Taruma is a critically endangered and poorly described language isolate of Guyana. The language has already been presumed extinct but there are, however, still at least three speakers of Taruma...Show moreTaruma is a critically endangered and poorly described language isolate of Guyana. The language has already been presumed extinct but there are, however, still at least three speakers of Taruma living in Guyana. Thanks to language data from both the early 20th century and the 21st century, it is possible to expand our current knowledge of the Taruma phonology by digitising, transcribing and analysing the 20th century data set and comparing it with the data set from the 21st century. After the analysis and comparison of the two data sets, a conclusion is given about how the phonology of Taruma has changed over the last 100 years. The contribution of missionary work and the active roles of Indigenous people in creating these manuscripts realized this expansion of documentation of Taruma language and history.Show less
Dit onderzoek richt zich op de accentvorming in de tweede taal van gelijktijdig tweetaligen, en specifiek op het identificeren van het accent in de tweede taal en de reden achter dit accent. Ook...Show moreDit onderzoek richt zich op de accentvorming in de tweede taal van gelijktijdig tweetaligen, en specifiek op het identificeren van het accent in de tweede taal en de reden achter dit accent. Ook zal het een methode presenteren voor soortgelijk onderzoek in de toekomst. Het onderzoek bestaat uit een case-study van een Nederlands-Duits gelijktijdig tweetalige, die Engels als L2 heeft geleerd. Hierbij wordt gekeken naar met welk accent test-klinkers uit de L2 worden uitgesproken. Er lijkt geen eenduidig antwoord te zijn op de vraag welk accent er aanwezig is: dit hangt namelijk zowel af van de eigenschappen van de klinkers uit de moedertalen en uit de tweede taal, als van of de proefpersoon begeleiding heeft gehad bij de uitspraak in de tweede taal.Show less
This thesis investigates the early coda production of an English-speaking child A. The study compares two influential frameworks in child language acquisition: Universal Grammar (UG) and the...Show moreThis thesis investigates the early coda production of an English-speaking child A. The study compares two influential frameworks in child language acquisition: Universal Grammar (UG) and the Specific Language Hypothesis (SLGH). While Universal Grammar predicts developmental patterns based on innate knowledge in language acquisition, the Specific Language Grammar Hypothesis proposes that the frequency patterns in specific languages mainly guide language acquisition. The two theoretical accounts make different predictions for the development of coda consonants, creating an exciting topic of study. Data analysis in this thesis reveals that while child A's productions align with projections posited by Universal Grammar, it also suggests an influence from the distribution of coda consonants in English. By combining Universal Grammar and the Specific Language Grammar Hypothesis, this research found that Frequency-Based Hypothesis contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of child language acquisition. It provides valuable insights into the intricate processes involved.Show less
This paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt...Show moreThis paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt et al., a couple of hypotheses regarding German syllable type acquisition were formulated. Since German does not have onsetless syllables, the syllable types V, VC, and VCC were not expected to appear in child language. The German data for this study consisted of recordings of four German children between the ages 1;00 and 2;00. The data was searched for different syllable types at different stages of acquisition. Unexpectedly, onsetless syllables did appear in the recordings. However, additional analysis showed that they appear unsystematically and are thus likely produced due to a phonetic or articulatory error and do not emerge from underlying grammar. Therefore, onsetless syllables were disregarded, in the order of acquisition. All children showed the same order of acquisition for the rest of the syllable types. The acquisitional order of the syllable types was accounted for by an OT analysis in which each new syllable type emerges from a reranking of constraints in the underlying grammar. The most prominent difference to the Dutch OT grammar is that in German grammar ONSET remains high ranked and does not get outranked by FAITH.Show less
This paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt...Show moreThis paper explores the acquisition of syllable types in German. It follows the approach of Levelt et al. (2000), who looked at Dutch syllable type acquisition. In line with the findings of Levelt et al., a couple of hypotheses regarding German syllable type acquisition were formulated. Since German does not have onsetless syllables, the syllable types V, VC, and VCC were not expected to appear in child language. The German data for this study consisted of recordings of four German children between the ages 1;00 and 2;00. The data was searched for different syllable types at different stages of acquisition. Unexpectedly, onsetless syllables did appear in the recordings. However, additional analysis showed that they appear unsystematically and are thus likely produced due to a phonetic or articulatory error and do not emerge from underlying grammar. Therefore, onsetless syllables were disregarded, in the order of acquisition. All children showed the same order of acquisition for the rest of the syllable types. The acquisitional order of the syllable types was accounted for by an OT analysis in which each new syllable type emerges from a reranking of constraints in the underlying grammar. The most prominent difference to the Dutch OT grammar is that in German grammar ONSET remains high ranked and does not get outranked by FAITH.Show less
This thesis investigated the positional effects from surrounding segments on the acquisition of /ɹ/ in syllable onsets. The analysis was based on transcriptions of spontaneous productions from a...Show moreThis thesis investigated the positional effects from surrounding segments on the acquisition of /ɹ/ in syllable onsets. The analysis was based on transcriptions of spontaneous productions from a single child learning American English, collected over the course of around two years. Four contexts were examined in detail: word-initial singleton onsets, intervocalic singleton onsets, complex onsets with coronal stops, and complex onsets with labial stops. Results showed that acquisition of /ɹ/ in these contexts follows one of three slightly different developmental paths from making mistakes, deletions and/or substitutions, to producing recognizable [ɹ]’s. Previous literature suggested that coarticulation facilitates the production of [ɹ]’s in complex onsets with coronal stops, and this appeared to be the case for the data examined here. Substitution by [j] and [ɥ] occurred only adjacent to certain vowels, which can also be explained through coarticulation.Show less
Dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a BA degree in Taalwetenschap (Linguistics) This thesis investigates how West-African tone languages assign tones to loanwords from...Show moreDissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a BA degree in Taalwetenschap (Linguistics) This thesis investigates how West-African tone languages assign tones to loanwords from intonational languages. The languages discussed in this thesis are Yoruba and Hausa. For Yoruba the assignment of tone on English borrowings is discussed and for Hausa on English and French borrowings. The assignment of tones is based primarily on the stress patterns of the source languages.Show less
There are different theories on the nature of sentence processing. Early research argued for implementation of old material into a known structure, but more recent theories argue that the language...Show moreThere are different theories on the nature of sentence processing. Early research argued for implementation of old material into a known structure, but more recent theories argue that the language processing facility is predictive and tries to construct sentences before completely receiving the input. This study investigates two different predictive accounts to language processing, the Hyper-active Gap Filling account and the Garden Path model, by presenting native English participants with an online self-paced reading task containing sentences with differing degrees of ambiguity. Analyses of reading time data in key regions were carried out to assess whether the parsing difficulty predicted by these theories could be elicited. The Garden Path analysis was further complemented by questions testing for a lingering reanalysis. The experiment showed significant results for the Hyper-active Gap Filling account as well as for the Garden Path model.Show less
In previous research, covert contrast in child language has mainly been found in English-speaking and non-typically developing children. Since Dutch, like English, contrasts voiced and voiceless...Show moreIn previous research, covert contrast in child language has mainly been found in English-speaking and non-typically developing children. Since Dutch, like English, contrasts voiced and voiceless plosives, it is likely that Dutch speaking children also produce a covert contrast when learning to differentiate between these different plosives. In order to test this hypothesis a data sample from a Dutch child was used to measure and compare the voice onset time (VOT) of bilabial plosives, which were all transcribed as [p], but for which the target form was either voiced (/b/) or voiceless (/p/). A single-sample T-test with bootstrapping was performed to test the difference between the VOT means. Although the mean VOT for voiceless plosives which had a voiced target form was shorter than for plosives with a voiceless target, the difference was not significant, indicating that no covert contrast in VOT was present in this data. However, as the sample size was quite small, with only one subject and 74 utterances, no large-scale conclusions can be drawn for the Dutch population yet.Show less
