Consonant Harmony

A revised version of the author's 2001 doctoral dissertation.

The most comprehensive work on dissimilation to date, this book surveys over 150 dissimilation patterns drawn from over 130 languages.

Forty-one papers from the 1991 West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics are included. The papers deal with diverse topics ranging from the traditional linguistic fields of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics to the rapidly developing areas of cognitive and discourse linguistics.

Phonology - the study of how the sounds of speech are represented in our minds - is one of the core areas of linguistic theory, and is central to the study of human language. This handbook brings together the world's leading experts in phonology to present the most comprehensive and detailed overview of the field. Focusing on research and the most influential theories, the authors discuss each of the central issues in phonological theory, explore a variety of empirical phenomena, and show how phonology interacts with other aspects of language such as syntax, morphology, phonetics, and language acquisition. Providing a one-stop guide to every aspect of this important field, The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology will serve as an invaluable source of readings for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, an informative overview for linguists and a useful starting point for anyone beginning phonological research.

This book brings together phonologists working in different areas to explore key questions relating to phonological primitives, the basic building blocks that are at the heart of phonological structure and over which phonological computations are carried out. Whether these units are referred to as features, elements, gestures, or something else entirely, the assumptions that are made about them are fundamental to modern phonological theory. Even so, there is limited consensus on the specifics of those assumptions. The chapters in this book present differing perspectives on phonological primitives and their implications, addressing some of the most pressing issues in the field such as how many features there are; whether those features are privative or binary; and whether segments need to be specified for all features. The studies cover a wide range of methodologies and domains, including experimental work, fieldwork, language acquisition, theory-internal concerns, and many more, and will be of interest to phoneticians and phonologists from all theoretical backgrounds.

The volume addresses developing knowledge and use of Hebrew from the dual perspective of typologically specific factors and of shared cross-linguistic trends, aimed at providing an overview of acquisition in a single language from infancy to adolescence while also shedding light on key issues in the field as a whole. Essentially non-partisan in approach, the collection includes distinct approaches to language and language acquisition (formal-universalist, pragmatic-usage based, cognitive-constructivist) and deals with a range of topics not often addressed within a single volume (phonological perception and production, inflectional and derivational morphology, simple-clause structure and complex syntax, early and later literacy, writing systems), with data deriving from varied research methodologies (interactive conversations and extended discourse, adult input and child output, longitudinal and cross-sectional corpora, structured elicitations). Each chapter provides background information on Hebrew-specific facets of the topic of concern, but typically avoids ethno-centricity by relating to more general issues in the domain. The book should thus prove interesting and instructive for linguists, psychologists, and educators, and for members of the child language research community both within and beyond the confines of Hebrew-language expertise.

Translated into English for the first time, Foundations of Modern Harmony, by composer and music theorist Karel Janec̆ek, addresses the analysis and composition of music not based on the tonal harmony that was common language until the early 20th century. Discussing this newer music requires a vocabulary in which all combinations of notes, or chords, can be named. Janec̆ek developed his theory of modern harmony over many years. In this book, he classifies chords according to their intervallic structure, their possible arrangements, and then based on their consonance and dissonance. His focus on what we hear leads to a discussion of “imaginary” pitches, those that are still heard after they are no longer sounding. Dealing with such issues as harmonizing a melody, resolving dissonant chords, and the formation and extinction of a sense of the tonic, Janeček’s work is an exciting complement to the theories of Schoenberg and Hindemith. His discussion of harmonic motion leads to the consideration of harmonic function, of establishing the tonic, of modulation, of atonal composition, and of static and kinetic conceptions of harmony. First published in 1965, Janeček’s concerns are of continuing importance to music theorists and composers.