The Causal Structure of Intervocalic Lenition

语言学家通常从两个不同的角度来研究人类语言的声音：音韵学的，它关注的是它们在符号层面上的模式和组织（例如，语言X比语言Y有更多的元音）；语音学的，它关注的是物理特性，包括声学特征（例如，强度）和发音运动（例如，声音/b/是通过闭上嘴唇发出的）。关于辅音的实现，一个正在进行的争论是，说话者为发出辅音所付出的努力是在头脑中抽象地表现为不同的声音，还是简单地用这些辅音在单词和句子中所占的位置来解释。这个项目通过分析和比较两种语言中不同位置的多个辅音的声学特性来阐明这个问题。此外，这项研究训练和支持学生的参与，有助于下一代语言研究人员的发展。所有声音的产生都需要声道的某种程度的运动，语言通常有两个过程来调节这些运动所涉及的努力量，即强化（更清晰的发音努力和更清晰的手势）和放松（更少的努力和更放松的动作）。这项研究测试了a)哪种辅音受到这两个过程的影响，b)这两个过程如何受到辅音位置的影响（例如，单词的开头、元音之间、短语的开头），以及c)涉及这两个过程的一些常见声音模式是否可以从不同声音的持续时间中预测出来。对两种不同语言的分析也可以作为跨语言比较的起点，从而更好地理解语言声音模式在多大程度上依赖于抽象的心理过程或具体的物理过程。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。

Linguists typically study the sounds of human languages from two different perspectives: the phonological one, which focuses on their patterns and organization at a symbolic level (e.g., language X has more vowels than language Y) and the phonetic one, which focuses on physical properties, including acoustic characteristics (e.g., intensity) and articulatory movements (e.g., the sound /b/ is produced by closing the lips). An ongoing debate on the realization of consonant sounds is whether the amount of effort speakers make to produce them is represented for different sounds at an abstract level in the mind or is simply explained by the position these consonants occupy in words and sentences. This project sheds light on this matter by analyzing and comparing the acoustic properties of multiple consonants in different positions in two languages. Additionally, this study trains and supports student participation, contributing to the development of the next generation of language researchers. All sound productions require some degree of movement in the vocal tract, and languages generally show two processes that regulate the amount of effort involved in those movements, namely fortition (more articulatory effort and clearer gestures) and lenition (less effort and more relaxed movements). This study tests a) what kinds of consonants are affected by these two processes, b) how these two processes are conditioned by the position of the consonant (e.g., beginning of a word vs. between vowels vs. beginning of a phrase), and c) if some common sound patterns involving these two processes are predictable from the duration of different sounds. The analysis of two different languages also serves as a starting point for a cross-linguistic comparison leading to a greater understanding of the extent to which linguistic sound patterns are dependent on abstract mental processes or concrete physical ones.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.