Perceptual correlates of syllable weight

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Matthew Gordon will develop a computational model of the auditory system's response to speech stimuli. This auditory model will allow for quantitative investigation of a number of different properties of sound systems in languages of the world, including the focus of this study, the cross-linguistically pervasive phenomenon of weight-sensitive stress: the attraction of stress by certain "heavy" syllables. This research will explore the role that auditory, as opposed to strictly acoustic, factors play in weight-sensitive stress systems: in particular, the study will investigate the hypothesis that languages preferentially stress syllables that have greater auditory prominence than other syllables. The project goes beyond other work on the auditory basis for sound systems by collecting and quantitatively analyzing phonetic data from ten languages, including several understudied and endangered languages. The study also includes a perception experiment demonstrating that the auditory factors driving weight-sensitive stress are universal, even in languages lacking weight-sensitive stress. Finally, the study will also explore possible correlations between weight and syllable structure on a cross-linguistic basis in order to gain insight into the factors relevant for acquiring a stress system. This research investigates the relationship between the acoustics of speech and the perception of speech in the auditory system in order to contribute to our understanding of the sound systems of the world's languages. The result of this research will be a publicly available auditory model that will not only account for the phenomenon of weight-sensitive stress, the focus of the study, but will also provide insight into several other linguistic features, including sound inventories and syllable structure. Furthermore, investigation of the correlation between stress and syllable structure will potentially contribute to our understanding of how sound systems are acquired by children. Yet another benefit of the proposed study is that it broadens our knowledge of a number of understudied and endangered languages.