[Lingtyp] spectrograms in linguistic description and for language comparison
David Gil
gil at shh.mpg.de
Fri Dec 2 11:33:08 UTC 2022
Adam,
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.
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?
David
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,
/Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung./
On 02/12/2022 12:50, Adam James Ross Tallman wrote:
> Hello Cat,
>
> That's what I think as well,
>
> 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.
>
> Adam
>
> On Fri, Dec 2, 2022 at 11:41 AM Cat Butz <Cat.Butz at hhu.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Adam,
>
> if I saw a single spectrogram in a description of a phenomenon, I'd
> assume it was there for illustrative purposes and nothing else. If
> we're
> going to conduct empirical research on a phonological phenomenon, we
> have to back it up with statistics, no? Otherwise, why even bother?
>
> Best,
> ---
> Cat Butz (she)
> HHU Düsseldorf, general linguistics
>
> Cat Butz (sie)
> HHU Düsseldorf, allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
>
>
> Am 2022-11-27 11:24, schrieb Adam James Ross Tallman:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I would like to start a conversation about something and I’m taking
> > a shot at lingtyp as a potential starting point for this discussion
> > (perhaps not the right venue, because the issue is perhaps
> specific to
> > phonological typology).
> >
> > One thing I’ve been confused and/or frustrated about since I started
> > investigating tone and stress has been the use of spectrograms
> and/or
> > pitch tracks in language description. It seems to me that linguists
> > have very different views about what spectrograms and/or pitch
> tracks
> > are for, but it has never been brought out in the open, to my
> > knowledge.
> >
> > When I was an MA student, I was basically taught that the main
> purpose
> > of a spectrogram was to show how one went about measuring some
> > phenomena in the acoustic signal. A pitch track could be an
> > expositional device to show variation in the signal perhaps
> related to
> > speaker differences or intonation (Cruz & Woodbury 2014). However,
> > spectrograms and pitch tracks are not “phonetic evidence” for a
> > phonological claim. Due to the variability of the phonetic signal,
> > acoustic phonetic data only really becomes phonetic evidence when it
> > is aggregated for the purpose of statistical analysis (Tallman
> 2010).
> >
> > At least that’s what I thought in 2011, but I realized later that
> > this was not the view shared by many linguists and, at least among
> > non-phoneticians, my position is perhaps a minority one. In grammars
> > and descriptive works, linguists often present individual
> spectrograms
> > and pitch tracks as one off data points that support a claim. In the
> > vast majority of the cases (except perhaps when vastly different
> > intonational contours are being compared), I often struggle to know
> > what the purpose of these displays or pictures are. How do we know
> > they are not cherry picked? How do we know that these displays are
> > representative?
> >
> > The differences of opinion about the use of spectrograms have
> emerged
> > for me in the reviewing process – one reviewer says this spectrogram
> > is useless, another says it's informative etc. one reviewer
> demands a
> > pitch track, another says it does not communicate anything . etc.
> > Opinions are simultaneously contradictory but aggressive and
> > definitive.
> >
> > Sometimes the subtlety of the pitch phenomena the linguist is
> > describing is way out of step with the ability of the pitch track to
> > represent. I look at the pitch track and I think: “I cannot
> > distinguish between pitch phenomena associated with tones and
> > microprosody in this example so it is unclear what the purpose
> of the
> > pitch track is or what it adds” or “if you were to tell me what
> > tones the language had and give me this spectrogram / pitch track, I
> > would not be able to associate them with any of the syllables in any
> > consistent way”. Or perhaps the algorithm used to draw pitch isn’t
> > appropriate and it's very difficult to understand what is being
> > communicated by the display.
> >
> > I have started to wonder whether there were any guidelines or
> > conventions for the use of spectrograms and whether others
> perhaps had
> > any thoughts on the issue. Specifically I am interested in the idea
> > that a single spectrogram could serve as “phonetic evidence”. I
> > still find this view strange in light of the well known
> > “stochastic” and “multivariate” relationship between
> > phonological categories and phonetic realization (Pierrehumbert,
> > Beckman, Ladd 2000; Mazaudon 2014, among many others), but it still
> > seems to be widely held in our field.
> >
> > Cruz, E. & Woodbury, A. C. 2014. Finding a way into a family of tone
> > languages: The story and methods of the Chatino Language
> Documentation
> > Project. _Language Documentation & Conservation _8:490-524.
> >
> > Mazaudon, M. 2014. Studying emergent tone-systems in Nepal: Pitch,
> > phonation and word-tone in Tamang. _Language Documentation &
> > Conversation _8:587-612.
> >
> > Pierrehumbert, J., Beckman, M. and Ladd, D. 2000. Conceptual
> > foundations of phonology as a laboratory science. _Phonological
> > knowledge: Conceptual and empirical issues. _Oxford: Oxford
> University
> > Press.
> >
> > Tallman, Adam. J.R. 2010. Acoustic correlates of Lenis and Fortis
> > Stops in Manitoba Saulteaux. MA Thesis: University of Manitoba.
> > --
> >
> > Adam J.R. Tallman
> > Post-doctoral Researcher
> >
> > Friedrich Schiller Universität
> >
> > Department of English Studies
> > _______________________________________________
> > Lingtyp mailing list
> > Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> > https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
>
>
> --
> Adam J.R. Tallman
> Post-doctoral Researcher
> Friedrich Schiller Universität
> Department of English Studies
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
--
David Gil
Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
Email:gil at shh.mpg.de
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20221202/35f22500/attachment.htm>
More information about the Lingtyp
mailing list