Papers by Nima Sadat-Tehrani
Contact, 2019
The first part of this research included experiments whose results suggest an effect of first lan... more The first part of this research included experiments whose results suggest an effect of first language on intelligibility, meaning that communicators who share the same first language (L1) may understand each other better. The second part focused on pronunciation errors of Mandarin and Vietnamese speakers and tried to account for these errors in terms of the phonological properties of a learner’s L1. Overall, the findings of this paper demonstrate that a learner’s L1 can be seen as a source of second language pronunciation errors. These findings can be used as a guide in designing pronunciation teaching materials.
Studia Linguistica , 2019
This corpus-based research examines a downstepped boundary tone in Persian spontaneous declarativ... more This corpus-based research examines a downstepped boundary tone in Persian spontaneous declaratives and yes/no questions (YNQs), by looking at 318 minutes of spontaneous phone conversations of 21 female and 21 male speakers in three age groups, 20s, 30s, and 40s. The downstepped YNQs lack the final rise typically found in read utterances, which is associated with the non-genuineness of the interrogative and a lowered degree of the hearer's commitment to provide a reply. The downstep in declaratives, accompanied by a following pause, creates functions such as topicalization and facilitates the cognitive pre-planning of speech. There is no effect of sex and age on the production of this tone. The specific functions of this tone and its independence of adjacent tones argue for its inclusion in the grammar of Persian intonation. Additionally, this research is in itself a first-time investigation of the intonation of Persian spontaneous YNQs and shows that the majority of them share the same intonation pattern with lab produced YNQs.
TESOL Journal, 2017
This article addresses the issue of teaching pronunciation in English as a second language (ESL) ... more This article addresses the issue of teaching pronunciation in English as a second language (ESL) classes by specifically looking at the impact of teaching lexical stress rules and tendencies on learners' stress placement performance. Sixteen rules in the form of interactive worksheets were taught in three ESL classes at pre-intermediate, intermediate, and upper intermediate levels (N = 38). The rules were taught and reviewed during 9 weeks, each taking approximately 25 minutes of class time. They dealt with four areas: word categories, compound nouns, verb-noun pairs, and suffixes. The participants recorded a list of carefully chosen 100 words two times, once before and once after the teaching of the rules. The results show a statistically significant reduction of mean error percentage from 33.8% to 18.3%, with an effect size (Cohen's d) of 1.67. The implications of this research are twofold. On the one hand, it is evidence for the successful teaching of suprasegmentals and in particular lexical stress rules in ESL classes, and on the other, it contains a methodology and a sample lesson plan for teaching such rules (see Appendix A). The article thus argues for the inclusion of English lexical stress prediction rules in the ESL pronunciation curriculum to enhance learners' overall intelligibility.
Questions and Answers in Linguistics , 2017
This paper is an introductory investigation, comparing the intonation of Persian declaratives in ... more This paper is an introductory investigation, comparing the intonation of Persian declaratives in read and spontaneous speech styles. The results indicate that 32% of the 254 spontaneous declaratives studied show one or more of the following intonational differences: a high or downstepped high tone at Intonational Phrase end, marking the incompleteness of the message; the existence of more pauses leading to a greater number of Intonational Phrases, pre-pause vowel lengthening, and pitch reset; a flatter contour and less pitch variation caused by a speaker's boredom or givenness of the information content; an initial high boundary tone resulted from a low degree of assertiveness.
California Linguistic Notes , 2017
The purpose of this research is to introduce a certain function of the nuclear pitch accent in Pe... more The purpose of this research is to introduce a certain function of the nuclear pitch accent in Persian, i.e., the expression of concession. A nuclear pitch accent in this usage serves as a preface to a following statement, in which the speaker offers an alternative or contradictory point of view towards a previously highlighted discourse. This nuclear pitch accent is on a final verbal element in the utterance, and crucially, this final element is not associated with any pitch accent in the normal declarative reading of the same utterance, and it is only in this structure that it becomes nuclear-accented. Thus, the nuclear pitch accent behaves here as an intonational morpheme, but one that is bound to its location in the utterance. The paper also investigates the occurrence of this phenomenon in monoclausals, biclausals, and scrambled sentences, and identifies the constraints on its realization.
