Ministry of higher and secondary special education uzbekistan state university of world languages department of theoretical sciences of english language

2.3 Experimental methods in phonology

A century after Rousselot published "Principles of Experimental Phonetics" (1904), the experimental method has finally taken its rightful place in linguistics.

Experimental or laboratory phonology (Ohala & Jaeger, 1986; Kingston & Beckman, 1990; Docherty & Ladd, 1992; Keating, 1995; Connell & Arvaniti, 1995; Broe & Pierrehumbert, 2000; Gussenhoven & Warner, 2002; Local, Ogden, & Temple, 2003; Goldstein, Best and Whalen, 2005; Cole & Hualde, 2007; Fougeron, Kühnert, D'Imperio, & Vallée, 2010) is now reputable and is gradually asserting its position in this field. A new journal, "Laboratory Phonology", was created to promote this new paradigm. Fundamentals such as the systematic and quantitative description of sound systems and acoustic phenomena are now evaluated differently than when phonetics and phonology were considered separate by the frameworks of structuralism and generativeism (e.g. Trubetskoy, 1939; Chomsky & Halle, 1968). The search for adequate archetypes, the types of evidence considered to be the nature of explanations, the nature of phonological representations, and the types of experimental models used in phonological research are also central questions in laboratory phonology. Rousselot expressed similar concerns in his various publications (1891, 1904, 1923). “Leçon d'ouverture au Collège de France” (1923) is perhaps the best synthesis of his ideas and shows that the founder of experimental phonetics foresaw much of what is now becoming practice in linguistics. Two-thirds of a century later, he was followed by Ohala (1987), who argued in favor of establishing phonology as an empirical discipline. Ohala's first statement is expressed as a response "...to break free from the endless and painful cycle of birth and death of fashionable theories, schools, frameworks, etc., and achieve unity with spirit and principles that guide any scientific enterprise…” Cohn (2010) calls for integrated theoretical models in laboratory phonology. Croot (2010) suggests that certain discoveries become essential to the emergence of a pattern in laboratory phonology. It is the emergence of linguistic categories identified and analyzed using linguistic/symbolic categories. This is also the case for gradients, which appear at every level of analysis: the probabilistic characterization of sound structures (Pierrehumbert 2001). ¹⁴
Most phonologists would probably agree that phonology studies the logical, functional, and behavioral aspects of speech sounds. Such studies require sound classification or characteristics, and involve mental representations and other cognitive aspects of speech sounds. Thus, phonology deals with the description and comparison of the sound systems of human languages. The discipline also addresses a first set of explanatory principles for understanding the sound phenomena encountered in languages. Like any scientific enterprise, the discipline is characterized by questions that researchers attempt to answer. Although the following list is not exhaustive, most phonologists would probably consider these questions part of their research: How are acoustic features classified? How do we interpret the sources of sound change? How does speech perception affect altered sound? What can we say about the direction of sound change? How are allophones screened and classified? Do we understand sound better functionally or in terms of gestures? How to account for coupling control? What is the minimum distance between segments to be discerned in perception? How to account for the occurrence of sound patterns in ontogeny and phylogeny? What are the correlations of syllables? Are types useful for interpreting sound patterns? What are the best primitives? What kind of explanation is needed to explain the observed phenomena? What are the constraints acting on phonetics and phonological processes? How to interpret universal? What is universal? Clear, to answer these questions, our knowledge of speech production and perception must be brought into an integrated field of phonetics and phonology.
The interplay between the physical and cognitive aspects of speech sounds is emphasized by Kingston and Beckman (1990) in their introductory notes to the first volume of Laboratory Phonology. The articulated phonological model (Browman & Goldstein 1989, 1992) promotes similar views in a different context. Regardless of the limitations of pronunciation phonology and whether one agrees with the model, it is hard not to realize that it was a serious attempt to integrate the fields of phonetics and phonology. . Indeed, in structural phonology, phonological units are discrete gestures that have both an abstract and a concrete (dynamic) side. This phonological model takes into account timing (the dynamic aspect of gesture) in phonology and allows to consider processes such as assimilation and perception, such as variations in performance or divergence. of gestures. Hume & Johnson (2001) also emphasizes the role of cognition in phonology. Their proposals for the interaction between speech perception and phonology help integrate cognitive aspects of speech sounds into phonology, and they show how phonological systems affect perception speech perception, e.g. listeners may perceive the sound of their mother tongue better than a second language. Hume & Johnson also showed some effects of speech perception on phonological systems, including the inability to perceptually compensate for vocal effects, avoiding perceptible contrasts. faintly and avoid noticeable changes. The influence of speech perception in phonology is particularly evident in what they call phonological correction strategies that can preserve contrast (epenthesis, disimilation, and metathesis) or sacrifice contrast (e. assimilation and destruction).
