An instrumental investigation of the phonetic structure of Australian Aboriginal Languages: Consonant sequences in Bininy Gun-Wok

我们提出这一建议的总体目的是，将语言或语言群体特有的语音产生方面与所有语言中普遍存在的共性区分开来，这一建议也是语音学（音系学）的核心目标之一。更具体的重点是协调的辅音群在北方澳大利亚语Bininj枪，Wok使用动态腭电图，测量舌头接触的口腔顶部作为时间的函数的分析。本分析从五个母语的这种语言将被用来解决两个主要问题。首先，我们将研究在许多欧洲语言中发现的音节结尾辅音的不稳定性和可变性是否也在Bininj Gun-Wok中发现。其次，我们分析是否，已经发现英语和加泰罗尼亚语，一个辅音，施加强大的影响力的一个相邻的辅音也耐修改引起的其他辅音。对Bininj Gun-Wok的分析可以揭示这些问题，因为它在口塞和鼻塞系列中有非常丰富的发音对比，而且与欧洲语言不同，澳大利亚语言表现出共时和历时的延音，并删除音节首而不是音节尾辅音。

Our general aim in this proposal, which also forms part of a central goal of phonetics, phonology is to separate those aspects of speech sound production which are particular to a language, or language group, from universals which tend to be found in all languages. The more specific focus is an analysis of the coordination of consonant clusters in the Northern Australian language Bininj Gun-Wok using dynamic electropalatography which measures where the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth as a function of time. This analysis from five native speakers of this language will be used to address two principal issues. Firstly, we will investigate whether the instability and variability of syllable-final consonants that has been found in many European languages is also found in Bininj Gun-Wok. Secondly, we analyse whether, as has been found for English and Catalan, a consonant that exerts a strong influence an a neighbouring consonant is also resistant to modifications induced by other consonants. An analysis of Bininj Gun-Wok can shed new light an these issues both because it has such a very rich set of place of articulation contrasts within the oral and nasal stop series and because unlike European languages, Australian languages show synchronic and diachronic lenition and deletion of syllable-initial rather than syllable-final consonants.