Workshop: Methods in phonological data collection and analysis, San Diego, CA, Fall 2018

本工作坊将强调实验方法和语料库对语言语音系统（音系学）研究的重要性。音系学的理论研究成果往往基于相对稀疏的作品数据，而这些作品本身就是基于母语人士话语的印象派语音转录。相对较新的技术进步，加上更复杂的实验方法，提供了关于声音系统性质的更准确、更广泛和可量化的信息。音系学家越来越多地使用这些方法，并且已经开始对大型语料库和数据库进行调查。这样的研究已经对该领域产生了影响，研究生即使没有受过专门的训练，也必须熟悉各种这样的方法。为此，研讨会将以研讨会主题为特色的演讲、海报和教程，并提供一个独特的机会，让语音学者们分享方法和对它们使用的见解。对于学生来说，这是一个从该领域的一些顶尖研究人员那里学习这些方法的机会。我们强调未被记录和濒危的语言，包括手语，将突出多样化语言社区的重要性，并鼓励学生参与实地考察。这不仅有利于对不同语言的研究，也有利于研究生的职业前景：许多最近提供的终身音韵学职位已向实地工作者提供。新的数据收集方法对音系理论的重要性在这里强调了一些方法所阐明的现象的简要描述。所有这些例子都依赖于未被记录和/或濒危语言的数据，这将是研讨会的主要重点。(1)仔细的声学和发音分析表明，长期以来被认为对语音过程没有作用的语音实际上可能参与这些过程，产生难以印象区分的区别。这说明了进行实验语音学研究对音系理论的重要性。(2)基于对一些相关语言的母语人士的数据收集的音高轮廓的声学分析已经确定，无论语音结构如何，词汇和语法的音调排列都可以是对比的。这样的结果对音调系统的分析有重要的影响，但如果没有详细的声学研究，这有助于为语音表征提供信息，就不会被注意到。(3)最近对鼻音的发音研究表明，鼻音除了具有特征性的音膜降低外，还可能以舌、咽和/或音质变化为特征，这意味着鼻音的语音实现是多维的。这样的结果只能通过关节测量来确定。(4)随着文献不足和濒危语言的口语语料库的建立和使用，音系学家能够使用计算工具来挖掘这些数据，以获得音系信息和概括。研究人员现在有可能将这两种方法结合起来，事实上，许多领域的音系学家在这两个领域都做出了重大贡献。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This workshop will highlight the importance of experimental methods and corpora to the study of linguistic sound systems (phonology). Theoretical research results in phonology are often based on relatively sparse data from works that are themselves based on impressionistic phonetic transcriptions of native speaker utterances. Relatively recent technological advances, coupled with more sophisticated experimental methods, provide more accurate, extensive, and quantifiable information on the nature of sound systems. Phonologists are increasingly employing these methods, and have also begun investigations with large-scale corpora and databases. Such research has already had an impact on the field, and it is imperative that graduate students be familiar with, if not specifically trained in, a variety of such methods. To this end, the workshop will feature talks, posters, and tutorials on the workshop theme, and presents a unique opportunity to share methods, and insights into their use, among fellow phonologists. For students, it is an opportunity to learn about these methods from some of the top researchers in the field. Our emphasis on under-documented and endangered languages, including signed languages, will highlight the importance of diverse language communities and encourage students to become involved in fieldwork. This not only has the benefit of contributions to the study of diverse languages, but is also beneficial to the career prospects of graduate students: many recent offers of tenure-track phonology positions have been made to fieldworkers.The importance of new data-collecting methodologies for phonological theory is highlighted here with very brief descriptions of phenomena that have been illuminated by some of these methodologies. All of these examples rely on data from under-documented and/or endangered languages, and this will be a major emphasis of the workshop. (1) Careful acoustic and articulatory analysis has revealed that speech sounds that have long been thought to be inert to phonological processes may actually participate in those processes, creating distinctions that are difficult to distinguish impressionistically. This illustrates the importance of conducting experimental phonetic research to inform phonological theory. (2) Acoustic analysis of pitch contours based on data collection with a number of native speakers of relevant languages has established that lexical and grammatical tone alignment can be contrastive irrespective of phonological structure. Such a result has important ramifications for the analysis of tonal systems, but would have gone unnoticed without detailed acoustic research that helps inform phonological representations. (3) Recent articulatory studies of nasal sounds have shown that they may be characterized by lingual, pharyngeal, and/or voice quality changes in addition to characteristic velum lowering, implying that the phonetic implementation of nasality is multidimensional. Such results could only be definitively found using articulatory measurements. (4) As spoken corpora of under-documented and endangered languages are constructed and become available, phonologists are able to employ computational tools to mine these data for phonological information and generalizations. Researchers now have the potential to combine both approaches, and indeed many field phonologists are making significant contributions in both domains.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.