Physiological and Acoustical Studies of Speech

描述（由申请人提供）：所提出的研究旨在有助于阐明人类语音产生过程的三个层次之间的关系：根据单词和单词内的语音片段对话语的离散语言表示;由话语产生的声学模式;以及在语言表示和声学表示之间建立联系的发音手势。我们将从三个方面考察这一语音链：（1）语言中普遍存在的某些声音的声学和感知基础，特别是元音、塞音、摩擦音和鼻音的某些特征;（2）当声音出现在不同的语境中并以不同的言语风格产生时，控制语音产生的可变性的原则，特别是由于发音手势的重叠和随意讲话中元音的减少而引起的变异;（3）3-7岁儿童获得语言中的单词和声音对比的过程。与儿童的发展研究将主要基于详细的声学分析和解释的儿童的话语，因为他们的语音生产策略从整个词的单位与最小的结构内的话，以序列的较小的单位，定义单词之间的对比。这项研究将有助于理解话语产生的各个阶段，并有助于指出在这个过程中可能发生偏差的成分，以及这些偏差在言语产生中的后果。它还将有助于描述儿童正常言语发展的阶段，并了解这些阶段的进展基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research aims to contribute to an elucidation of the relation between three levels of the process of human speech production: the discrete linguistic representation of an utterance in terms of words and speech segments within words; the acoustic pattern that results from the utterance; and the articulatory gestures that create the link between the linguistic and acoustic representations. Three aspects of this speech chain will be examined: (1) the acoustic and perceptual bases for some of the sounds that occur universally in language, particularly certain features of vowels and of stop, fricative, and nasal consonants; (2) principles that govern the variability in production of speech sounds when the sounds occur in various contexts and are produced with different speech styles, particularly variability due to overlap of articulatory gestures and reduction of vowels in casual speech; and (3) the process by which children in the 3-7 year range acquire the words and sound contrasts in language. The developmental research with children will be based primarily on detailed acoustic analysis and interpretation of the children's utterances as their speech production strategies evolve from whole word units with minimal structure within words to sequences of smaller units that define the contrasts between words. This research will contribute to an understanding of the various stages involved in the production of an utterance, and will help to indicate the components within this process where deviations can occur, and the consequences of these deviations in speech production. It will also contribute to a description of the stages of normal speech development in children and an understanding of the basis for the progression through these stages.