Analyzing Sound Patterns is a clear and concise introduction to phonological phenomena, covering a wide range of issues from segmental to suprasegmental problems and prosodic morphology. Assuming no prior knowledge of problem solving, this textbook shows students how to analyze phonological problems with a focus on practical tools, methodology and step-by-step instructions. It is aimed at undergraduate and beginning graduate students and places an instructional focus on developing students' analytical abilities. It includes extensive exercises of various types which engage students in reading and evaluating competing analyses, and involves students in a variety of analytical tasks. This textbook: • is designed around related phonological problems and demonstrates how they are analyzed step by step • presents and compares competing accounts of identical problems, and discusses and evaluates the arguments that distinguish one analysis from another • details how a broad array of sound patterns are identified and analyzed.

Analyzing Sound Patterns is a clear and concise introduction to phonological phenomena, it includes extensive exercises which involve students in a variety of analytical tasks and shows students how to analyze phonological problems with a focus on practical tools, methodology and step-by-step instructions.

This volume, aimed at linguists and language students, presents an integrated approach to sound change. It examines change not simply as a series of developments within an abstracted linguistic system, but as part of the situated use of language.

Poets, academics, and those who simply speak a language are subject to mysterious intuitions about the perceptual qualities and emotional symbolism of the sounds of speech. Such intuitions are Reuven Tsur's point of departure in this investigation into the expressive effect of sound patterns, addressing questions of great concern for literary theorists and critics as well as for linguists and psychologists. Research in recent decades has established two distinct types of aural perception: a nonspeech mode, in which the acoustic signals are received in the manner of musical sounds or natural noises; and a speech mode, in which acoustic signals are excluded from awareness and only an abstract phonetic category is perceived. Here, Tsur proposes a third type of speech perception, a poetic mode in which some part of the acoustic signal becomes accessible, however faintly, to consciousness. Using Roman Jakobson's model of childhood acquisition of the phonological system, Tsur shows how the nonreferential babbling sounds made by infants form a basis for aesthetic valuation of language. He tests the intersubjective and intercultural validity of various spatial and tactile metaphors for certain sounds. Illustrating his insights with reference to particular literary texts, Tsur considers the relative merits of cognitive and psychoanalytic approaches to the emotional symbolism of speech sounds.

Publisher Description

Accessible, succinct, and including numerous student-friendly features, this introductory textbook offers an exceptional foundation to the field for those who are coming to it for the first time. Provides an ideal first course book in phonology, written by a renowned phonologist Developed and tested in the classroom through years of experience and use Emphasizes analysis of phonological data, placing this in its scientific context, and explains the relevant methodology Guides students through the larger questions of what phonological patterns reveal about language Includes numerous course-friendly features, including multi-part exercises and annotated suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter

Evolutionary Phonology is a theory of sound patterns which synthesizes results in historical linguistics, phonetics and phonological theory. In this book, Juliette Blevins explores the nature of sounds patterns and sound change in human language over the past 7000–8000 years, the time depth for which the comparative method is reasonably reliable. This book presents an approach to the problem of how genetically unrelated languages, from families as far apart as Native American, Australian Aboriginal, Austronesian and Indo-European, can often show similar sound patterns, and also tackles the converse problem of why there are notable exceptions to most of the patterns that are often regarded as universal tendencies or constraints. It argues that in both cases, a formal model of sound change that integrates phonetic variation and patterns of misperception can account for attested sound systems without reference to markedness or naturalness within the synchronic grammar.

Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.

Since this classic work in phonology was published in 1968, there has been no other book that gives as broad a view of the subject, combining generally applicable theoretical contributions with analysis of the details of a single language. The theoretical issues raised in The Sound Pattern of English continue to be critical to current phonology, and in many instances the solutions proposed by Chomsky and Halle have yet to be improved upon.Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle are Institute Professors of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT.