Oral language in Alzheimer's disease (AD) participants and healthy older controls was analyzed using propositional analysis. The idea density was evaluated for its usefulness in discriminating between healthy elderly subjects and AD patients. Results suggest that scores of idea density accounts for a marker of pathological cognitive decline. This linguistic cue can be regarded as a reliable measure for future medical screening.

L’habitant des pays arabophones du bassin mediterraneen qui se promene dans les marches d’Amerique latine ne peut se sentir totalement depayse. Un grand nombre d’herbes aromatiques et de noms de plantes lui sont familiers. Rien d’etonnant a cela. Du VIIIe au XVe siecle, diverses plantes, denominations, pratiques alimentaires et therapeutiques ont ete importees par les Arabes dans la peninsule Iberique. A partir de la Conquete, elles ont ete introduites dans le Nouveau Monde, ou les Espagnols ont cherche a recreer leur mode de vie. Plusieurs de ces plantes aromatiques sont egalement presentes dans le Sud de la France et ont fait partie de transferts transatlantiques avec l’Amerique du Nord, apportant ainsi une part de cette culture mediterraneenne jusqu’au Canada. Dans une etude comparative, nous examinerons l’importation des plantes aromatiques de la Mediterranee arabophone vers l’Amerique latine (Mexique) et l’Amerique du Nord (Quebec). Les especes introduites sont-elles les memes ? Les pays a l’origine du transfert ont-ils ete determinants dans le choix des especes ? Quels contextes locaux ont permis ou facilite leur integration ?

Les dialectes arabes en tant que langues vernaculaires representent une voie d'acces incontournable vers les connaissances ancestrales autrefois vehiculees par un repertoire oral vivant. Leur sauvegarde est entreprise ici a travers la realisation d'un atlas multimedia constitue a partir de donnees lexicales mais aussi phonetiques, ethnographiques et narratives concernant les plantes aromatiques et les savoirs et/ou savoir-faire qui leur sont lies. Cet Atlas, pluridisciplinaire par essence est l'occasion d'exploitations multiples telles que la mise en evidence de la mosaiques des zones dialectales, l'analyse de l'erosion des dialectes et/ou des substrats linguistique (i.e. parlers berberes) sous l'effet de la globalisation linguistique (notamment au profit des langues de grande diffusion telles que l'anglais et le francais mais egalement en faveur des langues dites dominantes, i.e. arabe standard), l'etude diachronique et motivationnelle des phytonymes, etc. Dans le cadre de cette communication, nous montrerons que la realisation d'un atlas numerique conduit a repenser la methodologie traditionnellement mise en place lors des enquetes de terrain.

Resume: Cette etude s'interesse a la propagation du trait de nasalite de la consonne coda au segment vocalique oral adjacent en arabe standard contemporain. L'objectif est de specifier les attributs acoustiques de cette propagation. L'analyse acoustique est fondee sur la realisation de 45 mots se terminant par la syllabe CVn# produits par huit locuteurs arabophones originaires de differents pays arabes. Les mesures acoustiques des quatre premiers formants ont ete prises en trois points de la trame vocalique (debut, milieu, fin). Les resultats montrent d'une part que le trait de nasalite est present durant le cycle vocalique. D'autre part, les voyelles connaissent un effet de centralisation important visible sur le plan F1/F2. La comparaison avec 27 mots debutant par le contexte #nV permet de mesurer l'effet du contexte consonantique nasal initial vs. final sur les valeurs frequentielles de la voyelle contigue

This paper presents a study of automatic identification of Arabic dialectal areas based on a prosodic automatic modelling. Inspired from Fujisaki's works, this modelling dissociates long term prosodic variations from short term micro-variations and exploits n-multigrams models. Experiments, achieved on semispontaneous recordings from 40 speakers, show that the system reaches 98% of correct identification of the three dialectal areas - Maghreb, Middle-East, and an intermediate area (Tunisia-Egypt) - with test excerpts of 7.6 seconds in average.

