Original Speaker Research Articles

Discrimination of speaker sex and size when glottal-pulse rate and vocal-tract length are controlled.

A recent study [Smith and Patterson, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3177-3186 (2005)] demonstrated that both the glottal-pulse rate (GPR) and the vocal-tract length (VTL) of vowel sounds have a large effect on the perceived sex and age (or size) of a speaker. The vowels for all of the "different" speakers in that study were synthesized from recordings of the sustained vowels of one, adult male speaker. This paper presents a follow-up study in which a range of vowels were synthesized from recordings of four different speakers--an adult man, an adult woman, a young boy, and a young girl--to determine whether the sex and age of the original speaker would have an effect upon listeners' judgments of whether a vowel was spoken by a man, woman, boy, or girl, after they were equated for GPR and VTL. The sustained vowels of the four speakers were scaled to produce the same combinations of GPR and VTL, which covered the entire range normally encountered in every day life. The results show that listeners readily distinguish children from adults based on their sustained vowels but that they struggle to distinguish the sex of the speaker.

Earwitness identification performance: the effect of language, target, deliberate strategies and indirect measures

AbstractThe present study examined whether voice identification performance is influenced by language comprehension (i.e. familiar vs. non‐familiar language) and target presence (target‐present (TP) vs. target‐absent line‐ups (TA)). It also looked at the relationship of deliberate strategies and indirect measures (i.e. confidence, difficulty and pressure) with performance. Sixty Native English speakers were exposed to an auditory event involving 45 to 50 seconds of speech. After 30 minutes delay, participants listened to a voice line‐up (TP or TA) in either a familiar (i.e. English) or unfamiliar language (i.e. French) according to the language spoken during the event, and were then asked to identify the original speaker's voice. Participants demonstrated significantly better performance for the familiar language/TP line‐ups. Participants who reported using the ‘elimination’ strategy were significantly more accurate than participants who reported using either a ‘matching’ strategy or no strategy. Indirect measures were not found to be good predictors of performance, except for confidence regarding TA accuracy. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An F0 contour control model using an F0 contour codebook

AbstractIn this paper the authors propose a fundamental frequency (F0) control model using a representative vector and then propose a method to train the control rules for the model parameters using a speech database. The representative vector is a vector which represents the typical F0 contour for accent phrases, and a set of representative vectors is referred to as a representative vector codebook. The authors generated F0 contour for sentences by performing linear expansion or contraction by mora in line with the length of the phoneme duration and the parallel shift (offset) on the logarithmic frequency axis and then concatenating them for representative vectors selected for each accent phrase. Training the control rules corresponds to extracting from the speech database the representative vector codebook, the representative vector selection rules, and the offset prediction rules. Based on the criterion that the error between the F0 contour for the speech database and the contour generated by the model (the approximation error) be minimized, the control rules were trained. The results of training experiments for the control rules using a speech database consisting of four female speakers showed that an F0 contour close to the original speaker can be generated even for sentences not included in the training data. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 38(1): 62–72, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.10386

Hidden Markov model-based speech synthesis as a tool for constructing comunicative spoken dialog systems

For constructing spoken dialog systems which can realize natural human-computer interaction, speech synthesis systems are required to have an ability to generate speech with arbitrary speaker’s voice and various speaking styles and/or emotional expressions. Although state-of-the-art speech synthesis systems based on unit selection and concatenation can generate natural-sounding speech, it is still difficult to synthesize various voices flexibly because they need a large-scale speech corpus for each voice. In recent years, a kind of corpus-based speech synthesis system based on hidden Markov models (HMMs) has been developed, which has the following features: (1) original speaker’s characteristics can easily be reproduced because all speech features, not only spectral parameters but also fundamental frequencies and durations, are modeled in a unified framework of HMM, and then generated from the trained HMMs themselves; (2) using a very small amount of adaptation speech data, voice characteristics can easily be modified by transforming HMM parameters by a speaker adaptation technique used in speech recognition systems. From these features, the HMM-based speech synthesis approach is expected to be used as a tool for constructing communicative spoken dialog systems: keeping such a viewpoint in mind, basic algorithms and techniques for HMM-based speech synthesis are reviewed.

