Báo cáo khoa học: Computer Backup for Field Work in Phonology

In the study of a previously unrecorded language, a taxonomy of the sound system is the most useful starting point for developing the phonological component of a grammar. If the linguist makes at least tentative assumptions about segmentation and fixes the limits of supposedly relevant contexts, a computer can approximate this taxonomy.
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Báo cáo khoa học: "Computer Backup for Field Work in Phonology" [Mechanical Translation and Computational Linguistics, vol.11, nos.1 and 2, March and June 1968] Computer Backup for Field Work in Phonology by Joseph E. Grimes, John R. Alsop, and Alan Wares, Summer Institute of Linguistics In the study of a previously unrecorded language, a taxonomy of the sound system is the most useful starting point for developing the phono- logical component of a grammar. If the linguist makes at least tentative assumptions about segmentation and fixes the limits of supposedly relevant contexts, a computer can approximate this taxonomy. A program by Alsop reduces a concordance of phonetic segments in their contexts to a series of taxonomic statements about phoneme distribution by applying Blochs criteria for contrast within limited contexts. When applied to data on Paipai, a Yuman language of the Colorado delta, collected by Wares on a survey trip, the program found contrast between segments Wares had identified as allophones in two parallel consonantal series, indicating a distinction of presumably low functional load with morphophonemic implications.There was a time when phonological analysis was field work, in which we include the process of validatingthought of primarily as a data-processing operation to the results of introspection about ones own language asbe performed on strings of symbols in a phonetic trans- well as that of validating observations about someonecription. The symbols were classified with reference to elses language, it provided the plan for an essential steptheir environments, and the resulting taxonomy was an that a modern linguist skips only at the risk of basing hisend in itself. generalizations on nothing but an ad hoc subset of a One of the reasons this approach foundered was that language that is convenient for him.no linguist is a sufficiently good phonetician to make it Even though a phonological taxonomy is no longer bywork consistently. The strings of phonetic symbols have itself a final goal in linguistic analysis, a linguist who triesto be completely correct. On the other hand, evidence to study the phonology of a language without first mak-from instrumental phonetics and theoretical backing ing a good taxonomy stands as much chance of successfrom generative grammar suggest that even a good as a burglar who makes a robbery without first casingphonetic transcription will not necessarily guarantee a the joint to see what he is up against. There are timescomplete phonological analysis. There is also plenty of when this preliminary investigation can be aided mate-field experience that indicates that a self-correcting ap- rially by the use of a computer.proach to field work can give the desired analysis readily, Normally we advocate working out a phonologicaleven though one starts with only reasonable phonetic taxonomy by hand. For the average language studied inability. The first author explains such an approach in the field, over 85 percent of the taxonomy can be pinneddetail in a text on phonological analysis [1]. down in this way in a couple of weeks, while under the A second defect in phonology from phonetic transcrip- same circumstances it would take at least that long totion was its tendency to regard the sounds of speech as get things ready for a computer. Furthermore, effectivea unilinear sequence of segments. Junctures were put field procedures make maximal use of phonologicalinto the stream of speech by some linguists, and intona- grouping phenomena; and these are much more difficulttional change points were added; but the characteristic to cope with in an algorithm than are unilinear symbolgroupings of sounds in syllables, feet, and contours were strings. The possibility of getting a really comprehensiveregarded more as a nuisance than as part of a model of analysis of the sounds people make when they talk is atphonology. present, then, greater if the computer is left out of the ...