"long" and "short" vowels

[Tom Zurinskas]

Koko the gorilla had a vocabulary of 500 words.  She could communicate, yet not speak. http://www.koko.org/index.php#

If a recording sounds just like human speech, and you would swear it was human, yet it's a parrot or computer, is it human speech?  Is any recording human speech?

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com



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> Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:44:47 -0400
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: "long" and "short" vowels
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: "long" and "short" vowels
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 8:51 AM -0400 6/20/09, David Bowie wrote:
>>From: Tom Zurinskas
>>
>>>I would think that the word, "speech," encompasses all languages.
>>>And I would think the word "speech" is exclusive of non language
>>>sounds, such that it doesn't need the word "human" in front of it.
>>
>>It also comes, I think, from the fact that there are a number of people
>>who were trying to teach non-human animals to speak (with "speak" here
>>including signing).[1] It's unclear whether these animals ever actually
>>learned to speak, but if they did it's important to draw a distinction
>>between the human language they learned (or at least were attempted to
>>be taught[2] by the researchers) and the non-human language they may
>>have had coming into the experience, since any such non-human languages
>>could presumably have different rules and restrictions.
>>
>>Also, there are a number of computer languages that certainly have
>>syntax (and arguably, in some cases, a sort of phonology-like system),
>>but they're quite different than any human language.
>>
>>I think that in general the human vs. non-human distinction is more
>>important for morphology and syntax than phonetics and phonology, but
>>it's a not-worthless bit of carefulness.
>
> More commonly, to distinguish human (real) speech from synthesized
> speech, in which case it's a retronym.
>
>>
>>[1] Are any of these projects still going on, or has all the funding
>>finally dried up for them?
>>
>>[2] I can't think up an elegant passive construction for this. Weird.
>>
> Maybe Arnold can direct us to something on Language Log on this.
> I've noticed the same gap, largely through attempts by students to
> fill it ("The chimpanzees were tried to teach/taught/be taught
> American Sign Language") without striking success.
>
> LH
>
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