A charide,

Déanfaidh mé ar mo staidéar ag Ollscoil, staidéar turgnamhach i foghraíocht fuaimiúil - agus is maith liom dhéanfainn an triail seo ar Gaeilge.

(And I'll stop there because I have a feeling I just butchered what I tried to say. I'm still learning. :( )

As part of my degree program at school I have to carry out an experimental study in the field of acoustic phonetics. I'm not in school right now, but I'd like to be able to get a start on looking at some research in the area - and I'd like to do my project on Irish.

On that note, can anyone linguistically-inclined point me in a good direction to look in terms of acoustic phonetic studies done on Irish? I'm looking for a research topic in particular that would be of some use (if this is even possible) to teaching the language or other revitalization efforts.

I wouldn't mind factoring in a comparison or something, to other Goidelic languages, as well, particularly Scottish Gaelic

Found a few on my own. If anyone has any more ideas I'll all ears.

http://www.tcd.ie/slscs/assets/documents/clcs/clcs_phonetics_prosody_saltmil_200 4.pdf

http://www.tcd.ie/slscs/assets/documents/clcs/clcs_phonetics_prosody_language_an d_speech_forthcoming.pdf

http://www.tcd.ie/slscs/assets/documents/clcs/clcs_phonetics_prosody_icphs_2003. pdf

Anyone else have any ideas?

Looking at your references reminded me of a question I have always had.

In English we emphasize a word by "stressing" it, saying the word louder, stronger, with a threatening tone, etc, represented by italics, underlining, bold type, or capitals in various contexts. For instance to emphasize that a book is yours and not somebody else's, we might say:

That's my book. It's mine.

In languages that have particles to emphasize such differences, such as Japanese and Chinese, "stress" tends to play less of a part.

Now, Irish has a particle "-sa" (as well as contraposition) for this kind of distinction and emphasis. "That's my book. It's mine" would be:

Is mo leabharsa é sin. Is liomsa é.

I have always wondered how much stress, if any, native speakers (in the linguistic sense) actually place on the emphasized word, given the presence of the particle, how much it might vary across dialects, and how much this may be being influenced by English intonation in the standard.

Is that in the line of what you are looking for?

Yes! That's an awesome idea, a Bhreandán.

I dropped an email to Professor Ailbhe Ní Chasaide at Colaiste na Trionoide, Baile Atha Cliath, asking some questions about her work (she worked on the majority of the papers I linked to above) and some input on this question (specifically, any areas of Irish language acoustic phonetics she finds particularly salient or important).

Bíodh an t-ádh ort (Good luck), a Riain! (and I hope it hasn't been done yet.)

...and feel free to keep us posted on any interesting results!

Go n-éirí leat.

When the time comes to actually do this, I'll need some informants willing to record stuff. This is the ideal place to recruit them from since there are native speakers from (I think) all the major dialects as well as learners. Do you think folk here would get behind me on this?

Not sure that there are - and in any event, stress is elusive. Once you've told people (even native speakers) what specific stress patterns you're looking for, they'll inevitably become conscious of it themselves, probably compromising the study.

I think you'd do better to examine existing recordings of natural speech. (RnaG broadcasts would be one very accessible starting point.)

I haven't really decided to study stress patterns, however. I'm still investigating what literature there is on Irish phonetics, and I'm going to go from there. I have months before I have to get started, even.

I did a project a couple of years ago on the acoustic properties of Connemara Irish coronal nasals and laterals with respect to the data and techniques available for Russian. I started out with recording people from Ceantar na nOileáin and an Cheathrú Rua, but eventually used recordings of seanchaithe from Carna and an Lochán Beag, because my questionnaire didn't really work out. From what I remember back then, there were very scarce resources on segmental phonetics for Irish, but I'm not really doing it any longer so I don't know how things stand now. One of my problems was that I actually had - exactly as people joke - a very idealised perception of Irish native speakers. For instance, I discovered that in fact very few (educated) people could read Irish (say, as you can read English), which is sort of nice because it means the written language has a limited impact on Gaeltacht Irish. It doesn't sound like a great insight, although I have to confess, back then I got tricked into thinking that questionnaire task would be easy-peasy. Another thing, I was kinda surprised to find out that some basic words are not widely known (e.g. the Connemarian "maile" (CO "mala") "eyebrow" is non-existent for some semi-speakers).

I would first of all advise you to actually spend a lot of time on learning Irish, otherwise it just isn't worth it and you'll write another paper on the Irish that exists only in your head. Then, work through DIAS descriptive studies at which point you may want to abandon your idea ;)

quote:

I have always wondered how much stress, if any, native speakers (in the linguistic sense) actually place on the emphasized word, given the presence of the particle, how much it might vary across dialects, and how much this may be being influenced by English intonation in the standard.

This presupposes prior research into Irish stress which should itself make a nice topic, since it is not always obvious what stress actually is in a given language.

(Message edited by peter on May 29, 2009)

When I actually get started on this (and it might not be for a few months) can I ask some of you Daltai folks to be informants for me, through recording some stuff or what have you? This is actually the ideal community for what I'm looking to do, since there are both native and non-native speakers here.