ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a comprehensive overview of a broad range of issues in the study of sound structure and speech approached from interdisciplinary perspectives. It describes state-ofthe-art articles addressing the topic from various angles such as theory of phonology, acoustic and articulatory phonetics, segmental and supraseg-mental phonetics, morphonotactics, historical phonology, speech perception, language contact, cross-linguistic influence, sociophonetics, foreign language acquisition, second language pronunciation teaching as well as migrant speech. The book offers a discussion of fundamental problems in these fields as well as new empirical findings generated from a variety of methodological approaches. It also offers insights into ongoing basic research, with emphasis on theoretical novelties, interdisciplinary syntheses, innovative methods and exploratory and explanatory work on speech-related phenomena. The book presents reports of cutting-edge experimental research, from advanced laboratory phonetics to neurocognitive studies of brain activity during speech processing.