The Relative Contributions of Speaking Fundamental Frequency and Formant Frequencies to Gender Identification Based on Isolated Vowels

The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy with which listeners could identify the gender of a speaker from a synthesized isolated vowel based on the natural production of that speaker when (1) the fundamental frequency was consistent with the speaker's gender, (2) the fundamental frequency was inconsistent with the the speaker's gender, and (3) the speaker was transgendered. Ten male-to-female transgendered persons, 10 men and 10 women, served as subjects. Each speaker produced the vowels /i/, /u/, and //. These vowels were analyzed for fundamental frequency and the first three formant frequencies and bandwidths. Formant frequency and bandwidth information was used to synthesize two vowel tokens for each speaker, one at a fundamental frequency of 120 Hz and one at 240 Hz. Listeners were asked to listen to these tokens and determine whether the original speaker was male or female. Listeners were not aware of the use of transgendered speakers. Results showed that, in all cases, gender identifications were based on fundamental frequency, even when fundamental frequency and formant frequency information was contradictory.

피치 변환을 사용한 실시간 음성 변환 시스템

본 논문에서는 음성을 본인이 아닌 사람의 음성으로 변환시키기 위하여 피치 변환 기법을 사용한 실시간 음성 변환 방법을 제안하였다 이러한 목적을 위하여 DFT((Discrete Fourier Transform)를 사용한 표본화율 변환 방법과 SOLA(Synchronized Overlap and Add) 방법을 사용한 시간축 변환 방법을 결합하여 피치를 변환시켰다 제안된 방법의 성능을 평가하기 위하여 음성 변환 실험을 수행하였다. 실험 결과에서 원 음성 신호는 원 화자의 신원을 알기가 어려운 음성 신호로 바뀌는 것을 알 수 있었다. 제안된 시스템은 시스템의 실시간으로 구현될 수 있는지 확인하기 위하여 TI TMS320C6711DSK 보드를 사용하여 구현되었다. In this paper, real-time voice change method using pitch change technique is proposed to change one's voice to the other voice. For this purpose, sampling rate change method using DFT (Discrete Fourier Transform) method and time scale modification method using SOLA (Synchronized Overlap and Add) method is combined to change pitch. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, voice transformation experiments were conducted. Experimental results showed that original speech signal is changed to the other speech signal in which original speaker's identity is difficult to find. The system is implemented using TI TMS320C6711DSK board to verify the system runs in real time.

Social effects of the speed of hummed sounds on human–computer interaction

Our research focuses on the nature of voice interaction and activation of psychological tendencies in humans by the power of prosody sounds. This study examines whether people's impressions and behaviours are affected by variations in the speed of hummed sounds. The sounds consist of just prosodic components similar to continuous humming on the open vowel /a/ or /o/ without any language information. In interaction between individuals as well as among animals, temporal structures including voice speed or duration contribute rhythmic interaction and are closely connected to the participants’ dynamics of mental or emotional states. We think that this phenomenon can be applied to human–computer interaction, even through the variation in temporal structures of hummed sounds used to reduce the influence of content or meaning in language. Our interactive system mimics the prosodic features of the human voice by using humming-only sounds under three different voice speed conditions: (a) faster, (b) normal, and (c) slower than the original speaker. We examine whether the variation in the sound's speed gives rise to both psychological and behavioural influences in the relationship between the computer and the subject through interaction. Subjects tend to prefer a computer with a normal or faster speaking rate to that with a slower rate on both usefulness and familiarity. Moreover, the speech rate of the subjects changed inversely to the variation in a computer's hummed sounds. This study demonstrates the importance of temporal structure and emphasizes the need for an investigation of the fundamentals at work in interaction.

Tshimbedzi variety: a link between the Venda language and the Kalanga dialect cluster?

