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138 results in Phonetics and phonology

Page 1 of 7

The Cambridge Handbook of Natural Linguistics

The Sound Patterns of Taiwanese Southern Min
  • Yuchau E. Hsiao
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    February 2026
    Print publication:
    28 February 2026
  • Southern Min – the most commonly spoken variant of Taiwanese – has over 100 million speakers. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM) phonology, filling a critical gap in linguistic research. It demonstrates how the language's sound patterns have evolved over time, and explores its key phonological and tonal features. Beginning with an overview of the language's phonological system, it progresses to specialized topics, including segmental and tonal mutations, tonal domains, and metrical structures. Grounded in three purpose-built corpora, it integrates empirical data and statistical analyses to illuminate phonological processes and patterns. It also explores rarely addressed topics, including phonological interfaces, the rhythms of poetry and folk ballads, and the iGeneration dialectal variety, providing analytical clarity on complex phenomena. Serving as both a detailed reference for researchers and a supplementary text for phonology and Asian linguistics courses, its illuminating insights will inspire further research into this intricate linguistic system.

Onomatopoeia
  • The Colorful World of Sounds
  • Lívia Körtvélyessy
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    13 November 2025
  • How do languages capture and represent the sounds of the world? Is this a universal phenomenon? Drawing from data taken from 124 different languages, this innovative book offers a detailed exploration of onomatopoeia, that are imagic icons of sound events. It provides comprehensive analysis from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, and identifies the prototypical semiotic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, word-formation, and socio-pragmatic features of onomatopoeia. Supported with numerous examples from the sample languages, the book highlights the varied scope of onomatopoeia in different languages, its relationship to ideophones and interjections, and the role of sound symbolism, particularly phonesthemes, in onomatopoeia-formation. It introduces an onomasiological model of onomatopoeia-formation, identifies onomatopoeic patterns, and specifies the factors affecting the similarities and differences between onomatopoeias standing for the same sound event. Filling a major gap in language studies, it is essential reading for researchers and students of phonology, morphology, semiotics, poetics, and linguistic typology.

The Phonology and Morphology of Australian Languages
  • Brett J. Baker, Mark Harvey
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    04 December 2025
  • Australian languages form a large genetic group with many interesting and distinctive phonological and morphological properties. Written by two experts in the field, this is the first book-length treatment of this topic, providing an in-depth discussion of a wealth of little-known data on the sound systems and word structures of Australian Indigenous languages. It includes a critical evaluation of theoretical approaches from the 1950s up to the current day, including recent experimental, psycholinguistic and processing-based research. Each chapter addresses a major aspect of phonology, including the segmental inventories, complex phonotactic systems, alternations, prosodic phonology and morphology, the behaviour of phonological domains, and the unusual nature of sound change in Australia. The authors also add to this their own groundbreaking findings, and frame each chapter to inform future phonological research and theory. It is essential reading for scholars and students in phonology, phonetics, speech science, morphology, and language typology.

English Phonetics and Phonology
  • An Introduction
  • Frank Lorenz
  • Published online:
    17 October 2025
    Print publication:
    10 July 2025
  • English Phonetics and Phonology provides a detailed yet accessible foundational account of the science of speech sounds. Suitable for introductory courses, this textbook presents the key knowledge to comprehend the nature and function of consonant and vowel sounds as well as other characteristics of spoken language, such as stress, rhythm and intonation. With a focus on the sound system of English, examples from other languages are explored and included throughout, allowing students to better understand English sounds in contrast to these languages. Readers will discover what can be measured in speech and learn the basic functions of Praat. This hands-on-approach encourages students to make their own recordings and perform simple measurements to support their learning. While each of the fourteen chapters can be covered in one seminar, instructors can easily tailor them to fit 10–12 weeks of teaching in a phonetics or linguistics module. With no prior phonetic or linguistic knowledge needed, this textbook is suitable for first year undergraduate students, or anyone interested in developing a fundamental and sustained knowledge of the sound structure of the English language.

