Doctoral Dissertation Research: The interaction between tone, prosody and accent

博士论文研究：声调、韵律和口音之间的相互作用

• 批准号: 1423865
• 负责人: Alan Yu
• 金额: $ 1.53万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-01 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1423865&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; interaction; between

The world's languages have traditionally been divided into one of three categories (stress-accent, pitch-accent, or tone) based on how pitch is utilized to distinguish words from one another. However, this division of languages is based largely on the impressionistic judgments rather than on detailed quantitative measurements of linguistic properties. Recent work has demonstrated that this typology is deeply inadequate for characterizing both the precise role(s) of pitch in language, and the relevant sources of diversity among languages. For example, although a language may utilize pitch as the primary acoustic cue to differentiate between words, it may also use stress, suggesting that these two phenomena are not mutually exclusive. The prevailing typology, though arguably flawed, has formed the basis for many important claims about the nature of language and linguistic complexity, which in turn have shaped how linguistic pedagogies are developed for use in foreign language teaching, and the way that prosodic systems are modeled for developing tools such as speech recognition software. Given the importance of such resources in today's global society, it is important for linguists to form a clear picture of the ways in which the acoustic properties of speech are used by speakers both in production and in perception. The current project aims to take a closer look at pitch, accent and prosodic structure in an effort to better understand how these structural elements interact, with the end goal of developing a more accurate linguistic typology, and a more adequate set of tools for language teaching and natural language processing.Research for this project will take place in Southwestern Cameroon, focusing on the Bamileke languages, a subgroup of the Mbam-Nkam branch of the Benue-Congo group (Niger-Congo family). These languages have some of the most complex tone systems in the world, and much remains to be understood about their structure. Recent work suggests that word- and phrase-level accentual properties reminiscent of those found in prototypical stress languages are responsible for previously unexplained tonal phenomena in these languages, and that accent may play a much more important role in the organization of sounds than was formerly thought. This research will endeavor to explore in detail the way that acoustic measures such as pitch, vowel quality, amplitude, syllable and vowel duration interact in language production, and the way that these cues are weighted by listeners when perceiving speech. Data will be collected in the form of controlled production and perception experiments, as well as in the form of natural conversation between native speakers of the language. Research findings will contribute to our understanding of the ways in which pitch can be used alongside other acoustic cues at different levels of grammatical structure in a language with lexically-based tonal contrasts. Since many of the languages deemed 'critical' for learning by the US government also fit this description (Mandarin Chinese, Punjabi, Hausa, etc.), this work will have important implications for a wide variety of national language training initiatives.

世界上的语言传统上被分为三类（重音，音高重音或音调），基于音高如何被用来区分单词。然而，这种语言的划分主要是基于印象主义的判断，而不是对语言属性的详细定量测量。最近的工作表明，这种类型学是远远不够的，既要描述音高在语言中的确切作用，也要描述语言多样性的相关来源。例如，虽然一种语言可能利用音高作为主要的声学线索来区分单词，但它也可能使用重音，这表明这两种现象并不相互排斥。流行的类型学，虽然可以说是有缺陷的，已经形成了许多关于语言本质和语言复杂性的重要主张的基础，这反过来又塑造了语言学如何发展用于外语教学，以及韵律系统的方式为开发工具，如语音识别软件。鉴于这些资源在当今全球社会的重要性，重要的是语言学家形成一个清晰的画面，其中语音的声学特性是由扬声器在生产和感知使用的方式。目前的项目旨在进一步研究音高、重音和韵律结构，以更好地理解这些结构要素如何相互作用，最终目标是开发更准确的语言类型学，以及更适当的语言教学和自然语言处理工具。贝努埃-刚果族的姆巴姆-恩卡姆分支的一个亚族。这些语言拥有世界上最复杂的音调系统，关于它们的结构还有很多东西有待了解。最近的研究表明，单词和短语级的重音属性让人想起那些在原型重音语言中发现的是负责以前无法解释的音调现象，在这些语言中，重音可能发挥更重要的作用，在组织的声音比以前认为的。本研究奋进详细探讨音高、元音质量、振幅、音节和元音时长等声学指标在语言产生中的相互作用，以及听者在感知语音时对这些线索的加权方式。数据将以受控生产和感知实验的形式收集，以及以母语者之间的自然对话的形式收集。研究结果将有助于我们理解在一种以词汇为基础的音调对比的语言中，音高可以与其他声学线索一起在不同层次的语法结构中使用。由于许多被美国政府认为对学习“至关重要”的语言也符合这一描述（汉语普通话、旁遮普语、豪萨语等），这项工作将对各种各样的国家语言培训倡议产生重要影响。