Tshimbedzi is one of seven known regional varieties of Venda and is spoken in the eastern and north-eastern areas of Ṱhohoyanḓou. The original speakers of this variety are from Malungudzi in Zimbabwe. At present the speakers of this variety continue to make regular contact with the people north of the Limpopo, among them the Pfumbi or Mbedzi, Lembethu and Kalanga. As a result, Tshimbedzi is characterized by certain speech sounds, phonological changes, grammatical features and lexical items which are typical of the Pfumbi or Mbedzi variety spoken in Zimbabwe. In turn, these must have had a far-reaching influence on Venda vocabulary as it is spoken today.

When conceptual pacts are broken: Partner-specific effects on the comprehension of referring expressions

When two people in conversation refer repeatedly to objects, they typically converge on the same (or similar) referring expressions. The repeated use of expressions by people in the same conversation has been called lexical entrainment. Lexical entrainment may emerge from the precedent of associating objects with expressions (and the perspectives they encode), or else from achieving conceptual pacts, or temporary, flexible agreements to view an object in a particular way (in which case the precedent is encoded as specific to a particular partner). We had people interact with a confederate speaker, entraining on shared perspectives (e.g., “the shiny cylinder”) during repeated references to objects. Then either the original speaker or a new speaker used either the original expression or a new one (“the silver pipe”) to refer to the previously discussed object. Upon hearing the original expressions, addressees looked at and then touched the target objects equally quickly regardless of speaker. However, with new expressions, there was partner-specific interference: addressees were slower to look at the object when the new expression was uttered by the original speaker than when the new expression was uttered by the new speaker. This suggests that the representations in memory from which entrainment emerges do encode a partner-specific cue, leading addressees to expect that a speaker should continue to use an entrained-upon expression unless a contrast in meaning is implicated. There appears to be no such interference when a new partner uses a new expression.

Implementation of high-quality text-to-speech synthesis for limited domain applications

Though current TTS systems can produce unrestricted, intelligible speech using a limited database of prerecorded sounds, the quality of speech is highly artificial. By using larger speech segments, such as a combination of words and diphones, the number of segment boundaries are reduced drastically, resulting in high-quality TTS that has a humanlike natural voice. Such a system can be useful for limited domain applications such as driving directions, weather advisories, etc. Experiments were conducted to generate natural sounding speech from words and diphones by modifying the pitch and duration of the units to match the prosody characteristics. The Festival TTS system, developed at the CSTR at the University of Edinburgh, was used to aid in the implementation of the experiments. The method for synthesis is pitch-synchronous residual LP. This method allows for producing smooth transitions between segments. A database of residuals and parameters for segments (words and diphones) is prepared. During synthesis, the segments are concatenated and the desired prosody is matched using time-domain modifications of pitch and duration. Using natural prosody, waveforms were synthesized, resulting in close to natural sounding speech. This demonstrates synthesized speech can sound identical to the original speaker, given the correct prosody.

An overview of Microsoft’s Whistler text-to-speech system

The data-driven approach can significantly facilitate the process of creating text-to-speech (TTS) systems for a new language, a new voice, or a new style. As such, Whistler TTS engine was designed to benefit from automatically constructed model parameters. Efforts to improve Whistler with the use of additional training data and better learning algorithms that make full use of these data will be reviewed. Training data have been augmented for a number of speakers. To better use these data, the hidden Markov model speech recognition system has been used to segment the training corpora and select more representative acoustic units. The classification and regression tree was used for both grapheme to phoneme conversation and unseen triphone generalization. Speech signal reconstruction was based on the mixed excitation source-filter model that leads to better compression of the acoustic inventory. A number of ways to smooth the spectral parameters were also studied to minimize the concatenation distortion. To improve automatically extracted prosodic templates, the learning process was refined with an analysis-by-synthesis approach. However, the coverage remains a challenge for the data-driven approach to make Whistler produce synthetic speech that resembles the original speaker. This is especially true for the prosody model.

