Prosody and Articulatory Dynamics in Spoken Language

描述（由申请人提供）：随着语音产生的研究与语言学理论的结合越来越紧密，越来越清楚的是，分段发音不能独立于语言结构而被理解。韵律结构——突出和短语组织——是高级语言组织的一个方面，它的影响被视为渗透到低级发音行为中。本研究计划的长期目标是了解语言结构如何影响说话过程中发音运动的时空实现。具体而言，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。我们采用三管齐下的方法：实验、理论和计算。使用发音运动数据的实验和伴随的计算模型的结果将提供一个轮廓的方式，其中发音手势的模式是由韵律环境塑造的。理解这些言语生产单位的组织作为话语信息组成的功能，对于发展抽象语言结构如何在口语中传播的统一描述至关重要。婴儿的语言习得和受损人群的语言障碍都表明韵律与口语认知控制之间存在重要联系。韵律习得和感知的发展数据坚定地表明，韵律结构的实现构成了习得的和语言特有的知识，这些知识与分词实现相结合。此外，由于神经系统疾病导致的成人语言产生缺陷通常以各种韵律和发音不规则为特征。因此，对韵律的发音产生的概述研究计划对我们理解语言习得和语言分解都很重要。

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.