Haskins Publications

Number	952
Year	1995
Drawer	18
Entry Date	07/13/1998
Authors	Fowler, Carol A.
Contact
Publication	Speech, Language, and Communication, edited by J. Miller and P. Eimas. Academic Press, pp. 29-61.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0952.pdf
Abstract	This chapter addresses the question of how a linguistic message can be conveyed by vocal-tract activity. I make my job easier by considering linguistic messages only in their phonological aspect. So the question is not how linguistically structured meanings can be conveyed by vocal-tract activity, but rather, how language forms can be conveyed. Further, I do not discuss production of prosodic structure in speech, including its intonational and stress patterning. Despite these considerable simplifications, many difficulties remain in finding an answer. A fundamental issue to confront right away concerns the extent of the mutual compatibilities among the different levels of description of the message that talkers, in one sense or another, embody as they speak. I consider three levels of description, those of the phonological forms of linguistic competence (language users’ knowledge of their language), forms in a speaker’s plan for an utterance, and forms in vocal-tract activity. It will become clear that a theory of speech production is profoundly shaped by the theorist’s view of the compatibilities or incompatibilities among these levels (see Bock, Chapter 6, and Frazier, Chapter 1, this volume).
Notes