Theories of Coarticulation

Tez Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: University of Essex, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Language and Linguistics, İngiltere

Tez Danışmanı: Prof. Mark Tatham

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 1992

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Desteklendiği Program: Diğer

Özet:

Constant studies and research have motivated and paved the way for developing many theoretical models of the organisation and control of human speech organs that can account for the factors that influence the variations of the characteristics of the units of speech. As a consequence of theses studies, some theories differ in their views of the articulatory mechanism and control, the notion of coarticulation, and ultimately the relationship between phonology and phonetics.

In this study, light has been shed on some theories of coarticulation in general, and the theory of ‘cognitive phonetics’, in particular, which considers that coarticulation is best modelled in two layers: one mechanical, involuntary and universal; while the other has cognitive voluntary adjustments on these mechanical effects. As will be shown also, the theory of cognitive phonetics does not only reconcile the mental and physical approaches of coarticulation, but also tries to bridge the phonology-phonetics gap.

Examples from both English and Arabic have been provided in order to show, first, that the theory of cognitive phonetics can be applied to other languages. And second, the universality of the phenomenon of coarticulation is best accounted for by the theory of cognitive phonetics.