High-definition speech synthesis

This paper describes a method for producing high-quality speech synthesis, without signal processing, using indexing and resequencing of phone-sized segments from a prerecorded speech corpus for the purpose of reproducing the voice characteristics and speaking style of the original speaker to create novel utterances. It describes procedures for indexing and retrieval using pointers into an external speech corpus that enable the synthesizer to be both language- and speaker independent. The prosody-based synthesis unit selection process does not itself produce speech sounds, but yields an index for a ‘‘random-access’’ retrieval sequence into the original speech to produce the closest approximation to a desired utterance from the segments available in a given speech corpus. To find the optimal sequence of segments for concatenation, the synthesizer first creates an inventory of phones and their acoustic and prosodic characteristics, and then selects from among these by a weighted combination of features to give an index of the segment sequences that best match the target prosody while minimizing intersegment acoustic discontinuities. It has, to date, been tested on English, Japanese, Korean, and German using more than 20 speech corpora.

Keeping your footing: Conversational completion in three-part sequences

In a rapprochement between two rather different domains of pragmatics, we apply Goffman's notion of ‘footing’ to what happens when one speaker completes another speaker's utterance. Participants manage this in three-part sequences, in the third turn of which the original speaker accepts or rejects not merely the propositional content of the putative completion, but also the footing on which the completion is uttered. The heart of the paper demonstrates participants' orientation to footing in cases where the original utterance is on the footing of ‘author’, ‘relayer’ and ‘spokesperson’ in Levinson's terminology. Then we show details of how such completions are ratified (with agreement tokens, literal echos of the completion, or marks of appreciation) and rejected (by markers of dispreference and possibly by zero-appreciation turns). We then turn our attention to some findings that emerge from the analysis. These include: the role played by a suffix at the end of a completion; the limit to the power of footing to overcome the preference organisation of corrections; and how (some) completions manage to keep the floor.

Emerging Viruses Edited by Stephen Morse (review)

molecular genetics. At the same time, it is an excellent resource for specific examples to illustrate concepts for a course in transmission and molecular genetics . The price is likely to discourage purchase for the personal library of teachers and graduate students interested or involved in human genetics, particularly at the molecular level, but should not discourage purchase for a departmental or institutional library. E. D. Garber Department of Ecology and Evolution University of Chicago Emerging Viruses. Edited by Stephen Morse. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993. Pp. 317. $39.95. Man has been fascinated by epidemics since biblical times. "For now I will stretch out my hand that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence . . ." (Exodus 9). Along with this fascination have come attempts to anticipate these epidemics and to prevent them. Stephen Morse's volume on Emerging Viruses is based on a conference that deals with these concerns. Some of the original speakers at the conference, experts in varied fields, describe virus epidemics, virus detection methods, the evolution of viruses, and recommendations regarding prevention and control of emerging viruses. These topics are especially timely because of the present HIV-I threat. It comes as a surprise to realize that this topic is actually a unique focus for a book and, as Lederberg notes in his chapter, "the present examination is virtually without precedent." Amidst the plethora of books that deal with over-worked topics related to infectious disease, this insightful volume is certainly welcome. It is readable as well as scholarly. The stage for the book is well-set by Morse's perceptive chapter "Examining the origins of emerging viruses." As noted by Morse, bona fide newly emerging viruses are generally new variants of an established virus recently introduced from another species or another population, i.e., they are "existing viruses conquering new territory." A major thesis of his and other contributors is that the emergence of new viruses results from changes in "viral traffic" due to changes in human activity or to a new movement of viral vectors or hosts. The increase in global travel, for example, provides the opportunity for infected humans returning from remote regions of the world to introduce an exotic virus to a virgin population. There are a number of remarkable examples of emerging viruses provided throughout the book that serve to support this thesis. For example, the introduction of pigduck farming in China may have permitted reassortants of influenza to arise and thereby generated a pandemic virus. Dissemination of yellow fever virus may be traced to the spread of Aedes aegypti mosquito as a result of slave trading from Africa. Dissemination of dengue to the United States may be a result of the spread of Aedes albopictus mosquito in shipments of used tires that had collected rainwater; there were over 10,000 mosquito larvae discovered in twenty tires that had been imported from Asia! Shipments of monkeys to the 610 Book Reviews United States led to a frightening Ebola virus outbreak. The origins of HIV-I, explored by Myers, et al., still remain a mystery. It seems surprising that there is little mention of the origins of the poliovirus and smallpox epidemics and their control. A general premise of the book is the inevitability of emerging viruses and disasters related to them. McNeill notes that such disasters are partly a result of our "intervention in the natural ecosystem." As an analogy, he points out the potential dangers of trying to erect dikes to control the Mississippi River; this seems a particularly prescient statement considering the recent tragic consequences of flooding in the Midwest. McNeill cautions that "we create new situations that become unstable" and that the institution of more rigid control of infectious agents similarly makes us more vulnerable to the emergence of new agents and devastating pandemics. On a somewhat somber note, he remarks that the best we can hope is to try to limit the extent of the catastrophe. Fortunately , survival seems likely since viruses must adapt to the constraints of a new host (and at times the virus must also retain the ability to spread via a vector). This plasticity is a result of the ability of viruses to...

