Calgary (Working) Papers in Linguistics
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Calgary (Working) Papers in Linguistics is an annual journal which includes contributions in linguistics and related disciplines by faculty and students at the University of Calgary and elsewhere.
ISSN: 2371-2643
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- ItemOpen Access1-ascension vs. causative clause union in Modern Hebrew(University of Calgary, 1987-09) Sveinson, LeoneAn assumption has been made that there are two types of causative clause union in Modern Hebrew (Cole 1976). Subsequent to reviewing Cole's work an interesting imbroglio transpired When it came to light that perhaps his premise is wrong. Perhaps the structures that he labels as having undergone clause union do not involve union at all. In this paper we shall examine the possibility that this observation may be true. The framework to be employed will be that of Relational Grammar (Perlmutter and Postal 1974, 1983).
- ItemOpen AccessThe acoustic correlates of Blackfoot prominence(University of Calgary, 2002-09) Van der Mark, SheenaBlackfoot, an Algonquian language spoken in Alberta and Montana, has been described as a pitch accent language (Frantz and Russell 1989; Frantz 1991; Kaneko 1999). Pitch accent languages mark phonetic prominence with a difference in pitch on the prominent syllable. Beckman (1986) has shown that Japanese (a prototypical pitch accent language) differs from English (a prototypical stress language) in that fundamental frequency (pitch) is the only variable that marks prominence in Japanese, whereas several variables mark prominence in English. These variables include fundamental frequency (F0) peak, amplitude peak, average amplitude, total amplitude and duration. Based on Beckman's analysis of Japanese, we would expect Blackfoot, as a pitch accent language, to mark prominence only with F0, thus patterning with Japanese. However, this analysis shows that in addition to F0, average amplitude was also correlated with prominence in Blackfoot, amplitude peak, total amplitude and duration were not. These results suggest that Blackfoot is different than Japanese in how prominence is marked. However, the results are similar enough to justify the classification of Japanese as a pitch accent language.
- ItemOpen AccessAcoustic correlates of the fortis/lenis contrast in Swiss German plosives(University of Calgary, 1994-01) Fulop, Sean ASeveral of the High Allemanic dialects of German, collectively known as Swiss German, exhibit consonantal contrasts which differ in nature from those in other German dialects. Through spectral analysis, the nature of the two Swiss German plosive series (/p, t, k/ contrasting with /b, d, g/) will be investigated. The manner in which these series contrast is not one of voicing or aspiration, and can best be characterized as fortis versus lenis. The acoustic character of the fortis/lenis contrast in Swiss German plosives will be explored by examining the main spectral features of each plosive in three phonetic environments: word-initially, word-medially, and word-finally.
- ItemOpen AccessAcquiring restrictions on forwards anaphora: a pilot study*(University of Calgary, 1983-06) Taylor-Browne, KarenThis paper is designed to report on two parallel experiments on English first language acquisition of definite noun phrase anaphora.
- ItemOpen AccessThe acquisition of control(University of Calgary, 1986-06) Phillips, PaulineThis paper will report on some research that was undertaken to investigate the acquisition of control; that is, the way in which children formulate rules to interpret the subject of embedded infinitival clauses. The study had two major goals. One was to determine whether or not there are stages in the acquisition of control and to propose certain principles which would account for these stages. A second goal was to examine the acquisition of control in connection with the predictions made by the Theory of Markedness.
- ItemOpen AccessThe acquisition of English onsets: the case of Amahl(University of Calgary, 2002-09) Hanson, RebeccaThe acquisition of English onsets by one English-learning child is examined in close detail, with particular focus on the acquisition of /s/ and /s/-clusters. The observation that target /s/ in harmony environments is sensitive to the feature [labial] as opposed to [coronal] and [dorsal] provides support for a feature geometry model in which [labial] versus [lingual] is a possible distinction, e.g. Brown (1997). Further, the unique behavior of target /s/ in the developing phonology motivates the proposal that physiological factors, such as articulatory difficulty, can have consequences in the grammatical system. In particular, it is proposed that a constraint against lingual continuants, which require a precise physical coordination that may not have yet developed, can account for the patterns in the child's acquisition of /s/ clusters. A comparison with the acquisition of /f/, a non-lingual continuant, and that of /l/, another lingual continuant, provides further support for this proposal. The conclusions reached here are consistent with notion of a phonological system grounded in independent, functional principles as argued for in, for example, Goad (1997).
- ItemOpen AccessThe acquisition of Japanese pronouns(University of Calgary, 1986-06) Suzuki-Wei, YoshikoIn this paper I will study the acquisition of pronoun interpretation by Japanese children. My study deals mainly with two issues. The first relates to the issue of when some of the principles involved in the interpretation of pronouns appear in child language. The other examines Barbara Lust's (1981, 1983) claim that abstract structural relations unique to the language faculty determine the interpretation of pronouns.
