linguistic phonetics (Ladefoged 1971) and experimental phonology (J. Ohala and Jaeger 1986).
4.2 The Laboratory Phonology conferences (Kingston and Beckman 1990).
4.3 The greater incidence of papers at professional conferences where phonetic and psycholinguistic evidence is given in support of phonological theories at many meetings.
4.4 Several volumes or series of volumes.
4.5 An increase in the number of experimental and large corpus-based phonology papers in scholarly journals.
Chapter 1: Methods in Phonology
John J. Ohala examines the significance of methods in scientific research and in advancing phonological theories, and explores methods as a means of change within a discipline.
Broadly speaking, a scientific discipline can be characterized by:
---the questions it asks;
---the answers given to the questions, that is, hypotheses or theories;
---the methods used to marshal evidence in support of the theories.
The above discipline applies to phonology:
(1)Questions─
1.1 How is language and its parts represented in the mind of
the speaker; how is this representation accessed and used? How can
we account for the variation in the phonetic shape of these elements as
a function of context and speaking style?
1.2 How, physically and physiologically, does speech work─the phonetic mechanisms of speech production and perception, including the structures and units it is built on?
***Q: What is speech perception?(The answer is quoted from wikipedia.)
***A: Speech perception refers to the processes by which humans are able to interpret and understand the sounds used in language. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonetics and phonology in linguistics and cognitive psychology and perception in psychology. Research in speech perception seeks to understand how human listeners recognize speech sounds and use this information to understand spoken language. Speech research has applications in building computer systems that can recognize speech, as well as improving speech recognition for hearing- and language-impaired listeners.
1.3 How and why does pronunciation change over time, thus giving rise to different dialects and languages, and different forms of the same word or morpheme in different contexts? How can we account for common patterns in diverse languages, such as segment inventories and phonotactics?
***Q: What is phonotactics? (The answer is quoted from wikipedia.)
***A: Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints.
Phonotactic constraints are language specific. For example, in Japanese, consonant clusters like /st/ are not allowed, although they are in English. Similarly, the sounds /kn/ and /ɡn/ are not permitted at the beginning of a word in Modern English but are in German and Dutch, and were permitted in Old and Middle English.
Syllables have the following internal segmental structure:
‧Onset (optional)
‧Rime (obligatory, comprises Nucleus and Coda): Nucleus (obligatory);Coda (optional)
Both onset and coda may be empty, forming a vowel-only syllable, or alternatively, the nucleus can be occupied by a syllabic consonant.
1.4 How can we ameliorate communication disorders?
***Q: What is communication disorders? (The answer is quoted from wikipedia.)
***A: A communication disorder - speech and language disorders which refer to problems in communication and in related areas such as oral motor function. The delays and disorders can range from simple sound substitution to the inability to understand or use language.
Examples of communication disorders:
‧Autism(自閉症)--A developmental defect that affects understanding of emotional communication.
‧Aphasia(失語症)--Loss of the ability to produce or comprehend language.
‧Learning disability--Both speaking and listening components of the definition.
‧Dysnomia--Deficit involving word retrieval.
‧Asperger Syndrome--Areas of social and pragmatic language.
‧Semantic Pragmatic Disorder--Challenges with the semantic and pragmatic aspects of language.
‧Blindness--A defect of the eye or visual system.
‧Deafness--A defect of the ear or auditory system.
‧Dyslexia(誦讀困難)--A defect of the systems used in reading.
‧Dyscalculia--A defect of the systems used in communicating numbers.
‧Expressive language disorder--Affects speaking and understanding where there is no delay in non-verbal intelligence.
‧Mixed receptive-expressive language disorder--Affects speaking, understanding, reading and writing where there is no delay in non-verbal intelligence.
‧Speech disorders such as cluttering(組織凌亂), stuttering(結巴), oesophageal voice, speech sound disorder, specific language impairment, dysarthria.
1.5 How can the fuctions of speech be enhanced and amplified?
1.6 How is speech acquired as a first language and as a subsequent language?
1.7 How is sound associated with meaning?
1.8 How did language and speech arise or evolve in our species? Why is the vocal apparatus different as a function of the age and sex of the speaker? What is the relation between human speech and non-human communication?
As soon as any question receives an answer at one level, more detailed questions arise no matter how good an answer is provided at any given level.
(2) Theories─
2.1 There has been an abundance of theories regarding the psychological representation of sound patterns in language and the operations performed on them.
2.2 There have been many theories concerning the mechanisms of sound change.
‧Involve teleological elements: some suggest that sound change represented a
continual competition between the goals of making speech easier to produce and making it easier to perceive.
‧ Eliminate a teleological element: other emphasize the role played by listeners’ misperception or misparsings of the speech signal.
(3) Methods─
3.1 It is the methods employed by scientific discipplines─especially those that are experimental or fundamentally empirical─that constitute the principal engine for refinement and productive change in a discipline, helping to moderate the pace with which one theory supplants another. Methods tend to accumulate in a discipline. Occasionally the development of new methods can revolutionize a discipline.
3.2 Three key elements of what has been called the "scientific method" are:
First, to present data in an objective way. With minimal or no influence from the act of observing, especially that from the observer will help to insulate the data from the biases and beliefs of those who espouse the theories.
Second, data presented quantitatively, that is numerically. Data presented in a quantified way will avoid ambiguity; it is more precise, less likely to be misinterpreted. Moreover, it is optimal if the hypothesis or theory or model being tested is also expressed quantitatively.
Third, to present evidence that overcomes doubt as to its relevance to a particular hypothesis or theory.
(4) A “methodological revolution” has occurred within phonology:
4.1 The emergence of linguistic phonetics (Ladefoged 1971) and experimental phonology (J. Ohala and Jaeger 1986).
4.2 The Laboratory Phonology conferences (Kingston and Beckman 1990).
4.3 The greater incidence of papers at professional conferences where phonetic and psycholinguistic evidence is given in support of phonological theories at many meetings.
4.4 Several volumes or series of volumes.
4.5 An increase in the number of experimental and large corpus-based phonology papers in scholarly journals.
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