Intonation, structure prosodique et ondes cérébrales


Book Description

Intonation, structure prosodique et ondes cérébralesprésente de nouvelles bases pour l’analyse et la description phonologique de l’intonation du français. Les concepts de groupes accentuels et de structure prosodique y sont exposés à la lumière des découvertes les plus récentes portant sur les oscillations cérébrales, et en particulier sur le rôle des ondes thêta et delta dans la production et la compréhension du langage. Le positionnement spécifique des syllabes accentuées en français, langue dépourvue d’accent lexical, trouve ainsi une explication d’ordre cognitif. De même, les limitations cérébrales de mémorisation permettent de rendre compte de l’élaboration d’une structure prosodique élaborée dynamiquement lors du déroulement de l’énoncé. Sont exposés ici de nombreux exemples de parole lue ou spontanée, oralisée ou silencieuse, visant à illustrer ces différents concepts. L’ouvrage présente également des travaux pratiques d’analyse prosodique, confirmant que l’intonation de l’énoncé, loin d’être une « coquetterie » syntaxique, constitue la base phonologique qui permet au langage d’exister.




Manual of Romance Phonetics and Phonology


Book Description

This handbook is structured in two parts: it provides, on the one hand, a comprehensive (synchronic) overview of the phonetics and phonology (including prosody) of a breadth of Romance languages and focuses, on the other hand, on central topics of research in Romance segmental and suprasegmental phonology, including comparative and diachronic perspectives. Phonetics and phonology have always been a core discipline in Romance linguistics: the wide synchronic variety of languages and dialects derived from spoken Latin is extensively explored in numerous corpus and atlas projects, and for quite a few of these varieties there is also more or less ample documentation of at least some of their diachronic stages. This rich empirical database offers excellent testing grounds for different theoretical approaches and allows for substantial insights into phonological structuring as well as into (incipient, ongoing, or concluded) processes of phonological change. The volume can be read both as a state-of-the-art report of research in the field and as a manual of Romance languages with special emphasis on the key topics of phonetics and phonology.




Speech Acoustic Analysis


Book Description

The text sets out in simple and accessible terms the various methods of acoustic analysis of speech, placing them in their historical context, allowing a better understanding of the mathematical and technical solutions adopted today in phonetics and experimental phonology. Without mathematical complications, the operating bases of the many speech analysis software currently available are exposed so that everyone can understand the limits and avoid errors and misinterpretations in their implementation.




In Search of Basic Units of Spoken Language


Book Description

What is the best way to analyze spontaneous spoken language? In their search for the basic units of spoken language the authors of this volume opt for a corpus-driven approach. They share a strong conviction that prosodic structure is essential for the study of spoken discourse and each bring their own theoretical and practical experience to the table. In the first part of the book they segment spoken material from a range of different languages (Russian, Hebrew, Central Pomo (an indigenous language from California), French, Japanese, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese). In the second part of the book each author analyzes the same two spoken English samples, but looking at them from different perspectives, using different methods of analysis as reflected in their respective analyses in Part I. This approach allows for common tendencies of segmentation to emerge, both prosodic and segmental.







The Notion of Syllable Across History, Theories and Analysis


Book Description

Any notion linguistically expressed, even one such as the syllable, is always the result of several different viewpoints. In order to take this into account, this book draws inspiration from the scheme of quaternion, as conceived by Sir William Rowan Hamilton and later introduced in theoretical linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure. The first term of the quaternion (The Dawn of the Syllable) is provided by historical observations. The second term (Beyond the Sound of Syllables) is composed of different descriptive analyses of the syllable carried out in some particular languages and dialects. The third term (The Body of Syllables) presents the analytical-instrumental analysis of the syllable, while the fourth (De Syllaba Ventura) proposes some theoretical considerations.




The Study of Speech Processes


Book Description

There has been a longstanding bias in the study of spoken language towards using writing to analyse speech. This approach is problematic in that it assumes language to be derived from an autonomous mental capacity to assemble words into sentences, while failing to acknowledge culture-specific ideas linked to writing. Words and sentences are writing constructs that hardly capture the sound-making actions involved in spoken language. This book brings to light research that has long revealed structures present in all languages but which do not match the writing-induced concepts of traditional linguistic analysis. It demonstrates that language processes are not physiologically autonomous, and that speech structures are structures of spoken language. It then illustrates how speech acts can be studied using instrumental records, and how multisensory experiences in semantic memory couple to these acts, offering a biologically-grounded understanding of how spoken language conveys meaning and why it develops only in humans.




In Search of Basic Units of Spoken Language


Book Description

What is the best way to analyze spontaneous spoken language? In their search for the basic units of spoken language the authors of this volume opt for a corpus-driven approach. They share a strong conviction that prosodic structure is essential for the study of spoken discourse and each bring their own theoretical and practical experience to the table. In the first part of the book they segment spoken material from a range of different languages (Russian, Hebrew, Central Pomo (an indigenous language from California), French, Japanese, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese). In the second part of the book each author analyzes the same two spoken English samples, but looking at them from different perspectives, using different methods of analysis as reflected in their respective analyses in Part I. This approach allows for common tendencies of segmentation to emerge, both prosodic and segmental.




Introduction to Corpus Linguistics


Book Description

Over the past decades, the use of quantitative methods has become almost generalized in all domains of linguistics. However, using these methods requires a thorough understanding of the principles underlying them. Introduction to quantitative methods in linguistics aims at providing students with an up-to-date and accessible guide to both corpus linguistics and experimental linguistics. The objectives are to help students developing critical thinking about the way these methods are used in the literature and helping them to devise their own research projects using quantitative data analysis.




The Nice and the Good


Book Description

De opheldering van de sinistere motieven voor een zelfmoord in Londen vormen een duistere achtergrond voor het zonnige beeld van het leven en de liefdes van een aantal mensen, die wonen op een landgoed in Dorset.