This paper presents a study of article omission in two types of headlines, focusing on the differences between article omission in printed headlines and article omission in digital headlines. The...Show moreThis paper presents a study of article omission in two types of headlines, focusing on the differences between article omission in printed headlines and article omission in digital headlines. The study is carried out on a corpus of 120 news items collected from ‘De Volkskrant’, with half of the material from the physical paper and the other half from the corresponding digital news items. The research reflects on earlier findings in the field of article omission and presents new findings regarding the differences between article omission in physical and digital headlines and regarding other determiners that can be omitted as well. A theory about shifting the focus of investigation to the realization of articles instead of the omission thereof, initiated by Oosterhof and Rawoens (2017), is further elaborated.Show less
Kinderen met 'Specific Language Impairment' (SLI) hebben een afwijkende spraak- taalontwikkeling, maar ze vertonen ook vaak problemen in de auditieve en neurocognitieve verwerking (Baddeley, 2012)....Show moreKinderen met 'Specific Language Impairment' (SLI) hebben een afwijkende spraak- taalontwikkeling, maar ze vertonen ook vaak problemen in de auditieve en neurocognitieve verwerking (Baddeley, 2012). Kinderen die auditieve verwerkingsproblemen hebben, hebben verschillende uitvalsymptomen waaronder het slecht verstaan in situaties met veel achtergrondlawaai en het moeilijk kunnen volgen van snelle, korte auditieve informatie of spraak die is vervormd. Een zwak auditief geheugen en/of een zwakke aandacht en problemen met richtingshoren zijn ook veelvoorkomende klachten bij kinderen met auditieve verwerkingsproblemen (Bamiou, Musiek & Luxon, 2001; Neijenhuis, 2003). In dit onderzoek zijn de resultaten van twee groepen kinderen: een groep met SLI en auditieve verwerkingsproblemen en een groep met SLI zonder auditieve verwerkingsproblemen op verschillende taaltesten vergeleken.Show less
This study aims to evaluate and compare the performance of automatic transcription systems for the ToBI (Tones and Breaks Indices) and ToDI (Transcription of Dutch Intonation) frameworks....Show moreThis study aims to evaluate and compare the performance of automatic transcription systems for the ToBI (Tones and Breaks Indices) and ToDI (Transcription of Dutch Intonation) frameworks. Specifically, the focus is on matching or surpassing the results achieved by previous systems using a relatively small data set for training. By employing recent advancements in Natural Language Processing (NLP), this research demonstrates the potential to achieve comparable or superior performance in generating ToDI transcriptions of intonational phonology with limited labelled data available for boundary detection and boundary classification, while, for accent detection and accent classification, no results substantially better than the majority class baseline were obtained.Show less
In deze scriptie wordt een aanpak besproken voor het vinden van een goede methode voor automatische zinsreductie. In dit onderzoek wordt gebruik gemaakt van de ondertiteling voor doven en...Show moreIn deze scriptie wordt een aanpak besproken voor het vinden van een goede methode voor automatische zinsreductie. In dit onderzoek wordt gebruik gemaakt van de ondertiteling voor doven en slechthorenden, die bij onder andere praatprogramma's beschikbaar zijn. Deze ondertiteling is naast de originele tekst gehouden. Het verschil tussen deze teksten is bekeken en aan de hand hiervan zijn enkele reductieregels opgesteld. Dit onderzoek kan worden gezien als een startpunt voor verder onderzoek naar zinsreductie.Show less
Turkish improvised lament songs, also known as 'Ağıt', have a rich history within Turkish oral poetry. All the way from complete improvisation during a funeral to full standardization within...Show moreTurkish improvised lament songs, also known as 'Ağıt', have a rich history within Turkish oral poetry. All the way from complete improvisation during a funeral to full standardization within popular music, Ağıt are found everywhere within Turkish culture. By using a musicolinguistic and semiotic approach this thesis uncovers the formal structures that lie beneath the improvised lament songs.Show less
