Arthur Seymour Abramson (January 26, 1925 – December 15, 2017) was an American
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
,
phonetician, and
speech scientist. Abramson was born in
. He founded the Department of Linguistics at the
University of Connecticut and served as head of the department from 1967 to 1974. Abramson was a Senior Scientist at
Haskins Laboratories in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...
, and he was also a member of Haskins's Board of Directors and the secretary of the corporation. He served as president of the
Linguistic Society of America in 1983.
Abramson was best known for his work with colleague
Leigh Lisker on
voice onset timing. He was also an expert on Southeast Asian languages and spent much time working with colleagues in
Thailand
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
. His other research interests included experimental
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
, the production and
perception of speech,
laryngeal control in
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
s, and distinctive
tone, particularly in the
Thai language. He died on December 15, 2017.
Education
Arthur Abramson received his B.A. in 1949 from
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a Private university, private Modern Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City. . He received his M.A. in 1950 and Ph.D. in 1960 from
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
.
Selected publications
* Abramson, A.S. (1962) ''The Vowels and Tones of Standard Thai: Acoustical Measurements and Experiments''. Bloomington: Indiana U. Res. Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics, Pub. 20.
*
*
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* Abramson, A.S. and D.M. Erickson. (1992) Tone splits and voicing shifts in Thai: Phonetic plausibility. In P''an Asiatic Linguistics: Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Language and Linguistics'', Vol. I (pp. 1–16). Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University.
External links
Haskins Laboratories
University of Connecticut Linguistics Department
References
1927 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American linguists
Haskins Laboratories scientists
Speech perception researchers
Columbia University alumni
Yeshiva University alumni
University of Connecticut faculty
Linguistic Society of America presidents
People from Jersey City, New Jersey
Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America
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