Human Gene Mutation By David N. Cooper and Michael Krawczak (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Human Gene Mutation. By David N. Cooper and Michael Krawczak. Oxford: BIOS Scientific Publishers, 1993. Pp. 402. $99.00. Extensive libraries of monogenic mutations, detailed linkage maps and the domestication of certain prokaryotic and eukaryotic species with desirable technical advantages characterized the model species of transmission geneticists. The mouse was the model species for mammals but not in the same class as the other species. Homo sapiens was never viewed as a member of the inner circle. And then came molecular genetics! The extraordinary progress in molecular genetics, initially involving the model species, over the past fifteen years has transformed genetics and probably founded a new subdiscipline of biochemistry. Sophisticated gene manipulations are now commonplace and accomplished by kits, equipment, and technicians. Yet the raw materials of the transmission geneticists, genie mutations, remain the same as those of the transmission geneticists. Only one mammalian species has the largest number of identified monogenically determined mutations and the most detailed linkage maps: Homo sapiens. Molecular geneticists have been quick to tap federal financial resources (the human genome project) and the latest technical breakthroughs (identified by an arcane series of letters or acronyms) to publish their genie sequences in a small library of established and newly established journals. The need for a comprehensive and integrated overview has long been obvious. Cooper and Krawczak have written a welcome book which provides an overview of progress in the molecular genetics of human gene mutations. "The aim of the volume has been to put together under one cover an empirically based mechanistic analysis of the nature of human gene mutation causing genetic disease, an assessment of the consequences of mutation both at the level of gene expression and for the complex relationships between genotype and phenotype, an overview of the currently available methods for mutation detection and analysis , and a reference source to current diagnostic possibilities in a fast-moving field." Each of the thirteen chapters has comprehensive contemporary references . The information in numerous tables and four appendices are not likely to be found elsewhere. The line drawings and figures are designed to illuminate the text. The book could provide the definitive text for an advanced course in modern human genetics—after exposure to a strong introductory course in genetics and Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 37, 4 ¦ Summer 1994 609 molecular genetics. At the same time, it is an excellent resource for specific examples to illustrate concepts for a course in transmission and molecular genetics . The price is likely to discourage purchase for the personal library of teachers and graduate students interested or involved in human genetics, particularly at the molecular level, but should not discourage purchase for a departmental or institutional library. E. D. Garber Department of Ecology and Evolution University of Chicago Emerging Viruses. Edited by Stephen Morse. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993. Pp. 317. $39.95. Man has been fascinated by epidemics since biblical times. "For now I will stretch out my hand that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence . . ." (Exodus 9). Along with this fascination have come attempts to anticipate these epidemics and to prevent them. Stephen Morse's volume on Emerging Viruses is based on a conference that deals with these concerns. Some of the original speakers at the conference, experts in varied fields, describe virus epidemics, virus detection methods, the evolution of viruses, and recommendations regarding prevention and control of emerging viruses. These topics are especially timely because of the present HIV-I threat. It comes as a surprise to realize that this topic is actually a unique focus for a book and, as Lederberg notes in his chapter, "the present examination is virtually without precedent." Amidst the plethora of books that deal with over-worked topics related to infectious disease, this insightful volume is certainly welcome. It is readable as well as scholarly. The stage for the book is well-set by Morse's perceptive chapter "Examining the origins of emerging viruses." As noted by Morse, bona fide newly emerging viruses are generally new variants of an established virus recently introduced from another species or another...

