Volume 46, Issue 2 -

Jordanian Arabic Final Geminates: An Experimental Clinical Phonetic Study An experimental study was carried out to investigate word-final geminates in Jordanian Arabic. Monosyllabic singleton and geminate minimal pairs (CVC and CVCC) were considered to answer the three main questions of the study: Does gemination occur word-finally in Jordanian Arabic? Is there a temporal compensatory relationship between the vowels preceding geminate/singleton consonants? Are these differences contrastive? Eighteen participants produced 324 tokens with Ira., n, 1 and m:, n:, 1:/ occurring word-finally Spectrographic and videofluoroscopic analyses show that final geminates are permissible in Jordanian Arabic. The temporal compensation maintained with the preceding vowel and the tension in articulating the geminates enhance perceptuality boundaries and maintain phonemicity.

Present-Day English Irregular Verbs Revisited All the classifications of present-day English irregular verbs to be found in the most famous grammars basically do not differ considerably and, especially, consider them to be mere aggregates of irregularities. This paper, on the other hand, aims to suggest a different classification by applying the basic tenets of Natural Morphology. This allows the author to divide irregular verbs into microclasses according to two main parameters: (i) the number of bases and (ii) rhymes. The latter is especially important, since empirical evidence demonstrates that the basic relationship existing among paradigms and families of paradigms is the one based on morphotactic similarity, whereas semantic similarities are absolutely peripheral. The two parameters are eventually exploited to provide a further scale, i.e. that of morphotactic transparency and of base uniformity, which is fundamental to organise a hierarchy of suppletion.

Perception of Polish Speech Varieties This study shows the perception of speech varieties in Poland and was based on quantitative research conducted in Poznań. The tool used to study perceptions of speech varieties in Poland was based on Dennis Preston's "Draw-a-map" methodology. The results were analyzed and presented as a graphical representation of maps displaying various levels of agreements of the speakers' perceptions. The maps displayed the results in three alternative forms: spreadsheet view, 2D view, and 3D view. The four main epicenters of the greatest agreement appeared in the South, West, North, and East, but they were not equal in size and level. There were only two cities from the original map, Katowice and Poznań, which received scores higher than 50% agreement. The results maps suggest that the participants have created Schemas of Polish speech varieties based on limited information and practice with speech.

Emergent Stops in English and in Polish: Against Syllable-Based Accounts Consonant epenthesis has been used to provide support for syllable-based approaches. In Optimality Theoretic accounts, epenthesis serves to reduce the markedness by providing missing onsets. In this paper, I look at a different type of apparent insertion, the emergence of stops in consonant clusters. In search for a possible driver of the process, I consider syllable structure, syllable contact, and sonority distance. It is demonstrated that the syllable cannot be held accountable for the appearance of stops in consonant clusters. More generally, reference to markedness results in wrong predictions. It is argued that a diachronic phonetically-based explanation referring to aerodynamic requirements and articulatory gestures has significantly more explanatory power. The mis-timing of phonetic gestures may lead to structural reinterpretation, giving rise to the phonologization of emergent stops. Historical and modern English, as well as dialectal Polish, provide the primary illustrative examples for this phonetically-based analysis.

Productivity vs. Lexicalization: Frequency-Based Hypotheses on Word-Formation This article looks at morphological productivity and lexicalization. Productivity, first, bears a significant relationship with frequency because both seem to be subtly interlinked through low-frequency items. Much the same happens between lexicalization and frequency, although their association must be seen from a different angle because lexicalized words tend to have greater frequencies than non-lexicalized words. The novelty of this paper is that it provides a link between the above two notions and corpus-based frequency figures, and then operates a formula (π) on two sets of units, some lexicalized, some synchronically analysable. The two subcorpora confirm a correct function of π to tell between words which tend to be used by means of word-formation vs. words which already exist in the individual's lexicon.

Translating English BBC News Into Arabic: Morphosyntactic Analysis This paper focuses on the morphological changes that occur when translating English political news into Arabic. It attempts to find the answer to the research question, "What is the nature of the morphological changes that occur in the Arabic translation?" Towards this end, it examines the morphological changes that are attributable to various reasons in Vinay and Darbenet (1995) procedures, among them transposition or shift. Thus, each data item is examined on the basis of the ideas of Vinay and Darbenet (1995) as well as Culicover (1997) using both X'-Theory representation either as phrase markers (tree diagrams) or in linear structures using label bracketing and narrative descriptions.

Variation of Ergativity Patterns in Indo-Aryan Ergativity in the Indo-Aryan languages is a very intricate phenomenon. At the morphological level, we can observe a certain continuum, from disappearance of ergativity to its reinforcement. The first tendency is clearly visible not only in Eastern Hindi and Bihari dialects, but also in Western Rajasthani. The second tendency can be noted in the Pahari dialects. Somewhere in between are the Western Hindi dialects, which have introduced analytical marking for agent and patient. The transitional character of ergativity in Indo-Aryan can be observed in considering the alignment of the three syntactic-semantic Dixonian primitives, namely A, S, and O (Dixon 1979; 1994). It appears that, in fact, all possible alignments are traceable, even that in which A and O receive the same marking and which has been excluded by typologists (Comrie 1978). However, extending the Dixonian three-primitive system by Obi. (Klimov 1983), we can also observe that the same treatment of A and Obi. (perceived as one of the implications of ergativity) is shared by, for example, early Rajasthani, contemporary Pahari and Western Hindi, where it is closely connected with the polyfunctionality of the ergative postposition.