Proceedings of the Speech Prosody 2008 Conference, 2008
This paper is a detailed investigation of the phonology and phonetics of the intonation of Persia... more This paper is a detailed investigation of the phonology and phonetics of the intonation of Persian carried out in the framework of the AM theory of intonational phonology ((7), (5)). Based on 2112 utterances read by a total of 8 native speakers, the work, on the one hand, presents a phonological account of the prosodic structure of this language, a structure that consists of the level Accentual Phrase (AP) with the pitch accent (L+)H*, immediately dominated by the level Intonational Phrase (IP), each level being marked by a low or high right boundary tone. This system is less complicated than previous proposals which consider an additional level between IP and AP. On the other hand, this work scrutinizes the phonetic implementation of tones with regard to segments. It is shown that the L of an AP is aligned with the consonant preceding the stressed vowel, and the H with the consonant following this vowel in nuclear APs and with the next vowel in non-nuclear ones. Focused APs have mo...
Constructions , 2008
The aims of this paper are twofold. First, it introduces an under-documented construction in Pers... more The aims of this paper are twofold. First, it introduces an under-documented construction in Persian and investigates its intonational, semantic, pragmatic, syntactic, and information structure properties. A construction is seen here as a non-compositional form-meaning pairing, in line with Construction Grammar/ the Constructionist approach (e.g., Goldberg 1995, 2006). Second, it is in itself an argument in favour of the existence of intonational constructions where the tune determines the meaning (e.g., Liberman & Sag 1974; Marandin 2006). This construction, which has a specific and rather fixed intonation pattern, states the reason or cause of something, usually set in contrast to other possible reasons. The construction has its nuclear pitch accent on the first noun phrase followed by deaccentuation to the end of the utterance and it gets its reason-conveying meaning from this very intonation pattern, regardless of the words used in it.
Linguistic Discovery, 2011
in the framework of the autosegmental-metrical theory of intonation. The structures studied are d... more in the framework of the autosegmental-metrical theory of intonation. The structures studied are different types of yes/no questions, WH-questions, tag questions, and echo questions. The results, which are based on a total of nearly 400 read utterances recorded in laboratory conditions, show that the Persian Accentual Phrase (AP) with the pitch accent (L+)H* is present in all question types. Yes/no questions, whose accentuation follows the same constraints as declaratives, are characterized by a high Intonational Phrase boundary tone (H%), and have a greater pitch excursion and more final lengthening on the last AP than declaratives. The inclusion of particles and words such as aya, maege, and hič in the question adds an AP but does not change the core intonation pattern. In (multiple) WH-questions, which have a falling intonation similar to declaratives, the (final) WH-word is the nuclear pitch accent, followed by the deaccentuation of the upcoming elements. Echo questions end high and the boundary tone of their final AP can be either high or low. Contrastive focus APs are higher and longer than ordinary APs and deaccent what follows, even if it includes a WH-word.
Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 2009
This paper investigates how the tonal targets of rises in Persian are phonetically realized in re... more This paper investigates how the tonal targets of rises in Persian are phonetically realized in relation to the segmental string. Three types of cliticized Persian Accentual Phrases (APs) are instrumentally compared with one another: high-boundary-toned pre-nuclear APs, lowboundary-toned nuclear APs, and low-boundary-toned contrastive focus APs. The results show that the valley is always aligned with the consonant preceding the stressed vowel, but the alignment of the peak is with the consonant following the stressed vowel if the AP boundary tone is low, and with the following vowel if it is high. The duration of the focus AP is greater than that of the other two. The pitch excursion of the focus AP is significantly greater than that of the nuclear type. This difference is caused by different peak heights. While pre-nuclear and nuclear APs can be phonologically represented by L + H * , focus APs, which are pragmatically different, warrant a distinct pitch accent, namely L +ˆH * . The systematic alignment of the L and the H, and the variability of the time and slope of the rise support the view that pitch targets rather than pitch movements are the fundamentals of Persian intonation.
