LINGUIST List 19.1349
Tue Apr 22 2008
Diss: Historical Ling/Phonology/Typology: Jauregi: 'The Syllable of...'
Editor for this issue: Evelyn Richter
<evelynlinguistlist.org>
1. Oroitz
Jauregi,
The Syllable of Basque: Structure and history
Message 1: The Syllable of Basque: Structure and history
Date: 18-Apr-2008
From: Oroitz Jauregi <oroitz.jauregiehu.es>
Subject: The Syllable of Basque: Structure and history
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Institution: Universidad del Pais Vasco Program: Basque linguistics and philology Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2007
Author: Oroitz Jauregi
Dissertation Title: The Syllable of Basque: Structure and history
Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics Phonology Typology
Subject Language(s): Basque (eus)
Dissertation Director(s): Joseba A. Lakarra Miren Lourdes Onederra
Dissertation Abstract:
The present dissertation, based on the theory of Natural Phonology, examines the phonological features and the preferences (along the lines of Vennemann 1988) of the Basque syllable structure.
At the same time, it is shown that the motivation for the occurrence of many segmental phonological processes in Basque is the optimization of the unit syllable as such.
The dissertation also puts forward the idea that optimization of syllable structure may be an important motivation for the existence and productivity of many segmental processes of Basque phonology.
The holistic typology based on rhythm (Donegan / Stampe 1983, 2004) is fundamental in this dissertation. From that point of view, nowadays Basque exhibits a certain typological pattern: a agglutinating language, with a syllable-timed language-rhythm, and a quite natural phonological system, etc.
The dissertation intends to contribute, from the rhythmic perspective, to the recent proposals (especially Lakarra 2005, 2006) for the reconstruction of the Basque language.
In addition to that, two experimental analysis are presented. The first one is an acoustic phonetic experiment, as it measures the duration of syllables (of different syllable structures) in spontaneous speech. The second analysis is a diachronic comparison of the frequency of appearance of the different syllable structure types in several Basque written texts.
This piece of research aims at a better knowledge of the Basque language and also to underline the importance of the syllable in linguistic, and especially in phonological studies.
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