http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/219487 Wed, 22 May 2013 11:54:35 GMT 2013-05-22T11:54:35Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/243900 Title: The emergence of group stress in medieval French Authors: Rainsford, Thomas Michael Abstract: The thesis investigates the development of the group-stress system in French from the earliest textual records to 1500. Empirical work is based on a corpus compiled especially for the study, which comprises 87 extracts from medieval French texts totalling over 250,000 words, composed mainly of verse texts to make use of the extra phonological information provided by the form. A unique metrical and syntactic annotation is used in the corpus to permit studies of phonological phrasing and stress placement in lines of verse. Much octosyllabic narrative verse, in particular texts associated with oral performance, is shown to have an iambic rhythmic tendency in the pre-1250 period, which is particularly strong in the earliest texts. No such effect is found in lyric texts or plays, or in narrative from after 1250. Additionally, a phonological phrase boundary is commonly found in the middle of the line. Iambic rhythmic organization is argued to be incompatible with group stress and associated ‘stress deafness’ effects observed in modern French. From this data, group stress is argued to have developed between the mid-12th and mid- 13th centuries. Work on modern French (e.g. Post, 2000) suggests that the stress group is the phonological phrase. Through reconstruction of the phonological phrasing of medieval French, the thesis demonstrates that regular word-final stress, the phonological phrase internal process of stress clash resolution, and the frequency of monosyllabic words combine to favour reanalysis of the French stress system in the pre-1250 period. Finally, the hypothesis that prosodic change affected verb-second word order in medieval French is reconsidered. It is argued that light clause-initial constituents which do not form their own phonological phrase (i.e. short adverbs, subject pronouns) become unstressed, a development which triggers syntactic changes that lead to the introduction of non verb-second word orders. Mon, 02 May 2011 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/243900 2011-05-02T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/242374 Title: The perfect in Old English and Old Saxon: the synchronic and diachronic correspondence of form and meaning Authors: Macleod, Morgan Dylan Abstract: Most of the Germanic languages developed new tense forms allowing the grammatical expression of fine semantic distinctions, including periphrastic perfects and pluperfects; previously, the preterite alone had been used to express semantic content of this sort. In the absence of robust quantitative data regarding the subsequent development of these forms and distribution in the early Germanic languages, a relatively uncomplicated model has generally been assumed, in which there is little synchronic variation in their use and a steady, though not necessarily continuous, diachronic progress toward the state observed in the modern languages. The goal of this work is to provide accurate quantitative data regarding the apportionment of these semantic domains among the available grammatical forms in Old English and Old Saxon, in order to provide meaningful measurements of the synchronic and diachronic use of the periphrastic forms. Very different patterns were found in the use of these forms in the two languages. In Old Saxon the periphrastic forms are used freely, with a frequency similar to or greater than that of the preterites. In Old English there are no significant diachronic trends, but considerable variation exists synchronically among texts, with some making free use of the periphrastic forms and others preferring the preterite almost exclusively. A number of factors potentially responsible for this variation have been investigated, but none can account for the entire range of observed variation on its own. In the absence of any other account for the observed variation, the hypothesis is proposed that the periphrastic forms and the preterite differed in their perceived stylistic value, in a manner whose exact nature may be no longer recoverable; such a hypothesis would be in keeping with previous findings regarding languages such as Middle English and Middle High German. Old English and Old Saxon would therefore differ in the extent to which they make use of the potential for variation created by the absence of a paradigmatic opposition among the relevant grammatical categories. Description: The additional files accompanying this thesis are described in Appendix B. Mon, 09 Apr 2012 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/242374 2012-04-09T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/241032 Title: Perceptual learning of context-sensitive phonetic detail Authors: Barden, Katharine Abstract: [Abstract abbreviated due to inability of DSpace@Cambridge to display phonetic symbols. Please see the full abstract in the attached pdf file.] Although familiarity with a talker or accent is known to facilitate perception, it is not clear what underlies this phenomenon. Previous research has focused primarily on whether listeners can learn to associate novel phonetic characteristics with low-level units such as features or phonemes. However, this neglects the potential role of phonetic information at many other levels of representation. To address this shortcoming, this thesis investigated perceptual learning of systematic phonetic detail relating to higher levels of linguistic structure, including prosodic, grammatical and morphological contexts. Furthermore, in contrast to many previous studies, this research used relatively natural stimuli and tasks, thus maximising its relevance to perceptual learning in ordinary listening situations. This research shows that listeners can update their phonetic representations in response