Proceedings of the …, 2006
* We would like to thank David Pentland, Kevin Russell, and the audience at the 2006 CLA meeting.... more * We would like to thank David Pentland, Kevin Russell, and the audience at the 2006 CLA meeting. The following abbreviations are used for the data: CL = classifier, COMP = comparative, DUR = durative, EMPH = emphasis marker, EZ = ezafe vowel, INDEF = indefinite, NEG = negation, OM = object marker, PART = participle, PL = plural, PRES = present, SBJ = subjunctive, SG = singular, '+' in the examples separates the two parts of a compound verb.
Linguistica atlantica, 2003
This paper deals with a construction in Persian called here the Indifference-ke Construction (or ... more This paper deals with a construction in Persian called here the Indifference-ke Construction (or IKC). This construction has the structure A ke B, where A is a clause (minimally a verb), ke is a particle, and B is a verb, a reduplication of the verb in A. The IKC has a certain intonation pattern and includes both the propositional attitude (that of indifference) and the propositional content at the same time. Analysis of the interaction between the IKC and compound verbs, scrambled sentences and various T/A/Ms (Tense/Aspect/Moods) concludes: The reduplicated element is always a yO. This article treats the phonological, syntactic and semantic/conceptual components of the IKC based on the theoretical framework of Jackendoff's Parallel Architecture. These components are related through interfaces and none of them is considered to be the basic or underlying one.
This thesis is a detailed investigation of the phonology and phonetics of the intonation of Persi... more This thesis is a detailed investigation of the phonology and phonetics of the intonation of Persian carried out in the framework of the AM theory of intonational phonology. Based on 2112 utterances read by a total of 8 native speakers, the work, on the one hand, presents a phonological account of the prosodic structure of this language, a structure that consists of the level Accentual Phrase with the pitch accent (L+)H* immediately dominated by the level Intonational Phrase, each level being marked by a low or high boundary tone. On the other hand, it scrutinizes the phonetic implementation of tones with regard to segments and shows how the phonology of Persian intonation is phonetically realized in the speech string. This research also studies the intonational patterns of simplex sentences, compound sentences coordinated with different types of conjunctions, subordinate structures, and vocative constructions. The sentence types include copular verb declaratives, sentences with unaccusative and unergative verbs, (S)(O)V sentences with and without adjuncts, null subject sentences, scrambled sentences, yes/no questions, leading yes/no questions, alternative questions, tag questions, single and multiple WH-questions, echo questions, imperatives, and single, double, and phrase focus constructions. iii Acknowledgement My gratitude goes to: My advisor Prof. Kevin Russell for his invaluable help in the course of thinking about and writing this dissertation. He's given me lots of linguistic ideas and provided me with answers and questions. He's also made me laugh (he's very funny). Prof. Jila Ghomeshi, one of my advisory committee members, with whom I've had many useful linguistic discussions and from whom I've learned a lot. She's full of positive energy and always there when you need her help. Prof. Rob Hagiwara, another committee member, whose intelligent comments have solved many of my linguistic problems through the years. He always makes you feel welcome with his big laughs. Prof. Todd Mondor, another committee member from the Department of Psychology for his helpful comments on my thesis, which made me look at issues from the eyes of a nonlinguist scientist, a fact which broadened my vision. Prof. Gorka Elordieta, my external examiner from the Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country, Spain, whom I knew through reading his widely-acclaimed writings, and whose detailed comments made me rethink some of the issues, raising the quality of my thesis. The linguistics people at
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Papers by Nima Sadat-Tehrani