This paper explores some issues in designing conversational systems with integrated higher level constraints. We experiment with a configuration that combines a context-dependent acoustic front-end, using MIT’s SUMMIT recognizer, with ANGIE, a hierarchical framework that models word substructure and phonological processes, and with TINA, a trainable probabilistic natural language (NL) model. Wo...

Phonological systems show clear signs of being shaped by phonetics. Sound patterns are overwhelmingly phonetically ‘natural’, in that they reflect the influence of physical constraints on speech production and perception, and categorical phonological processes often mirror low-level gradient phonetic effects. The question of how best to explain and model the influence of phonetics on phonology ...

In this chapter we investigate an instance of phonological recursion; more specifically, we investigate iterative rule application in phonological phrases. We will show that edge-marking processes, such as early pitch accent placement, can be applied recursively to phonological phrases that are embedded in larger phonological phrases. Before addressing prosodic recursion, we will demonstrate th...

1.1 Synopsis One important observation that is made in the past phonological research is that constraints on output structures can both block and trigger phonological processes (i.e., conspiracy: Kisseberth 1970). This paper reports an experiment which shows that an Identity Avoidance constraint (a.k.a. the OCP) both blocks and triggers one phonological process in the same language, namely rend...

In Pān. ini’s grammar of Sanskrit one finds the Śivasūtras, a table which defines the natural classes of phonological segments in Sanskrit by intervals. We present a formal argument which shows that, using his representation method, Pān. ini’s way of ordering the phonological segments to represent the natural classes is optimal. The argument is based on a strictly set-theoretical point of view ...

This paper presents a method for learning phonological rules from sample pairs of underlying and surface forms, without negative evidence. The learned rules are represented as finite state transducers that accept underlying forms as input and generate surface forms as output. The algorithm for learning them is an extension of the OSTIA algorithm for learning general subsequential finite state t...

This dissertation concerns the morphophonological alternation of lexical items, determined by syntactic position. It considers three types of inflection, positional allomorphy and certain examples of phenomena collectively called "contraction", and argues that the notion of lexical insertion into d-structure, underlying many current syntactic theories, has difficulty in accounting for these cas...

eighteen kilometers long coastal stretch from the new mangalore port in the north totalapadi in the south has been studied in order to understand shoreline changes and erosion/ accretion patterns that have taken place due to the natural processes and anthropogenic activities. shoreline changes and quantification of beach erosion/accretion were made using the survey of india topomap, multidated ...