DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Quantifying the Sonority Hierarchy

博士论文研究：量化声音层次

• 批准号: 0003947
• 负责人: John Kingston
• 金额: $ 0.8万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-12-15 至 2001-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0003947&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DOCTORAL; DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Quantifying; Sonority

The general topic of this dissertation is sonority. Specifically, the following issues will be addressed: (1) What is sonority? (2) What is the articulatory, acoustic, and/or auditory basis of sonority? (3) How should sonority be quantified? (4) Is the sonority scale universal or language-specific? and (5) What role should sonority play in formal phonological constraints?It has long been recognized that sonority differences determine the sequencing of sounds within syllables, a pattern observed in all languages. In order to explain this universal effect, many linguists have suggested that sonority derives from differences in how sounds are pronounced or perceived. However, to date a phonetic definition of sonority (in articulatory, acoustic, or perceptual terms) has remained elusive. Consequently, a number of phonologists and phoneticians have questioned the theoretical validity of sonority altogether, claiming that this notion is impossible to characterize in a concrete way. Consequently, the potential contribution of this project is to resolve a long-standing controversy regarding the physical basis of sonority.The goal of this project is to determine which of five physical parameters best characterizes sonority differences: intensity (loudness), peak rate of oral air flow, peak intraoral air pressure, constriction duration, or frequency of the first formant. Each of these characteristics will be systematically studied in the speech of multiple native speakers of both English and Spanish for all language-specific phonemes, consonants and vowels alike. The objective of this research is to demonstrate that sonority can be quantified in a precise, consistent, non-arbitrary, and phonetically-grounded way based on the values of one or more of these physical correlates.

本论文的主题是响度。具体来说，将解决以下问题：（1）什么是响度？ (2) 声音的发音、声学和/或听觉基础是什么？ (3) 响度如何量化？ (4) 响亮音阶是通用的还是特定于语言的？ (5) 响度在正式语音约束中应发挥什么作用？人们很早就认识到响度差异决定了音节内的声音顺序，这是在所有语言中观察到的模式。为了解释这种普遍效应，许多语言学家认为响度源于声音发音或感知方式的差异。然而，迄今为止，声音的语音定义（在发音、声学或感知方面）仍然难以捉摸。因此，许多音韵学家和语音学家对响度的理论有效性提出了质疑，声称这个概念不可能以具体的方式来表征。因此，该项目的潜在贡献是解决有关响度物理基础的长期争议。该项目的目标是确定五个物理参数中哪一个最能表征响度差异：强度（响度）、口腔峰值速率气流、口腔内峰值气压、收缩持续时间或第一共振峰频率。我们将在多个英语和西班牙语母语人士的语音中系统地研究所有这些特征，包括所有特定语言的音素、辅音和元音。这项研究的目的是证明，可以根据一个或多个物理相关因素的值，以精确、一致、非任意且以语音为基础的方式对响度进行量化。