Gopal Through its Academic Research Infrastructure competition, the National Science Foundation provides funds to permit Dr. Hundraj Gopal to purchase instrumentation for linguistic analysis. The equipment centers around several personal computer-based workstations which are networked. Each of the workstations will be configured to perform acoustic analysis of speech for prosodic information and playback/recording of conversations for auditory analysis. Each of the workstations includes a portable digital tape recorder, condenser microphone, a high-powered PC equipped with a 16-bit sound card, 16 MB RAM, 1 GB of hard disc, a math co-processor, headphones and loudspeakers. The software required for discourse prosody, including word processing, database processing and speech analysis is also provided. Prosody constitutes a distinctive feature of spoken language. The term refers to the melody or rhythm with which it is spoken. Every language has distinct pitch, stress and timing patterns. While linguists have focussed on smaller segments of speech for many years, only recently have they turned to such larger units which are amenable to prosody analysis. Only recently has the relevant technology developed to the point where this aspect naturally-occurring speech can be examined. This work is important for several reasons. It will increase scientific understanding of human speech. It will aid in the training of students and it may have important implications for such practical issues as computer recognition of speech.
