COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Cherokee Language Sound Description and Analysis

尽管切罗基语是易洛魁语系的一个孤立成员，与北美许多其他濒危语言相比，使用者更多（10，000至12，000人），文献也更多，但从语言学角度来看，对它的研究仍然显着不足。 这个项目将提供一个彻底的描述和分析的切罗基声音系统：目标是建立音素库存和描述音调系统和其他语调现象，通过声学分析的辅音，元音和音高的区别。 整个项目预计需要三年时间，将包括四个阶段：构建启发数据（单词和句子）的主体;录制20名演讲者的语音样本;语音分析录音（特别强调音高痕迹）;以及根据这些数据撰写报告。本计画将历时一年，包含前两个阶段：建构启发式资料与录音样本，这项工作在实务与理论上都有重要意义。 两个主要的切罗基政治实体，俄克拉荷马州州的切罗基民族和北卡罗来纳州的切罗基乐队，都从事语言保护和教学，并需要可靠的语音分析，以进一步实现这些目标。 俄克拉荷马州的几所高等院校提供切罗基语的大学水平学分，并且同样迫切需要对该语言的语音学进行准确描述，既用于课堂使用，也用于包括录音带和CD ROM教具在内的教学材料的设计。 在社会上，由于切罗基语由大量不同的方言组成，准确的语音描述是必要的，既可以区分方言，又可以为接受所有方言作为语言的成熟成员提供令人信服的基础。理论上，切罗基语的语音学长期以来一直存在一些难题。 一个尚未解决的问题是音高和音调在语言中的地位。 另一个问题是词和语素的边界以及它们与韵律范畴的关系。 另一个问题是语调过程相对于句法过程的作用，以及这些过程如何与话语功能不同。 这项研究将提供一个大型语料库的数据，将从不同的扬声器样本，并提供详细的声学信息。 研究者将使用自动切分-格律模型来识别声调层次与其他语言层次的关联，本研究为本科生助教在田野调查阶段提供了研究机会。 在研究的主要组成部分中，也包括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.