Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Acoustic and Articulatory Study of Burmese Tone

博士论文研究：缅语声学和发音研究

• 批准号: 0844031
• 负责人: Elizabeth Zsiga
• 金额: $ 1.17万
• 依托单位: Georgetown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-02-15 至 2011-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0844031&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Acoustic; Articulatory

Many languages use tone, which is defined as a contrast in pitch pattern, to create a distinction between words. Burmese is unusual, however, in that its "tone" contrasts involve a poorly-understood combination of pitch and breathy or creaky voice quality. This study investigates the phonetic qualities that are universally available to encode the lexical contrasts of a language, focusing on the problem of tonal contrast in Burmese. The experiments conducted for this study will test which acoustic and articulatory dimensions are most strongly associated with the production of each tone. Twelve Burmese speakers will read a scripted list of contrasting words, once while wearing sensors that measure the opening of the glottis (electroglottography) and a second time wearing an oro-nasal mask that measures airflow from the mouth and nose. Both of these non-invasive techniques offer a way to measure the physiological states responsible for tonal distinctions and therefore provide data that will augment the study's digital analysis of the acoustic waveforms.The study contributes to phonetic research by investigating relationships between the (indirect but easily accessible) acoustic signal and direct articulatory measures of airflow and glottal width. The research is also significant for the theory of tone development (tonogenesis), and language change more generally. Better understanding of the present contrast in Burmese thus has implications for the socio-cultural issues of how and why languages undergo sound change over time and form new language or dialect communities. Finally, a clearer knowledge of how Burmese syllables differ from one another will contribute to our understanding of the dimensions of sound structure that are under the speaker's control. This knowledge can improve language teaching, of Burmese and other tonal languages specifically, and of second and foreign languages in general.

许多语言都使用音调（定义为音高模式的对比度）来在单词之间创建一个区别。然而，缅甸的“语气”形成鲜明对比，缅甸是不寻常的，涉及音高，呼吸或吱吱作响的声音质量的结合不佳。这项研究调查了通用用于编码语言词汇对比的语音品质，重点是缅甸的色调对比问题。为这项研究进行的实验将测试哪些声学和发音维度与每种音调的产生最密切相关。十二位缅甸扬声器将读取对比鲜明的单词的脚本列表，一次佩戴传感器，以测量glottis的打开（静电图），第二次戴着戴着口腔和鼻子气流的Oro-Nasal面膜。这两种非侵入性技术都提供了一种方法来测量负责音调区分的生理状态，因此提供了数据，可以增强研究对声学波形的数字分析。该研究通过研究（间接但易于访问的）声学信号和直接信号和空气流量和glottal宽度的（间接但易于访问的声学信号和直接关节测量结果）为语音研究做出了贡献。这项研究对于音调发展理论（调理）也很重要，语言更加普遍。因此，更好地理解缅甸人的当前对比对社会文化问题的方式以及为什么语言会随着时间的流逝而变化，并形成新的语言或方言社区。 最后，对缅甸音节如何彼此不同的更清晰的了解将有助于我们理解说话者控制的声音结构的维度。这些知识可以改善缅甸语和其他音调语言的语言教学，以及总体上第二和外语的语言教学。