Supplementary Material for: Making Sense of Outliers

Phonetic inquiry, particularly of the kind which looks at large numbers of items, frequently asks what a ‘typical’ example of a phenomenon of speech is like. For example, in describing the plosives of a language, it is common to calculate average closure durations or voice onset times in some contexts. In this paper, the focus is on examples from natural conversation where there are untypical patterns, and where the item of interest is, in statistical terms, an outlier. Outliers are generally excluded from linguistic analysis, and may be treated as e.g. production errors. The paper shows instead that at least some outliers are in fact part of a meaningful practice, and an orderly method by which speakers can create meaning. The phenomenon more precisely is that of intensifying emphasis, which has been described for German. We consider its phonetic exponents in American English, which are both ‘prosodic’ and ‘segmental’. We provide an account of function based on participants’ own use and displayed understanding of the phenomenon, and argue for a structurally rich account of the phenomenon which includes aspects of turn construction and sequential organisation.语音学研究，尤其是针对海量语料的分析范式，通常会探讨某一言语现象的‘典型’实例具有怎样的属性。例如，在描述某一语言的塞音（plosives）时，学界通常会在特定语境下计算其持阻时长的平均值或嗓音起始时间（voice onset time）。本研究的关注点则取自自然会话中的非典型模式实例，其中所关注的言语项从统计学视角来看属于异常值（outlier）。在传统语言学分析中，异常值通常会被排除，甚至可能被视作发音失误等一类问题。但本研究表明，至少有一部分异常值实则属于有意义的言语实践的组成部分，是说话者用以传递意义的有序策略。该现象具体而言为强化重音（intensifying emphasis），相关研究已在德语中对其展开过描述。本研究将探讨美式英语中该现象的语音表现形式，其兼具韵律（prosodic）与音段（segmental）双重特征。本研究基于会话参与者对该现象的实际使用与所展现出的理解，对其功能进行阐释，并主张构建一个兼具丰富结构维度的分析框架，该框架需涵盖话轮构建与序列组织等层面。