Prefactory Note. Acknowledgments. 1. Preliminaries:. Background and Overview. Optimality. Overall Structure of the Argument. Overview of Part I. 2. Optimality in Grammar: Core Syllabification in Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber:. The Heart of Dell & Elmedlaoui. Optimality Theory. Summary of discussion to date. 3. Generalization--Forms in Domination Hierarchies IBlocking and Triggering: Profuseness and Economy:. Epenthetic Structure. Do Something Only When: The Failure of Bottom--up Constructionism. 4. Generalization--Forms in Domination Hierarchies IIDo Something Except When: Blocking, or The Theory of Profuseness:. Edge--Oriented Infixation. Interaction of Weight Effects with Extrametricality. Background: Prominence--Driven Stress Systems. The Interaction of Weight and Extrametricality: Kelkar's Hindi/Urdu. Nonfinality and Nonexhaustiveness. Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form: Raw Minimality. Nonfinality and the Laws of Foot Form:Extended Minimality Effects. Summary of Discussion of the Except When Effect. Except meets Only: Triggering and Blocking in a Single Grammar. 5. The Construction of Grammar in Optimality Theory:. Construction of Harmonic Orderings from Phonetic and Structural Scales. The Theory of Constraint Interaction. Comparison of Entire Candidates by a Single Constraint. Ons: Binary constraints. Hnuc: Non--binary constraints. Comparison of Entire Candidates by an Entire Constraint Hierarchy. Discussion. Non--locality of interaction. Strictness of domination. Serial vs. Parallel Harmony Evaluation and Gen. Binary vs. Non--binary constraints. Paoini's Theorem on Constraint Ranking. Overview of Part II. 6. Syllable Structure Typology I: the CV Theory:. The Jakobson Typology. The Faithfulness Interactions. Groundwork. Basic CV Syllable Theory. Onsets. Codas. The Theory of Epenthesis Sites. 7. Constraint Interaction in Lardil Phonology:. The Constraints. The Ranking. Some Ranking Logic. Ranking the Constraints. Verification of Forms. Consonant--Final Stems. Vowel Final Stems. Discussion. 8. Universal Syllable Theory II: Ordinal Construction of C/V and Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetry:. Associational Harmony. Deconstructing Hnuc: Berber, Take 1. Restricting to Binary Marks. Reconstructing the C and V Classes: Emergent Parameter Setting via Constraint Ranking. Harmonic Completeness of Possible Onsets and Peaks. Peak-- and Margin--Affinity. Interactions with Parse. Restricting Deletion and Epenthesis. Further Necessary Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei. Sufficient Conditions on Possible Onsets and Nuclei. The Typology of Onset, Nucleus, and Coda Inventories. The Typology of Onset and Nucleus Inventories. Onset/Coda Licensing Asymmetries. An Example: Berber, Take 2. Simplifying the Theory by Encapsulating Constraint Packages. Encapsulating the Association Hierarchies. An Example: Berber, Take 3. Sufficiency and Richness of the Encapsulated Theory. 9. Inventory Theory and the Lexicon:. Language--Particular Inventories. Harmonic Bounding and Nucleus, Syllable, and Word Inventories. Segmental Inventories. Universal Inventories. Segmental Inventories. Syllabic Inventories. Optimality in the Lexicon. 10. Foundational Issues and Theory--Comparisons:. Thinking about Optimality. Fear of Optimization. The Reassurance. The Connectionism Connection, and other Computation--based Comparisons. Why Optimality Theory has nothing to do with connectionism. Why Optimality Theory is deeply connected to connectionism. Harmony Maximization and Symbolic Cognition. Analysis of 'Phonotactics+Repair' Theories. CV Syllable Structure and Repair. General Structure of the Comparisons: Repair Analysis. Persistent Rule Theory. English Closed Syllable Shortening. Shona Tone Spreading. Summary. The Theory of Constraints and Repair Strategies. Appendix. A.1 The Cancellation and Cancellation/Domination Lemmas. A.2 CV Syllable Structure. A.3 Paoinia s Theorem on Constraint--ranking. References. Index of Constraints. Index of Languages. General Index

http://www.roozbehhormozi.persiangig.com/document/%5bAlan_Prince,_Paul_Smolensky%5d_Optimality_Theory_C(BookFi.org).pdf

Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar

Learners rely on a combination of experience-independent and experience-dependent mechanisms to extract information from the environment. Language acquisition involves both types of mechanisms, but most theorists emphasize the relative importance of experience-independent mechanisms. The present study shows that a fundamental task of language acquisition, segmentation of words from fluent speech, can be accomplished by 8-month-old infants based solely on the statistical relationships between neighboring speech sounds. Moreover, this word segmentation was based on statistical learning from only 2 minutes of exposure, suggesting that infants have access to a powerful mechanism for the computation of statistical properties of the language input.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/274/5294/1926.full.pdf

Statistical Learning by 8-Month-Old Infants

Despite decades of research, the functional neuroanatomy of speech processing has been difficult to characterize. A major impediment to progress may have been the failure to consider task effects when mapping speech-related processing systems. We outline a dual-stream model of speech processing that remedies this situation. In this model, a ventral stream processes speech signals for comprehension, and a dorsal stream maps acoustic speech signals to frontal lobe articulatory networks. The model assumes that the ventral stream is largely bilaterally organized--although there are important computational differences between the left- and right-hemisphere systems--and that the dorsal stream is strongly left-hemisphere dominant.

The cortical organization of speech processing

https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/74/6/431.pdf

Perception of the speech code.

https://blogs.umass.edu/jkingstn/files/2013/12/liberman_mattingly_1985_cognition.pdf

The motor theory of speech perception revised

Linguistic experience affects phonetic perception. However, the critical period during which experience affects perception and the mechanism responsible for these effects are unknown. This study of 6-month-old infants from two countries, the United States and Sweden, shows that exposure to a specific language in the first half year of life alters infants' phonetic perception.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/255/5044/606.full.pdf

Linguistic experience alters phonetic perception in infants by 6 months of age

This paper describes a test of everyday speech reception, in which a listener’s utilization of the linguistic‐situational information of speech is assessed, and is compared with the utilization of acoustic‐phonetic information. The test items are sentences which are presented in babble‐type noise, and the listener response is the final word in the sentence (the key word) which is always a monosyllabic noun. Two types of sentences are used: high‐predictability items for which the key word is somewhat predictable from the context, and low‐predictability items for which the final word cannot be predicted from the context. Both types are included in several 50‐item forms of the test, which are balanced for intelligibility, key‐word familiarity and predictability, phonetic content, and length. Performance of normally hearing listeners for various signal‐to‐noise ratios shows significantly different functions for low‐ and high‐predictability items. The potential applications of this test, particularly in the assessment of speech reception in the hearing impaired, are discussed.

Development of a test of speech intelligibility in noise using sentence materials with controlled word predictability.

On the quantal nature of speech

This paper describes some further attempts to identify and measure those parameters in the speech signal that reflect the emotional state of a speaker. High‐quality recordings were obtained of professional “method” actors reading the dialogue of a short scenario specifically written to contain various emotional situations. Excerpted portions of the recordings were subjected to both quantitative and qualitative analyses. A comparison was also made of recordings from a real‐life situation, in which the emotions of a speaker were clearly defined, with recordings from an actor who simulated the same situation. Anger, fear, and sorrow situations tended to produce characteristic differences in contour of fundamental frequency, average speech spectrum, temporal characteristics, precision of articulation, and waveform regularity of successive glottal pulses. Attributes for a given emotional situation were not always consistent from one speaker to another.

Emotions and Speech: Some Acoustical Correlates

In a series of experiments, identification responses for place of articulation were obtained for synthetic stop consonants in consonant-vowel syllables with different vowels. The acoustic attributes of the consonants were systematically manipulated, the selection of stimulus characteristics being guided in part by theoretical considerations concerning the expected properties of the sound generated in the vocal tract as place of articulation is varied. Several stimulus series were generated with and without noise bursts at the onset, and with and without formant transitions following consonantal release. Stimuli with transitions only, and with bursts plus transitions, were consistently classified according to place of articulation, whereas stimuli with bursts only and no transitions were not consistently identified. The acoustic attributes of the stimuli were examined to determine whether invariant properties characterized each place of atriculation independent of vowel context. It was determined that the gross shape of the spectrum sampled at the consonantal release showed a distinctive shape for each place of articulation: a prominent midfrequency spectral peak for velars, a diffuse-rising spectrum for alveolars, and a diffuse-falling spectrum for labials. These attributes are evident for stimuli containing transitions only, but are enhanced by the presence of noise bursts at the onset.

Kenneth N. Stevens

Papers

Linguistic experience alters phonetic perception in infants by 6 months of age

Development of a test of speech intelligibility in noise using sentence materials with controlled word predictability.

On the quantal nature of speech

Emotions and Speech: Some Acoustical Correlates

Invariant cues for place of articulation in stop consonants