A Phonetically-Based Optimality Theoretic Account of Consonant ...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My most sincere gratitude goes to my committee members Patricia Keating, Donca
Steriade, and Bruce Hayes for their support and confidence in my abilities.
Many thanks to Bruce Hayes for first suggesting the topic of Taiwanese lenition to
me. Many ideas in this thesis were developed in a term paper written for his phonology
class during the first year of my graduate studies. The present thesis has benefitted
immensely from his many careful readings and many invaluable comments.
Thanks so much to my advisor and thesis committee co-chair Donca Steriade. She
has been my phonology teacher since I became a linguistics student, during the final year of
my undergraduate studies at UCLA. Her scholarship and passion for linguistics have
al ways been an inspiration to me. It is her encouragement that convinced me to continue
my work on the subject of Taiwanese lenition. She has read every version of my thesis,
taking care not to allow me to neglect any point that requires a why.
Thanks so much to my committee co-chair Pat Keating. The many phonetics
classes I have taken from her have shown me how exciting and friendly phonetics is; they
have given me courage and confidence to seek answers to my questions in phonetic
experimentation. The oral pressure experiment as presented here in Section 4 benefitted
greatly from her guidance. She has been there throughout every step of the experiment,
from the initial design of the pilot study to the final write-up.
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