Phonological Drift and Language Contact
  • The Northwest European Phonological Area
  • Pavel Iosad
  • Published online:
    17 June 2025
    Print publication:
    05 June 2025
  • Several language families of northern Europe – Germanic, Celtic, and Uralic – share phonetic and phonological patterns that are typologically unusual. This book demonstrates how we can better understand these convergences: they exemplify the phenomenon of drift. Using the latest advances in theoretical linguistics, the study of sound change, and language variation, it offers insights into the development of these features and what they tell us about past cultural and linguistic contacts. Although the languages are not closely related, an understanding of drift grounded in the theory of the life cycle of phonological patterns reveals the workings of convergent developments. Covering a wide range of vernacular varieties, this book shows how phonological microvariation is illuminated by an approach grounded in the theory of the life cycle and historical sociolinguistics. It is essential reading for historical and theoretical linguists, and anyone with an interest in the cultural and linguistic contacts across northern Europe.

Stress and Accent
  • Brett Hyde
  • Published online:
    15 March 2025
    Print publication:
    27 March 2025
  • Stress and accent are central to the study of sound systems in language. This book surveys key work carried out on stress and accent and provides a comprehensive conceptual foundation to the field. It offers an up-to-date set of tools to examine stress and accent from a range of perspectives within metrical stress theory, connecting the acoustic phenomenon to a representation of timing, and to groupings of individual speech sounds. To develop connections, it draws heavily on the results of research into the perception of musical meter and rhythm. It explores the theory by surveying the types of stress and accent patterns found among the world's languages, introducing the tools that the theory provides, and then showing how the tools can be deployed to analyse the patterns. It includes a full glossary and there are lists of further reading materials and discussion points at the end of each chapter.

German Phonology
  • An Optimality-Theoretic Approach
  • Caroline Féry
  • Published online:
    04 January 2025
    Print publication:
    09 January 2025
  • Drawing on an optimality-theoretic framework, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the phonology of German, with its idiosyncratic array of sound patterns. It starts with the consonants and vowels and the distinctive features they consist of, moving on to account for allophonic changes in detail, as well as syllables and their weight units. Phonological processes are then explored in depth, with chapter-length explorations of feet, prosodic words, prosodic phrases, and intonation phrases, showing that the prosodic hierarchy provides the domains of most phonological processes. It also includes discussions of the interfaces of morphology and syntax with phonology, as well as prosodic phrasing and intonation. The constraint-based approach allows a new holistic perspective, simultaneously encompassing all aspects of German phonology. Wide-ranging yet accessible, it is essential reading for advanced students of both linguistics and German, as well as individual scholars seeking a one-stop resource on the topic.

The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology
  • Edited by Mark Amengual
  • Published online:
    14 November 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024
  • Bilingualism and the study of speech sounds are two of the largest areas of inquiry in linguistics. This Handbook sits at the intersection of these fields, providing a comprehensive overview of the most recent, cutting-edge work on the sound systems of adult and child bilinguals. Bringing together contributions from an international team of world-leading experts, it covers all aspects of the speech perception, production and processing of bilingual individuals, as well as surveying cross-linguistic influences on the phonetics and phonology of bilingualism. The thirty-five chapters are divided into thematic areas covering the theoretical foundations and methodological approaches employed to investigate bilingual speech, overviews of major findings and developments in child and adult bilingual phonology and phonetics, descriptions of the major areas of research within the speech perception, production and processing of the bilingual individual, and examinations of various predictors of cross-linguistic influence and variables affecting the outcomes of bilingual speech.

The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages
  • Edited by Rajiv Rao
  • Published online:
    15 February 2024
    Print publication:
    22 February 2024
  • In recent times, the study of heritage languages has rapidly grown as an area of enquiry. However, until now, less has been known about the sounds and sound systems of heritage languages. Bringing together researchers from around the globe, this volume is the first full, book-length treatment of the phonetics and phonology of heritage languages. Each chapter examines understudied bilingual dyads in a broad range of geographic and social contexts, and through a wide variety of methodological and theoretical orientations. A wide range of heritage language sound system issues are addressed: at the segmental level, production of vowels and various consonants, segmental perception, and the perception of written forms signalling phonological variation; and at the suprasegmental level, declarative and question intonation, stress, focus, and lexical tone. It is essential reading for academic researchers and students in heritage languages, bilingualism, phonetics and phonology, sociolinguistics, and language variation and change.

