Laryngeal activity in the production of voiceless obstruents and obstruent clusters in Icelandicwas investigated by the combined techniques of transillumination and fiberoptic filming of the larynx. Contrasts of preaspirated, unaspirated, and postaspirated voiceless stops were found to be produced basically by differences in laryngeal-oral timing. In clusters of voiceless obstruents, one or more continuous laryngeal opening and closing gestures occurred depending on the segments in the cluster.Peak velocity of glottal abduction was higher for fricatives than for stops. This, and other differences in laryngeal adjustments and interarticulator timing between stops and fricatives, are most likely due to different aerodynamic requirements for stop and fricative production. The present results further question the usefulness of timeless feature descriptions for modeling speech production.

The paper touches upon the relations between grammar-oriented and communication-oriented ways of analysing language in the light of some recent related developments in theoretical linguistics, congnitive psychology and artificial intelligence. The integration of (linguistic) meaning, situational interpretation and background knowledge is discussed. In Particular, different types of linguistically relevant common-sense knowledge and higher level cognitive procedures are considered.

This paper argues that Jürgen Habermas' theory of universal pragmatics is valuable for semantic and text-linguistic theory. Habermas' distinctions between communicative action (Kommunikatives Handeln) and discourse (Diskurs; debate on the validity of statements) are reflected in linguistic structure, as is his distinction between the four dimensions involved in every speech, act: comprehensibility, truth, sincerity, and correctness. The primary question is: Given that Habermas' distinctions are universal, what means of signalling them do natural languages contain? The present article limits itself to contrastive focus and epistemic verbs. The application of contrastive focus, to epistemic verbs enables speakers to mark the distinction between communicative action and discourse (the level of debate) and to clarify the dimension, under debate: comprehensibility, truth, sincerity, or correctness.

In modern Icelandic, spoken in the South, West, and North-West of Iceland, there is a phonemic opposition between voiced and voiceless nasals before stop consonants. For the present investigation the research instrument was the velograph. The purpose of the research was to investigate patterns of velar movement associated with each type of nasal consonants. The results show different types of velar movement organized according to two separate temporal patterns. For the voiceless nasals the movement of the velum is more rapid and begins earlier than for the voiced nasals. There are also significant differences in the nasalization of the preceding vowel according to whether the following nasal consonant is voiced or voiceless.

This paper outlines a model designed for the description of East Norwegian sencetece intonation. It is argued that there is a specific kind of intonational structure in Norwegian that is restricted to assertions and which will therefore normally be perceived as a prosodic clue to the indentification of assertive clauses, whether embedded ro syntactically independent.

The paper is devoted to the thesis that all Sanskrit aspirates (voiceless as well: as voiced) should be represented as clusters of a consonantal segment /C/ plus a segment /h/, the latter being [-consonantal, -vocalic], and not as single consonantal segments with the feature [+aspirate], which is the usual analysis. The arguments for the correctness of this thesis are based on formal considerations, i.e. on the fact that a cluster analysis yields a simpler formul ation of a 1arge number of different phonological processes in the language. The paper compares the cluster analysis of aspirates with a non-cluster analysis with respect to ten different rules.