Phonological implications of covert articulatory variation

口语之间最明显的区别是它们听起来彼此不同。语言的声音根据可归因于人类声道、听觉系统和记忆的模式相互作用，但这些模式因语言和方言而异。要了解每种语言和方言是如何形成的，就需要了解语言是如何变化的。一个挥之不去的谜团是，为什么语言变化在某些时间和地点突然发生，而在其他时间和地点却不会发生，而语言变化的语音动机却一直存在。解开这个和其他关于语言语音系统的变化和变化的谜题，为我们提供了一个了解认知、生理学、社会互动以及这些因素如何相互作用的窗口。这个项目是一个关于语言变化和变化的实验室研究，通过数百种语言的语音模式数据库和一个英语社区数百小时的自发语音数据库提供信息。该项目测试了语言变化的开始受到发音中的隐性差异的影响的假设，即，同一种语言的说话者以不同的方式使用他们的声道发出语音，即使他们发出的声音在大多数情况下对听者来说是无法区分的。不同的说话者以不同的方式产生相同的语音被假设为是驱动语言变化的变异的重要来源。隐性发音差异与社会结构的随机排列被假设为解释声音变化的不稳定性和频率。研究小组检查了三个已知的英语中隐蔽发音变化的案例，并评估了它们对北卡罗来纳州罗利一系列声音模式的影响。该项目增加了现有的200多个社会语言学访谈，包括舌头的超声视频，鼻子和嘴巴的气流测量以及感知数据。研究团队将开发工具，用于快速灵活地分析大量发音数据。这些工具将公开分享，有可能使其他语言学家，言语病理学家和工程师受益。该项目扩大和升级了一个数百种语言的声音模式公共数据库。该项目关注的语音包括对英语学习儿童和成人具有挑战性的语音。详细的语音信息将与言语病理学和语言教学社区共享。从事该项目的研究生和本科生将学习创新的实验室方法和定量技能。

The most obvious difference between spoken languages is that they sound different from one another. The sounds of language interact with each other according to patterns that can be attributed to the human vocal tract, auditory system, and memory, but these patterns vary arbitrarily from language to language and dialect to dialect. Understanding how each language and dialect came to be the way it is requires understanding how languages change. A lingering mystery is why language change occurs abruptly in certain times and places but not in others, when the phonetic motivations for language change are ever-present. Unlocking this and other puzzles about variation and change in linguistic sound systems provides a window into cognition, physiology, social interaction, and how these interact with each other.This project is a laboratory study of language variation and change, informed by a database of phonological patterns in several hundred languages and a database of hundreds of hours of spontaneous speech from one English-speaking community. The project tests the hypothesis that the start of language change is favored by covert differences in articulation, i.e., cases where speakers of the same language produce speech sounds using their vocal tracts in different ways, even though the sounds they make are indistinguishable to listeners under most conditions. Different speakers producing the same speech in different ways is hypothesized to be an important source of variation that drives language change. The random alignment of covert articulatory differences with social structure is hypothesized to account for the abruptness and infrequency of sound change. The research team examines three known cases of covert articulatory variation in English and assesses their impact on a range of sound patterns active in Raleigh, NC. The project augments an existing collection of 200+ sociolinguistic interviews with ultrasound video of the tongue, airflow measurement from the nose and mouth, and perception data. The research team will develop tools for rapid and flexible analysis of large quantities of articulatory data. These tools will be shared publicly, with the potential to benefit other linguists, speech pathologists, and engineers. The project expands and upgrades a public database of sound patterns in several hundred languages. The speech sounds focused on by the project include ones that are challenging to English-learning children and adults. Detailed phonetic information will be shared with the speech pathology and language teaching communities. Graduate and undergraduate students working on this project will learn innovative laboratory methods and quantitative skills.