Lexical Reconstruction in Central Chadic
  • A Comparative Study of Vowels, Consonants and Prosodies
  • H. Ekkehard Wolff
  • Published online:
    09 November 2023
    Print publication:
    23 November 2023
  • Due to a long history of contact, the Chadic languages are the internally most diverse of the Afroasiatic language families, especially in terms of their sound systems. In this ground-breaking study, the author draws on his extensive research experience to unpack the morpho-phonological principles that underpin the languages' diverse prosody effects, arguing that massive variation results from diachronic processes called 'prosodification' of segmental units. The study compares data from 66 of the 79 known languages from the Central branch of the Chadic language family, most of them unwritten and under-researched. It traces language changes for 228 lexical items that can be reconstructed from the proto-language's basic vocabulary, unearthing typological features that link Central Chadic to its deep Afroasiatic heritage. It is accompanied by a set of online appendixes, providing the full analytical apparatus of all lexical reconstructions, with explicit identification of each of the diachronic sound changes and processes involved.

Handbook of the International Phonetic Association
  • A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet
  • Corporate Author International Phonetic Association
  • Published online:
    06 November 2023
    Print publication:
    28 June 1999
  • This book is a comprehensive guide to the International Phonetic Alphabet, whose aim is to provide a universally agreed system of notation for the sounds of languages, and which has been widely used for over a century. The Handbook presents the basics of phonetic analysis so that the principles underlying the Alphabet can be readily understood, and gives examples of the use of each of the phonetic symbols. The application of the Alphabet is then demonstrated in nearly 30 'Illustrations' - concise analyses of the sound systems of a range of languages, each of them accompanied by a phonetic transcription of a passage of speech. The Handbook also includes the 'Extensions' to the Alphabet, covering speech sounds beyond the sound-systems of languages, and a listing of the internationally agreed computer codings for phonetic symbols. It is an essential reference work for all those involved in the analysis of speech.

The Sounds of English Around the World
  • An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology
  • Jette G. Hansen Edwards
  • Published online:
    25 August 2023
    Print publication:
    14 September 2023
  • Most introductions to English phonetics and phonology focus primarily on British or American English, which fails to account for the rich diversity of English varieties globally. This book addresses this gap, providing an overview of English phonetics and phonology through an exploration of the sounds of English around the world, including older varieties of English such as American, Canadian, British, and Australian Englishes, as well as new varieties of English such as Indian, Singaporean, Hong Kong, and Kenyan English. It focuses on diversity in vowels and consonants, allophonic variation, and stress and intonation patterns across regional, ethnic and social varieties of English in North America, The Caribbean, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. Listening exercises are incorporated throughout to facilitate the understanding of different concepts, and the book also has an accompanying website with a wide range of speech samples, allowing readers to hear the phonetics of the varieties under discussion.

Consonantal Sound Change in American English
  • An Analysis of Clustered Sibilants
  • Wiebke H. Ahlers
  • Published online:
    10 August 2023
    Print publication:
    24 August 2023
  • Research on sound change often focuses on vowels, yet consonantal sound change also offers fascinating insights into language development and variation. This pioneering book provides a detailed investigation of consonantal sound change in English, by analyzing a large corpus of specifically designed field recordings from Austin, Texas. It offers one of the most in-depth analyses of /str/-retraction to date, drawing comparisons with studies of change in the distinguishing phonetic features of other varieties of English, and with studies of /str/-retraction in other Germanic languages. It further deepens our understanding of sound change by including qualitative data to position the sound change in the social reality of Austin, showing that specific sound changes are universally driven by age, gender and ethnicity. The results provide a testing ground for models of sociolinguistic and sound change, and highlight the importance of the social fabric of language in modeling language change.

Phonetics and Speech Science
  • Ian R. A. MacKay
  • Published online:
    19 May 2023
    Print publication:
    11 May 2023
  • Phonetics is a fundamental building block not just in linguistics but also in fields such as communication disorders. However, introductions to phonetics can often assume a background in linguistics, whilst at the same time overlooking the clinical and scientific aspects of the field. This textbook fills this gap by providing a comprehensive yet accessible overview of phonetics that delves into the fundamental science underlying the production of speech. Written with beginners in mind, it focuses on the anatomy and physiology of speech, while at the same time explaining the very basics of phonetics, such as the phonemes of English, the International Phonetic Alphabet, and phonetic transcription systems. It presents the sounds of speech as elements of linguistic structure and as the result of complex biological mechanics. It explains complicated terminology in a clear, easy-to-understand way, and provides examples from a range of languages, from disorders of speech, and from language learning.

