COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Cherokee Language Sound Description and Analysis

切罗基语是易洛魁语系中与世隔绝的一种语言，尽管与北美其他许多濒危语言相比，切罗基语的使用者(10,000到12,000人)和文献资料都更多，但在语言学方面，对切罗基语的研究仍然非常不足。该项目将对切诺基人的发音系统进行彻底的描述和分析：目标是建立音素库，并通过辅音、元音和音高差异的声学分析来描述音调系统和其他语调现象。整个项目预计需要三年时间，将包括四个阶段：构建启发式数据(单词和句子)的主体；对产生演讲样本的20名发言者进行录音；对录音进行语音分析(特别强调音调痕迹)；以及根据这些数据撰写报告。本项目为期一年，包括前两个阶段：语料的构建和语料的录制。这项工作具有重要的实践意义和理论意义。两个主要的切诺基政治实体，俄克拉何马州切诺基民族和北卡罗来纳切诺基乐队，都从事语言保护和教学，需要可靠的音系学分析来推动这些目标。俄克拉荷马州的几所高等学府提供大学级别的切罗基语学分，同样迫切需要准确描述切罗基语的音系学，无论是用于课堂使用，还是用于教学材料的设计，包括录音带和CD-ROM教具。在社会上，由于切罗基人由大量不同的方言组成，准确的语音描述对于区分方言和为所有方言被接受为语言的正式成员提供令人信服的基础是必要的。从理论上讲，切罗基人的音系学长期以来一直存在着几个难题。一个仍未解决的问题是音高和语调在语言中的地位。另一个问题是词和语素的界限以及它们与韵律类别的关系。另一个问题是语调过程在句法过程中的作用，以及这些过程如何与语篇功能不同。这项研究将提供一个庞大的语料库，这些语料库将从不同的说话者样本中提取，并提供详细的声学信息。研究人员将使用自动分段模型来确定语调层次与其他语言水平之间的联系。这项研究为本科生助理在田野调查阶段提供了研究机会。它还包括研究的主要组成部分中的很大比例的切罗基人，包括高级人员、研究助理，当然还有语言顾问本身。

Although the Cherokee language, an isolated member of the Iroquoian family, has more speakers (10,000 to 12,000) and more documentation than many other endangered languages of North America, it remains remarkably understudied linguistically. This project will provide a thorough description and analysis of the Cherokee sound system: the goal is to establish the phoneme inventory and describe the tone system and other intonational phenomena through acoustic analysis of consonants, vowels, and pitch distinctions. The full project, which is expected to take three years, will consist of four stages: constructing the body of elicitation data (words and sentences); making recordings of 20 speakers producing the speech samples; phonetically analyzing the recordings (with special emphasis on pitch traces); and writing reports based on this data. The current project, which will take one year, will consist of the first two stages: constructing the elicitation data and recording the speech samples.This work is important both practically and theoretically. Both major Cherokee political entities, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the North Carolina Band of Cherokee, are engaged in language preservation and pedagogy, and require reliable phonological analysis to further these goals. Several institutions of higher learning in Oklahoma offer college-level credit in the Cherokee language, and have a similarly urgent need for an accurate description of the phonology of the language, both for classroom use and for the design of instructional materials including audiotapes and CD ROM aids. Socially, because Cherokee consists of a large number of distinct dialects, an accurate phonological description is necessary to both distinguish dialects and to provide a cogent basis for the acceptance of all dialects as full-fledged members of the language.Theoretically, Cherokee phonology has long presented several conundrums. One still-unsolved problem is the status of pitch and tone in the language. Another problem is that of word and morpheme boundaries and their relationship to prosodic categories. Yet another problem is the role of intonational processes with respect to syntactic processes, and how these may be different still from discourse functions. This study will provide a large corpus of data that will be drawn from a diverse sample of speakers and provide detailed acoustic information. Using an autosegmental-metrical model, the researchers will identify the associations of the tone tier with other linguistic levels.This study provides research opportunities for undergraduate assistants in the fieldwork phase. It also includes a large proportion of Cherokee persons in major components of the research, including senior personnel, research assistants, and of course, the language consultants themselves.