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The present paper examines and compares the role of cognitive discourse markers (DMs), such as uhm, like, or I mean, and a set of prosodic parameters as indicators of prosodic boundaries. Cognitive DMs traditionally are not studied as a separate DM group on par with the ideational, sequential, rhetorical, or interpersonal group. However, as they reflect the speaker’s mental processes during speech production, they offer an exceptional glimpse into how speakers construct their verbalisations. Along with the analysis of DMs, prosodic parameters, including pitch and intensity reset, speech rate change, and pauses, were automatically annotated to determine how well they overlapped with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. To accommodate for the natural variability in speech, the parameters were evaluated using relative comparison methods. Among the prosodic parameters, pauses were found to overlap most often with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. Cognitive DMs in the function of realising new information, restructuring, and emphasis indeed proved as relevant boundary indicators, however, the group of cognitive DMs as a whole fell behind the group of sequential and rhetorical DMs, which overlapped most frequently with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries.

Previous studies used techniques from network science to identify individual nodes and a set of nodes that were “important” in a network of phonological word-forms from English. In the present study we used a network simplification process—known as the backbone—that removed redundant edges to extract a subnetwork of “important” words from the network of phonological word-forms. The backbone procedure removed 68.5% of the edges in the original network to extract a backbone with a giant component containing 6,211 words. We compared psycholinguistic and network measures of the words in the backbone to the words that did not survive the backbone extraction procedure. Words in the backbone occurred more frequently in the language, were shorter in length, were similar to more phonological neighbors, and were closer to other words than words that did not survive the backbone extraction procedure. Words in the backbone of the phonological network might form a “kernel lexicon”—a small but essential set of words that allows one to communicate in a wide-range of situations—and may provide guidance to clinicians and researchers on which words to focus on to facilitate typical development, or to accelerate rehabilitation efforts. The backbone extraction method may also prove useful in other applications of network science to the speech, language, hearing and cognitive sciences.

Prosody is known to scaffold the learning of language, and thus understanding prosodic development is vital for language acquisition. The present study explored the unfolding prosody model of prosodic development (proposed in Frota’s et al. study in 2016) beyond early production data, to examine whether it predicted the development of early segmentation abilities. European Portuguese-learning infants aged between 5 and 17 months were tested in a series of word segmentation experiments. Developing prosodic structure was evidenced in word segmentation as proposed by the unfolding model: (i) a simple monosyllabic word shape crucially placed at a major prosodic edge was segmented first, before more complex word shapes under similar prosodic conditions; (ii) the segmentation of more complex words was easier at a major prosodic edge than in phrase-medial position; and (iii) the segmentation of complex words with an iambic pattern preceded the segmentation of words with a trochaic pattern. These findings demonstrated that word segmentation evolved with unfolding prosody, suggesting that the prosodic units developed in the unfolding process are used both as speech production planning units and to extract word-forms from continuous speech. Therefore, our study contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying word segmentation, and to a better understanding of early prosodic development, a cornerstone of language acquisition.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to use an established model of working memory in children to predict an established model of word learning to determine whether working memory explained word learning variance over and above the contributions of expressive vocabulary and nonverbal IQ. Method: One hundred sixty-seven English-speaking second graders (7- to 8-year-olds) with typical development from two states participated. They completed a comprehensive battery of working memory assessments and six word learning tasks that assessed the creation, storage, retrieval, and production of phonological and semantic representations of novel nouns and verbs and the ability to link those representations. Results: A structural equation model with expressive vocabulary, nonverbal IQ, and three working memory factors predicting two word learning factors fit the data well. When working memory factors were entered as predictors after expressive vocabulary and nonverbal IQ, they explained 45% of the variance in the phonological word learning factor and 17% of the variance in the semantic word learning factor. Thus, working memory explained a significant amount of word learning variance over and above expressive vocabulary and nonverbal IQ. Conclusion: Results show that working memory is a significant predictor of dynamic word learning over and above the contributions of expressive vocabulary and nonverbal IQ, suggesting that a comprehensive working memory assessment has the potential to identify sources of word learning difficulties and to tailor word learning interventions to a child's working memory strengths and weaknesses.

