Minimizing and optimizing structure in phonology: Evidence from aphasia

On the nature of sonority in spoken word production: Evidence from neuropsychology

“…We restricted these lists to clusters with liquids as C 2 and did not include words with glides as C 2 for several reasons. In particular, there is some debate about whether clusters with glides as C 2 have a better or worse sonority profile than those with liquids (Eckman & Iverson, 1993), there are fewer words with glides as C 2 which compromised list creation, and there is debate about whether one of the English glides (/j/) is actually treated as a glide in these sequences (see Buchwald, 2009).…”

“…Both within languages and cross-linguistically, unmarked syllables tend to outnumber marked syllables (Blevins, 1995;Greenberg, 1978). Further, empirical studies of both language acquisition and language loss have also revealed that errors tend to concentrate on marked sequences (e.g., Bastiaanse, Gilbers, & van der Linde, 1994;Béland, Caplan, & Nespoulous, 1990;Buchwald, 2009;Buckingham, 1986;Christman, 1994;Ohala, 1999;Romani & Calabrese, 1998;Romani, Galluzzi, Bureca, & Olson, 2011). In addition, recognition has been reported to be more accurate for unmarked than marked syllables in experimental conditions hindering perception (e.g., by introducing of noise; Berent et al, 2008), although sonority does not account for all differences that were related to perceptual change (Davidson, 2011;Davidson & Shaw, 2012), indicating that sonority is one factor affecting sound structure processing.…”

Experimental evidence for optimal and minimal metrical structure of German word prosody

“…In phonology, the notion of minimality surfaces mainly in accounts on markedness or underspecification (see also Buchwald, 2008;Scharinger, 2008 for a detailed discussion). Regarding prosodic systems, minimality has also been discussed by means of the minimal shape of prosodic entities.…”

Complexity in articulatory and segmental levels of production

“…In our research on phonological and articulatory impairment (Buchwald, 2009; Buchwald, Gagnon, & Miozzo, 2017; Buchwald & Miozzo, 2011, 2012; Buchwald, Rapp, & Stone, 2007; Miozzo & Buchwald, 2013), my colleagues and I have focused on participants who appear to have both articulatory and phonological impairment, and we have used articulatory and acoustic analyses to identify the nature of errors that may be difficult to perceive. This approach developed in response to findings that transcription and perceptual accuracy are limited in identifying articulatory versus phonological errors.…”