Key factors in the emergence of combinatorial structure: An experimental and computational approach

语音是口语的基本组成部分，但语言在语音的身份和数量上都有很大差异。例如，虽然有五个元音的语言特别常见，但有些语言只有两个元音，而其他语言则有十个以上。一种语言的元音的声音特征可以进行比较，它们是如何产生的方面也可以进行比较（例如，发出元音所需的舌头和嘴唇的位置）。事实证明，无论是产生的声音空间和生产空间，有一个强烈的趋势，元音更分散和对称安排比预期的机会。也就是说，它们不倾向于聚集在一起，而是相对均匀地分布。无论语言中元音的数量如何，都会出现这种模式。为什么不同语言的语音系统可以如此不同，但却以相似的方式形成自己的模式？答案可能在于人类交流的需要。当人们听别人说话时，他们需要能够区分一个词和另一个词，通常是在嘈杂的环境中。反过来，扬声器需要能够在不太费力的情况下发出听众可以可靠区分的声音。这可能是分散和对称自然出现的副产品，人类试图满足这些沟通的需要。在测试这一假设时，研究人员可能会揭示语言如何如此多样，同时在其他方面保持基本相似。该项目还将为直接参与研究的大学生和高中生提供研究机会，拓宽他们对语言工作原理和如何研究语言的理解。这项工作验证了这样一个假设，即元音系统中观察到的分散和对称是由于一般交流的需要，而不是特定于语言本身的任何东西。为此，研究人员探索了当人们通过语言以外的媒介进行交流时是否会出现类似的效果。该项目涉及一种创新的实验方法，在这种方法中，成对的人使用专门设计的软件进行交流，该软件允许他们通过在触控板上移动手指来发送彼此的一系列颜色。虽然这种媒介显然与普通的语言交流有很大的不同，但它旨在以关键的方式模仿语音：它涉及通过在有限的空间中执行物理动作来发送可观察到的信号（相当于通过改变舌头和嘴唇的位置和形状来发出不同的语音）。如果相同类型的组织属性（即，由于上述的交流压力，这种颜色交流媒介中出现了许多不同的声音（如，分散和对称），那么这将强烈地表明，这些压力有助于塑造语言中语音的组织。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Speech sounds are fundamental building blocks of spoken languages, but languages differ greatly in both the identity and number of speech sounds they include. For example, although languages with five vowels are particularly common, some languages have as few as two vowels and others have over ten. The sound characteristics of the vowels of a language can be compared, as can aspects of how they are produced (e.g., the position of the tongue and lips needed to produce the vowel). It turns out that for both the resulting sound space and production space, there is a strong tendency for the vowels to be much more dispersed and symmetrically arranged than would be expected by chance. That is, they do not tend to cluster together, but are spread out relatively evenly. This pattern occurs regardless of the number of vowels in the language. How is it that the sound systems of different languages can be so varied, yet pattern themselves in similar ways? The answer may lie in the needs of human communication. When people listen to others speak, they need to be able to distinguish one word from another, often in noisy environments. The speakers, in turn, need to be able to produce sounds without too much effort that listeners can distinguish reliably. It may be that dispersion and symmetry emerge naturally as a by-product of human attempts to meet these communicative needs. In testing this hypothesis, the investigators may shed light on how languages can be so varied while remaining fundamentally similar in other ways. The project will also offer research opportunities to university and high school students who will be directly involved in the research, broadening their understanding of how language works and how to study it. This work tests the hypothesis that the dispersion and symmetry observed in vowel systems are due to the needs of communication in general, rather than anything specific to language as such. To this end, the investigators explore whether similar effects occur when people communicate through a medium other than language. The project involves an innovative experimental approach in which pairs of people communicate using specially designed software that allows them to send each other series of colors by moving their fingers around on a trackpad. While this medium is clearly very different from ordinary linguistic communication, it is designed to mimic speech in key ways: It involves sending observable signals by performing a physical action in a constrained space (comparable with making different speech sounds by varying the position and shape of the tongue and lips). If the same kind of organizational properties (i.e., dispersion and symmetry) arise in this color communication medium in response to the kind of communicative pressures described above, then this will strongly suggest that those pressures help shape the organization of speech sounds in language.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.