DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Quantifying the Sonority Hierarchy

本论文的主题是音响。具体而言，将解决以下问题：（1）什么是响亮？(2)响亮的发音、声学和/或听觉基础是什么？(3)响亮度应该如何量化？(4)响亮度是通用的还是语言特有的？（5）在正式的语音制约中，响亮度应该扮演什么样的角色？长期以来，人们一直认为，响亮的差异决定了音节内声音的顺序，这是所有语言中观察到的一种模式。为了解释这种普遍的效果，许多语言学家认为声音的响亮程度来自于发音或感知的差异。然而，迄今为止，响亮的语音定义（发音，声学或感知术语）仍然难以捉摸。因此，许多音系学家和语音学家质疑响亮度的理论有效性，声称这个概念不可能以具体的方式描述。因此，本项目的潜在贡献是解决一个长期存在的争议，关于声音的物理基础，本项目的目标是确定哪五个物理参数最能表征声音的差异：强度（响度），口腔气流的峰值速率，口内气压峰值，收缩持续时间，或第一共振峰的频率。这些特点中的每一个都将在英语和西班牙语的多个母语者的语音中系统地研究所有语言特定的音素，辅音和元音。本研究的目的是证明，响度可以量化的一个精确的，一致的，非任意的，和语音接地的方式的基础上的一个或多个这些物理相关的值。

The general topic of this dissertation is sonority. Specifically, the following issues will be addressed: (1) What is sonority? (2) What is the articulatory, acoustic, and/or auditory basis of sonority? (3) How should sonority be quantified? (4) Is the sonority scale universal or language-specific? and (5) What role should sonority play in formal phonological constraints?It has long been recognized that sonority differences determine the sequencing of sounds within syllables, a pattern observed in all languages. In order to explain this universal effect, many linguists have suggested that sonority derives from differences in how sounds are pronounced or perceived. However, to date a phonetic definition of sonority (in articulatory, acoustic, or perceptual terms) has remained elusive. Consequently, a number of phonologists and phoneticians have questioned the theoretical validity of sonority altogether, claiming that this notion is impossible to characterize in a concrete way. Consequently, the potential contribution of this project is to resolve a long-standing controversy regarding the physical basis of sonority.The goal of this project is to determine which of five physical parameters best characterizes sonority differences: intensity (loudness), peak rate of oral air flow, peak intraoral air pressure, constriction duration, or frequency of the first formant. Each of these characteristics will be systematically studied in the speech of multiple native speakers of both English and Spanish for all language-specific phonemes, consonants and vowels alike. The objective of this research is to demonstrate that sonority can be quantified in a precise, consistent, non-arbitrary, and phonetically-grounded way based on the values of one or more of these physical correlates.