Proposal to Project SL for a Subproject in the Linguistic vs. Acoustic Domains of Sound in the Environment by The LADS project We propose a methodical study of the division between linguistically meaningful and non-meaningful sound. The object of investigation is the means by which the "objective" presence of sound in the environment is seemingly filtered and computed to form the basis of oral communication in all instances of language use. In linguistic terms, the aim of this enterprise is twofold: one is to characterize the extraction of the non-language-specific patterns of sound used to convey information in ordinary speech; and two to establish the lower bounds of post-lexical phonology, that part of oral communication which is particular to a given language, but which interacts with the semantics of discourse and the syntax of phrases, rather than with word meaning and structure. From a broader perspective, the research should contribute to situation theory's goal of providing an account of what information is extracted from the environment, and how that information is subject to computational processing. Put simply, we can ask, what representations must be posited from (a) the point of view of computational efficiency (b) computational/scientific "elegance" (c) the point of view of furthering our knowledge about the nature of information as it is actually transmitted. @begin(enumerate) @section(Deliverables) @section(What SL can provide) We request the following support from project SL to aid us in this project: Withgott: 25% support/year (1 yr.) Shieber: ?% Kiparsky: ?% summer support, computational support for document preparation Support for 3-5 graduate students who will be partially attached to this project. MODERNz¸