Collaborative Research: Phonetic and Phonological Structures of Post-Velar Constrictions in Clicks and Laterals

在南非的语言中，舌头从上颚抽离，产生真空和发出嘈杂的声音是很常见的，而在其他地方则非常罕见。拥有最复杂的咔哒声系统的语言目前正濒临灭绝，所以我们理解人类语言所能容纳的这些声音范围的机会正在减少。在国家科学基金会的支持下，阿曼达·米勒博士（康奈尔大学）和邦尼·桑兹博士（北亚利桑那大学）将分析这些复杂声音的物理特性。一种新开发的超声成像方法将大大提高我们对这些辅音的舌头运动的认识。目前的语音思维，如国际音标所示，包括五种咔嗒声（双颊、牙槽、腭和侧边），但初步研究表明，还有另外三种咔嗒声类型：反旋、腭牙槽侧边和向前释放（或牙槽）侧边。一种全新的声音类别，似乎包含了语音气流轮廓的语言辅音，也被初步确定。在纳米比亚国家教育发展研究所的Laurentius davis和博茨瓦纳大学的Kemmonye Monaka博士的帮助下，研究人员将研究未被识别的咔哒声和新型辅音的运动学，并将它们与已知的咔哒声类型进行比较，以便更好地理解所有咔哒声的发音、声学和语音特性。研究将集中在5种点击语言：Ekoka ！熊，格鲁方丹！Xung, Ju| " hoansi, =/Hoan, and Mangetti Dune ！Xung。在非洲语言中发现的边缘和复杂的声音必须符合人类语言的普遍模式，但它们经常被忽视，因为现有的模式通常是围绕欧洲语言和一些精选的其他语言建立的。目前的研究也将有助于所研究语言的正字法的发展。该项目将产生一个关于荷山语语音声学和制作的音频和视频数据库，这些数据库将被转录、注释、放在公共档案中，并提供给感兴趣的研究人员。这个数据库将是一个独特的信息来源，关于涉及咔哒声的共时和历时音韵模式（特别是那些朝向口腔前部发出的元音和涉及舌头收缩的咔哒声之间的模式）。这项研究对未被识别的辅音的物理特性（语音）和心理表征（音系）的描述将使这些罕见的辅音形成超越当前受威胁语言生命的通用语言理论。

Click sounds, in which the tongue pulls away from the roof of the mouth to create a vacuum and a noisy release, are common in the languages of southern Africa and vanishingly rare elsewhere. The languages with the most elaborated systems of clicks are currently endangered, so our chances of understanding the range of these sounds that human languages can accommodate are dwindling. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Amanda Miller (Cornell University) and Dr. Bonny Sands (Northern Arizona University) will analyze the physical properties of these complex sounds. A newly-developed ultrasound imaging methodology will greatly enhance our knowledge of the movements of the tongue during these consonants. Current phonetic thinking, as seen in the International Phonetic Alphabet, encompasses five clicks (bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal and lateral), but preliminary work has revealed that there are an additional three click types: retroflex, palatoalveolar lateral, and forward-released (or denti-alveolar) lateral. A completely new class of sounds, linguopulmonic consonants, that seem to entail a phonological airstream contour, has also been tentatively identified. The researchers, with assistance from Laurentius Davids of the National Institute for Educational Development in Namibia and Dr. Kemmonye Monaka of the University of Botswana, will study the kinematics of unrecognized clicks and new types of consonants and compare them with the known click types so that the articulatory, acoustic and phonological properties of all clicks will be better understood. Research will focus on 5 click languages: Ekoka !Xung, Grootfontein !Xung, Ju|''hoansi, =/Hoan, and Mangetti Dune !Xung. Marginal and complex sounds found in African languages must fit into universal models of human language, but they have often been neglected given that existing models have typically been built around European languages and a select range of others. The present research will also aid the development of orthographies for the languages under study. The project will result in an audio and video database of Khoesan language speech acoustics and production that will be transcribed, annotated, placed in a public archive and made available to interested researchers. This database will be a unique source of information on synchronic and diachronic phonological patterns involving clicks (particularly those patterns between vowels made towards the front of the mouth and clicks which involve retraction of the tongue). The description of the physical properties (phonetic) and mental representations (phonology) of unrecognized consonants resulting from this research will allow these rare consonants to shape universal linguistic theories beyond the life of the currently threatened languages.