Prosodic Systems in New Guinea: Integrating computational and typological approaches to linguistic analysis

世界上的语言大量使用韵律--音调、重音、语调和长度--来传达意思，而音调是这些元素中最复杂的。虽然非声调语言通常利用音高来达到语调的目的，但声调语言中音高的更复杂使用意味着这些语言的使用者将具有与英语和更知名的欧洲非声调语言的使用者完全不同的音高心理表征。该项目将调查新几内亚的声调和降调语言，这是世界上语言学研究不足的地区，拥有世界上六分之一的语言。该项目将从几种未描述的声调语言中收集大量新的记录和转录语言数据。然后，将使用计算和理论方法来分析音调属性的地理分布以及音调和其他韵律特征的相互作用。该项目将把技术融入语言学领域的工作，并开发一个韵律描述的示范模型。将对语文咨询人进行使用该模型的培训，从而使原始数据更容易获取，说明更负责任。这些数据将以一种学者、语言教师和讲者社区可以随时使用的形式提供，并将支持这些语言的书写系统和扫盲计划的发展。

The world's languages make heavy use of prosody--tone, stress, intonation, and length--to communicate meaning, and tone is the most complex of these elements. Although non-tone languages typically exploit pitch for intonational purposes, the more sophisticated use of pitch in tone languages means that speakers of such languages will have quite different mental representations of pitch from speakers of English and better-known European non-tone languages. This project will investigate the tone and reduced-tone languages of New Guinea, a linguistically under-investigated area of the world which is home to a sixth of the world's languages. The project will collect substantial new bodies of recorded and transcribed language data from several undescribed tone languages. It will then use computational and theoretical methods to analyze the geographical distribution of tonal properties and the interaction of tone and other prosodic features.The project will incorporate technology into linguistic field work and develop an exemplary model of prosodic description. Language consultants will be trained in the model's use, leading to more accessible primary data and more accountable descriptions. The data will be made available in a form that can be readily used by scholars, language teachers, and communities of speakers and will support the development of writing systems and literacy programs for these languages.