Phonological networks are representations of word forms and their phonological relationships with other words in a given language lexicon. A principle underlying the growth (or evolution) of those networks is preferential attachment, or the “rich-gets-richer” mechanisms, according to which words with many phonological neighbors (or links) are the main beneficiaries of future growth opportunities. Due to their limited number of words, language lexica constitute node-constrained networks where growth cannot keep increasing in a linear way; hence, preferential attachment is likely mitigated by certain factors. The present study investigated obsolescence effects (i.e., a word’s finite timespan of being active in terms of growth) in an evolving phonological network of English as a second language. It was found that phonological neighborhoods are constructed by one large initial lexical spurt, followed by sublinear growth spurts that eventually lead to very limited growth in later lexical spurts during network evolution. First-language-given neighborhood densities are rarely reached even by the most advanced language learners. An analysis of the strength of phonological relationships between phonological word forms revealed a tendency to incorporate phonetically more distant phonological neighbors at earlier acquisition stages. Overall, the findings suggest an obsolescence effect in growth that favors younger words. Implications for the second-language lexicon include leveraged learning mechanisms and learning bouts focused on a smaller range of phonological segments, and involve questions concerning lexical processing in aging networks.

Thousands of phonological word forms known to a speaker can be organised as a lexical network using the tools of network science. In these networks, nodes represent words and edges are placed between phonological neighbours. Previous work has shown that phonological networks of various languages have similar macrolevel network properties. The present study aimed to investigate if phonological networks of different languages also have similar mesolevel properties, specifically, the presence of robust community structure. Prior community detection analyses revealed robust community structure for English. Community detection analyses conducted on French, German, Dutch, and Spanish networks indicate that all networks showed strong evidence of community structure-mesolevel clustering of word forms whereby larger communities tended to contain shorter, frequent words with many phonological neighbours. Words of the same community tended to share similar phonotactic structures. Results suggest that the organisation of phonological word forms in language are governed by similar principles that could have important implications for lexical processing. Des milliers de formes phonologiques de mots connues d'un locuteur peuvent être organisées comme un réseau lexical en utilisant les outils de la science des réseaux. Dans ces réseaux, les nœuds représentent les mots et les arêtes sont placées entre les voisins phonologiques. Des travaux antérieurs ont montré que les réseaux phonologiques de différentes langues présentent des propriétés similaires au niveau macro. La présente étude visait à déterminer si les réseaux phonologiques de différentes langues présentaient également des propriétés similaires au niveau méso, en particulier la présence d'une structure communautaire robuste. Des analyses antérieures de détection de communautés ont révélé une structure communautaire robuste pour l'anglais. Les analyses de détection de communautés menées sur les réseaux français, allemands, néerlandais et espagnols indiquent que tous les réseaux présentent des signes évidents de structure communautaire (regroupement au niveau méso des formes de mots), les communautés les plus importantes ayant tendance à contenir des mots plus courts et plus fréquents avec de nombreux voisins phonologiques. Les mots d'une même communauté avaient tendance à partager des structures phonotactiques similaires. Les résultats suggèrent que l'organisation des formes de mots phonologiques dans le langage est régie par des principes similaires qui pourraient avoir des implications importantes pour le traitement lexical. Public Significance Statement This study expands on the previously established idea that similar sounding words in English are more likely to cluster together to form communities in networks of phonological word forms. The findings were replicated using a different data set for English words, as well as for other languages of Dutch, French, German, and Spanish, suggesting that lexical information may be stored and organised in a similar manner even across speakers of different languages.

In Chinese, numerals and classifiers are in principle adjacent to each other, forming a prosodic unit. Apparent violation of Num-Cl adjacency is observed when a zero-level adjective modifies the classifier. Such violation is not observed when the adjectives are phrasal. The current study provides a comprehensive description and analysis of different conditions of Num-Cl Adjacency constraints in Mandarin. Specifically, this paper proposes that the Num-Cl adjacency effect is reducible to the numeral lowering at PF, which is motivated by the morphological dependency of numerals rather than a requirement on the linear relation between numerals and classifiers. This analysis accounts for all observations regarding word order between the numeral, the classifier, and the different types of adjectives in a unified way. In addition, it is shown that the numeral-lowering analysis is also applicable to complex numerals and can solve the problem of some approximant numerals.

