|
Obligatory Contour Principle
The Obligatory Contour Principle (frequently abbreviated OCP) is a hypothesis in autosegmental phonology that states that (certain) consecutive identical features are banned in underlying representations. The OCP is most frequently cited when discussing the tones of tonal languages (stating for example that the same morpheme may not have two underlying high tones), but it has also been applied to other aspects of phonology. Background considerations A commonly held conception within phonology is that no morpheme is allowed to contain two consecutive high tones. If two consecutive high tones appear within a single morpheme, then some rule must have applied . Maybe one of the surface high-tone vowels was underlyingly high-toned, while the other was underlyingly toneless. Then, since all vowels must have tone at the surface (in this hypothetical language), the high tone of the one vowel spreads onto the other (see: autosegmental phonology). Alternatively, one (or both) of the vowels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autosegmental Phonology
Autosegmental phonology is a framework of phonological analysis proposed by John Goldsmith in his PhD thesis in 1976 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As a theory of phonological representation, autosegmental phonology developed a formal account of ideas that had been sketched in earlier work by several linguists, notably Bernard Bloch (1948), Charles Hockett (1955) and J. R. Firth (1948). According to such a view, phonological representations consist of more than one linear sequence of segments; each linear sequence constitutes a separate tier. The co-registration of elements (or ''autosegments'') on one tier with those on another is represented by association lines. There is a close relationship between analysis of segments into distinctive features and an autosegmental analysis; each feature in a language appears on exactly one tier. The working hypothesis of autosegmental analysis is that a large part of phonological generalizations can be interpreted as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derivation (linguistics)
Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as For example, ''unhappy'' and ''happiness'' derive from the root word ''happy.'' It is differentiated from inflection, which is the modification of a word to form different grammatical categories without changing its core meaning: ''determines'', ''determining'', and ''determined'' are from the root ''determine''. Derivational patterns Derivational morphology often involves the addition of a derivational suffix or other affix. Such an affix usually applies to words of one lexical category (part of speech) and changes them into words of another such category. For example, one effect of the English derivational suffix ''-ly'' is to change an adjective into an adverb (''slow'' → ''slowly''). Here are examples of English derivational patterns and their suffixes: * adjective-to-noun: ''-ness'' (''slow'' → ''slowness'') * adjective-to- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meeussen's Rule
Meeussen's rule is a special case of tone reduction in Bantu languages. The tonal alternation it describes is the lowering, in some contexts, of the last tone of a pattern of two adjacent High tones (HH), resulting in the pattern HL. The phenomenon is named after its first observer, the Belgian Bantu specialist A. E. Meeussen (1912–1978). In phonological terms, the phenomenon can be seen as a special case of the Obligatory Contour Principle. The term "Meeussen's Rule" (the spelling with a capital R is more common) first appeared in a paper by John Goldsmith in 1981. It is based on an observation made by Meeussen in his 1963 article on the Tonga verb stating that "in a sequence of determinants, only the first is treated as a determinant". It was John Goldsmith who reformulated this as the rule HH > HL (or, as he expressed it, H → L / H ) which later became well known as Meeussen's Rule. Meeussen's rule is one of a number of processes in Bantu languages by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Markedness
In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant default or minimum-effort form is known as ''unmarked''; the other, secondary one is ''marked''. In other words, markedness involves the characterization of a "normal" linguistic unit against one or more of its possible "irregular" forms. In linguistics, markedness can apply to, among others, Phonology, phonological, Grammar, grammatical, and Semantics, semantic oppositions, defining them in terms of marked and unmarked oppositions, such as ''honest'' (unmarked) vs. ''dishonest'' (marked). Marking may be purely semantic, or may be realized as extra morphology. The term derives from the marking of a grammatical role with a suffix or another element, and has been extended to situations where there is no morphological distinction. In social scien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Local Self-conjunction
Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administration * Local news, coverage of events in a local context which would not normally be of interest to those of other localities * Local union, a locally based trade union organization which forms part of a larger union Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly * ''Local'' (novel), a 2001 novel by Jaideep Varma * Local TV LLC, an American television broadcasting company * Locast, a non-profit streaming service offering local, over-the-air television * ''The Local'' (film), a 2008 action-drama film * '' The Local'', English-language news websites in several European countries Computing * .local, a network address component * Local variable, a variable that is given loca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optimality Theory
