Dynamique Du Langage, CNRS et Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France.
School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2024 Nov 1;156(5):3118-3139. doi: 10.1121/10.0032454.
In this comparative cross-linguistic study we test whether expressive interjections (words like ouch or yay) share similar vowel signatures across the world's languages, and whether these can be traced back to nonlinguistic vocalizations (like screams and cries) expressing the same emotions of pain, disgust, and joy. We analyze vowels in interjections from dictionaries of 131 languages (over 600 tokens) and compare these with nearly 500 vowels based on formant frequency measures from voice recordings of volitional nonlinguistic vocalizations. We show that across the globe, pain interjections feature a-like vowels and wide falling diphthongs ("ai" as in Ayyy! "aw" as in Ouch!), whereas disgust and joy interjections do not show robust vowel regularities that extend geographically. In nonlinguistic vocalizations, all emotions yield distinct vowel signatures: pain prompts open vowels such as [a], disgust schwa-like central vowels, and joy front vowels such as [i]. Our results show that pain is the only affective experience tested with a clear, robust vowel signature that is preserved between nonlinguistic vocalizations and interjections across languages. These results offer empirical evidence for iconicity in some expressive interjections. We consider potential mechanisms and origins, from evolutionary pressures and sound symbolism to colexification, proposing testable hypotheses for future research.
在这项跨语言比较研究中，我们测试了表达性感叹词（如ouch 或 yay 等词）是否在世界语言中具有相似的元音特征，以及这些元音特征是否可以追溯到表达相同情感（如疼痛、厌恶和喜悦）的非语言发声（如尖叫和哭声）。我们分析了来自 131 种语言词典的 131 种语言中的感叹词的元音（超过 600 个样本），并将这些元音与近 500 个元音进行了比较，这些元音是基于自愿非语言发声的共振峰频率测量得出的。我们表明，在全球范围内，疼痛感叹词的特征是 a 样元音和宽降双元音（如 Ayyy! 中的“ai”和 Ouch! 中的“aw”），而厌恶和喜悦感叹词没有表现出具有地理延伸性的强劲元音规律。在非语言发声中，所有的情绪都产生了独特的元音特征：疼痛引起开口元音，如[a]，厌恶引起中央元音，如 schwa，喜悦引起前元音，如[i]。我们的研究结果表明，在所有经过测试的情感中，疼痛是唯一具有清晰、强劲元音特征的情感，这种特征在非语言发声和语言中的感叹词之间得以保留。这些结果为一些表达性感叹词的象似性提供了经验证据。我们考虑了从进化压力和语音象征主义到共词化等潜在的机制和起源，并提出了可供未来研究检验的假设。
