Prosody and Articulatory Dynamics in Spoken Language

描述(申请人提供)：随着言语产生的研究与语言学理论的日益融合，人们越来越清楚地认识到，分段发音不能独立于语言结构而被理解。韵律结构-突显和短语组织-是高级语言组织的一个方面，其影响普遍存在于低级发音行为中。该研究计划的长期目标是了解语言结构如何制约说话过程中发音运动的时空实现。具体地说，我们研究了韵律结构的一个方面-短语结构-与语音产生的动态系统模型中发音的控制和协调之间的关系。我们采取了三管齐下的方法：实验、理论和计算。使用发音运动学数据的实验及其结果的伴随计算建模将提供发音手势的模式被韵律语境塑造的方式的轮廓。理解这些言语产生单位的组织作为话语的信息构成的功能，对于建立一个关于抽象语言结构如何在口语中交流的统一描述是至关重要的。婴儿的语言习得和受损人群的语言崩溃都表明韵律和口语的认知控制之间存在着重要的联系。有关韵律习得和感知的发展数据有力地表明，韵律结构的实现包括习得的和特定于语言的知识，这些知识与节段实现相联系。此外，由于神经疾病导致的成人言语产生缺陷通常以各种韵律和发音异常为特征。因此，韵律发音产生的研究大纲对于我们理解语言习得和语言分解都是很重要的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As research in speech production becomes more integrated with linguistic theory, it has become increasingly clear that segmental articulation cannot be understood independently of linguistic structure. Prosodic structure - prominence and phrasal organization - is one aspect of high-level linguistic organization and its effects are seen to pervade low-level articulatory behavior. The long-term objective of the proposed research program is to understand how linguistic structure conditions the spatiotemporal realization of articulatory movement during speaking. Specifically, we investigate the relation between one aspect of prosodic structure - phrasal structure - and the control and coordination of articulation within a dynamical systems model of speech production. We adopt a three-pronged approach: experimental, theoretical, and computational. Experiments using articulatory kinematic data and concomitant computational modeling of their results will provide a profile of the manner in which patterning of articulatory gestures is shaped by prosodic context. Understanding the organization of these units of speech production as a function of the informational composition of utterances is critical to developing a unified account of the how abstract linguistic structure is communicated in spoken language. Both language acquisition by infants and language breakdown in impaired populations suggests an important connection between prosody and the cognitive control of spoken language. Developmental data on the acquisition and perception of prosody firmly indicate that the realization of prosodic structure constitutes learned and language-specific knowledge that interfaces with segmental realization. Furthermore, adult speech production deficits due to neurological disorders are often characterized by a diversity of prosodic and articulatory irregularities. The outlined research program on the articulatory production of prosody is thus important to our understanding of both language acquisition and language breakdown.