Understanding Prosody and Tone Interactions through Documentation of Two Endangered Languages

为了准确地实现文本到口语或口语到文本的自动翻译，有必要了解语音的韵律模式，因为韵律，即重音、节奏和短语之间的停顿，是传达意义和构建语篇的核心。此外，许多语言使用声调来改变单词的意义，但人们对韵律特征如何与声调相互作用知之甚少。由于音调和韵律是通过使用一些相同的声学维度(音调、持续时间、音质)来传达的，因此必须知道这两个系统是如何相互作用进行自动语音识别和翻译的。为了调查和测试关于音调和韵律关系的假设，Christian Di Canio将与一个跨学科团队一起创建一个数据库，其中包括Itunyoso Trique的30小时转录叙事，并扩展Yoloxóchitl Mixtec的现有类似数据库，这两种语言都是来自墨西哥中部东部的混合语言。然后，这些转录的叙述将被解析为更小的单位，使用自动语音识别中使用的“强制对齐”工具。该项目的重要成果将包括测试和改进强制对齐工具；为Yoloxóitl Mixtec和Yoloxóitl Mixtec编写新的语料库和扩展词典；分析这两种语言的声调和韵律相互作用。由此产生的韵律切分和标记的语料库将是第一个此类濒危语言的语料库，将对说话人社区和更广泛的科学界有用。该项目得到了稳健情报计划的部分资金支持。

For accurate automated translation of text-to-spoken-word or spoken-word-to-text, it is necessary to understand the prosodic patterning of speech since prosody, i.e. stress, rhythm, and pauses between phrases, is central in conveying meaning and structuring discourse. In addition, many languages use tone to change the meaning of words but little is known about how prosodic features interact with tone. Since tone and prosody are conveyed by using some of the same acoustic dimensions (pitch, duration, voice quality), one must know how these two systems interact for automatic speech recognition and translation.To investigate and test hypotheses about the relationship of tone and prosody, Christian Di Canio, along with an interdisciplinary team, will create a database of 30 hours of transcribed narratives from Itunyoso Trique and expand an existing similar database in Yoloxóchitl Mixtec, both both Mixtecan languages from eastern central Mexico. These transcribed narratives will then be parsed into smaller units applying a 'forced alignment' tool used in automatic speech recognition. Important results from the project will include the testing and improvement of the forced alignment tool; new corpora and expanded dictionaries for and Yoloxóchitl Mixtec; and an analysis of tone and prosody interactions in these two languages. The resulting prosodically segmented and tagged corpora will be a first of its kind for an endangered language that will be of use to the speaker-community and the broader scientific community.This project is partially supported by funds from the Robust Intelligence program.