Explore the vast range of titles available.

Real-time sign language translation systems, that convert continuous sign sequences to text/speech, will facilitate communication between the deaf-mute community and the normal hearing majority. A translation system could be vision-based or sensor-based, depending on the type of input it receives. To date, most of the commercial systems for this purpose are sensor-based, which are expensive and not user-friendly. Vision-based sign translation systems are the need of the hour but should overcome many challenges to build a full-fledged working system. Preliminary investigations in this work have revealed that the traditional approaches to continuous sign language recognition (CSLR) using HMM, CRF and DTW, tried to solve the problem of Isolated Sign Language Recognition (ISLR) and extended the solution to CSLR, leading to reduced performance. The main challenge of identifying Movement Epenthesis (ME) segments in continuous utterances, were handled explicitly with these traditional methods. With the advent of technologies like Deep Learning, more feasible solutions for vision-based CSLR are emerging, which has led to an increase in the research on vision-based approaches. In this paper, a detailed review of all the works in vision-based CSLR is presented, based on the methods they have followed. The challenges posed in continuous sign recognition are also discussed in detail, followed by a brief on sensor-based systems and benchmark databases. Finally, performance evaluation of all the associated methods are performed, which leads to a short discussion on the overall study and concludes by pointing out future research directions in the field.

Word-initial obstruent-liquid clusters, frequent in English (e.g., blue), are prohibited in Korean. Korean learners of English perceptually repair illicit word-initial consonant sequences with an epenthetic vowel [ʊ]. Thus they might perceive blue as b[ʊ]lue, and, at least initially, also represent it lexically as a disyllabic word. We ask whether the sound sequences permitted in one's L1 influence the way L2 words are represented in the mental lexicon. If they do, we predict that in a lexical decision task, Korean learners will accept nonwords containing epenthetic vowels ([bʊˈluː] for blue) as real English words more often than English listeners. These predictions were confirmed: we observed high error rates on test nonwords ([bʊˈluː]) by the Korean participants only, accompanied by few errors on control nonwords ([bɪˈluː]), suggesting that learners’ lexical representations for familiar L2 words can be activated by nonwords that obey their L1 phonotactic grammar.

This study investigated pronunciation errors made by Kuwaiti Arabic (KA) learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in their production of English consonant clusters. The participants consisted of 25 Kuwaiti EFL learners who were asked to read English words embedded in short sentences. Target words constituted initial, medial, and final-consonant clusters. Data were transcribed by the researchers in addition to three phoneticians for reliability and were further verified through Praat software. Results indicated that pronunciation errors made by these learners of English were restricted to initial and medial consonant clusters that violated the syllable structure requirements of their native dialect. When a conflict occurred between the syllable structure of their first language (L1) and that of the English language, the participants adopted two phonological repair strategies to resolve the conflict: vowel epenthesis and re-syllabification. These phonological repair strategies appeared to be a process of phonological rule transfer from the L1 to the second language (L2) and served to bring the underlying forms of the English words into conformity with restrictions on possible surface syllable structures of the Kuwaiti dialect. These findings highlight the need to develop materials and reading exercises in the classroom to raise students’ awareness of the differences between the syllable structure of their L1 and that of English and its role in successful communication.

This study aimedto examine the effects of word frequency and familiarity on second-language (L2)learners’ perceptual vowel epenthesis in words that violate the phonotactics of theirnative language. To this end, we conducted two lexical decision tests on 55 participants,comprised of native English controls (n = 19), and native speakers of Korean (n = 18)and Chinese (n = 18) learning English as an L2. During the two tests, one of whichfocused on the onset and the other on the coda, the participants listened to each wordand indicated whether it was a real English word or not. The stimuli consisted of baseitems (e.g., please, week), which varied in frequency, and test (e.g., p[ʊ]lease, week[ɨ])and control (p[ɪ]lease, week[ɑ]) items, which were created by inserting an extra vowelto the base items. It is well known that high-frequency words are more likely to beaccepted as real words than low-frequency words. If L2 learners have difficultydistinguishing between stimuli with vowel epenthesis (e.g., p[ʊ]lease) and those without(e.g., please), they should accept high-frequency words with vowel epenthesis (e.g.,p[ʊ]lease) as real words more often than low-frequency words with vowel epenthesis(e.g., p[ʊ]lier). This was confirmed in the onset position, but not in the coda position. The word familiarity results were in line with the frequency results. These findings addto the body of literature by demonstrating the role of word frequency/familiarity inL2 learners’ perceptual epenthesis. KCI Citation Count: 0

This paper presents the adaptation of the POMAS classification of spelling errors (Silliman et al., Developmental Neuropsychology 29:93–123, 2006, Bahr et al., Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research 55:1587–1599, 2012; International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 18:73–91, 2015) to Polish orthography. We identified the most common phonological, orthographic, and/or morphological errors committed by Polish Grade 1 spellers based on a writing-to-dictation task. Some of the error types were included in the original POMAS; some we added, following the classification rationale, to adapt the classification to the specific features of the Polish orthography. Moreover, we found that the participants made, on average, an equal number of phonological and orthographic errors, and of phonological and morphological errors. However, orthographic errors were more frequent than morphological ones. A roughly equal proportion of orthographic and phonological errors occurred in the spelling of the most difficult words. The most frequent orthographic error type was grapheme substitution, followed by final consonant devoicing, and consonant devoicing within a word errors. The most frequent phonological error type were misspellings in diacritic signs, followed by consonant deletion, vowel deletion, and epenthesis. The developed POMAS-PL version may be used by other researchers of Slavic languages, to allow for intercultural comparisons. Moreover, our analyses can be used by teachers of Polish as a first and a second language to anticipate their students’ errors and to understand what knowledge the learners need to learn to spell correctly.

