A large literature on visual word recognition has examined the role of (apparent) morphological structure by comparing suffixed (such as treatment), pseudo-suffixed (pigment), and nonsuffixed (dogma) words with respect to their embeddings (treat, pig, dog). We examined the processing of these word types, as well as semantic controls, in an
Gender and sexuality have gradually become the focus of more semiotic landscape research, however, studies relating specifically to sex tourism spaces are limited and with those in the Thai context even more so. Therefore, this paper examines the discursive construction of Phatphong 2, one of the famous destinations for sex
Moklen, an endangered Austronesian language in Southern Thailand, is important for studying tonogenesis. Previous research confirmed the presence of two lexical tones in Moklen, but their nature is unclear. This study analyzed the acoustic properties of Moklen tones. Eight native Moklen speakers participated, producing 93 mono- and disyllables with varied tones, onset voicing, vowel length, and coda classes. Acoustic measurements were obtained from the stressed final syllables, including f0, F1, F2, H1*-A3*, and CPP. Results showed that f0 is the primary phonetic cue for tonal contrast in Moklen, accompanied by the difference in vowel quality and phonation type. Specifically, Tone 1 is characterized by higher pitch and a lower and more front vowel with modal voice, while Tone 2 has a lower pitch and a higher, more back, and breathier vowel. These characteristics bear similarities to register distinctions observed in Austroasiatic languages of Southeast Asia, suggesting a possible transphonologization of laryngeal properties into prosodic ones in Moklen. However, the exact segmental sources of Moklen tones still remain an open question.
This paper explores the acquisition of personal reference terms in Thai, a language with a highly complex personal reference system. Two separate studies were conducted for this paper, each featuring two groups of participants: children with typical development (TD) and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In each study, the participants were asked to complete two tasks on personal reference terms: a production task and a comprehension task. Overall, children with ASD performed on par in production, in terms of overall communicative success. However, an important finding was that they demonstrated a tendency toward pronoun avoidance, being less likely than children with TD to use deictic first-person pronominal forms. Instead, they preferred to use fixed referential terms for self-reference, contrasting with the children with TD’s preference for personal pronouns. The performance of children with ASD was significantly poorer in comprehension than that of children with TD. Children with ASD were generally able to detect lexically encoded person features but struggled with the more pragmatic and socially deictic aspects of personal reference terms. The latter also posed some challenges for children with TD, albeit to a lesser extent. In this regard, our results align with previous claims in the literature that lexical presuppositions are acquired earlier than implicated presuppositions. Our findings also add various new insights in terms of both population-specific effects in a language previously unstudied in this regard and the specific ways in which aspects of implicated presuppositions, i.e., the type of content in play, give rise to particular challenges in acquisition in general and for children with ASD in particular.
Translation of perceptual soundscape attributes from one language to another remains a challenging task that requires a high degree of fidelity in both psychoacoustic and psycholinguistic senses across the target population. Due to the inherently subjective nature of human perception, translating soundscape attributes using only small focus group discussions or expert panels could lead
Phonation and vowel quality are often thought to play a vital role at the initial stage of tonogenesis. This paper investigates the production of voicing and tones in a tonal Northern Kmhmu’ dialect spoken in Nan Province, Thailand, and a non-tonal Eastern Kmhmu’ dialect spoken in Vientiane, Laos, from both