When Minoritized Languages Change Linguistic Theory
  • Andrew Nevins
  • Published online:
    18 November 2022
    Print publication:
    01 December 2022
  • For decades, a small set of major world languages have formed the basis of the vast majority of linguistic theory. However, minoritized languages can also provide fascinating contributions to our understanding of the human language faculty. This pioneering book explores the transformative effect minoritized languages have on mainstream linguistic theory, which, with their typically unusual syntactic, morphological and phonological properties, challenge and question frameworks that were developed largely to account for more widely-studied languages. The chapters address the four main pillars of linguistic theory – syntax, semantics, phonology, and morphology – and provide plenty of case studies to show how minoritized language can disrupt assumptions, and lead to modifications of the theory itself. It is illustrated with examples from a range of languages, and is written in an engaging and accessible style, making it essential reading for both students and researchers of theoretical syntax, phonology and morphology, and language policy and politics.

Introducing Historical Orthography
  • Marco Condorelli
  • Published online:
    15 September 2022
    Print publication:
    22 September 2022
  • Historical orthography – the study of how writing systems have changed over time – is a rapidly growing area of historical linguistics. This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to this exciting focus of research. Written in an engaging and accessible way, it surveys the purposes and methods of this field, and how it has developed as a discipline over time. The volume also discusses the various levels of analysis that historical orthography can carry out, as well as key historical orthographic processes, such as standardization and language change. It covers a range of non-western and western languages, including English, in order to discuss the breadth of typological issues that can arise in the documentation of writing systems. The book also establishes links between orthography and a range of other related disciplines, a quality which makes it an essential resource for advanced students of orthography and writing systems, and historical linguistics.

The Lexical and Metrical Phonology of English
  • The Legacy of the Sound Pattern of English
  • John T. Jensen
  • Published online:
    18 June 2022
    Print publication:
    26 May 2022
  • This is the first full-scale discussion of English phonology since Chomsky and Halle's seminal The Sound Pattern of English (SPE). The book enphasizes the analysis using ordered rules and builds on SPE by incorporating lexical and metrical and prosodic analysis and the insights afforded by Lexical Phonology. It provides clear explanations and logical development throughout, introducing rules individually and then illustrating their interactions. These features make this influential theory accessible to students from a variety of backgrounds in linguistics and phonology. Rule-ordering diagrams summarize the crucial ordering of approximately 85 rules. Many of the interactions result in phonological opacity, where either the effect of a rule is not evident in the output or its conditions of application are not present in the output, due to the operation of later rules. This demonstrates the superiority of a rule-based account over output oriented approaches such as Optimality Theory or pre-Generative structuralist phonology.

A Historical Phonology of Central Chadic
  • Prosodies and Lexical Reconstruction
  • H. Ekkehard Wolff
  • Published online:
    26 May 2022
    Print publication:
    02 June 2022
  • Of all of the African language families, the Chadic languages belonging to the Afroasiatic macro-family are highly internally diverse due to a long history and various scenarios of language contact. This pioneering study explores the development of the sound systems of the 'Central Chadic' languages, a major branch of the Chadic family. Drawing on and comparing field data from about 60 different Central Chadic languages, H. Ekkehard Wolff unpacks the specific phonological principles that underpin the Chadic languages' diverse phonological evolution, arguing that their diversity results to no little extent from historical processes of 'prosodification' of reconstructable segments of the proto-language. The book offers meticulous historical analyses of some 60 words from Proto-Central Chadic, in up to 60 individual modern languages, including both consonants and vowels. Particular emphasis is on tracing the deep-rooted origin and impact of palatalisation and labialisation prosodies within a phonological system that, on its deepest level, recognises only one vowel phoneme */a/.

Accent in North American Film and Television
  • A Sociophonetic Analysis
  • Charles Boberg
  • Published online:
    16 December 2021
    Print publication:
    16 December 2021
  • Drawing on data from well-known actors in popular films and TV shows, this reference guide surveys the representation of accent in North American film and TV over eight decades. It analyzes the speech of 180 film and television performances from the 1930s to today, looking at how that speech has changed; how it reflects the regional backgrounds, gender, and ethnic ancestry of the actors; and how phonetic variation and change in the 'real world' have been both portrayed in, and possibly influenced by, film and television speech. It also clearly explains the technical concepts necessary for understanding the phonetic analysis of accents. Providing new insights into the role of language in the expression of North American cultural identity, this is essential reading for researchers and advanced students in linguistics, film, television and media studies, and North American studies, as well as the larger community interested in film and television.

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