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<p>Adam,<br>
</p>
<p>I share your qualms entirely. In the first draft of a paper of
mine now about to appear (below), I argued for a phonemic tonal
distinction within a particular morphological paradigm in a
certain language, and the reviewers asked to see pitch tracks "in
support" of my claim. So I included the pitch tracks, because I
wanted the paper to be published (plus they look pretty). But I
am painfully aware that the pitch tracks don't prove anything, and
that in claiming to do so, they are potentially misleading.</p>
<p>I think the problem is more acute in the suprasegmental than in
the "regular" segmental domains. If I had been arguing for a
distinction in, say, manner of articulation between voiced and
unvoiced stops then nobody would have asked for spectrograms. So
why are tone, intonation, etc. treated differently?</p>
<p>David<br>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-left:27.0pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:
-27.0pt"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:JA">Gil, David
(2023) "The
Grammaticalization and Dissolution of High Extended Intonation:
An Inalienable
Possession Paradigm in Roon", in E. Gasser and A. Schapper eds.,
Possessive Systems in Wallacea, </span><i
style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span
style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"
lang="EN-US">Sprachtypologie und
Universalienforschung.</span></i><span
style="mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:
JA"></span></p>
<p><br>
</p>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 02/12/2022 12:50, Adam James Ross
Tallman wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAK0T6OgQR4GK_6WziKaVTfCzFoLcL69+byZP3Y44=aig_nXxcQ@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">Hello
Cat,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">That's
what I think as well,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">But I'm
not so sure this view is widely held ... I've had papers where
reviewers ask for "phonetic evidence" and what they seem to
mean is a single spectrogram or pitch track as if those are
informative by themselves - even aggregated statistical data
of acoustic measurements doesn't count.<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:monospace,monospace;color:#4c1130">Adam<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Dec 2, 2022 at 11:41
AM Cat Butz <<a href="mailto:Cat.Butz@hhu.de"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">Cat.Butz@hhu.de</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hi
Adam,<br>
<br>
if I saw a single spectrogram in a description of a
phenomenon, I'd <br>
assume it was there for illustrative purposes and nothing
else. If we're <br>
going to conduct empirical research on a phonological
phenomenon, we <br>
have to back it up with statistics, no? Otherwise, why even
bother?<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
---<br>
Cat Butz (she)<br>
HHU Düsseldorf, general linguistics<br>
<br>
Cat Butz (sie)<br>
HHU Düsseldorf, allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft<br>
<br>
<br>
Am 2022-11-27 11:24, schrieb Adam James Ross Tallman:<br>
> Hello all,<br>
> <br>
> I would like to start a conversation about something and
I’m taking<br>
> a shot at lingtyp as a potential starting point for this
discussion<br>
> (perhaps not the right venue, because the issue is
perhaps specific to<br>
> phonological typology).<br>
> <br>
> One thing I’ve been confused and/or frustrated about
since I started<br>
> investigating tone and stress has been the use of
spectrograms and/or<br>
> pitch tracks in language description. It seems to me that
linguists<br>
> have very different views about what spectrograms and/or
pitch tracks<br>
> are for, but it has never been brought out in the open,
to my<br>
> knowledge.<br>
> <br>
> When I was an MA student, I was basically taught that the
main purpose<br>
> of a spectrogram was to show how one went about measuring
some<br>
> phenomena in the acoustic signal. A pitch track could be
an<br>
> expositional device to show variation in the signal
perhaps related to<br>
> speaker differences or intonation (Cruz & Woodbury
2014). However,<br>
> spectrograms and pitch tracks are not “phonetic evidence”
for a<br>
> phonological claim. Due to the variability of the
phonetic signal,<br>
> acoustic phonetic data only really becomes phonetic
evidence when it<br>
> is aggregated for the purpose of statistical analysis
(Tallman 2010).<br>
> <br>
> At least that’s what I thought in 2011, but I realized
later that<br>
> this was not the view shared by many linguists and, at
least among<br>
> non-phoneticians, my position is perhaps a minority one.
In grammars<br>
> and descriptive works, linguists often present individual
spectrograms<br>
> and pitch tracks as one off data points that support a
claim. In the<br>
> vast majority of the cases (except perhaps when vastly
different<br>
> intonational contours are being compared), I often
struggle to know<br>
> what the purpose of these displays or pictures are. How
do we know<br>
> they are not cherry picked? How do we know that these
displays are<br>
> representative?<br>
> <br>
> The differences of opinion about the use of spectrograms
have emerged<br>
> for me in the reviewing process – one reviewer says this
spectrogram<br>
> is useless, another says it's informative etc. one
reviewer demands a<br>
> pitch track, another says it does not communicate
anything . etc.<br>
> Opinions are simultaneously contradictory but aggressive
and<br>
> definitive.<br>
> <br>
> Sometimes the subtlety of the pitch phenomena the
linguist is<br>
> describing is way out of step with the ability of the
pitch track to<br>
> represent. I look at the pitch track and I think: “I
cannot<br>
> distinguish between pitch phenomena associated with tones
and<br>
> microprosody in this example so it is unclear what the
purpose of the<br>
> pitch track is or what it adds” or “if you were to tell
me what<br>
> tones the language had and give me this spectrogram /
pitch track, I<br>
> would not be able to associate them with any of the
syllables in any<br>
> consistent way”. Or perhaps the algorithm used to draw
pitch isn’t<br>
> appropriate and it's very difficult to understand what is
being<br>
> communicated by the display.<br>
> <br>
> I have started to wonder whether there were any
guidelines or<br>
> conventions for the use of spectrograms and whether
others perhaps had<br>
> any thoughts on the issue. Specifically I am interested
in the idea<br>
> that a single spectrogram could serve as “phonetic
evidence”. I<br>
> still find this view strange in light of the well known<br>
> “stochastic” and “multivariate” relationship between<br>
> phonological categories and phonetic realization
(Pierrehumbert,<br>
> Beckman, Ladd 2000; Mazaudon 2014, among many others),
but it still<br>
> seems to be widely held in our field.<br>
> <br>
> Cruz, E. & Woodbury, A. C. 2014. Finding a way into a
family of tone<br>
> languages: The story and methods of the Chatino Language
Documentation<br>
> Project. _Language Documentation & Conservation
_8:490-524.<br>
> <br>
> Mazaudon, M. 2014. Studying emergent tone-systems in
Nepal: Pitch,<br>
> phonation and word-tone in Tamang. _Language
Documentation &<br>
> Conversation _8:587-612.<br>
> <br>
> Pierrehumbert, J., Beckman, M. and Ladd, D. 2000.
Conceptual<br>
> foundations of phonology as a laboratory science.
_Phonological<br>
> knowledge: Conceptual and empirical issues. _Oxford:
Oxford University<br>
> Press.<br>
> <br>
> Tallman, Adam. J.R. 2010. Acoustic correlates of Lenis
and Fortis<br>
> Stops in Manitoba Saulteaux. MA Thesis: University of
Manitoba.<br>
> --<br>
> <br>
> Adam J.R. Tallman<br>
> Post-doctoral Researcher<br>
> <br>
> Friedrich Schiller Universität<br>
> <br>
> Department of English Studies<br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
> Lingtyp mailing list<br>
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target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br>
> <a
href="https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br clear="all">
<br>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman, serif">Adam
J.R. Tallman</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman, serif">Post-doctoral
Researcher <br>
</font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="times new roman, serif">Friedrich
Schiller Universität<br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="times new roman, serif">Department
of English Studies<br>
</font></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
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