The aim of this study is to demonstrate that rhythm variation across Arabic dialects is to a great extent correlated with the different types of syllabic structure observed in these dialects, especially with regard to the relative complexity of onsets and codas. The main focus is on the relationship between syllabic structures on the one hand, and rhythm classes based on segmental duration on the other. Rhythmic variations in Arabic dialects based on proportions of vocalic and consonantal intervals were described in [1] following experimental procedures put forth by [2]. The present investigation consists in computing the frequency of occurrence of the different types of syllables in Moroccan, Tunisian and Lebanese Arabic representing different areas along the dialect continuum. The experimental data is based on the production of 10 minutes of spontaneous speech by Moroccan, Tunisian and Lebanese subjects. The results show that the syllabic patterns observed could be useful in characterizing the different Arabic dialects and may also constitute a basis for discriminating between them. The occurrence of the various types of syllables is significantly different from one dialect to another; the percentage of simple syllables and long vowels (CV, CVC, CVV, CVVC…) is higher in Lebanese Arabic. Moroccan Arabic, on the other hand, shows a tendency towards a high percentage of complex syllables (CCVC, CCVCC,..etc) and short vowels.

The present study investigates the temporal parameter of VOT from a cross-language perspective, as far as native Moroccan, native Italian and Moroccanaccented Italian are concerned. The comparative analysis carried out underlines a language effect on the VOT duration across the three language varieties. The statistical test points out VOT as one of the acoustic properties that characterize the foreign accent, being the long-lag /t/ and the long-lag aspirated /k/ interlanguage markers due to L1 phonetic interference. 1. VOT and cross-language variation VOT (Voice Onset Time) is the term coined by Lisker and Abramson [1] to refer to “the time interval between the burst that marks the release of the stop closure and the onset of quasi-periodicity that reflects laryngeal vibration” (1964: 422). This temporal parameter varies according with articulatory and aero-dynamic features: as far as the place of articulation is concerned, posterior consonants have longer VOT compared to front consonants; voiced consonants have short-lag VOT since sonority precedes the release or it coincides with it. In the world’s languages three phonological contrasts may exist: voiced stops, voiceless unaspirated stops and voiceless aspirated stops marked by a long-lag VOT since “the feature of aspiration is directly related to the timing of voice onset” [2]. VOT may be assumed as a language-dependent parameter both for typological investigation [3] and crosslanguage studies [4-10]: there is continuum of possible VOTs from which languages may choose and empirical observation reveals unpredictable variations between languages.Second-language acquisition studies revealed the existence of phonetic interference whereas similar phonemes in L1 and L2 are categorized as having the same acoustic properties and prevent speakers from the acquisition of the target categories (i.e. Speech Learning Model in 11). Our objective is to investigate VOT in Italian and Moroccan Arabic in order to check the hypothesis of phonetic interference in Moroccan-accented Italian. Therefore a comparative VOT analysis of three semi-spontaneous speech corpora was led: 24 male speakers (8 per language, i.e. native Italian, native Moroccan and Moroccan-accented Italian) were analysed for a total amount of 2083 consonants. Cross-language variations were evaluated by means of a statistical analysis. 2. VOT duration in native vs. non-native production Native Moroccan Arabic speakers realize stops that have longer VOTs as compared to native Italian speakers. As for Moroccanaccented Italian, intermediate values are noticed (figure 1). 3. Statistical analyses In order to see whether the differences observed in VOT duration between native and non-native productions are linked to the

This paper raises questions about the discrete or continuous nature of rhythm classes. Within this framework, our study investigates speech rhythm in the different Arabic dialects that have been constantly described as stress-timed compared with other languages belonging to different rhythm categories. Preliminary evidence from perceptual experiments revealed that listeners use speech rhythm cues to distinguish speakers of Arabic from North Africa from those of the Middle East. In an attempt to elucidate the reasons for this perceptual discrimination, an acoustic investigation based on duration measurement was carried out (i.e. percentages of vocalic intervals (%V) and the standard deviation of consonantal intervals (∆C)). This experiment reveals that despite their rhythmic differences, all Arabic dialects still cluster around stress-timed languages exhibiting a different distribution from languages belonging to other rhythm categories such as French and Catalan. Besides, our study suggests that there is no such thing as clear-cut rhythm classes but rather overlapping categories. As a means of comparison, we also used Pairwise Variability Indices so as to validate the reliability of our findings.

This paper presents a preliminary study of intra-speaker and inter-speaker variability in speech production and perception with an inter-dialect investigation of acoustic vocalic space according to different phonological systems. This work aims at providing an analytic study based on individual data that might account for individual strategies. We have studied variability in vowel production and perception for 20 speakers of two Arabic dialects: Jordanian Arabic and Moroccan Arabic. Results show on the one hand, that vocalic spaces larger for perception than for production for speaker of both Arabic dialects; and on the other hand that the vocalic space in production for Moroccan Arabic seems more centralized than for Jordanian Arabic.