Collaborative Research: Phonetic and Phonological Structures of Post-velar Constrictions in Clicks and Laterals

滴答声在南部非洲的语言中很常见，在其他地方很少见。在这种声音中，舌头从嘴巴上拉出来，产生真空和嘈杂的释放声。拥有最复杂的点击系统的语言目前正处于危险之中，因此我们理解人类语言所能容纳的这些声音范围的机会正在减少。在国家科学基金会的支持下，康奈尔大学的阿曼达·米勒博士和北亚利桑那大学的邦妮·桑兹博士将分析这些复杂声音的物理特性。一种新开发的超声成像方法将极大地增强我们对这些辅音过程中舌头运动的了解。目前的语音思维，如《国际音标》所示，包括五种滴答声(双唇、牙槽、牙槽、腭侧和侧槽)，但初步研究表明，还有另外三种滴答类型：卷曲、腭槽外侧和向前释放(或牙槽-牙槽)侧。还初步确定了一种全新的声音类别，即语音辅音，它似乎需要一种音系气流轮廓。在纳米比亚国家教育发展研究所的Laurentius Davids和博茨瓦纳大学的Kemmonye Monaka博士的帮助下，研究人员将研究未被识别的点击和新类型辅音的运动学，并将它们与已知的点击类型进行比较，以便更好地了解所有点击的发音、声学和音系学特性。研究将集中在5种点击语言上：Ekoka！Xung，Grootfontein！Xung，Ju|‘’Hansi，=/Hoan，和Mangetti Dune！Xung。非洲语言中的边缘和复杂的声音必须符合人类语言的通用模型，但它们经常被忽视，因为现有的模型通常是围绕欧洲语言和其他选定的一系列语言建立的。本研究还将有助于为所研究的语言开发正字法。该项目将建立一个霍桑语语音声学和制作的音频和视频数据库，该数据库将被转录、注释、放入公共档案馆，供感兴趣的研究人员使用。这一数据库将是一个独特的信息来源，提供有关滴答声的共时和历时语音模式(特别是嘴巴前部的元音和舌头后缩的滴答声之间的模式)。这项研究对未被识别的辅音的物理属性(语音)和心理表征(音系学)的描述将使这些罕见的辅音在当前受到威胁的语言的生命之外形成普遍的语言理论。

Click sounds, in which the tongue pulls away from the roof of the mouth to create a vacuum and a noisy release, are common in the languages of southern Africa and vanishingly rare elsewhere. The languages with the most elaborated systems of clicks are currently endangered, so our chances of understanding the range of these sounds that human languages can accommodate are dwindling. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Amanda Miller (Cornell University) and Dr. Bonnie Sands (Northern Arizona University) will analyze the physical properties of these complex sounds. A newly-developed ultrasound imaging methodology will greatly enhance our knowledge of the movements of the tongue during these consonants. Current phonetic thinking, as seen in the International Phonetic Alphabet, encompasses five clicks (bilabial, dental, alveolar, palatal and lateral), but preliminary work has revealed that there are an additional three click types: retroflex, palatoalveolar lateral, and forward-released (or denti-alveolar) lateral. A completely new class of sounds, linguopulmonic consonants, that seem to entail a phonological airstream contour, has also been tentatively identified. The researchers, with assistance from Laurentius Davids of the National Institute for Educational Development in Namibia and Dr. Kemmonye Monaka of the University of Botswana, will study the kinematics of unrecognized clicks and new types of consonants and compare them with the known click types so that the articulatory, acoustic and phonological properties of all clicks will be better understood. Research will focus on 5 click languages: Ekoka !Xung, Grootfontein !Xung, Ju|''hoansi, =/Hoan, and Mangetti Dune !Xung. Marginal and complex sounds found in African languages must fit into universal models of human language, but they have often been neglected given that existing models have typically been built around European languages and a select range of others. The present research will also aid the development of orthographies for the languages under study. The project will result in an audio and video database of Khoesan language speech acoustics and production that will be transcribed, annotated, placed in a public archive and made available to interested researchers. This database will be a unique source of information on synchronic and diachronic phonological patterns involving clicks (particularly those patterns between vowels made towards the front of the mouth and clicks which involve retraction of the tongue). The description of the physical properties (phonetic) and mental representations (phonology) of unrecognized consonants resulting from this research will allow these rare consonants to shape universal linguistic theories beyond the life of the currently threatened languages.