Important in Hume & Johnson's (2001: 20) model is the emphasis that the interaction between speech perception and phonology should be defined to include cognitive representations and phonological systems. form learning. A few basic points need to be made about models and theories. Considering phonetics and phonology as a single field assumes that models of speech production and perception provide a good basis for testing phonological hypotheses if phonological problems are learned. formed using physical prototypes. Models are often expressed in mathematical terms, to clarify relevant parameters related to specific areas of the field under study, in this case speech. A reasonable definition of what constitutes a model is given by Bender (2000): “a mathematical model is a simplified, abstract mathematical structure that is linked to a part of reality. and made for a specific purpose”. This means that the use of models in phonology will not create an overall explanation of a system, but will help formulate a particular problem, remove unimportant details and clarify interactions between variables. Using a model can help make predictions that can be tested against data or even common sense; The use of a model also helps to create simulations to compare with observed events. Phonological studies are essential to systematize data and clarify observations made in different languages ​​of the world. This is time-consuming work and there is no other way to achieve it than the traditional methods of phonologists to describe the sound system of an unknown language. To confirm this, consider all the steps required to describe the sound system of an unknown and unwritten language. This entails defining a finite set of phonemes, mapping their phonetic distribution and variation, and detecting and understanding any phonological processes. Neither tools nor machines can accomplish such tasks, and linguists still have no better method than taking a piece of paper and a pencil to write down observations (i.e. start by making good, reliable transcriptions). Only then can acoustics and other tools refine descriptions and seek explanations for observed phenomena. One of the best examples of this and the cumulative nature of experimental work is provided by research on clicks. Looking at the first systematic description of the click given by Doke (1926) and Beach (1938), it can be seen that Doke and Beach's primary tools were kymographs and palatography to explain click articulation. It was not until much later, in work developed by phonologists such as Traill (see the excellent 1985 synopsis), that the acoustic, articulating, and aerodynamic aspects of clicks were fully understood. Traill's work added deeper and more general explanations to Doke and Beach's original descriptions, but the basic description of the click joint remained unchanged.
Rousselot's (1923) expectation that speech and linguistic phenomena would eventually be reproduced in the laboratory finally came true (e.g. Ohala 1974, Foulkes 1997). The recent development of social phonology and the integration of psycholinguistic models into the phonetic and phonological components of language are clearly in line with the program he initiated a world previous century. One of the main lessons from Rousselot's work, which other trends such as general phonology cannot follow, is that no matter what linguistic phenomenon is explained, the linguist's task includes developing the right tools to find the right explanation and the right theoretical framework. This implies implementing new methods of observation, using new tools, and integrating, where appropriate, established primitives in other sciences.
A comment on the relationship between laboratory work and spontaneous speech should be made at this point. It is sometimes said that laboratory work is merely a reduction of what exists in the "real world" and that the essential points of speech behavior have been overlooked by laboratory work. In this view, there may be little in common between spontaneous speech and laboratory work. On the contrary, laboratory work helps to control the parameters involved in the experiment and constitutes the essential point of the method as well as its main strength. In principle, there is no fundamental difference between laboratory speech and spontaneous speech.¹⁵ The same principles apply to both. Understanding the difference between the two will ultimately come from demonstrations of how various parameters determined in the laboratory adapt to more natural conditions.
Discussing experimental methods in his work "Principles of Experimental Medicine", Bernard (1942) distinguishes two types of science: observational science and experimental science. From what has been said above and what is possible in modern laboratories, it is clear that phonology has moved from an observational science to an experimental science. Indeed, any phonological phenomenon, whether sound or process, can be systematized by experimental methods.
This allows for a quantitative description, which can be used for statistical processing methods to understand data or a related problem. As a result, phonologists can make assumptions about how sounds are made and perceived or how a particular process works. They can be tested in the laboratory through different types of experiments. Thus, Rousselot and Ohala's claim regarding phonology as an experimental discipline is confirmed. However, there is one point that should be emphasized. The fact that phonology is essentially about contrasts and categories in the sound system of a language cannot be reduced to the physiological aspects of speech sounds. Therefore, the interpretation of phonological phenomena requires a cognitive aspect, which naturally makes the implementation very complex.
Phonologists must now form hypotheses about the relationship between the biophysical and cognitive aspects of speech in order to explain the phenomena they study. For example, the question of speaker control over the production and perception of sounds in a given phonological system is one of these hypotheses. Of course, phonologists don't make assumptions from scratch. As in any other science, hypotheses have a theoretical basis. They are built from knowledge of the various components involved in speech. The physical laws of acoustics and aerodynamics provide a solid basis for making some of these assumptions. However, the story gets more complicated when it comes to cognitive aspects, as similar laws in this area have yet to be established. However, it is important to note that phenomena such as critical banding, masking, and signal detection have perceptual dimensions. The effect of probability on learning and anything that evokes memory has aspects like the purely cognitive law. None of this is ripe for phonology, but it certainly will in the future. This is where the interaction between the data and the model becomes important. In conclusion, we can say that phonology has gone from observational science to experimental science.
However, the complexity of the subject with multiple dimensions – physical, biological, psychological, cognitive and social – clearly shows that experimentation in phonology is still in its infancy.