A beszédidõ és a nyelvtudomány

Speech Timing and Linguistic Theory

Adam P. Leary

adamlear@indiana.edu

Dept. of Linguistics & Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University, USA

MTA Pszichológiai Kutatóintézet

It is argued that the traditional computational or symbolic view of cognition

has little choice but to assume an apriori phonetic space of discrete, static

and serially ordered atomic symbols, as assumed explicitly by Chomsky and

Halle (1968) and others. Then it is shown that there are several,

well-supported cases where these assumptions are shown to be false. First,

there is a durational pattern observed in the English voicing contrast in

syllable-coda position (e.g., lab/lap) where evidence shows that the relative

durations of two intervals (the vowel duration and following stop or

fricative duration) is a fundamental cue for the value of the voicing

feature. The durational ratio must be described as a property of English

phonetics or phonology in violation og the Chomsky-Halle assumption of

universal, static phonetic features. Second, vowel quantity in Hungarian as a

phonological process also fails to uphold the discreteness property. The

experimental work discussed imply that language processing is achieved by a

system that may preferdiscrete, symbol-like units, but does not require them.

Recent developments in models of speech perception and production dependent

upon dynamical systems, such as those of Grossberg and colleagues, exhibit

the appropriate characteristics to serve as a psychology upon which a

psychologically sound linguistic theory can be constructed that does not

require assuming that human language is an instance of a mathematical or

computational system.

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Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics and Cognitive Science

Indiana University

Fulbright to Hungary

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Department of Cognitive Psychophysics