Explaining the Rarity of Click Sounds as consonants in the Languages of the World

这个项目试图解释为什么点击在世界语言中作为辅音很少见。在大多数辅音中，当说话者呼气时，声音的来源是来自肺部的空气。声音的来源与舌头和嘴唇的过滤作用是分开的。声源与过滤器的分离是当前语音产生理论的基础，也是所有计算机生成的语音模型的假设。然而，在一些语音中，声源和声道的过滤作用的分离不太清楚。例如，对于喉咙发出的‘h’这样的声音，由于舌头收缩到声带附近，声音的来源发生了变化。在点击辅音中，扬声器通过在舌头和上颚的两部分之间形成一个空腔来发声。声音是通过在舌头和上颚之间产生真空来产生的，这样空气就可以流入真空中，同时舌头的形状和位置也会过滤掉。这个项目将包括对这些复杂的语音手势及其产生的声音进行仔细的分析。研究小组将收集舌头在点击产生过程中的高帧频超声波数据。超声波方法每千分之八秒产生一张舌头图像，与音频信号对齐。在产生卡壳辅音的过程中，舌头和上颚之间形成的空腔的体积将被测量并与产生的声波的频率相关联。这些分析和其他分析将被用来支持米勒博士向国际语音协会提出的申请，要求将两个新记录的滴答声添加到国际语音字母表中。该项目的结果还将为未来能够处理源-过滤器交互的模型提供有价值的数据，从而为计算机语音生成做出贡献。

This project seeks to explain the rarity of clicks as consonants in the languages of the world. In most consonants, the source of sound is generated on air coming from the lungs as speakers breathe out. The source of sound is separate from the filtering action of the tongue and lips. The separation of the source of sound from the filter underlies current theories of speech production, and is assumed in all computer generated models of speech. However, in some speech sounds, the separation of the source of sound from the filtering action of the vocal tract is less clear.For example, for sounds like 'h' that are made in the throat, the source of sound is changed due to the proximity of the tongue constriction to the vocal folds. In click consonants, speakers produce sound by creating a cavity between two parts of the tongue and the palate. The sound is generated by creating a vacuum between the tongue and the palate, which allows air to flow into the vacuum, and is simultaneously filtered by the tongue's shape and position. This project will consist of careful analyses of these complex speech gestures and their resulting sounds. The research team will collect high frame-rate ultrasound data of the tongue during click production. The ultrasound method yields an image of the tongue every 8 thousandths of a second, which is aligned with the audio signal.The volume of the cavity formed between the tongue and the palate in the production of click consonants will be measured and correlated with the frequency of the sound waves that are produced. These and other analyses will be used to support Dr. Miller's petition to the International Phonetic Association to add two newly documented click sounds to the International Phonetic Alphabet. The results of this project will also contribute to computer speech generation by providing valuable data for future models that can handle source-filter interactions.