Tonal Aspects of Language Symposium: Bridging Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Tone

人类口语的基本组成部分是我们为交流而产生和感知的辅音和元音。然而，与这些元素分开的是一个旋律水平，称为词韵律。通过改变音高和强调单词的某些部分，我们可以传达这个单词的意思，甚至是一个短语的更广泛的意义。在世界上大约50%的语言中，单个音节的音高变化可以改变一个单词的意思。这样的语言被称为声调语言。世界上最常用的语言汉语是一种声调语言，东亚和东南亚、撒哈拉以南非洲和墨西哥南部的大多数语言也是如此。然而，尽管对语言的组成部分——辅音和元音进行了数十年的研究，但我们对人类如何感知音调以及音调如何融入我们日常生活中用于交流的更大的语法系统知之甚少。例如，大脑是如何处理音调的？当说话者在谈话中快速地发出音调时，他们会发出什么声音，听者会把耳朵转向什么？影响语气的深层语法过程是如何影响这些事情的？这个项目的目标是汇集来自不同角度的专注于声调语言的专家。虽然语言学家已经探索了音调与语法和意义相互作用的多种方式，但他们很少关注音调在认知中的作用。另一方面，心理学家主要关注音调的神经和行为处理，但没有探索音调细节及其与语法的相互作用。此外，大多数关于语气的认知研究都集中在少数几种东亚语言上。然而，声调系统在世界各地的语言中有很大的差异，研究应该反映这种多样性。最后，声调语言的计算工作有可能促进研究人员之间的交叉合作，但这种工作仍处于起步阶段。第五届语言的声调方面研讨会将特别侧重于整合不同的学术方法来研究声调，促进不同声调语言的研究，以及使用计算方法对声调行为进行建模。这些目标将促进跨学科的更大合作，推动tone的科学研究向前发展。

The essential building blocks of spoken human language are the consonants and vowels that we produce and perceive to communicate. Yet, separate from these elements is a melodic level called word prosody. By changing pitch and emphasizing certain parts of a word, we can convey the word's meaning and even the broader significance of a phrase. In approximately 50% of the world's languages, changes in pitch on a single syllable can change a word's meaning. Such languages are called tone languages. The most commonly-spoken language in the world, Chinese, is a tone language, as are most of the languages of East and Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southern Mexico. Yet despite decades of research on the building blocks of language, consonants and vowels, we understand little of how humans perceive tone and how tone is integrated into the larger grammatical systems that we use to communicate in everyday life. For instance, Just how is tone processed in the brain? What do speakers produce and listeners tune their ears towards when producing tones rapidly in conversation? How do the deeper grammatical processes affecting tone influence such things?The goal of this project is to bring together experts from diverse perspectives who focus on tone languages. While linguists have explored the diverse ways in which tone interacts with grammar and meaning, they have paid less attention to its role in cognition. On the other hand, psychologists have focused mainly on the neural and behavioral processing of tone, but have not explored tonal detail nor its interaction with grammar. Furthermore, most of the cognitive research on tone focuses on just a handful of East Asian languages. Yet, tonal systems vary substantially across the world's languages and the research should reflect this diversity. Finally, computational work on tone languages has the potential to promote cross-collaboration among researchers, but such work is still in its infancy. The 5th Symposium on the Tonal Aspects of Languages will focus specifically on integrating different academic approaches to the study of tone, promoting the study of diverse tone languages, and modeling tonal behavior using computational methods. These goals will promote greater collaboration across disciplines and drive the scientific study of tone forward.