[C]ausal statements are commonly made in some context, against a background which includes the assumption of some causal field. A causal statement will be the answer to a causal question, and the question ‘What caused this explosion?’ can be expanded into ‘What made the difference between those times, or those cases, within a certain range, in which no such explosion occurred, and this case in ...

As they observe or produce events, infants identify variables that help them predict outcomes in each category of events. How do infants identify a new variable? An explanation-based learning (EBL) account suggests three essential steps: (1) observing contrastive outcomes relevant to the variable; (2) discovering the conditions associated with these outcomes; and (3) generating an explanation f...

The paper focuses on regional or local variations in English in Nigeria with particular reference to spoken English in which the variations are most noticeable. The three major Nigerian languages Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa are referred to mainly in consideration of the local variations in English. The variations are seen as inevitable because of the nature of the Nigerian society. The different pho...

In this article, we introduce recently released, publicly available resources, which allow users to watch videos of hidden articulators (e.g. the tongue) during the production of various types of sounds found in the world’s languages. The articulation videos on these resources are linked to a clickable International Phonetic Alphabet chart ([International Phonetic Association. 1999. Handbook of...

This research work was carried out in the areas of Higher Education, Teaching Technology and Web Information Management with the aim of developing a model for identifying and classifying competences and learning outcomes (MICRA) and an ontology of the information management model (SICRA). The MICRA model was applied in a case study, whereas the verification and validation of its previously defi...

We presents prosodic cues, i.e. duration, average F0 (M-F0), F0 slope (D-F0) and spectral center of gravity (CoG), to the functions acknowledgment, continuer, disagreement, surprise, enthusiasm and uncertainty as expressed via short vocal feedback by a professional voiceover artist. The post-hoc tests showed that most functions were expressed with a rather contrastive prosody and in a consisten...

Das diesem Bericht zugrundeliegende Forschungsvorhaben wurde mit Mitteln des Bundesministers f ur Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie unter dem F orderkennzeichen 01 IV 102 H/0 und 01 IV 102 F/4 gef ordert. Die Verantwortung f ur den Inhalt dieser Arbeit liegt bei den Autoren. ABSTRACT Automatic dialog systems tested with naive users are often confronted with special speaking style...