- ItemOpen AccessAcquisition of Tense and Lax Vowels by Persian Learners of English(2020-11-19) Abdollahnejad, EliasThis study investigates the qualitative and quantitative features of English tense (/i: & u:/) and lax (/ɪ & ʊ/) vowels in the L2 production of advanced L1 Persian speakers. The first two formants (F1 & F2) are used to determine the spectral quality of vowels, while the vowel length (in milliseconds) represents the vowel quality. Unlike English, which has two high front (/i:/ & /ɪ/) and back (/u:/ & /ʊ/) vowels, Persian has only one high front vowel /i/ and one high back vowel /u/. Considering this difference, the main questions of this study are whether L1 Persian speakers have separate representations of English tense and lax vowels in their L2 phonological inventory and, if yes, whether they differentiate these vowels based on their qualitative and/or quantitative features. According to the Equivalence Classification Hypothesis (Flege, 1987), L1 Persian speakers are expected to assimilate/merge English front vowels /i: & ɪ/ to their existing L1 single front vowel /i/ and English /u: & ʊ/ to their existing single Persian back vowel /u/. A group of ten female advanced L1 Persian speakers of English are compared with a control group of ten female native English speakers in their production of these vowels in open and closed syllables. Results show that while both quality and quantity are used by English speakers, the Persian speakers have difficulties in acquiring this distinction in their L2 English on both measures. However, the difficulty seems to be mostly in the acquisition of L2 phonetic features (i.e. gradual) than phonological ones (i.e. categorical).
- ItemOpen AccessThe acquisition of voicing contrasts in word-initial obstruent stops(University of Calgary, 1998-01) Onslow, JacquieThis paper presents two different perspectives on the acquisition of voicing in word-initial stops, in order to determine the patterns that children follow when acquiring the voicing contrasts of a language. The first contains a discussion based on voice onset time (VOT), the most commonly used method of testing voicing contrasts in speech. According to Macken and Barton (1980), "VOT refers to the time interval between the release of stop closure and the onset of vocal fold vibration." The last perspective is based on the underspecification theory presented from a nonlinear point of view, a more recent approach to phonology that relies heavily on distinctive features, in this case the features [voice] and [spread] under the laryngeal node.This paper will also argue that cross-linguistically the voiceless member of a stop pair is more common than the voiced member, and it is also acquired earlier by children. The evidence from languages like English, where the voiced member is predominant in both children's and adult output speech, challenges this statement. Therefore I think that it is important to address this statement with respect to the English language.
- ItemOpen AccessThe acquisition of word order in Korean*(University of Calgary, 1982-01) Cho, Sook WhanIn the present thesis, I will study the acquisition of word order in Korean. As the acquisition of word order appears to be relevant to the acquisition of case markers in Korean, I will examine the acquisition of the nominative and accusative case markers as well. The conclusions drawn in this thesis are based on the results of a longitudinal observational study and an experimental study.
- ItemOpen AccessThe acquisition of Yucatecan Maya prosody(University of Calgary, 1996-01) Archibald, JohnIn this paper I'm going to talk about some data that I gathered and analyzed while I was in Mexico. I had the opportunity to get involved with a research project at the Autonomous University of the Yucatan, headed by Dra. Barbara Pfeiler, that was looking at the acquisition of Yucatecan Maya. The Maya language family consists of 31 languages, spoken mainly in Guatemala and the south of Mexico by about 3.5 million people. Yucatecan Maya is estimated to have about 600,000 speakers. The influence of Spanish in the area is, of course, strong. Many of the people are bilingual and the issue of maintaining the Mayan language in the next generation is a hot educational topic. This will become an important factor when we look at some of the prosodic changes that seem to have happened to YM in the past century.
- ItemOpen AccessAgrammatism and functional categories*(University of Calgary, 1991-09) Shelstad, LorraineThe loss of function words and grammatical morphemes in agrammatism has been investigated by a number of researchers. Different theories have been put forth by Goodglass (1968), Kean (1977), and Grodzinsky (1984), as well as several others. One of the problems they faced was that these function words and morphemes did not form a natural class in syntactic theory. The three theories mentioned will be reviewed. The implications of a new theory of syntax (Fukui 1986) for the study of agrammatic speech will then be examined in the hopes that they will encourage further research in this particular area.
- ItemOpen AccessAncient languages of Spain(University of Calgary, 1984-06) Anderson, James MAs is well known, the Basque language of the northeast Hispanic Peninsula and the southwest corner of France has no substantiated antecedents. Similarly, ancient Iberian, a preRoman language of Mediterranean Spain and southern France, perceived only through inscriptional material still undeciphered and in some aspects problematical, also has no identifiable progenitors.
- ItemOpen AccessAnother look at Tunica vowels(University of Calgary, 1978-05) Latimer, RichardIn several publications on Tunica, an extinct language once spoken in Louisiana, Mary Haas (1950, 1944) presents a vowel inventory which consists of seven phonemes. A close study of the morphophonemic alternations within the language suggests that there were only five underlying vowels and that the occurrence of [ɛ] and [ɔ] was predictable. In this paper, I will attempt to demonstrate that [ɛ] and [ɔ] are derived in two ways: (1) vowel coalescence and (2) assimilation. I will discuss the effects of each of these processes separately.
- ItemOpen AccessApproaches to coda /s/ in Ecuadorian Spanish(2022-03) Giudice Grillo, AndrésEcuadorian Spanish displays significant regional variation affecting the realization of coda /s/. Within the highlands of Ecuador, the pronunciation of coda /s/ as [z] occupies different phonological environments depending on the subregion: While in the far north and south [z] is only found preceding voiced consonants, central and central-southern varieties display [z] in more environments, namely word-final prevocalic and prefix-final environments, which makes them unique in the Spanish-speaking world. In this investigation, I review the main studies that have focused on the description and analysis of coda /s/ voicing in Ecuadorian Spanish (Lipski, 1989 and Bradley & Delforge, 2006) and combine their insights with those of other studies (Muñiz Cachón & Cuevas Alonso, 2012, Navarro Tomás, 1968) which have explored the sonority of preconsonantal /s/. Stemming from this exploration, I present a conciliatory solution to the problem of /s/-voicing. I modify Lipski’s formal analysis to include a voice-neutral [S] that appears in pre-consonantal position, which resonates with the findings by Muñiz Cachón and Cuevas Alonso (2012) and the observations by Navarro Tomás (1968), both of which show that pre-consonantal /s/ in Spanish has gradient voicing.
- ItemOpen AccessAspect and phase systems in Yoruba(University of Calgary, 1991-09) Adéwọlé, L ODespite Oyelaran's (1982:41) claim that both the imperfective and what he regards as the perfect aspect in Yoruba are not controversial, a look at some of the writing on the topics shows several crucial problem areas.
- ItemOpen AccessAspects of current phonological change in Snowdrift Chipewyan(University of Calgary, 1980-05) Jehn, Richard DouglasDramatic sound shifts are presently occurring in Snowdrift, North West Territories Chipewyan which may provide some clues to the nature of normal phonological change in language. This paper deals with the complete shift of /t/ to /k/, the loss (or voicing) of /ɬ/, the loss of morphemes which contain /ɣ/, and the reanalysis of nasalized vowels into vowel plus nasal consonant, all of which are illustrations of the type of sound change that the linguist in the field rarely expects to witness.
- ItemOpen AccessAspects of idiom*(University of Calgary, 1982-01) Sayers, CoralWeinreich (1969) defines an idiom as "a complex expression whose meaning cannot be derived from the meanings of its elements." This writer has collected examples of idioms from the English, German, Australian English, and Quebec French dialects (Appendix I) in order to examine the properties of the idiom, to explore in the literature the current concepts of idiom, and to relate relevant knowledge gained by these processes to the teaching of English as a Second Language.
- ItemOpen AccessAustralian Lowering: A study of one dialect difference between Canadian and Australian spoken English(University of Calgary, 1975-01) Welch, KayThe purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast dialects of Canadian and Australian English regarding the occurrence of the high front tense vowel /i/. I assume a common underlying representation for both dialects; it is irrelevant for present purposes that the vowel /i/ probably has a more abstract source.
- ItemOpen AccessThe autosegmental distinction of tonal language types: with specific reference to Chilcotin tone phenomena(University of Calgary, 1991-09) Owens, CamilleA distinction has been drawn in phonology between two types of languages which exhibit tone phenomena. Languages are traditionally categorized as pitch accent or tone languages. Proponents of autosegmental phonology have captured these categories or language types by employing a separate method of tone association for each. Chilcotin is an Athaspaskan, language, spoken in the mid-interior region of British Columbia. It exhibits tone phenomena, although whether it belongs to the category of pitch accent languages or to the category of tone languages is debatable. In the course of this paper, some of the traditional features of these two types of tone phenomena will be examined in an attempt to categorize, accordingly, the Chilcotin language. The ability of autosegmental phonology lo accurately account for the data provided by Chilcotin, will then be evaluated.