Doctoral Dissertation Research: Articulatory and Corpus Study of Relative Timing among Consonants, Vowels, and Tones

语言学研究的一个核心课题是说话者对其语言的隐性知识。对于所有的口语，这方面的知识包括如何言语器官，包括嘴唇，舌头和软腭，在时间上协调产生语音。此外，许多语言还使用不同的音高模式（称为音调）来区分单词。本项目研究声调是否与其他语音器官的协调相互作用，从未充分研究的藏语中提取几种类型的数据。在方法上，该项目将发音器官物理运动的实验测量与在尼泊尔收集的音频数据相结合，利用散居藏人社区中说话者之间的差异来了解音调，辅音和元音如何在时间上协调的基本原则。更广泛的影响包括公开的音频记录存款，使语言学家和社区成员能够在未来的工作中捕捉到正在经历快速变化的语言的快照。耶鲁大学的博士生Co-PI将分析西藏人在其散居地所说的声学和发音数据，这是一种未被充分研究的语言，在说话者之间存在显着差异。变化的一个方面是，一些扬声器保留了音调，而另一些扬声器失去了音调对比。主要的假设是，词汇音调的存在改变了发音手势的协调，发音和声学的后果造成的竞争需求的平衡，喉和supralaryngeal方面的语音生产。这项研究扩展了对尼泊尔合作PI收集的声学数据的分析，以获得自发语音语料库。语料库分析的关键是通过对藏语发音运动学的实验。该实验使用电磁关节描记术（EMA）跟踪舌头和嘴唇的运动以及声学记录。除了在实验室语音中提供主要假设的测试之外，对共同注册的声学和运动信号的分析将建立可用于语料库分析的相对定时的声学测量。语料库研究将评估自然语音数据中的假设，考虑更广泛的影响时间的因素，进一步评估扬声器内部和跨扬声器的变化，并为未来的研究提供宝贵的资源。该项目将有助于科学地理解音调的心理表征以及口头、喉部和音调手势之间的时间关系，联合收割机和发音方法，从变异中获取证据，并推进对研究较少的语言的研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A core topic of study in linguistics is the tacit knowledge that speakers have about their language. For all spoken languages, part of this knowledge includes how the speech organs, including the lips, tongue, and velum, are coordinated in time to produce speech. Additionally, many languages also distinguish words from each other using different pitch patterns, called tones. This project investigates whether tones interact with the coordination of other speech organs, drawing together several types of data from the understudied Tibetan language. Methodologically, the project integrates experimental measurements on the physical movement of articulators with audio data gathered in Nepal, harnessing the variation found between speakers in the diaspora Tibetan community to understand basic principles of how tones, consonants and vowels are coordinated in time. Broader impacts include the publicly available deposit of audio recordings to enable future work by linguists and community members, capturing a snapshot of a language undergoing rapid change. The Co-PI, a doctoral student at Yale University, will analyze acoustic and articulatory data of Tibetan as spoken in its diaspora, an understudied language with significant variation between speakers. One aspect of the variation is that some speakers have retained tone while others speakers have lost tone contrasts. The main hypothesis is that the presence of lexical tone alters the coordination of articulatory gestures, with articulatory and acoustic consequences resulting from the balance of competing demands of laryngeal and supralaryngeal aspects of speech production. This study extends analysis of acoustic data collected by the co-PI in Nepal to a corpus of spontaneous speech. The corpus analysis is crucially informed by an experiment on the articulatory kinematics of Tibetan. The experiment uses electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to track the movement of the tongue and lips together with acoustic recordings. Besides providing a test of the main hypothesis in laboratory speech, analysis of co-registered acoustic and kinematic signals will establish acoustic measures of relative timing that can be used in the corpus analysis. The corpus study will evaluate hypotheses in naturalistic speech data, allow consideration of a wider range of factors influencing timing, further assess variability within and across speakers, and provide a valuable resource for future research. This project will contribute to scientific understanding of the mental representation of tone and the timing relations among oral, laryngeal, and tonal gestures, combine corpus and articulatory methods, draw evidence from variation, and advance research on a less-studied language.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.