Unifying phonological and phonetic aspects of speech in dynamic neural fields: The case of laryngeal patterns in Japanese

Finished · Speech Production

Summary

Shaw shows how dynamic neural fields (DNFs) can account for phonological alternations, like CVCV voicing contours, CVCV interconsonantal vowel devoicing, and CVCV intervocalic consonant devoicing can be achieved by changing the timing of inputs to DNFs. DNFs are schematized as fields of neurons. With different inputs to the field (e.g., a voicing or voiceless input), different locations in the field are excited. When excitation reaches a certain weight, a peak in the field is generated, creating a target for phonetic production. Depending on the timing of conflicting inputs, it can result in different patterns, as demonstrated in a glottal constriction DNF in this paper.