Does (the presence or complexity of) tone inversely correlate with dryness of climate? The authors (Everett et al.) suggest that the absence of ambient humidity in the air negatively correlates with the presence of (complex?) lexical tone, partly because of the effect that dry air has to increase the difficulty in achieving precise articulatory targets. There are two main problems with the argumentation used. 1. Conflating ‘tone’ with ‘pitch’ or ‘fundamental frequency’, and mistaking ‘complexity’ with a syllable domain for tone assignment; 2. conflating ‘dry climate’ with the absence of humidity. The authors are not guilty in an absolute sense of these problems, acknowledging that there are complications. Their reliance on pitch contrasts as a proxy for tonal category contrasts, and the use of air humidity rather than (easily available) climate information for the ranges of different languages means that the authors are dealing with ephemeral correlations between proxy features. In the next two sections, I will critique the use of tone primarily to refer to distinctions realised by pitch, and the use of humidity as a powerful explanatory for the existence of tone categories. The authors acknowledge that ‘many non-pitch phenomena are associated with the production of tone, including ancillary laryngealization and duration influences’, but go on to claim that ‘the heightened role of F0 (and therefore pitch) in languages with complex tone is evident in the fact that its fine-grained modulation is required on every or almost every syllable, in contrast to pitch accent languages’. First, this …

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评论：文化调节湿度对语言的影响

语气（的存在或复杂性）是否与气候干燥成反比？作者（Everett 等人）认为，空气中环境湿度的缺乏与（复杂？）词汇音调的存在负相关，部分原因是干燥的空气必须增加实现精确发音目标的难度。所使用的论证有两个主要问题。1. 将“音调”与“音调”或“基频”混为一谈，将“复杂性”与音节域误认为是音调分配；2. 将“干燥气候”与缺乏湿度混为一谈。作者对这些问题绝对没有愧疚，承认存在并发症。他们依赖音高对比作为音调类别对比的代表，对于不同语言的范围，使用空气湿度而不是（容易获得的）气候信息意味着作者正在处理代理特征之间的短暂相关性。在接下来的两节中，我将批评音调的使用主要是指音高实现的区别，以及使用湿度作为音调类别存在的有力解释。作者承认“许多非音高现象与音调的产生有关，包括辅助性喉化和持续时间影响”，但继续声称“F0（因此音高）在具有复杂音调的语言中的增强作用是显而易见的事实上，与音调重音语言相比，每个或几乎每个音节都需要它的细粒度调制。首先，这… 以及使用湿度作为音调类别存在的有力解释。作者承认“许多非音高现象与音调的产生有关，包括辅助性喉化和持续时间影响”，但继续声称“F0（因此音高）在具有复杂音调的语言中的增强作用是显而易见的事实上，与音调重音语言相比，每个或几乎每个音节都需要它的细粒度调制。首先，这… 以及使用湿度作为音调类别存在的有力解释。作者承认“许多非音高现象都与音调的产生有关，包括辅助性喉化和持续时间的影响”，但继续声称“F0（因此音高）在具有复杂音调的语言中的作用增强是显而易见的事实上，与音调重音语言相比，每个或几乎每个音节都需要它的细粒度调制。首先，这… 但继续声称“F0（以及音高）在具有复杂音调的语言中的增强作用是显而易见的，因为与音高重音语言相比，每个或几乎每个音节都需要它的细粒度调制”。首先，这… 但继续声称“F0（以及音高）在具有复杂音调的语言中的增强作用是显而易见的，因为与音高重音语言相比，每个或几乎每个音节都需要它的细粒度调制”。首先，这…