Spoken communication involves transmission of a message which takes physical form in acoustic waves. Within any given language, acoustic cues pattern in language-specific ways along language... Show moreSpoken communication involves transmission of a message which takes physical form in acoustic waves. Within any given language, acoustic cues pattern in language-specific ways along language-specific acoustic dimensions to create speech sound contrasts. These cues are utilized by listeners to discriminate between possible messages intended by the speaker. It is well documented that individual listeners attend to different acoustic cues in different ways. For example, adult second-language (L2) learners often have trouble distinguishing certain L2 speech contrasts. Yet, the question of how listeners come to utilise certain cues and not others for discrimination is not yet well understood. The relationship between this continuous and inherently noisy acoustic signal and the discrete nature of the underlying messages forms the basis for this thesis. I used electrophysiological (EEG) and behavioural measures to investigate how allophonic tonal variants and sub-phonemic features are processed during Mandarin and Dutch speech production, visual processing of written words and reading aloud. In addition, using the visual world eyetracking paradigm, I investigated how the degree of variation (statistical noise) in the acoustic signal affects perception of Cantonese segment and tone contrasts. Show less
This thesis deals with the tone accent opposition in the so-called “Rule B area” in Franconian. Rule B is known for its reversal of tonal melodies: in 1921, Adolf Bach published a description of... Show moreThis thesis deals with the tone accent opposition in the so-called “Rule B area” in Franconian. Rule B is known for its reversal of tonal melodies: in 1921, Adolf Bach published a description of the Arzbach accents, stating that the tonal melodies in Arzbach display a reversal of those in the rest of the area (Rule A). The study at hand not only provides crucial but as yet missing empirical data on Rule B but also suggests synchronic and diachronic typological analyses of the phenomenon. Newly gathered phonetic data from the Arzbach dialect show that the tone accents in Arzbach are reversed in declaration but not in interrogation, where they strongly resemble the Rule A contours. This important observation was unreported so far. On the basis of these findings, detailed synchronic autosegmental analyses for Arzbach and three other Franconian dialects show that we can understand the tone accent opposition as one of different foot structures for the two accents. The diachronic section of the thesis explores the origin of the semi-reversed tonal contours in Rule B. It argues that Rule B and Rule A developed out of a common predecessor but adapted in different ways to declaration melodies from non-accent dialects. Show less
