A cross-linguistic database of phonetic transcription systems

Contrary to what non-practitioners might expect, the systems of phonetic notation used by linguists are highly idiosyncratic. Not only do various linguistic subfields disagree on the specific symbols they use to denote the speech sounds of languages, but also in large databases of sound inventories considerable variation can be found. Inspired by recent efforts to link cross-linguistic data with help of reference catalogues (Glottolog, Concepticon) across different resources, we present initial efforts to link different phonetic notation systems to a catalogue of speech sounds. This is achieved with the help of a database accompanied by a software framework that uses a limited but easily extendable set of non-binary feature values to allow for quick and convenient registration of different transcription systems, while at the same time linking to additional datasets with restricted inventories. Linking different transcription systems enables us to conveniently translate between different phonetic transcription systems, while linking sounds to databases allows users quick access to various kinds of metadata, including feature values, statistics on phoneme inventories, and information on prosody and sound classes. In order to prove the feasibility of this enterprise, we supplement an initial version of our cross-linguistic database of phonetic transcription systems (CLTS), which currently registers five transcription systems and links to fifteen datasets, as well as a web application, which permits users to conveniently test the power of the automatic translation across transcription systems

Multi-Dialectal Representation Learning of Sinitic Phonology

Machine learning techniques have shown their competence for representing and reasoning in symbolic systems such as language and phonology. In Sinitic Historical Phonology, notable tasks that could benefit from machine learning include the comparison of dialects and reconstruction of proto-languages systems. Motivated by this, this paper provides an approach for obtaining multi-dialectal representations of Sinitic syllables, by constructing a knowledge graph from structured phonological data, then applying the BoxE technique from knowledge base learning. We applied unsupervised clustering techniques to the obtained representations to observe that the representations capture phonemic contrast from the input dialects. Furthermore, we trained classifiers to perform inference of unobserved Middle Chinese labels, showing the representations' potential for indicating archaic, proto-language features. The representations can be used for performing completion of fragmented Sinitic phonological knowledge bases, estimating divergences between different characters, or aiding the exploration and reconstruction of archaic features.Comment: Accepted by ACL 2023 Student Research Worksho

The Application of Chordal Graphs to Inferring Phylogenetic Trees of Languages

Phylogenetic methods are used to build evolutionary trees of languages given character data that may include lexical, phonological, and morphological information. Such data rarely admits a perfect phylogeny. We explore the use of the more permissive conservative Dollo phylogeny as an alternative or complementary approach. We propose a heuristic search algorithm based on the notion of chordal graphs. We test this approach by generating phylogenetic trees from three datasets, and comparing them to those produced by other researchers

Universal reading processes are modulated by language and writing system

The connections among language, writing system, and reading are part of what confronts a child in learning to read. We examine these connections in addressing how reading processes adapt to the variety of written language and how writing adapts to language. The first adaptation (reading to writing), as evidenced in behavioral and neuroscience data, is achieved through a universal constraint that language places on writing and through the tuning of reading procedures imposed by specific features of writing systems. Children acquire skill in reading through increasing specialization of procedures tuned to their writing system, while also acquiring more general (universal) procedures that serve language mapping and cognitive control. For the second adaption (writing to language), we present examples from several languages to suggest that writing systems tend to fit their linguistic properties, thus providing adaptive variation in writing-to-language mapping. We suggest that this writing-language fit facilitates the child’s learning how his or her writing system works

The effect of salience on Chinese pun comprehension : a visual world paradigm study

The present study adopted the printed-word visual world paradigm to investigate the salience effect on Chinese pun comprehension. In such an experiment, participants listen to a spoken sentence while looking at a visual display of four printed words (including a semantic competitor, a phonological competitor, and two unrelated distractors). Previous studies based on alphabetic languages have found robust phonological effects (participants fixated more at phonological competitors than distractors during the unfolding of the spoken target words), while controversy remains regarding the existence of a similar semantic effect. A recent Chinese study reported reliable semantic effects in two experiments using this paradigm, suggesting that Chinese participants could actively map the semantic input from the auditory modality with the semantic information retrieved from printed words. In light of their study, we designed an experiment with two conditions: a replication condition to test the validity of using the printed-word world paradigm in Chinese semantic research, and a pun condition to assess the role played by salience during pun comprehension. Indeed, global analyses have revealed robust semantic effects in both experimental conditions, where participants were found more attracted to the semantic competitors than to the distractors with the emergence of target words. More importantly, the local analyses from the pun condition have shown that the participants were more attracted to the semantic competitors related to the salient meaning of the ambiguous word in a pun than to those related to the less salient meanings within 200 ms after target word offset. This finding suggests that the salient meaning of the ambiguous word in a pun is activated and assessed faster than its less salient counterpart. The initial advantage observed in the present study is consistent with the prediction of the graded salience hypothesis rather than the direct access model

