32.623, FYI: Yi Xu ExLing Tutorial

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-623. Fri Feb 19 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.623, FYI: Yi Xu ExLing Tutorial

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Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2021 02:53:01
From: Antonis Botinis [abotinis at phil.uoa.gr]
Subject: Yi Xu ExLing Tutorial

 
Yi Xu, Professor of Speech Sciences at University College London, United
Kingdom, will deliver an ExLing tutorial on the 26th of February with the
title "Duration in speech from an articulatory-functional perspective".

For further information as well as Zoom connection, please visit the ExLing
tutorials page:
https://exlingsociety.com/exling-tutorials.html

Duration in speech from an articulatory-functional perspective

Speech happens in time and duration is a critical aspect of timing in speech.
There has been much research of various duration phenomena at different
levels, yet there is a lack of a coherent account that that links them
together. In this tutorial I explore duration from an articulatory-functional
perspective that views speech as an information system that encodes multiple
layers of communicative functions through an articulation process (Xu, 2009).
>From this perspective, duration is both intrinsic (Fowler, 1980), i.e., bound
by articulatory constraints, and extrinsic (Turk & Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2020),
i.e., functionally controlled to encode information.

Intrinsically, the demand to transmit information as efficiently as possible
often pushes the speed limit of articulation, resulting in reduced
intelligibility due to undershoot of phonetic targets (Xu & Prom-on, 2019).
The need for articulatory clarity against this intrinsic constraint gives rise
to a positive correlation between duration and importance of information (Xu,
2019). This correlation seems to also form a phonetic basis (Fowler & Housum,
1987; Wang et al., 2018) for the negative relation between word frequency and
word length (Piantadosi et al., 2011). Extrinsically, duration is actively
used as a dimension for encoding communicative functions, including, in
particular, lexical contrast, grouping/boundary marking and
emotional/functional expressions (Xu, 2019).

In addition to the abovementioned well-defined durational functions, there is
also a weak tendency toward isochrony of syllables and prosodic phrases. But
the tendency is language-dependent, based on data from English and Mandarin
(Wang et al., 2018; Xu & Wang, 2009), and in a direction opposite of the
widely known rhythm class hypothesis (Abercrombie, 1967).

This articulatory-functional view of duration may offer a coherent account
that can link up many reported duration phenomena. But many further questions
remain to be resolved by further research.
 



Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics





 



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