Phonetic Data Analysis: An Introduction to Fieldwork and Instrumental Techniques

208 Pages·2003·26.86 MB·English

by  Ladefoged, Peter

Phonetic Data Analysis

Phonetic
Data Analysis
An Introduction to Fieldwork
and Instrumental Techniques
Peter Ladefoged
0) EL".;!::."::2
© 2003 by Peter Ladefoged
BLACKWELL PUBLISHING
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
The right of the Peter Ladefoged to be identified as the Author of this Work
has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. l\lo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the
UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
First published 2003 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
9 2011
Library 0fC0ngress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ladefoged, Peter.
Phonetic data analysis : an introduction to fieldwork and instrumental
techniques I Peter Ladefoged.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-631-23269-8 (hard.: alk. paper). — ISBN 978-0-631-23270-4 (pbk.: alk
paper)
1. Phonetics~——Fieldwork. 2. Phonetics—Methodology. I. Title.
P221.L228 2003
414’.8—dc21
2003005416
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Set in 10/ 121/2 pt Palatino, Palatino PDA book, Palatino Phonetic New
by Graphicraft Ltd, Hong Kong
The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a
sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp
processed using acid—free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore,
the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met
acceptable environmental accreditation standards.
For further information on
Blackwell Publishing, visit our website:
www.blackwelIpublishing.com
0
MIX
Paper lrom
responsible Iourcos
FSC° C013604
ntents
(Io
Preface
Ackno wledgments
1Re cording the sounds of a language
Deciding what to record
1.1
Finding speakers
1.2
Recording systems
1.3
Making a recording
1.4
Digital recording
1.5
Listening to recordings
1.6
Making field notes
1.7
instrumental phonetic techniques
1.8
Finding the places of articulation
2
Still and video photography
2.1
Basic palatography
2.2
More elaborate palatography
2.3
2.4 Electropalatography
Further reading
2.5
Aerodynamic investigations
3
3.1 Recording air pressure and airflow
Measuring air pressure and airflow
3.2
Interpreting aerodynamic records
3.3
Quantifying nasalization
3.4
Aerodynamic investigation of phonation types
3.5
vi Contents
3.6 Electroglottography
3.7 Further reading
4 Pitch, loudness, and length
4.1 Pitch analysis
4.2 Interpreting pitch curves
4.3 Phonological considerations
4.4 Loudness, intensity, and stress
4.5 Waveforms and the measurement of duration
4.6 Further reading
5 Characterizing vowels
5.1 Sound spectrograms
5.2 Spectra
5.3 Vowel charts
5.4 Nasalized vowels
5.5 Further reading
6 Acoustic analysis of consonants
6.1 Waveforms, spectrograms, and duration
measurements
6.2 Spectral characteristics of nasals, laterals,
approximants, and trills
6.3 Fricatives and stop bursts
6.4 Spectrograms and place of articulation
6.5 Spectrograms and articulatory movements
6.6 Further reading
7 Acoustic analysis of phonation types
7.1 Waveforms of different glottal states
7.2 Spectral characteristics of phonation types
7.3 Further reading
8 Coda
8.1 A general—purpose phonetics laboratory
8.2 More elaborate instrumental phonetic techniques
8.3 Before and after fieldwork
8.4 Further reading
Index
Preface
If you want to describe how people talk, you have to record some
data and then analyze it. This is true whether you are investigating
the variant pronunciations of street names in Los Angeles for a speech
recognition company, or working as a missionary translating the
Bible into a little—known tongue. The basic techniques are the same
irrespective of whether you are going into the wilds of the Brazilian
rain forest to record the sounds of Banawa, or into the streets of a big
city to find out how the homeboys talk. Even obtaining data from a
carefully controlled group in a laboratory experiment is really a kind
of fieldwork. You need to determine how to set up an appropriate
group and how to elicit the speech sounds you are trying to investigate.
This book has two main aims. The first is to consider the fieldwork
required for making a description of the sounds of a language. The
second is to illustrate the basic techniques of experimental phonetics,
most of them requiring little more than a tape record er, a video camera,
and a few other items, none of them very expensive, together with a
computer and appropriate programs. Thus I have two principal sets
of readers in mind: those who are interested in fieldwork techniques,
and those who want a simple introduction to the basic tools of instru-
mental phonetics. I hope this book will be useful in the many univers-
ities that do not have phonetics as a major specialty, as well as in
fieldwork situations where one can't have a lot of complicated equip-
ment. All investigations of speech, whether in a lab or a classroom, or
a distant country, involve an observer and someone whose speech is
being observed; and all fieldworkers should be able to return to base
with something more than their fieldwork notebooks.
viii Preface
The fieldwork part of the book is based on more than 40 years’
experience of studying the sounds of languages, often in fairly remote
locations where I could use only such instrumentation as I could carry
with me. When in the field I usually worked with another linguist
who was familiar with the language and locale, so my fieldwork is not
that of the linguist who works extensively on one language. Others
are better qualified than me to explain how to live in a small commun-
ity and study a language as a whole. This book is not an introduction
to general fieldwork techniques for linguists. It is an introduction to
the techniques for describing the major phonetic characteristics of
a language, irrespective of whether it is a little-known endangered
language or a major language spoken by millions of people.
The instrumental phonetic problems considered in this book are
largely those that one first encounters when making a description of
the phonetic properties of a language. The aim is to enable readers
to work with a speaker in class, or to go out into the field and make
their own discoveries about how the sounds of a language are made.
The book provides full descriptions of the techniques that are readily
available and do not require the resources of a major phonetics
laboratory.
I have assumed a knowledge of how speech sounds are produced,
and an understanding of basic phonetic terminology, but little if
any knowledge of instrumental phonetics or how to record speakers
in the field. I also assume that you have access to a computer, and a
speech analysis system. I've written this book using SciconRD's family
of analysis programs. They are probably the best set of programs for
general speech analysis available, being straightforward and easy to
use, but very powerful. If you are using some other system, such as
Computer Speech Lab (CSL), Praat or SIL software, you will find you
can use similar techniques.
An additional thread running through the book is a series of boxed
comments on different aspects of my own fieldwork. They are written
in a more anecdotal fashion and can be neglected by those who want
to maintain a serious attitude to work in phonetics. They are there
for the readers who would like to learn about instrumental phonetics
and fieldwork, and want some information on the human aspects of
the work. Whether these asides are noted or not, by the end of the
book any reader should be able to go out into the Amazonian rain
forest and gather data to characterize the sounds of a little-known
language, or into the streets of a big city and describe how the locals
Preface ix
talk. Whether working in the Kalahari Desert with !X(')6 Bushmen or
observing the curious dialect of the neighbors, the basic procedures
are the same.
May your fieldwork and analyses go well.
Peter Ladefoged
Acknowledgments
Fieldwork is like heart surgery: you can learn to do it well only by
practicing on someone. My great thanks to all those language consult-
ants and subjects in experiments who helped me learn the techniques
discussed in this book. I am also grateful to all the linguists, several of
whom are mentioned in the text, who took me on trips to meet their
consultants and who exposed the glories of their languages to me.
Many people have read drafts of this book and have offered comments,
permission to use illustrations, and useful suggestions, notably Victoria
Anderson, I-Ieriberto Avelino, Barbara Blankenship, Sun-Ah ]un, Pat
Keating, Pam Munro, Rebecca Scarborough, Mark Tatham, Henry
Teherani, Tony Traill, and Richard Wright. As always, jenny Ladefoged
has been a constant source of encouragement, advice, criticism, faint
praise and elegant phrasing.