This project is to further the collection of data on the sound patterns of selected languages whose survival is threatened. Phonetic descriptions need to contain detailed accounts of articulation and acoustics that cannot be represented in a simple transcription. The P.I. is a member of a team which has built a particularly strong track record in conducting work of this type over a period of years, as well as in developing techniques for field phonetics and analytical frameworks for describing the sounds of languages.
The particular target languages selected will be ones where preliminary field reports indicate that they possess properties of particular phonetic interest. In many cases, these properties will be ones that are rare in the world's languages; for example specific types of vowels or consonants that are unusual, systems of vowels with a particularly small number of contrasts, or patterns of syllable structure which permit unusually rich sequencing of consonants. In others the properties will be ones whose better understanding is of particular importance to reconstructing the history and relationships of languages. The languages selected will also be ones that have not previously received much attention from specialist phoneticians.
Each language will be documented by recording word lists which illustrate all the consonants and vowels used in the language. The recordings will include a number of different speakers representing both sexes. These recordings will be used to make quantitative acoustic analyses of the segmental properties of the languages. In addition a variety of articulatory and aerodynamic investigative techniques which can be adapted for use in the field situation will be employed to obtain data on the speech production mechanisms used. In certain cases, field experiments on speech perception will also be carried out.
This research will provide much-needed information on each of the endangered languages selected for investigation. It will provide documentation of particular sound types and patterns including some that have never been described before. And it will also greatly enrich the data base of material on which generalizations about the phonetic nature of human language can be made.
