2015 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
An Acoustic Typology of Creaky Voice
| Project/Area Number |
15K16745
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| Research Institution | The University of Aizu |
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Principal Investigator |
Perkins Jeremy 会津大学, コンピュータ理工学部, 准教授 (30725635)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Keywords | creakiness / tone / Du'an / Wuming / Zhuang |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In FY 2015, I and my collaborator Dr. Seunghun Lee (International Christian University) traveled to Nanning, China in order to record a word list with speakers of Wuming Zhuang and Du’an Zhuang. The recording session was performed at Guangxi University in December 2015. We recorded over 1000 words per speaker, from 7 speakers of Du’an Zhuang and 8 speakers of Wuming Zhuang.
We have begun the analysis to test our initial hypothesis that Du’an Zhuang has contrastive creaky tones on its vowels. Our initial findings show that this is not the case, but that the two dialects Du’an Zhuang and Wuming Zhuang differ significantly in the way pitch changes over time for a given tone.
Our preliminary findings were accepted for presentation and publication at the 5th International Symposium of Tonal Aspects of Language in Buffalo, USA (26 May, 2016) and at the 22nd Himalayan Languages Symposium in Guwahati, India (8-10 June 2016).
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
We are on schedule to complete the analysis of our recorded data and submit our final results for publication during FY 2016.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
We intend to spend the 1st half of FY 2016 completing analysis of our recorded data. We will be attending a pair of international conferences as noted above. Feedback from these conferences will be aid in the next stage, where we will publish our results. We plan to submit a publication of our results in the 2nd half of 2016.
In addition to this, a second publication will be submitted by late June 2016 that proposes a new way to measure creakiness in vowel sounds in collaboration with Dr. Julián Villegas (U. of Aizu). This method is based on how humans perceive creaky sounds. Our hypothesis is that it more closely approximates humans’ perception of creakiness than existing creakiness measurements. To test this hypothesis, we will conduct an experiment where we present listeners with creaky, non-creaky and moderately creaky words. We will investigate which method of creakiness measurement correlates best with the naïve listeners’ responses.
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Research Products
(3 results)
