Experimental Phonetics and Phonology in Indo-Aryan & European Languages

Abstract

Phonetics and phonology are very interesting areas of Linguistics, and are interrelated. They are based on the human speech system, speech perception, native speakers’ intuition, and vocalic and consonantal systems of languages spoken in this world. There are more than six thousand languages spoken in the world. Every language has its own phonemic inventory, sound system, and phonological and phonetic rules that differ from other languages; most even have distinct orthographic systems. While languages spoken in developed countries are well-studied, those spoken in underdeveloped countries are not. There is a great need to examine them using a scientific approach. These under-studied languages need to be documented scientifically using advanced technological instruments to bring objective results, and linguistics itself provides the scientific basis for the study of a language. Most research studies to date have also been carried out with reference to old or existing written literature in poetry and drama. In the current era of research, scholars are looking for objective scientific approaches, e.g., experimental and instrumental studies that include acoustic research on the sound systems of less privileged languages spoken locally in developing countries. In this context, Sindhi is an example of this phenomenon, and un-researched with reference to syllable structure and the exponents of lexical stress patterns.

Software for experimental methods in phonetic research

“…Later he wrote: "Nothing separates one sound from another neighbouring with it in the speech: each sound goes directly into the other without any sudden jumps. However, since individual sounds of speech serve to distinguish the meaning of words and since individual sounds can have independent significance, it is fair to say that every speech splits into separate sounds or consists of separate sounds" [18,20]. There must not be a phonetic study that does not take into account the phonological aspect, which would not have the ultimate goal of finding out certain linguistic relations.…”

“…"From the point of view of a correctly set experiment, one can say that it is carried out by two means: hearing aids and special devices. The first is often subjective, and the second is objective" [11,20]. The use of objective methods is based on the fact that the person's hearing aid, in particular, hears not what is voiced, but what the person is used to hear.…”

“…"Objective or experimental phonetic methods (in the narrow concept) allow controlling the subtlety of a sound that cannot be heard, and it is especially important to note that these methods make it possible to separate articulation and acoustic sound map to elements exactly when it sounds as a single whole. Even if that division is possible with auditory perception, the results of such an analysis mostly depend on the researcher himself" [11,20].…”

“…In other words, phonetic and phonological aspects are taken into account when describing and analyzing any sound. Given this fact, some modern researchers of phonetics call it physiological phonetics [20,52]…”

Investigation of Pitch and Duration Range in Speech of Sindhi Adults for Prosody Generation Module

“…The research contributions pertaining to the analysis of fundamental frequency of Sindhi language are published by Abbasi [9] [10]. The role of pitch between intonation and stress is investigated.…”