Research on Sound Change at the IPS Munich
The transmission of speech between a speaker and a listener is infinitely variable and an inherently dynamic activity. At the same time, speech can be considered to be composed of a finite set of categories including, at a minimum, consonants and vowels that function to distinguish meaning. The main concern of research in this group is how these dynamics and categorical aspects of speech are connected and how sound change can emerge from the sometimes ambiguous relationship between the two. [more]