Doctoral Dissertation Research: The interaction between tone, prosody and accent

根据如何利用音高来区分单词，世界上的语言传统上被分为三类(重音重音、音调重音或语调)之一。然而，这种语言的划分在很大程度上是基于印象主义的判断，而不是对语言属性的详细量化测量。最近的研究表明，这种类型学远远不足以刻画音高在语言中的确切作用(S)，以及不同语言之间差异的相关来源。例如，虽然一种语言可以使用音高作为区分单词的主要声学提示，但它也可以使用重音，这表明这两种现象并不相互排斥。尽管普遍的类型学存在缺陷，但它构成了许多关于语言的本质和语言复杂性的重要主张的基础，这反过来又塑造了语言教学法如何被开发用于外语教学，以及韵律系统被建模以开发语音识别软件等工具的方式。鉴于这些资源在当今全球社会中的重要性，语言学家必须清楚地了解说话人在生产和感知中如何使用语言的声学特性。目前的项目旨在更仔细地研究音调、口音和韵律结构，以更好地了解这些结构要素如何相互作用，最终目标是制定更准确的语言类型学，以及一套更充分的语言教学和自然语言处理工具。该项目的研究将在喀麦隆西南部进行，重点是Bamileke语言，即贝努埃-刚果族(尼日尔-刚果族)Mbam-Nkam分支的一个子族。这些语言有一些世界上最复杂的声调系统，关于它们的结构还有很多需要了解的地方。最近的研究表明，单词和短语层面的重音特性让人想起那些在典型重音语言中发现的特性，这是这些语言中以前无法解释的声调现象的原因，而且重音在声音组织中的作用可能比之前认为的要重要得多。本研究将致力于探索音高、元音质量、幅度、音节和元音时长等声学指标在语言产生中的相互作用方式，以及听者在感知言语时对这些线索进行加权的方式。数据将以受控生产和感知实验的形式收集，以及以母语为母语的人之间自然对话的形式收集。研究结果将有助于我们理解在一种具有基于词汇的声调对比的语言中，在不同的语法结构水平上，音调如何与其他声学线索一起使用。由于美国政府认为对学习至关重要的许多语言也符合这一描述(普通话、旁遮普语、豪萨语等)，这项工作将对各种国家语言培训计划产生重要影响。

The world's languages have traditionally been divided into one of three categories (stress-accent, pitch-accent, or tone) based on how pitch is utilized to distinguish words from one another. However, this division of languages is based largely on the impressionistic judgments rather than on detailed quantitative measurements of linguistic properties. Recent work has demonstrated that this typology is deeply inadequate for characterizing both the precise role(s) of pitch in language, and the relevant sources of diversity among languages. For example, although a language may utilize pitch as the primary acoustic cue to differentiate between words, it may also use stress, suggesting that these two phenomena are not mutually exclusive. The prevailing typology, though arguably flawed, has formed the basis for many important claims about the nature of language and linguistic complexity, which in turn have shaped how linguistic pedagogies are developed for use in foreign language teaching, and the way that prosodic systems are modeled for developing tools such as speech recognition software. Given the importance of such resources in today's global society, it is important for linguists to form a clear picture of the ways in which the acoustic properties of speech are used by speakers both in production and in perception. The current project aims to take a closer look at pitch, accent and prosodic structure in an effort to better understand how these structural elements interact, with the end goal of developing a more accurate linguistic typology, and a more adequate set of tools for language teaching and natural language processing.Research for this project will take place in Southwestern Cameroon, focusing on the Bamileke languages, a subgroup of the Mbam-Nkam branch of the Benue-Congo group (Niger-Congo family). These languages have some of the most complex tone systems in the world, and much remains to be understood about their structure. Recent work suggests that word- and phrase-level accentual properties reminiscent of those found in prototypical stress languages are responsible for previously unexplained tonal phenomena in these languages, and that accent may play a much more important role in the organization of sounds than was formerly thought. This research will endeavor to explore in detail the way that acoustic measures such as pitch, vowel quality, amplitude, syllable and vowel duration interact in language production, and the way that these cues are weighted by listeners when perceiving speech. Data will be collected in the form of controlled production and perception experiments, as well as in the form of natural conversation between native speakers of the language. Research findings will contribute to our understanding of the ways in which pitch can be used alongside other acoustic cues at different levels of grammatical structure in a language with lexically-based tonal contrasts. Since many of the languages deemed 'critical' for learning by the US government also fit this description (Mandarin Chinese, Punjabi, Hausa, etc.), this work will have important implications for a wide variety of national language training initiatives.