Articulatory phonology

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Articulatory phonology [1][2] is a linguistic theory originally proposed in 1986 by Catherine Browman[3] of Haskins Laboratories and Louis M. Goldstein[4] of Yale University and Haskins. The theory identifies theoretical discrepancies between phonetics and phonology and aims to unify the two by treating them as low and high dimensional descriptions of a single system.

Unification can be achieved by incorporating into a single model the idea that the physical system (identified with phonetics) constrains the underlying abstract system (identified with phonology), making the units of control at the abstract planning level the same as those at the physical level.

The plan of an utterance is formatted as a gestural score, which provides the input to a physically based model of speech production - the task dynamic model of Elliot Saltzman[5][6]. The gestural score graphs locations within the vocal tract where constriction can occur, indicating the planned or target degree of constriction. A computational model of speech production developed at Haskins Laboratories combines articulatory phonology, task dynamics, and the Haskins articulatory synthesis system developed by Philip Rubin and colleagues.

In articulatory phonology, the basic units of phonological contrast are gestures, which are also abstract characterizations of articulatory events, each with an intrinsic time or duration. Utterances are modeled as organized patterns (constellations) of gestures, in which gestural units may overlap in time. The phonological structures defined in this way provide a set of articulatorily based natural classes. Moreover, the patterns of overlapping organization can be used to specify important aspects of the phonological structure of particular languages, and to account, in a coherent and general way, for a variety of different types of phonological variation. Such variation includes allophonic variation and fluent speech alternations, as well as 'coarticulation' and speech errors. Browman and Goldstein have suggested that the gestural approach clarifies our understanding of phonological development, by positing that prelinguistic units of action are harnessed into (gestural) phonological structures through differentiation and coordination.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Browman, C. P., Goldstein, L., Kelso, J. A. S., Rubin, P. E., & Saltzman, E. (1984). Articulatory synthesis from underlying dynamics. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 75, S22.
  • Browman, C.P. and Goldstein, L. (1986) Towards an articulatory phonology. In C. Ewen and J. Anderson (eds.) Phonology Yearbook 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 219-252.
  • Browman, C.P. and Goldstein, L. (1992). Articulatory phonology: an overview. Phonetica, 49 (3-4), 155-180.
  • Browman, C.P. and Goldstein, L. (1993) Dynamics and articulatory phonology. Status Reports on Speech Research, SR-l 13. New Haven: Haskins Laboratories, pp. 51-62.
  • Browman, Catherine. P., and Louis M. Goldstein. (2000). Competing constraints on intergestural coordination and self-organization of phonological structures. Les Cahiers de l'ICP, Bulletin de la Communication Parlée 5:25–34.
  • Fowler, C.A., Rubin, P. Remez, R.E. and Turvey, M.T. (1980) Implications for speech production of a general theory of action. In B. Butterworth (ed.) Language Production. New York, NY: Academic Press, pp. 373-420.
  • Goldstein, Louis M., and Carol Fowler. (2003). Articulatory phonology: a phonology for public language use.” In Phonetics and Phonology in Language Comprehension and Production: Differences and Similarities, ed. Antje S. Meyer and Niels O. Schiller. Mouton de Gruyter
  • Rubin, P., Baer, T., & Mermelstein, P. (1981). An articulatory synthesizer for perceptual research. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 70, 321-328.
  • Saltzman, E. (1986) Task dynamic co-ordination of the speech articulators: a preliminary model. In H. Heuer and C. Fromm (eds.) Generation and Modulation of Action Patterns. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 129-144.
  • Saltzman, E., & Kelso, J. A. S. (1987). Skilled actions: A task dynamic approach. Psychological Review, 94, 84-106.
  • Tatham, M. A. A. (1996). Articulatory phonology and computational adequacy. In R. Lawrence (ed.). Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics, Vol. 18, Part 9. St. Albans: IoA, 375-382. [7]