Previous research has found that different syllabic (particularly simplex vs. complex onset) organisations have different temporal stability signatures in articulations – this observation is based entirely on articulatory measurements. In this article, we present the results of three production experiments which show that similar correlations between onset organisation and temporal stability metrics are observable in an analysis of acoustic measurements in American English and Jazani Arabic. The results that we present show stability across speakers and test items for both language groups, and highlight the possibility of using acoustic techniques to help to investigate the organisation of onsets in other languages.

OPTIMALITY THEORY IN PHONOLOGY: A READER. John J. McCarthy (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Pp. xvi + 603. $79.95 cloth, $44.95 paper.

Optimality Theory in phonology is a textbook for an advanced-level phonology course that contains excerpts from 33 important articles and manuscripts on Optimality Theory (OT). For each chapter, McCarthy adds brief introductory notes and a list of study and research questions. The introductory notes provide background information and short remarks on the significance of the selected works. The study and research questions help readers to understand the material, and some questions are challenging enough to lead to interesting topics for research. Given the rapid development of OT in the past decade, it is not an easy task to compile such a reader. Overall, McCarthy makes excellent selections, and this book would be a useful textbook for many phonology classes. This text would also be appropriate for independent study, but those who are not familiar with OT may want to read Kager's (1999) introductory textbook before reading this volume. For an in-depth survey and overview of OT and an extensive list of references, the reader is referred to McCarthy (2002).

Red light emitting of Mn2+ doped Ba2ZnS3 phosphor powders have been synthesized by double-crucible method at different thermal treatments. XRD results indicate that the raw materials are completely sulfurized above 950°C, and the Ba2ZnS3: Mn2+ powders don't change its orthorhombic crystal structure with increasing doping concentration from 0 to 0.8 mol%. The photoluminescence of Ba2ZnS3: Mn2+ powders fulfilled the most efficient emission at the excitation wavelength λex=358 nm and showed the red emission light with peak wavelength λem=627nm at the doping concentration of Mn2+ ion between 0.2 and 0.8 mol%. The high-luminance red emission results from the 4T1 (4G)—6A1 (6S) transition in the Mn2+ ion. Ba2ZnS3: Mn2+ phosphors synthesized by double-crucible method have broad emission spectra (550nm∼750nm) with FWHM (full width at half maximum broadband) about 66nm. In our research, the Ba2ZnS3 doped with 0.4 mol% Mn2+ has the highest luminescent intensity as thermal treatment at 950°C for 16 hours and the CIE coordinate is x=0.66, y=0.33.

This book is a collection of papers dealing with the philosophical, conceptual, and empirical foundations of phonology, its position and relation with respect to syntax and phonetics in the theory of language, and the nature and acquisition of phonological knowledge. The introductory chapter by the editors provides a comprehensive discussion of the main themes presented in the following 11 chapters, in which diverse perspectives are represented. Bromberger and Halle open with a discussion of phonology within the context of the philosophy of language. Some chapters take a highly formal view of phonology: Hale and Reiss argue that phonology operates without reference to phonetic substance, and van der Hulst maintains that phonology and syntax are subject to the same operating principles. In contrast, the chapters by Burton-Roberts and Carr argue that phonology is substantive and should be excluded from the language faculty. Some papers adopt a more empirical approach: Docherty and Foulkes argue that phonological knowledge must include systematic sociophonetic variation; Fitzpatrick and Wheeldon discuss psycholinguistic research on spoken word comprehension; and Pierrehumbert, Beckman, and Ladd advocate experimental verification of phonological theory. Issues related to phonetics versus phonology are addressed by Myers, who distinguishes the gradual versus categorical nature of phonetics and phonology, Harris and Lindsey, who propose that vowel features are formulated on the basis of phonetic spectral patterns, and Vihman and Velleman, who discuss how phonological categories emerge from phonetic input in child language acquisition.

Syllable structure in Piro, an Arawakan language spoken in Eastern Peru, exhibits properties that are of considerable interest. First, Piro allows three-consonant clusters in the syllabic onset (Matteson 1965) but a vowel-deletion rule is blocked to avoid such clusters, which makes it difficult to simply attribute the blocking to well-formedness constraints on syllable structure (cf. Kisseberth 1970a, b). Second, the onset consonant clusters are not governed by the Sonority Sequencing Principle (Selkirk 1984a, Clements 1990). The fact that all consonants except the prevocalic ones are described by Matteson (1965) as syllabic seems to obviate the need to posit complex onsets. However, these syllabic consonants do not participate in any phonological rules, including word stress and phrase-level rhythmic rules. If they are considered extrasyllabic throughout the phonology, they become exceptions to our general conceptions of extra-prosodicity, stray erasure and prosodic licensing (Itô 1986, 1989), since numerous such extrasyllabic consonants are not at the peripheral position of a well-defined domain but persist to be present throughout the derivation. Third, loss of an onset or unsyllabified consonant can lead to compensatory lengthening (henceforth CL), contradicting the moraic conservation account of CL (Hock 1986, Hayes 1989). Fourth, as Piro has no underlying long segments nor evidence for a heavy closed syllable, it becomes a counterexample to the typological prediction that CL occurs only in languages that have a pre-existing vowel-length contrast (de Chene & Anderson 1979) or syllable-weight contrast (Hayes 1989).