SIGTYP 2021: Claire Bowern (Keynote)
Title: Universals: Some key questions for phonetic typology
Abstract:
n this talk, I unpack and discuss some of the theoretical background to how universal thinking in typology might apply to phonetic corpora, particularly for computational approaches to investigating speech across large-scale datasets. Because of the way that auditory language is produced, phonetics involves extensive interaction between psychological, neurological, physiological, social, linguistic, situational, and signals processing. That is, speech begins in the mind and brain, but is shaped by the body, and encodes linguistic and social meaning. Moreover, language is an evolutionary system, with universal properties shared by all such systems. Following discussion of universals and variation, I suggest some key questions that this approach allows, around phylogenetics of speech, marking of social cues, and the role of phonological constrast in structuring phonetic variation.