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The aim of this paper is to classify Romanian dialects from a prosodic point of view within the European Romance-speaking area. The data is part of the Multimedia Atlas of Romance Prosody - AMPER (Contini, 1992) and is analysed dialectometrically by means of ProDis (Elvira-García et al., 2015; Fernández Planas, 2016). The database includes more than 17,000 utterances produced by 48 speakers from 26 survey sites of 15 varieties of 6 Romance languages (Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Sardinian, Friulian and Romanian). The results show that the two main prosodic areas of Romanian (see Roseano, 2016b) remain separate when they are dialectometrized with data from other Romance languages. In addition, if one analyses questions and statements separately, it can be seen that questions allow us to distinguish geoprosodic areas more effectively than statements do (as suggested by previous studies such as Fernández Planas et al., 2015). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the acoustic characteristics of sound [s] in the cities of: Medellín and Apartadó and explores the hypothesis that the articulation of /s/ will serve to distinguish between the dialects spoken in these two areas. The study analizes 943 [s] produced by a total amount of 32 speakers. The following parameters were considered in the analysis: Center of gravity, spectral peak, standard deviation of the spectrum, skewness, kurtosis, zero crossings and harmonic-noise ratio. Results suggest that: in syllable onset [s] is more apical in Medellín and more dentalised in Apartadó. Also, Medellín's onset [s] is more sibilant. In coda position, there is no difference between the two dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with basic intonational features of Sicilian, a Romance variety spoken in Sicily in Southern Italy. While there has been some research on the intonational features of the regional variety of Italian, Sicilian intonation remains undescribed. The first part of the article provides a historic overview of the dialectal configuration of Sicilian and the Sicilian-Italian diglossia. In the subsequent section we perform an intonational analysis on a Sicilian corpus containing acoustic data of 432 utterances (216 broad focus statements and 216 information-seeking yes-no questions). Once the basic intonational features of Sicilian are described and analyzed we use the informatic tool ProDis (Elvira-García et al. 2018) for a quantitative cluster analysis in order to define geoprosodic groups within Siciliy. Finally, we carry out another cluster analysis with the aim of modelling prosodic distances between Romance varieties spoken in different areas in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contains the results of a set of perception tests that aimed at measuring perceived prosodic distances between different Romance languages (Italian, Friulian, Sardinian, Catalan, and Spanish). Data were collected within the framework of the AMPER project. The results were obtained by means of discrimination and identification tasks where the judges were 31 native speakers of Catalan form Barcelona and the stimuli were broad focus statements and yes-no questions in the above-mentioned languages. The perceived distances are then compared with the results of a dialectometric analysis of acoustic data. This comparison shows that the perceived distances are related to acoustic differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pattern of language deficits and recovery in bilingual aphasia is variable. An uncommon and intriguing pattern of evolution is referred to as paradoxical recovery (PR) or switching, which refers to the resurgence of a language which a person with aphasia had barely used or not used at all before the brain injury in conjunction with a limited ability to speak in L1. There is no agreement about which causative factors are the most influential for PR and a detailed analysis on the status of accent in L2 has not been explored so far. In this study, we analysed verbal production in a successive bilingual illiterate right-handed woman (MASS) who, after suffering a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the left temporo-frontal region, developed non-fluent aphasia in L1 (Spanish) together with a PR of a low proficient and not used L2 (Catalan). A qualitative linguistic analysis of bilingual aphasia and a vowel acoustic analysis of verbal production were conducted in MASS. A perceptual test to examine her accent by native speakers was also performed. PR in MASS was manifested by the release of a fluent anomic speech in L2 together with a marked reduction of speech production in L1. The circumstances in which L2 was learned included late acquisition, mostly by passive exposure, and low proficiency. Moreover, MASS displayed a negative attitude towards using L2 which may explain why phonetic analysis revealed a vowel system with values that were close to L1 (Spanish). In the perceptual test, bilingual judges identified the items presented as corresponding to a native Spanish-speaking woman. The circumstances of L2 acquisition in MASS may have contributed to its PR and the non-use of this language in everyday life could explain the persistence of native Spanish accent when she spoke using L2. The coexistence of a left hemisphere lesion, late acquisition, passive exposure, and low proficiency of L2 may have favoured the release of right hemisphere activity in linguistic control, thus accounting for PR and persistence of L1 accent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]