POWRE: The Phonetic Structure of Navajo

纳瓦霍语的语法和单词结构（形态学）是迄今为止美洲土著语言中记录最完整的语言，也是世界上记录最完整的语言之一。 此外，纳瓦霍语是一种特殊的语言类型，其形态复杂。 尽管纳瓦霍语的语法和形态学知识已经很发达，但在科学文献中很少讨论这种语言语音系统的语音学。虽然许多其他语言，如英语，已经从数十年的语音系统研究中受益，但纳瓦霍语和其他土著语言的类似工作几乎不存在。 这项研究将是纳瓦霍语言的语音系统的基线语音特性的工具研究。 它将包括实地考察，其中将从纳瓦霍母语者那里收集录音。 对这些数据的分析将产生一本关于纳瓦霍声音系统的专著。这本专著将提供纳瓦霍语的辅音和元音的声音和音调系统的描述，因为它是在纳瓦霍保留今天发言。 这些数据和他们的分析应该证明在课堂教育（语言教学）和临床（言语病理学和听力学）设置有用。 它们也将拓宽我们对与英语截然不同的语言语音系统的知识。 该POWRE补助金将在调查员职业生涯的关键时刻提供支持。 通过让她完成一个项目开始，而在加州大学洛杉矶分校的博士后研究员，它将帮助她在语言学领域重建自己后，三年的中断运行在颅面形态和上呼吸功能医学院实验室。

The grammar and word structure (morphology) of the Navajo language is by far the most completely documented of any language indigenous to the Americas and indeed one of the most completely documented in the world. In addition, Navajo is a language type that is unusual in the complexity of its morphology. Notwithstanding the advanced state of knowledge of the grammar and morphology of Navajo, there is very little discussion in the scientific literature of the phonetics of the language's sound system. While many other languages, like English, have benefited from decades of research on their sound and speech systems, similar work on Navajo and other indigenous languages is virtually nonexistent. This research will be an instrumental study of the baseline phonetic properties of the Navajo language's sound system. It will consist of fieldwork, in which recordings will be collected from native speakers of Navajo. Analysis of these data will result in a monograph on the sound system of Navajo. This monograph will provide a description of the consonant and vowel sounds and the tonal system of Navajo, as it is spoken on the Navajo reservation today. These data and their analysis should prove useful both in classroom education (language instruction) and clinical (speech pathology and audiology) settings. They will also broaden our knowledge of language sound systems quite different from English. This POWRE grant will provide support at a critical point in the investigator's career. By allowing her to complete a project begun while a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, it will assist her in reestablishing herself in the field of linguistics following a three-year hiatus running a medical school laboratory in cranio-facial morphology and upper respiratory function.