Testing the Role of Phonetic Naturalness in Mandarin Tone Sandhi

33 Yuwen Lai The University of Kansas [email protected] It has long been noted that phonological patterning is influenced by phonetic factors. But phonologists diverge on whether phonetic motivations take effect in synchronic or diachronic phonology. This article aims to tease apart the two theories by investigating native Mandarin speakers’ applications of two tone sandhi processes to novel words: the phonetically motivated contour reduction 213 21/__T (T 213) and the neutralizing 213 35/__213 whose phonetic motivations are less clear. Twenty Mandarin subjects were asked to produce two monosyllables they heard as disyllabic words. Five groups of disyllabic words were tested: AO-AO (AO=actual occurring morpheme) where the disyllable is also a real word, AO-AO’ where the disyllable is nonoccurring, AO-AG (AG=accidental gap in Mandarin lexicon — legal syllable and tone but non-existent combination), AG-AO, and AG-AG. The first syllable is always 213, and the second syllable has one of the four tones in Mandarin. Results show that speakers apply the phonetically more natural 213 21 sandhi more quickly and with greater accuracy than the 213 35 sandhi. Theoretically, the study supports the direct relevance of phonetics to synchronic phonology by showing that there is a psychological advantage to phonetically natural patterns. Methodologically, it complements existing research paradigms that test the nature of the phonology-phonetics relationship, e.g., the study of phonological acquisition and the artificial language paradigm; when extended to other Chinese dialects, it can also provide insights into the long-standing mystery of how Chinese speakers internalise complicated tone sandhi patterns that sometimes involve opacity, near-neutralization, and syntactic dependency

A brain-region-based meta-analysis method utilizing the Apriori algorithm

Background: Brain network connectivity modeling is a crucial method for studying the brain's cognitive functions. Meta-analyses can unearth reliable results from individual studies. Meta-analytic connectivity modeling is a connectivity analysis method based on regions of interest (ROIs) which showed that meta-analyses could be used to discover brain network connectivity. Results: In this paper, we propose a new meta-analysis method that can be used to find network connectivity models based on the Apriori algorithm, which has the potential to derive brain network connectivity models from activation information in the literature, without requiring ROIs. This method first extracts activation information from experimental studies that use cognitive tasks of the same category, and then maps the activation information to corresponding brain areas by using the automatic anatomical label atlas, after which the activation rate of these brain areas is calculated. Finally, using these brain areas, a potential brain network connectivity model is calculated based on the Apriori algorithm. The present study used this method to conduct a mining analysis on the citations in a language review article by Price (Neuroimage 62(2):816-847, 2012). The results showed that the obtained network connectivity model was consistent with that reported by Price. Conclusions: The proposed method is helpful to find brain network connectivity by mining the co-activation relationships among brain regions. Furthermore, results of the co-activation relationship analysis can be used as a priori knowledge for the corresponding dynamic causal modeling analysis, possibly achieving a significant dimension-reducing effect, thus increasing the efficiency of the dynamic causal modeling analysis

Temporal articulatory stability, phonological variation, and lexical contrast preservation in diaspora Tibetan

This dissertation examines how lexical tone can be represented with articulatory gestures, and the ways a gestural perspective can inform synchronic and diachronic analysis of the phonology and phonetics of a language. Tibetan is chosen an example of a language with interacting laryngeal and tonal phonology, a history of tonogenesis and dialect diversification, and recent contact-induced realignment of the tonal and consonantal systems. Despite variation in voice onset time (VOT) and presence/absence of the lexical tone contrast, speakers retain a consistent relative timing of consonant and vowel gestures. Recent research has attempted to integrate tone into the framework of Articulatory Phonology through the addition of tone gestures. Unlike other theories of phonetics-phonology, Articulatory Phonology uniquely incorporates relative timing as a key parameter. This allows the system to represent contrasts instantiated not just in the presence or absence of gestures, but also in how gestures are timed with each other. Building on the different predictions of various timing relations, along with the historical developments in the language, hypotheses are generated and tested with acoustic and articulatory experiments. Following an overview of relevant theory, the second chapter surveys past literature on the history of sound change and present phonological diversity of Tibetic dialects. Whereas Old Tibetan lacked lexical tone, contrasted voiced and voiceless obstruents, and exhibited complex clusters, a series of overlapping sound changes have led to some modern varieties that are tone, lack clusters, and vary in the expression of voicing and aspiration. Furthermore, speakers in the Tibetan diaspora use a variety that has grown out of the contact between diverse Tibetic dialects. The state of the language and the dynamics of diaspora have created a situation ripe for sound change, including the recombination of elements from different dialects and, potentially, the loss of tone contrasts. The nature of the diaspora Tibetan is investigated through an acoustic corpus study. Recordings made in Kathmandu, Nepal, are being transcribed and forced-aligned into a useful audio corpus. Speakers in the corpus come from diverse backgrounds across and outside traditional Tibetan-speaking regions, but the analysis presented here focuses on speakers who grew up in diaspora, with a mixed input of Standard Tibetan (spyi skad) and other Tibetan varieties. Especially notable among these speakers is the high variability of voice onset time (VOT) and its interaction with tone. An analysis of this data in terms of the relative timing of oral, laryngeal, and tone gestures leads to the generation of hypotheses for testing using articulatory data. The articulatory study is conducted using electromagnetic articulography (EMA), and six Tibetan-speaking participants. The key finding is that the relative timing of consonant and vowel gestures is consistent across phonological categories and across speakers who do and do not contrast tone. This result leads to the conclusion that the relative timing of speech gestures is conserved and acquired independently. Speakers acquire and generalize a limited inventory of timing patterns, and can use timing patterns even when the conditioning environment for the development of those patterns, namely tone, has been lost