Gesture recognition, having multitudinous applications in the real world, is one of the core areas of research in the field of human-computer interaction. In this paper, we propose a novel method for isolated and continuous hand gesture recognition utilizing the movement epenthesis detection and removal. For this purpose, the present work detects and removes the movement epenthesis frames from the isolated and continuous hand gesture videos. In this paper, we have also proposed a novel modality based on the temporal difference that extracts hand regions, removes gesture irrelevant factors and provides temporal information contained in the hand gesture videos. Using the proposed modality and other modalities such as the RGB modality, depth modality and segmented hand modality, features are extracted using Googlenet Caffe Model. Next, we derive a set of discriminative features by fusing the acquired features that form a feature vector representing the sign gesture in question. We have designed and used a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Network (Bi-LSTM) for classification purpose. To test the efficacy of our proposed work, we applied our method on various publicly available continuous and isolated hand gesture datasets like ChaLearn LAP IsoGD, ChaLearn LAP ConGD, IPN Hand, and NVGesture. We observe in our experiments that our proposed method performs exceptionally well with several individual modalities as well as combination of modalities of these datasets. The combined effect of the proposed modality and movement epenthesis frames removal led to significant improvement in gesture recognition accuracy and considerable reduction in computational burden. Thus the obtained results advocate our proposed approach to be at par with the existing state-of-the-art methods.

In this paper, vowel epenthesis in Urban Hijazi Arabic is analysed as a process of gradual structural build-up. Harmonic Serialism, a derivational framework of Optimality Theory, provides the theoretical foundation to illustrate the arguments. Rather than epenthesising an entire vowel all at once, featural structure progressively increases in successive steps. This accumulation continues until the required vowel quality is achieved. Specifically, the constraint hierarchy predicts high epenthetic vowels to occur in closed syllables and the low epenthetic vowel in open syllables. The same constraint hierarchy, however, is also expected to predict both gradual epenthesis and gradual deletion. In that regard, a seemingly paradoxical situation is created when the very same intermediate vowel quality is achieved through accumulation or attrition of featural structure. This particular vowel quality, in exactly the same environment, will have to continue gaining internal structure towards epenthesis or continue losing internal structure towards deletion. Eventually, identifying the path that the derivation takes to reach a certain vowel will help to resolve the issue.

This study examines vowel epenthesis (VE) in monosyllabic words in Quranic Arabic (QA), Yemeni Dialects (YD), and Hijazi Dialects (HD) using Optimality Theory (OT). Over 150 monosyllabic words from Quranic texts were analyzed to compare vowel epenthesis patterns. Findings reveal that Quranic Arabic and Yemeni Dialects largely resist vowel epenthesis, maintaining original consonant clusters, though Quranic Arabic may permit it in limited contexts. Yemeni Dialects strictly avoid vowel epenthesis, even when Quranic Arabic allows it sparingly. In contrast, Hijazi Dialects frequently employ vowel epenthesis, inserting [i], [a], or [u] depending on vowel harmony and phonological conditions, though some words remain without epenthesis. Vowel Epenthesis is particularly notable in CVCC structures within Hijazi Dialects. The study highlights dialectal variation in epenthesis tolerance, influenced by historical, sociolinguistic, and phonological factors. These findings contribute to understanding phonological constraints in Arabic and the interplay of linguistic forces shaping dialectal differences.

Various implementations of Serial Noisy Harmonic Grammar (SNHG) are tested against two optional processes that exemplify different kinds of optionality. Eastern Andalusian’s vowel harmony shows coordinated optionality, in which all posttonic vowels, e.g., must harmonize (or not) together. French schwa deletion/epenthesis lacks coordination: realization of one schwa does not require realization of another. SNHG is shown to produce coordination only when it perturbs constraint weights (rather than harmony scores, e.g.). Furthermore, under a theory of gradualness in which each vowel requires multiple steps to harmonize, weights must be perturbed once and for all at the outset of a derivation, not separately on each step. This version of SNHG also accurately models local optionality in French, suggesting that it provides a general account of various kinds of optionality. The crucial factor setting it apart from other versions of SNHG is that it does not permit harmonically bounded outputs. This result is consistent with existing assessments of parallel NHG, suggesting that perturbation of weights is a robust formalism for optionality no matter the larger theoretical context.

The lexicon of English contains a number of words which developed emergent stops, mostly p, b, t, d. Some of these words have functioned as variants of forms without such stops (cf. OE endleofan ~ enlefan or gandra ~ ganra) but in most cases they prevail in Present-day English, as exemplified by OE nimol > ModE nimble, OE æmtig > ModE empty. The present study examines the process of labial stop epenthesis from the perspective of diachrony and diatopy. I searched for the words containing emergent labial stops in the texts collected in historical English corpora to identify their uses with and without parasitic consonants. This made it possible to establish a precise chronology of the process, which was at work from Old to Modern English, and the context in which such stops appeared.