Explaining the Rarity of Click Sounds as consonants in the Languages of the World

这个项目试图解释在世界语言中作为辅音的咔嗒声的罕见性。在大多数辅音中，声源是在说话者呼气时来自肺部的空气中产生的。声音的来源与舌头和嘴唇的过滤作用是分开的。声源与滤波器的分离是当前语音产生理论的基础，并且在所有计算机生成的语音模型中都是假设的。然而，在某些语音中，声源与声道的过滤作用的分离不太清楚。例如，对于在喉咙中发出的“h”这样的声音，由于舌头收缩接近声带，声源发生了变化。在咔嗒声中，说话者通过在舌头和上颚的两个部分之间创造一个空腔来发声。声音是通过在舌头和上颚之间产生真空而产生的，这允许空气流入真空中，同时通过舌头的形状和位置过滤。这个项目将包括对这些复杂的语言手势及其产生的声音的仔细分析。研究小组将在点击生产期间收集舌头的高帧率超声数据。超声方法每千分之八秒产生一次舌头的图像，与音频信号对齐。在产生咔嗒声时，舌头和上颚之间形成的腔的体积将被测量，并与产生的声波频率相关联。这些和其他分析将用于支持米勒博士向国际语音协会提出的申请，即在国际语音字母表中增加两种新记录的咔哒声。该项目的结果也将有助于计算机语音生成，为未来的模型，可以处理源过滤器的相互作用提供有价值的数据。

This project seeks to explain the rarity of clicks as consonants in the languages of the world. In most consonants, the source of sound is generated on air coming from the lungs as speakers breathe out. The source of sound is separate from the filtering action of the tongue and lips. The separation of the source of sound from the filter underlies current theories of speech production, and is assumed in all computer generated models of speech. However, in some speech sounds, the separation of the source of sound from the filtering action of the vocal tract is less clear.For example, for sounds like 'h' that are made in the throat, the source of sound is changed due to the proximity of the tongue constriction to the vocal folds. In click consonants, speakers produce sound by creating a cavity between two parts of the tongue and the palate. The sound is generated by creating a vacuum between the tongue and the palate, which allows air to flow into the vacuum, and is simultaneously filtered by the tongue's shape and position. This project will consist of careful analyses of these complex speech gestures and their resulting sounds. The research team will collect high frame-rate ultrasound data of the tongue during click production. The ultrasound method yields an image of the tongue every 8 thousandths of a second, which is aligned with the audio signal.The volume of the cavity formed between the tongue and the palate in the production of click consonants will be measured and correlated with the frequency of the sound waves that are produced. These and other analyses will be used to support Dr. Miller's petition to the International Phonetic Association to add two newly documented click sounds to the International Phonetic Alphabet. The results of this project will also contribute to computer speech generation by providing valuable data for future models that can handle source-filter interactions.