Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Vowels Of Urban Qatari Arabic, Mark Daniel Shockley

Theses and Dissertations

Urban Qatari Arabic is a variety of Gulf Arabic [afb] spoken by Qataris with traditionally sedentary tribal backgrounds. This study examines phonetic and phonological aspects of Urban Qatari Arabic vowels using acoustic phonetic data gathered in Qatar. A new phonemic vowel inventory is proposed, including five long vowels and two short vowels. This finding contradicts published studies on Gulf Arabic, which include three or more short vowels; however, it is not unexpected when studies are compared from nearby Arabic varieties. The vowel inventory is also investigated using four linear mixed-effects regression models. In Gulf Arabic, variation in short vowel backness …

The Phonology Of Mbati, Sarah Gloria Lepage

Theses and Dissertations

This description of the phonology of Mbati/Isongo (C13) (mdn) of CAR is based on a word-list recorded by native Mbati speakers. A description of nominal and verbal morphology is included as a foundation for discussing morphophonemic processes. Only open syllables and consonant-glide clusters are allowed. Alveolar and velar plosives are affricated or palatalized before the high front vowel. Prenasalized consonants act as phonological units, rather than clusters. Mid-vowels within noun roots harmonize according to the feature [ATR]. [−ATR]-dominated vowel assimilation occurs within verb stems. Vowel hiatus is resolved by glide formation, diphthong formation, elision, and epenthesis, depending on the vowels …

Belief In Pure Evil As A Trait Predictor Of Harsh Judgments Of Perpetrator Attributes, Victoria Charlotte Mary-Rose Pocknell

Theses and Dissertations

Humans look for a quick and comforting explanation for why bad things happen. One popular explanation is to believe good and evil are active forces affecting people and events. Past research suggests belief in evil is associated with harsher judgments and less prosocial behavior. However, little research has explored what factors influence the development of a belief in evil or its effects in an experimental setting. Using a national sample of Amazon MTurk respondents (N = 511), participants completed a series of potential developmental antecedent measures (e.g. personality domains, religiosity, etc.) and viewed a video vignette of a crime with …

Perception And Production Of Nanning Mandarin Fourth Tone, Julie Flaming

Theses and Dissertations

Local varieties of Mandarin Chinese have been underdocumented. This study focuses on Mandarin high falling fourth tone (T4), as pronounced in connected speech by four female speakers native to Nanning City and its surrounding areas, in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Surface forms of T4 and the high level tone (T1) often exhibit minimal difference, most likely due to the strong Cantonese influence in the area. I compare the pronunciation of T4 in multiple environments to the predictions about Standard Mandarin T4 surface forms in those same positions. Nanning T4 is flatter overall than Standard Mandarin T4 in all positions, with …

Distinguishing Passive From Mp2-Marked Middle In Koine Greek, Andrew Charles Lamicela

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to answer the question, How can one determine whether an MP2-marked (traditionally “passive”) verb in Koine Greek is semantically passive or middle? MP2-marked verbs in the New Testament and Septuagint were analyzed in order to determine what factors indicate passive or middle in each case. This thesis argues that both lexical and contextual factors play a role in the determination. Lexical factors include whether the verb has agent-oriented components of meaning, how likely the event is to occur spontaneously, and whether the verb tends to have a subject that is both agent and patient. Contextual factors include …

Information Structure In Soumraye (Somrai), An Eastern Chadic Language, Emily Ruthann Miller

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the information structure of Soumraye, also known as Somrai (common alternative spelling: Soumray; ISO: SOR; autonym: Chibne, Chibné or Shibne), a largely unstudied Eastern Chadic (Afro-Asiatic) language of Central Chad (Eberhard et al. 2020). Analysis is based on four fiction and two non-fiction narratives as well as part of an expository text and some previously published proverbs. I primarily use a framework from Lambrecht (1994). The default information structure of Soumraye is topic-comment or presupposition-focus. The construction for marked topic, or topicalization, consists of a preposed noun phrase ending with the topicalization particle da. Da's …

Development Of The Conflict Management Skills Beliefs Scale, Christina Anne Bancroft

Theses and Dissertations

The present study explored the development and initial validation of measure of conflict management, a skill often taught in school-based social-emotional learning (SEL) programs. There is a gap in existing scales that measure conflict management skills for children and adolescents. The scales that do exist for children or adolescents (CONFLICTALK, Kimsey & Fuller, 2003; Conflict Resolution Styles Inventory [CRSI], Bonache et al., 2016) often measure conflict styles rather than skills, do not have a theoretical basis, and or have limited norming information or are normed on populations (and languages) outside of the United States.

Our purpose was to develop and …