A Dynamic Approach to Rhythm in Language: Toward a Temporal Phonology

It is proposed that the theory of dynamical systems o ers appropriate tools to model many phonological aspects of both speech production and perception. A dynamic account of speech rhythm is shown to be useful for description of both Japanese mora timing and English timing in a phrase repetition task. This orientation contrasts fundamentally with the more familiar symbolic approach to phonology, in which time is modeled only with sequentially arrayed symbols. It is proposed that an adaptive oscillator o ers a useful model for perceptual entrainment (or `locking in') to the temporal patterns of speech production. This helps to explain why speech is often perceived to be more regular than experimental measurements seem to justify. Because dynamic models deal with real time, they also help us understand how languages can di er in their temporal detail|contributing to foreign accents, for example. The fact that languages di er greatly in their temporal detail suggests that these e ects are not mere motor universals, but that dynamical models are intrinsic components of the phonological characterization of language. 1 The Description of Language 1.1 Dynamic and Symbolic Models of Language By long tradition, human language has been described in terms of strings of discrete, formal symbols (Saussure, 1916; Bloom eld, 1933; Chomsky and Halle, 1968). The basic units of each of the components of a grammar, from syntax through morphology and phonology, are discrete, static information