Effects of Syntactic Constituency on Phonology and Phonetics of Tone

句法成分对声调音系和语音学的影响

• 批准号: 1147083
• 负责人: Elisabeth Selkirk
• 金额: $ 49.91万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-07-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1147083&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Effects; Syntactic; Constituency; Phonology; Phonetics

This research project investigates the question of just how the syntactic structure of a sentence can affect its pronunciation. The project will make coordinated fieldwork investigations of four languages with diverse syntactic properties (Northern Bizkaian Basque, Xitsonga, Luganda, Irish) in which the distribution of tone is known to be particularly revealing of the general role for syntactic constituent structure in determining the pronunciation of sentences. In these languages the location of the left and/or right edges of phrase-sized constituents is indicated by tonal and other phonological phenomena (insertion of tones at phrase edges, lengthening of the penultimate vowel, etc.) Moreover these languages are known to display phonological effects associated with a distinct, larger, clause-level type of constituent. So data from the pronunciation of sentences in these languages can reveal just what types of syntactic phrases or syntactic clauses count as "domains" for phonology. These domain-sensitive phenomena can moreover provide a tool for assessing whether a purely syntax-based theory of phonological domain structure is adequate as a theory of the distribution of these phenomena in a sentence, or whether appeal also has to be made to properly phonological constraints on domain structure, such as those expressing preference for certain rhythmic patterns.The collaborative teamwork planned will provide unique training opportunities for both graduate students and faculty in the collection and analysis of complex data from the syntax-phonology interface. The training of these experts and the databases to be made publicly available will provide a foundation for further advances in the theoretical understanding of this relatively understudied aspect of grammar. Moreover, the data collected will serve to document sentence pronunciation in languages that are currently understudied and/or endangered and so will help contribute to efforts to keep the knowledge of the unique properties of these languages alive, and to teach it to others.

这个研究项目调查的问题是，一个句子的句法结构如何影响它的发音。该项目将对具有不同句法特性的四种语言（北方Bizkaian巴斯克语、Xitsonga语、卢甘达语、爱尔兰语）进行协调的实地调查，其中声调的分布被认为特别揭示了句法成分结构在决定句子发音方面的一般作用。在这些语言中，短语大小成分的左边缘和/或右边缘的位置由音调和其他语音现象（在短语边缘插入音调，延长倒数第二个元音等）指示。此外，这些语言被称为显示语音效果与一个独特的，更大的，小句级类型的成分。因此，这些语言中句子的发音数据可以揭示哪些类型的句法短语或句法从句可以算作音位学的“域”。此外，这些领域敏感现象可以提供一种工具，用于评估纯粹基于句法的音系领域结构理论是否足以作为这些现象在句子中的分布理论，或者是否还必须对领域结构进行适当的音系约束，例如那些对某些节奏模式表示偏好的人。计划中的协作团队将为双方提供独特的培训机会研究生和教师在收集和分析复杂的数据，从句法音系接口。对这些专家的培训和将向公众提供的数据库将为进一步推进对语法这一相对研究不足的方面的理论理解奠定基础。此外，收集的数据将有助于记录目前研究不足和/或濒危语言的句子发音，从而有助于保持这些语言独特属性的知识，并将其教授给他人。