Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics vol. 46 (4), 2010
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Item PHONOLOGY IN THE SPEECH SIGNAL – UNIFYING CUE AND PROSODIC LICENSING(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2010) Schwartz, GeoffreyThis paper is offered in commemoration of Prof. Edmund Gussmann, who passed away sadly and unexpectedly just a few short weeks before the 41st Poznań Linguistic Meeting, where the paper was presented. The PLM session, Competing Explanations in Phonology, was the type of gathering at which Prof. Gussmann would thrive, advancing his strong theoretical position that phonetics is irrelevant for phonological theory (Gussmann 2004). Prof. Gussmann argued for this view in an animated and sometimes provocative manner, but he always did so with charm and good nature. My own views on the role of speech in phonology differ sharply from Prof. Guss- mann’s. I am nevertheless quite grateful for his perspective, which has indeed changed the way I think of speech. Under the influence of Government Phonology, I have adopted a phonological view of the acoustic signal, which seeks to challenge phoneticians with new hypotheses about the way speech interacts with grammar. This paper explicates this perspective, and applies it to a re- cent case, cue vs. prosodic licensing, in which “phonetic” and “phonological” explanations seemed to be at an impasse. Thanks in part to Prof. Gussmann’s strong theoretical position, I have developed a new theory of constituency that offers a vehicle with which we may reconcile competing views on the underpinnings of phonological licensing.Item TOWARDS A GRADUAL SCALE OF VOWEL REDUCTION: A PILOT STUDY(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2010) Kul, MałgorzataThe study reports the results of an acoustic analysis of vowel reduction of the /iː/ vowel, consid- ering all three traditionally explored aspects of vowel reduction, i.e. duration, F1 and F2 in read speech produced by 12 native speakers of English. Starting from the observation that the standard literature considers only duration as a proxy for overall reduction, the aim of the study is to ver- ify whether duration, F1 and F2 exhibit reduction (construed as shortening of duration and cen- tralization of formants, respectively) to the same degree. The r test reveals the lack of a robust linear correlation between duration, F1 and F2, the highest value being 0.51 (the correlation be- tween duration and F1) and 0.24 (the correlation between duration and F2), neither of which is a strong correlation. In light of the results, the study seeks to establish a gradual scale of vowel re- duction, combining the spatial and the temporal aspects by means of averaging the distances be- tween the least and the most reduced tokens across duration, F1/F2 on an equal basis. The result- ing degree is expressed on a scale of reduction, ranging from 0 (no reduction whatsoever) to 100 per cent (reduction to schwa).Item CONSONANT CLUSTERS ACROSS MORPHEME BOUNDARIES: POLISH MORPHONOTACTIC INVENTORY AND ITS ACQUISITION(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2010) Zydorowicz, PaulinaMorphonotactics is a term introduced by Dressler and Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (2006) to refer to the interaction of phonotactics and morphotactics. This paper examines the acquisition of phonotac- tics and morphonotactics, i.e. consonant clusters occurring within morphemes and across mor- pheme boundaries. It is hypothesized that morphonotactic clusters will be better retained in pro- duction than lexical clusters as they carry significant morphological information. Additionally, the acquisition of consonant clusters will be investigated in terms of markedness. With respect to markedness, two hypotheses have been put forward. Firstly, less marked (preferred) sequences will emerge earlier. Secondly, preferred clusters will be retained in production better.Item INFINITIVES IN THE 1820 SETTLER LETTERS OF DENUNCIATION: WHAT CAN A CONTEXTUALISED APPLICATION OF CORPUS-BASED RESULTS TELL US ABOUT THE EXPRESSION OF PERSUASION?(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2010) Włodarczyk, MatyldaThis paper takes issue with Biber’s (1988) findings concerning the significance of infinitives for what he calls the “overt expression of persuasion” (Biber 1988: 115). It aims to demonstrate that statistically generated results of research on large electronic corpora of contemporary English may not be verifiable in small, well-contextualised, single-genre collections, such as the one rep- resenting 19th century English used in this study. The collection comprises denunciation letters addressed to the colonial authorities (the Colonial Office) by the first British settlers in the Cape Colony (the 1820 Settlers). The letters follow the generic model of petition (Włodarczyk 2010) understood as an official written request. An act of denunciation, as we may assume, contributes to the inherent persuasiveness of petitions by increasing the illocutionary force (in the sense of Searle 1969, 1979) of the letter. Therefore, patterns of distribution of infinitives as markers of persuasion (Biber 1988) are particularly interesting to trace in the 1820 Settler denunciation let- ters. The paper shows that some of Biber’s statements may not be taken as valid generalizations, as the persuasive potential of infinitives may not be corroborated unless each and every token is thoroughly contextualized. Furthermore, an analysis of requests in denunciations conducted within Speech Act Theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969; Blum-Kulka 1984; Culpeper and Archer 2008) shows that it is first and foremost politeness concerns (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987), not the increased need for persuasiveness, that determine the degree of the illocutionary force of re- quests.