In linguistics, Optimality Theory (frequently abbreviated OT) is a linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the optimal satisfaction of conflicting constraints. OT differs from other approaches to phonological analysis, such as autosegmental phonology and linear phonology (SPE), which typically use rules rather than constraints. OT models grammars as systems that provide mappings from inputs to outputs; typically, the inputs are conceived of as underlying representations, and the outputs as their surface realizations. It is an approach within the larger framework of generative grammar. In linguistics, Optimality Theory has its origin in a talk given by Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky in 1991 which was later developed in a book manuscript by the same authors in 1993. Overview There are three basic components of the theory: * Generator () takes an input, and generates the list of possible outputs, or candidates, * Constraint component () provides ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John McCarthy (linguist)
John Joseph McCarthy (born 1953) is an American linguist and the Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst since July 2017. In July 2018, he assumed office as the Provost. McCarthy is best-known for his work on Optimality Theory in phonology: with Alan Prince, he devised Correspondence Theory and alignment constraints, although he has subsequently renounced the latter.McCarthy, John. OT Constraints are Categorical. ''Phonology'' 20 75--138. 2003 He has since written textbooks like '' Doing Optimality Theory: Applying Theory to Data''. Earlier in his career, McCarthy was responsible, along with Prince, for extending autosegmental phonology, and later Optimality Theory, to morphology, in particular to solve the problem of nonconcatenative morphology in Semitic languages. Career HHe completed his A.B. in linguistics and Near Eastern languages at Harvard College and obtained his Ph.D. from MIT in 1979. He was a professor at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Odden
David Arnold Odden (; born 1954) is professor emeritus of Linguistics at the Ohio State University. His contributions to linguistics have been in the area of phonology and language description, most notably African tone and the description of Bantu languages. In addition, his work on the obligatory contour principle (OCP) has been instrumental to an understanding of that phenomenon. He is the former editor of ''Studies in African Linguistics'' and a current editorial board member of ''Natural Language and Linguistic Theories''. Odden received his BA in linguistics from the University of Washington in 1975 and his PhD from University of Illinois in 1981. From 1981 to 1984 he taught at Washington State University, Michigan State University and Yale University before joining the faculty of Ohio State University in 1985. He was made a full professor there in 1999. Odden was also the Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Durham in 2003 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moira Yip
Moira Yip (b. 1949) is a British-American linguist. She earned her PhD in Linguistics in 1980 at MIT as a student of Morris Halle. She retired from her position as Professor of Linguistics at University College London (UCL) in 2009. While at UCL she also was co-director of the Centre for Human Communication and Pro-Provost for China. Before taking up the position at UCL in 1999, she was Professor of Linguistics and Acting Dean at the University of California-Irvine (1992-1999) and Associate Professor at Brandeis University (1982-1992). Moira Yip worked on a wide range of issues in theoretical phonology, and particularly on the phonology of Chinese. Her publications include papers on reduplication, morpho-phonology, prosodic phonology, and feature theory. Her frequently cited dissertation on the ''Tonal phonology of Chinese'' was published in the ''Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics'' series (Routledge). In 2002 she published the first modern textbook on tone in the Cambrid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a particular language variety. At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages, but may now relate to any linguistic analysis either: Sign languages have a phonological system equivalent to the system of sounds in spoken languages. The building blocks of signs are specifications for movement, location, and handshape. At first, a separate terminology was used for the study of sign phonology ('chereme' instead of 'phoneme', etc.), but the concepts are now considered to apply universally to all human languages. Terminology The word 'phonology' (as in 'phonology of English') can refer either to the field of study or to the phonological system of a given language. This is one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distinctive Feature
In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that distinguishes one sound from another within a language. For example, the feature oicedistinguishes the two bilabial plosives: and There are many different ways of defining and arranging features into ''feature systems'': some deal with only one language while others are developed to apply to all languages. Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features, and place features. These feature categories in turn are further specified on the basis of the phonetic properties of the segments in question. For phonemes to be in a particular natural class, they have to share the same distinctive features such as articulation and/or sound similar to each other. We can find distinctive features between two words by finding the minimal pair between them. The minimal pair are when two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moraic Phonology
A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic''), while a long syllable such as ''baa'' consists of two (''bimoraic''); extra-long syllables with three moras (''trimoraic'') are relatively rare. Such metrics are also referred to as syllable weight. The term comes from the Latin word for "linger, delay", which was also used to translate the Greek word χρόνος : ''chrónos'' (time) in its metrical sense. Formation The general principles for assigning moras to segments are as follows (see Hayes 1989 and Hyman 1985 for detailed discussion): # A syllable onset (the first consonant or consonants of the syllable) does not represent any mora. # The syllable nucleus represents one mora in the case of a short vowel, and two morae in the case of a long vowel or diphthong. Consonants servi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
