Collaborative Research: Exploring Variation in English Intonational Acoustic Phonetics from Grammatical Perspectives

合作研究：从语法角度探索英语语调声学语音的变异

基本信息

批准号：
2042702
负责人：
Nanette Veilleux
金额：
$ 14.35万
依托单位：
Simmons University
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2021-08-15 至 2025-01-31
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2042702&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Collaborative Research Exploring Variation English

项目摘要

Spoken language consists of multiple streams of information – including a segmental stream (i.e., the consonants and vowels that make up words, suffixes, prefixes, etc.) and a suprasegmental stream (e.g., the pitch, amplitude, timing, etc. that define stress and cadence) which is often called "prosody". All speakers (consciously or not) know prosody can be used to communicate meaning – a single sequence of words can be pronounced many ways, often with importantly distinct meanings. Despite this, most formal and computational linguistic investigations into meaning have primarily dealt with meanings encoded by the segmental stream (in words, suffixes, and prefixes). This project addresses this issue by exploring questions of how prosody and meaning relate. For example, what sorts of prosodic changes map onto changes in meaning? And what sorts of meanings? To explore these questions, the research team makes use of contemporary empirical methodologies, analytic tools, and formal theories, and particular attention is paid to intonational aspects of prosody.The project encompasses three sets of experimental tasks of speech production and speech perception. Each of these sets of tasks corresponds to a different domain of semantic/pragmatic meanings: Common Ground management, Information Structure signalling, and scope ambiguity resolution. Different semantic/pragmatic contexts correspond to different experimental conditions, and these contexts are presented to participants as visual, comic strip-like, stimuli. These experiments measure prosodic characteristics of speech (e.g., pitch movements, coded with a recently developed annotation system called PoLaR) and/or reactions to speech (e.g., acceptability ratings). These data are then be subjected to quantitative analysis as well as to formal linguistic models to uncover how different meaning-based conditions and different prosodic patterns are related. This work has important implications for improving human-computer interactions that are mediated by natural language, as well as for deepening understanding of various speech pathologies.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.

口语由多个信息流组成 - 包括分段流（即构成单词，后缀，前缀等的辅音和元音）和上段流（例如，音高，放大器，时机等），通常称为“ prosody”。所有说话者（有意识与否）都知道韵律可以用来传达含义 - 单个单词序列可以发音多种方式，通常具有重要的不同含义。尽管如此，大多数对意义的正式和计算语言调查的主要涉及按节段流编码的含义（用文字，后缀和前缀）。该项目通过探索有关韵律和意义如何相关的问题来解决此问题。例如，哪种韵律变化映射到含义的变化？以及哪种含义？为了探讨这些问题，研究团队利用当代的经验方法，分析工具和形式理论，并特别关注韵律的民族方面。该项目涵盖了三组语音生产和语音感知的实验任务。这些任务集中的每一个都对应于语义/务实含义的不同领域：共同地面管理，信息结构信号传导和范围歧义分辨率。不同的语义/务实上下文对应于不同的实验条件，这些环境以视觉，类似漫画状的刺激为参与者。这些实验测量了语音的韵律特征（例如，用最近开发的注释系统编码的倾斜运动）和/或对语音的反应（例如，可接受性等级）。然后，对这些数据进行定量分析以及正式的语言模型，以发现不同的基于含义的条件和不同的韵律模式如何相关。这项工作对改善由自然语言介导的人类互动以及加深对各种语音病理学的理解具有重要意义。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响来通过评估来支持的珍贵支持。