From Moving Articulators to Sound Structure

Freshman Honors Seminar, V50.0233

Instructor : Prof. Adamantios (Diamandis) Gafos http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ag63

Short Course Description: Meaning in spoken language is communicated via sound. Sound is generated from a set of moving speech articulators and their acoustic consequences. How can this physical system, the human vocal tract, communicate such richness of distinctions in meaning? To what extent is the structure of sound patterns in language influenced by constraints of the physical system? This seminar addresses these questions by seeking to identify ways to better understand the relation between the cognitive aspects of sound structure and their manifestation as physical activity in the vocal tracts of actual speakers. The seminar begins by providing the necessary concepts and tools for exploring language sound structure. Using speech data collected with electromagnetic articulometry (EMA) and software for visualizing and quantifying speech movements, we study how humans produce sequences of consonants and vowels in different languages. We then study how language-specific patterns of consonants and vowels can be described as formal systems of rules and how such rules can be modeled using tools from mathematics. In the final part, through a sequence of readings and group projects, students tackle issues in the relation between sound patterns and their realization in terms of activity in the vocal tract.

This Honors Seminar emphasizes hands-on laboratory exercises and projects through which students grasp and sharpen conceptually complex notions met across different areas in cognitive science. Examples include the relation between continuous and discrete dimensions of cognition, basic notions from the mathematics of non-linearity (attractor, bifurcation, dynamic stability), and the competence/performance distinction. The leading notions are developed in lectures and then applied and sharpened in the laboratory by students working individually or in teams.

Prerequisite: interest in human language and mathematics