POWRE: The Phonetic Structure of Navajo

纳瓦霍语的语法和词汇结构(词法)是迄今为止美洲土著语言中记录最完整的语言，实际上也是世界上记录最完整的语言之一。此外，纳瓦霍语是一种语言类型，其词法的复杂性是不同寻常的。尽管纳瓦霍语的语法和词法知识水平很高，但在科学文献中对该语言语音系统的语音学很少讨论。虽然许多其他语言，如英语，已经从几十年来对它们的声音和语音系统的研究中受益，但关于纳瓦霍语和其他土著语言的类似研究几乎不存在。这项研究将是对纳瓦霍语发音系统的基线语音特性的工具性研究。它将包括田野调查，录音将从以纳瓦霍语为母语的人那里收集。对这些数据的分析将产生一本关于纳瓦霍音响系统的专著。这本专著将描述今天在纳瓦霍保留地所说的纳瓦霍语的辅音和元音以及声调系统。这些数据及其分析应该在课堂教育(语言教学)和临床(言语病理学和听力学)环境中都被证明是有用的。它们还将拓宽我们对与英语截然不同的语言声音系统的了解。这笔POWRE补助金将在调查员职业生涯的关键时刻提供支持。通过允许她完成一个在加州大学洛杉矶分校担任博士后研究员时开始的项目，这将帮助她在中断了三年的医学院颅面形态和上呼吸道功能实验室后，在语言学领域重新确立自己的地位。

The grammar and word structure (morphology) of the Navajo language is by far the most completely documented of any language indigenous to the Americas and indeed one of the most completely documented in the world. In addition, Navajo is a language type that is unusual in the complexity of its morphology. Notwithstanding the advanced state of knowledge of the grammar and morphology of Navajo, there is very little discussion in the scientific literature of the phonetics of the language's sound system. While many other languages, like English, have benefited from decades of research on their sound and speech systems, similar work on Navajo and other indigenous languages is virtually nonexistent. This research will be an instrumental study of the baseline phonetic properties of the Navajo language's sound system. It will consist of fieldwork, in which recordings will be collected from native speakers of Navajo. Analysis of these data will result in a monograph on the sound system of Navajo. This monograph will provide a description of the consonant and vowel sounds and the tonal system of Navajo, as it is spoken on the Navajo reservation today. These data and their analysis should prove useful both in classroom education (language instruction) and clinical (speech pathology and audiology) settings. They will also broaden our knowledge of language sound systems quite different from English. This POWRE grant will provide support at a critical point in the investigator's career. By allowing her to complete a project begun while a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, it will assist her in reestablishing herself in the field of linguistics following a three-year hiatus running a medical school laboratory in cranio-facial morphology and upper respiratory function.