to incoming information and its relation to linguistic-structural context. In addition, certain patterns of systematic phonetic detail were more learnable than others. These findings are used to inform an account of how new information is integrated with prior experience in speech processing, within a framework that emphasises the importance of phonetic detail at multiple levels of representation. Mon, 11 Jul 2011 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/241032 2011-07-11T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/240609 Title: A study of Cappadocian Greek nominal morphology from a diachronic and dialectological perspective Authors: Karatsareas, Petros Abstract: In this dissertation, I investigate a number of interrelated developments affecting the morphosyntax of nouns in Cappadocian Greek. I specifically focus on the development of differential object marking, the loss of grammatical gender distinctions, and the neuterisation of noun inflection. My aim is to provide a diachronic account of the innovations that Cappadocian has undergone in the three domains mentioned above. !ll the innovations examined in this study have the effect of rendering the morphology and syntax of nouns in Cappadocian more like that of neuters. On account of the historical and sociolinguistic circumstances in which Cappadocian developed as well as of the superficial similarity of their outcomes to equivalent structures in Turkish, previous research has overwhelmingly treated the Cappadocian developments as instances of contact-induced change that resulted from the influence of Turkish. In this study, I examine the Cappadocian innovations from a language-internal point of view and in comparison with parallel developments attested in the other Modern Greek dialects of Asia Minor, namely Pontic, Rumeic, Pharasiot and Silliot. My comparative analysis of a wide range of dialect-internal, cross-dialectal and cross-linguistic typological evidence shows that language contact with Turkish can be identified as the main cause of change only in the case of differential object marking. On the other hand, with respect to the origins of the most pervasive innovations in gender and noun inflection, I argue that they go back to the common linguistic ancestor of the modern Asia Minor Greek dialects and do not owe their development to language contact with Turkish. I show in detail that the superficial similarity of these latter innovations’ outcomes to their Turkish equivalents in each case represents the final stage in a long series of typologically plausible, language-internal developments whose early manifestations predate the intensification of Cappadocian–Turkish linguistic and cultural exchange. These findings show that diachronic change in Cappadocian is best understood when examined within a larger Asia Minor Greek context. On the whole, they make a significant contribution to our knowledge of the history of Cappadocian and the Asia Minor Greek dialects as well as to Modern Greek dialectology more generally, and open a fresh round of discussion on the origin and development of other innovations attested in these dialects that are considered by historical linguists and Modern Greek dialectologists to be untypically Greek or contact-induced or both. Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/240609 2011-10-10T23:00:00Z http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/228685 Title: Speech rhythm: the language-specific integration of pitch and duration Authors: Cumming, Ruth Elizabeth Abstract: Experimental phonetic research on speech rhythm seems to have reached an impasse. Recently, this research field has tended to investigate produced (rather than perceived) rhythm, focussing on timing, i.e. duration as an acoustic cue, and has not considered that rhythm perception might be influenced by native language. Yet evidence from other areas of phonetics, and other disciplines, suggests that an investigation of rhythm is needed which (i) focuses on listeners’ perception, (ii) acknowledges the role of several acoustic cues, and (iii) explores whether the relative significance of these cues differs between languages. This thesis, the originality of which derives from its adoption of these three perspectives combined, indicates new directions for progress. A series of perceptual experiments investigated the interaction of duration and f0 as perceptual cues to prosody in languages with different prosodic structures – Swiss German, Swiss French, and French (i.e. from France). The first experiment demonstrated that a dynamic f0 increases perceived syllable duration in contextually isolated pairs of monosyllables, for all three language groups. The second experiment found that dynamic f0 and increased duration interact as cues to rhythmic groups in series of monosyllabic digits and letters; the two cues were significantly more effective than one when heard simultaneously, but significantly less effective than one when heard in conflicting positions around the rhythmic-group boundary location, and native language influenced whether f0 or duration was the more effective cue. These two experiments laid the basis for the third, which directly addressed rhythm. Listeners were asked to judge the rhythmicality of sentences with systematic duration and f0 manipulations; the results provide evidence that duration and f0 are interdependent cues in rhythm perception, and that the weighting of each cue varies in different languages. A fourth experiment applied the perceptual results to production data, to develop a rhythm metric which captures the multi-dimensional and language-specific nature of perceived rhythm in speech production. These findings have the important implication that if future phonetic research on rhythm follows these new perspectives, it may circumvent the impasse and advance our knowledge and model of speech rhythm. Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk:80/handle/1810/228685 2010-11-16T00:00:00Z