EAPSI: Investigating the Sound System of a Minority Language by Building a Speech Corpus

本研究旨在通过建立语音语料库，更好地了解南彝语的语音系统。南彝语是云南使用的少数民族语言中国，属于汉藏语系藏缅语支。到目前为止，所有关于南彝语的研究都集中在单音节，要么是孤立的，要么是框架句中的。本研究的目的是研究语音系统是如何在连续语音中实现的。中国，将在云南开展南彝语田野调查，并招募不同年龄段的说话人参与录制语音语料库。随后将对语料库进行分析，以评估个别说话者的发音有何不同，以及说话者之间是否存在一致的年龄差异。本研究是与云南民族大学民族语言文学系严路教授合作进行的，建立南彝语语音语料库的目的是研究在连续语音中正在进行的语音变化。南彝语在元音方面有音域对比，通常被称为紧与松的对比。语音在语域对比中的作用已经得到了很好的确立。此外，南彝族在两个寄存器之间的F1、F2和F0显示出差异。语域对比正在从以发声为主要线索向以共振峰为主要线索转变的过程中。中国，云南彝语口语语料库，既有朗读式的，也有自发的。音频和电声门图(EGG)信号将被记录下来。语料库将在句子、单词和音素级别进行切分和注释。产生的语料库将用于1)研究在单个说话人内部和不同说话人之间如何在连续语音中实现语域对比，以及2)更好地了解正在进行的声音变化如何反映在社区不同年龄段的作品中。该奖项由东亚和太平洋暑期学院项目资助一名美国研究生的暑期研究，由美国国家科学基金会和中国的科技部联合资助。

This study intends to better understand the sound system of Southern Yi through building a speech corpus. Southern Yi is a minority language spoken in Yunnan, China, and it belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. So far, all studies on Southern Yi have focused on monosyllables elicited either in isolation or in a frame sentence. The goal of this study is to investigate how the sound system is realized in continuous speech. Fieldwork on Southern Yi will be carried out in Yunnan, China, and speakers from different age groups will be recruited to participate in recording a speech corpus. The speech corpus will subsequently be analyzed to evaluate how individual speakers differ in their articulation and whether there are consistent age differences between the speakers. This research will be conducted in collaboration with Professor Yan Lu of the Department of Ethnic Languages and Literature at Yunnan Nationalities University.The aim of building a speech corpus of Southern Yi is to study an ongoing sound change in continuous speech. Southern Yi has a register contrast in its vowels, typically referred to as the tense vs. lax contrast. The role of phonation in the register contrast has been well established. Additionally, Southern Yi exhibits differences in F1, F2, and F0 between the two registers. The register contrast is in the process of shifting from using phonation as the primary cue to using formants as the primary cues. A corpus of spoken Southern Yi containing both reading style speech and spontaneous speech will be recorded in Yunnan, China. Both audio and electroglottograph (EGG) signals will be recorded. The corpus will be segmented and annotated at the sentence, word, and phoneme levels. The resulting corpus will be used 1) to study how the register contrast is realized in continuous speech within an individual speaker and across different speakers, and 2) to better understand how the ongoing sound change is reflected in the production from different age groups in the community.This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.