Freud proposed that names of clinically salient objects or situations, such as for example a beetle ( ) in Mr. E's panic attack, refer through their phonological word form, and not through their meaning, to etiologically important events-here, \" \" which summarizes the indecisiveness of Mr. E's mother concerning her marriage with Mr. E's father. Lacan formalized these ideas, attributing full-fledged mental effectiveness to the signifier, and summarized this as \"the unconscious structured as a language\". We tested one aspect of this theory, namely that there is an influence of the ambiguous phonological translation of the world upon our mental processing without us being aware of this influence. For this, we used a rebus priming paradigm, including 14 French rebuses, composed of two images depicting common objects, such as /pã/ \"peacock\" and /tεr/ \"earth,\" together forming the rebus /pãtεr/ \"panther.\" These images were followed by a target word semantically related to the rebus resolution, e.g., \"feline,\" upon which the participants, unaware of the rebus principle, produced 6 written associations. A total of 1,458 participants were randomly assigned either to Experiment 1 in which they were shown the rebus images in either forward or in reverse order or to Experiment 2, in which they were shown only one of both rebus images, either the first or the last. The results show that the images induced inadvertent rebus priming in naïve participants. In other words, our results show that people solve rebuses unwittingly independent of stimulus order, thereby constituting empirical evidence for the mental effectiveness of the signifier.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of a 10-min vocal exertion task on voice and respiratory measures, to determine whether restorative strategies can mitigate these effects after cessation of exertion, and to assess whether these strategies continue to reduce these detrimental effects when vocal exertion is resumed. Method: A prospective, repeated-measures design was used. On consecutive days, 20 participants (equal men and women) completed two vocal exertion tasks separated by 10 min of restoration strategies: vocal rest or controlled phonation (low-level tissue mobilization using straw phonation). Voice and respiratory data were collected at baseline, following the first exertion task, after restoration strategies, and after the second exertion task. Outcome measures included (a) vocal effort, (b) phonation threshold pressure, (c) maximum and minimum fundamental frequencies, (d) cepstral peak prominence of connected speech, (e) lung volume initiation and termination, (f) percent vital capacity expended per syllable, and (g) number of syllables per breath group. Results: A worsening of phonation threshold pressure (p < 0.001), vocal effort (p < 0.001), and increase of minimum fundamental frequency (p = 0.007) were observed after vocal exertion. Lung volume initiation (p < 0.001) and lung volume termination (p < 0.001) increased. These changes were largely reversed by restoration strategies, but only controlled phonation prevented exertion-induced changes in respiratory kinematic measures on a subsequent vocal exertion task. Conclusions: Exertion-induced voice changes occur rapidly and may be mitigated by either controlled phonation or vocal rest. Controlled phonation is recommended as a superior strategy due to evidence of a protective effect on a successive vocal exertion task.

Spoken language comprehension is a fundamental component of our cognitive skills. We are quite proficient at deciphering words from the auditory input despite the fact that the speech we hear is often masked by noise such as background babble originating from talkers other than the one we are attending to. To perceive spoken language as intended, we rely on prior linguistic knowledge and context. Prior knowledge includes all sounds and words that are familiar to a listener and depends on linguistic experience. For bilinguals, the phonetic and lexical repertoire encompasses two languages, and the degree of overlap between word forms across languages affects the degree to which they influence one another during auditory word recognition. To support spoken word recognition, listeners often rely on semantic information (i.e., the words we hear are usually related in a meaningful way). Although the number of multilinguals across the globe is increasing, little is known about how crosslinguistic effects (i.e., word overlap) interact with semantic context and affect the flexible neural systems that support accurate word recognition. The current multi-echo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study addresses this question by examining how prime-target word pair semantic relationships interact with the target word's form similarity (cognate status) to the translation equivalent in the dominant language (L1) during accurate word recognition of a non-dominant (L2) language. We tested 26 early-proficient Spanish-Basque (L1-L2) bilinguals. When L2 targets matching L1 translation-equivalent phonological word forms were preceded by unrelated semantic contexts that drive lexical competition, a flexible language control (fronto-parietal-subcortical) network was upregulated, whereas when they were preceded by related semantic contexts that reduce lexical competition, it was downregulated. We conclude that an interplay between semantic and crosslinguistic effects regulates flexible control mechanisms of speech processing to facilitate L2 word recognition, in noise.