Feature-based approaches to acquisition principally focus on second language (L2) learners' ability to perceive non-native consonants when the features required are either contrastively present or entirely absent from the first language (L1) grammar. As features may function contrastively or allophonically in the consonant and/or vowel systems of…

This article explores the language of bimodal bilinguals (i.e., hearing children of Deaf parents who are exposed to sign language at home and to spoken language in the surrounding community). In similar bilingual contexts involving pairs of spoken languages, the language used at home, which differs from that of the community, is referred to as the…

Are palatal consonants articulated by multiple tongue gestures (coronal and dorsal) or by a single gesture that brings the tongue into contact with the palate at several places of articulation? The lenition of palatal consonants (resulting in approximants) has been presented as evidence that palatals are simple, not complex: When reduced, they do…

Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth BP) has for long been considered as a Null-subject language due to its variability in regards to subject expression (e.g. "Era bom porque eu diminuia de peso...era muito gordinha" "That was good because then I could lose some weight...(I) was a bit chubby." C33:179). Such variability has been…

Examines vowel harmony in the "Gaucho dialect" of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Informants from four areas of the state were studied: the capital city (Porto Alegre), the border region with Uruguay, and two areas of the interior populated by descendants of nineteenth-century immigrants from Europe, mainly Germans and…

Describes some of the current research on Brazilian Portuguese phonology. Various techniques are discussed that analysts utilize to investigate Brazilian Portuguese nasality. (49 references) (CB)