the realization optimality theory is a recent development in the original optimality theory which is proposed to deal with morphological issues especially the inflectional ones. its main idea is to consider the morphological realization rules as ranked violable language-specific constraints that control the realization processes and provide phonological information of grammatical morphemes. thi...

The most important tool for classifying recognizable languages is Eilenberg’s variety theorem [1], which gives a one-to-one correspondence between (pseudo)-varieties of finite semigroups and varieties of recognizable languages. Varieties of recognizable languages are classes of recognizable languages closed under union, intersection, complement, left and right quotients and inverse morphisms. R...

It has been widely observed in the literature that not only learner varieties but also contact varieties differ in their prosody from the standard variety. The article aims at providing a unified account to the linguistic variation in prosodic focus marking found across learner and contact varieties of the same language, South African English. The notion of markedness allows singling out prosod...

In this paper we discuss French prosody in the light of language contact. Data of three contact varieties of French are compared with two varieties spoken in monolingual contexts. The data are semi-automatically processed, and three prosodic features are analyzed: metrical weight of the Accentual Phrases (AP), respect of AP formation constraints, and realizations of sandhi phenomena. Rhythmic c...

In Sociolinguistics, language attitude studies based on natural voices have provided evidence that human listeners socially assess and evaluate their communication partners according to the language variety they use. Similarly, research on intelligent agents has demonstrated that the degree an artificial entity resembles a human correlates with the likelihood that the entity will evoke social a...

The survey gives an overview of the achievements in topology of real algebraic varieties in the direction initiated in the early 70th by V. I. Arnold and V. A. Rokhlin. We make an attempt to systematize the principal results in the subject. After an exposition of general tools and results, special attention is paid to surfaces and curves on surfaces.

ABSTRACT What are the sources of variation in the input, and how much do they matter for language acquisition? This study examines frequency variation in manner-of-articulation classes in child and adult input. The null hypothesis is that segmental frequency distributions of language varieties are unigram (modelable by stationary, ergodic processes), and that languages are unitary (modelable as...