Perceptual correlates of syllable weight

在国家科学基金会的支持下，马修·戈登博士将开发一个听觉系统对语音刺激反应的计算模型。这一听觉模型将允许对世界语言中声音系统的一些不同性质进行定量研究，包括本研究的重点，跨语言中普遍存在的重量敏感重音现象：某些重音节对重音的吸引力。这项研究将探索听觉因素，而不是严格的声学因素在重量敏感重音系统中所起的作用：特别是，该研究将调查语言优先重音音节的假设，这些音节具有比其他音节更强的听觉突出度。该项目通过收集和量化分析来自十种语言的语音数据，包括几种未被研究和濒危的语言，超越了关于声音系统的听觉基础的其他工作。这项研究还包括一项知觉实验，证明驱动体重敏感压力的听觉因素是普遍存在的，即使在没有体重敏感压力的语言中也是如此。最后，本研究还将在跨语言的基础上探索重量和音节结构之间的可能的相关性，以深入了解与获得重音系统相关的因素。本研究旨在探讨言语声学与听觉系统中言语知觉之间的关系，以期为我们理解世界语言的语音系统做出贡献。这项研究的结果将是一个公开可用的听觉模型，它不仅将解释研究的重点-重量敏感重音现象，而且还将提供对其他几个语言特征的洞察，包括声音清单和音节结构。此外，研究重音和音节结构之间的相关性将有助于我们理解儿童是如何获得声音系统的。这项拟议研究的另一个好处是，它拓宽了我们对一些未被研究和濒危的语言的了解。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Matthew Gordon will develop a computational model of the auditory system's response to speech stimuli. This auditory model will allow for quantitative investigation of a number of different properties of sound systems in languages of the world, including the focus of this study, the cross-linguistically pervasive phenomenon of weight-sensitive stress: the attraction of stress by certain "heavy" syllables. This research will explore the role that auditory, as opposed to strictly acoustic, factors play in weight-sensitive stress systems: in particular,the study will investigate the hypothesis that languages preferentially stress syllables that have greater auditory prominence than other syllables. The project goes beyond other work on the auditory basis for sound systems by collecting and quantitatively analyzing phonetic data from ten languages, including several understudied and endangered languages. The study also includes a perception experiment demonstrating that the auditory factors driving weight-sensitive stress are universal, even in languages lacking weight-sensitive stress. Finally, the study will also explore possible correlations between weight and syllable structure on a cross-linguistic basis in order to gain insight into the factors relevant for acquiring a stress system. This research investigates the relationship between the acoustics of speech and the perception of speech in the auditory system in order to contribute to our understanding of the sound systems of the world's languages. The result of this research will be a publicly available auditory model that will not only account for the phenomenon of weight-sensitive stress, the focus of the study, but will also provide insight into several other linguistic features, including sound inventories and syllable structure. Furthermore, investigation of the correlation between stress and syllable structure will potentially contribute to our understanding of how sound systems are acquired by children. Yet another benefit of the proposed study is that it broadens our knowledge of a number of understudied and endangered languages.