16.35, Diss: Phonetics: Tserdanelis: 'The role of segmental...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-35. Tue Jan 11 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.35, Diss: Phonetics: Tserdanelis: 'The role of segmental...'

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1)
Date: 11-Jan-2005
From: Giorgos Tserdanelis < gdanelis at ling.osu.edu >
Subject: The role of segmental sandhi in the parsing of speech: evidence from Greek


-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 14:09:57
From: Giorgos Tserdanelis < gdanelis at ling.osu.edu >
Subject: The role of segmental sandhi in the parsing of speech: evidence from Greek


Institution: Ohio State University
Program: Department of East Asian Languages and Literature
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2005

Author: Giorgos Tserdanelis

Dissertation Title: The role of segmental sandhi in the parsing of speech:
evidence from Greek

Dissertation URL:  http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?osu1104430793

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics

Subject Language(s): Greek (GRK)


Dissertation Director(s):
Mary E. Beckman
Brian D Joseph

Dissertation Abstract:

Spoken languages, in addition to having inventories of distinctive sound
segments can also employ variants of these sounds to distinguish word- or
phrase-internal segments from those that occur at the edges of such meaningful
units. When allophonic variants that normally mark word-internal positions occur
at word or phrase edges, this could be indicative of a higher-than-normal degree
of cohesion between two adjacent words or phrases.

These segmental changes between words or phrases are called (external) segmental
sandhi. The nature and range of variation in the pronunciation of these
allophonic segments may be influenced by factors such as speech rate and casual
versus careful style and how these extra-grammatical properties interact with
the aerodynamic and coarticulatory patterns of the target sounds but also by the
intonationally-marked prosodic and syntactic structure of  utterances.

This dissertation examines the relationship between prosodic and syntactic
structure and segmental allophonic processes (sandhi) at the edges of words in
Greek, a language with a rich inventory of such segmental processes. In
particular, it investigates the exact phonetic nature of segmental sandhi in an
effort to understand whether such processes can result in deterministically
categorical segmental changes or in more probabilistic and continuous variation.
It also examines whether such segmental processes have an effect on the
processing of structurally ambiguous sentences, in order to establish whether
the various outcomes of segmental sandhi can be correlated with particular
morphosyntactic structures.

The establishment of these facts for Greek contributes to understanding and
explaining how languages may incorporate external sandhi processes into their
morpho-phonological structure and how speakers and listeners may exploit them in
the production and parsing of speech.





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