Syllable Reduction in Ye’kwana: Morphologized Phonology

Syllable Structure in Sign Language Phonology

Some notes on syllable structure in articulatory phonology.

Two approaches to seeking stable patterns in the gestural organization of speech are examined: local organization (individual gestures coordinated with other individual gestures) and global organization (gestures forming larger conglomerates). Articulatory evidence from American English words with a variety of initial consonants and clusters shows that syllable-initial consonants form a global ...

Exploiting Syllable Structure in a Connectionist Phonology Model

In a previous paper (Touretzky & Wheeler, 1990a) we showed how adding a clustering operation to a connectionist phonology model produced a parallel processing account of certain "iterative" phenomena. In this paper we show how the addition of a second structuring primitive, syllabification, greatly increases the power of the model. We present examples from a non-Indo-European language that appe...

Linked control of syllable sequence and phonology in birdsong.

The control of sequenced behaviors, including human speech, requires that the brain coordinate the production of discrete motor elements with their concatenation into complex patterns. In birdsong, another sequential vocal behavior, the acoustic structure (phonology) of individual song elements, or "syllables," must be coordinated with the sequencing of syllables into a song. However, it is unk...

Segment and syllable reduction:

Spectrographic data are presented to exemplify effects of segmental reduction on utterance length, measured in terms of number of phonetic syllables per utterance. The speculation is put forward that segmental reorganization in ‘fast speech’ is partly constrained to preserve speaking rate, specified as number of phonetic syllables per unit time.