In this response I make three distinct points. First and most important, I identify a logical premise of Everett et al.’s (2016) explanation for the correlation between humidity and complex tone, and briefly present empirical evidence that the premise is questionable. Second (and ultimately equally important), I point out that their definition of ‘complex tone’ is equivocal between two quite distinct senses. Third, I offer a speculative alternative approach to explaining the correlation. Everett et al. emphasize that they have formulated a hypothesis and tested it empirically. That is, they predict on independent grounds that tone languages should be more common where humidity is high, and then provide evidence that this prediction is valid. The logic of their prediction is as follows: They provide plenty of evidence for the first premise, and (lacking relevant specialist knowledge in statistics) I am willing to accept their demonstration of the geographical correlation that supports the conclusion. However, there is good reason to doubt the second premise. Over the course of many years, I have conducted studies in which speakers read prepared sentences under studio conditions. These studies have generally aimed to test the effect of specific structural manipulations on fundamental frequency (F0) at specific points in the utterance. For example, in one such experiment (Ladd 1988), I compared English sentences of the form A and B but C and A but B and C (where A, B , and C are short clauses), looking for (and finding) F0 differences on the accented syllables of the clauses depending on the structure. A consistent finding in all these studies is that, for any given speaker, mean F0 …

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评论：声调语言和喉部精确度

在这个回答中，我提出了三个不同的观点。首先，也是最重要的一点，我确定了 Everett 等人 (2016) 对湿度和复杂音调之间相关性的解释的逻辑前提，并简要介绍了该前提存在问题的经验证据。其次（最终同样重要），我指出他们对“复杂语气”的定义在两种截然不同的意义上是模棱两可的。第三，我提供了一种推测性的替代方法来解释相关性。埃弗雷特等人。强调他们已经制定了一个假设并进行了实证检验。也就是说，他们根据独立的理由预测，在湿度高的地方，声调语言应该更常见，然后提供证据证明这种预测是有效的。他们的预测逻辑如下：他们为第一个前提提供了大量证据，并且（缺乏相关的统计学专业知识）我愿意接受他们对支持结论的地理相关性的证明。然而，有充分的理由怀疑第二个前提。在多年的过程中，我进行了研究，让说话者在工作室条件下阅读准备好的句子。这些研究通常旨在测试特定结构操作对话语中特定点的基频 (F0) 的影响。例如，在一个这样的实验 (Ladd 1988) 中，我比较了 A 和 B 但 C 和 A 但 B 和 C 形式的英语句子（其中 A、B 和 C 是短从句），寻找（并找到）F0从句的重读音节的差异取决于结构。所有这些研究的一致发现是，对于任何给定的说话者，平均 F0 …