Effects of vowel variety and sample lenght on identification of a speaker in a line‐up

AbstractSubjects (average age 21 years, recruited by personal contact and through a school) were presented with a spoken sentence on tape and then heard six speakers of the same sex, including the original speaker, say the same sentence. They were required to indicate which was the original speaker. The task was repeated with seven different sentences and sets of speakers. One group of subjects heard short sentences containing an average of 2.14 different vowel sounds and 6.28 syllables, another group heard short sentences containing an average of 6.14 vowel sounds (7.28 syllables) and a third group heard longer sentences containing an average of 6.28 vowel sounds (11.00 syllables). Accuracy of speaker identification improved significantly when more vowel sounds were heard, but increased sentence length had no significant effect on performance. Performance was significantly better when the listener was the same sex as the speaker than when the listener was of the other sex.

Just Talk: Gossip, Meetings, and Power in a Papua New Guinea Village.

This book examines the often overlooked role of gossip and rumor in creating power in small Melanesian communities. The Kwanga of the East Sepik Province of Papua, New Guinea think that malicious gossip is almost as dangerous as sorcery, and spend hours in community meetings, looking into rumors about sorcery, adultery, and other sources of trouble. To understand how “talk” can create and ultimately destroy the position of Melanesian leaders, the book follows discussions of particular situations over time, and suggests that gossip and rumor are just as central to shaping and shifting power relations as are the public meetings which are more often studied. Kwanga community leaders build reputations by spreading rumors and dropping hints that they are confidants of sorcerers, but ultimately, the same men who build reputations through gossip and innuendo find themselves victimized in turn by malicious gossip. The book suggests that our understanding of both Melanesian leadership and the power of words to construct social reality is greatly enhanced by attention to gossip and rumor: words are dangerous weapons, which can have consequences the original speaker neither anticipated nor desired.

Theological Integrity

What makes us say of any discourse that it has or that it lacks ‘integrity’? Usually we can answer this in terms of whether such a discourse is really talking about what it says it is talking about. This is not necessarily to make a pronouncement on the integrity or otherwise of this or that speaker, who may or may not know that the discourse serves a purpose other than what it professes. It would be quite in order to say—as a Marxist might—that eighteenth century aesthetics was an integral part of the ideology of bourgeois cultural dominance, that what determined its judgments and strategies was a particular pattern of economic relations, without thereby saying that Johnson or Hawksmoor was a liar, or that Bach did not ‘mean’ it when he wrote ad maiorem Dei gloriam at the head of his compositions. Somebody perpetuating such an aesthetic today, when we know (according to the Marxist) so much about its real determinants, would be dishonest: they could not mean what an eighteenth century speaker meant because they know what that speaker (on the charitable interpretation) did not—the objective direction, the interest in fact served by the discourse. The discourse is without integrity because it conceals its true agenda; knowing that concealment robs us of our innocence, the ‘innocence’ of the original speaker; for we know too that speech cannot be content with concealment.Why is it so important that speech should not conceal its purposes? Discourse that conceals is discourse that (consciously or not) sets out to foreclose the possibility of a genuine response.

The Authority of Anger: "Three Guineas" as Case Study

Don't use that tone of voice to me! In life, or world, we all know the circumstances and significance of that phrase: a generally hierarchical situation (parent and child comes immediately to mind) in which the speaker draws upon and claims authority through control or appropriation not just of the words of the exchange but of their tonal presentation. The context for this phrase almost always involves anger: the anger of the original speaker evoking the anger of the person who attempts to silence the upstart through an act of linguistic fiat. Even when the status of the speakers is more equal, lovers say, or colleagues, these words signify a move to establish or reestablish authority. This scenario, so familiar to all of us, came increasingly to mind while I was preparing a history of the responses to Three Guineas, Virginia Woolfs analysis of the role that educated, professional women can and should play in confronting fascism and preventing war. Published in 1938, Woolf's controversial critique of her culture set off a series of rhetorical attacks and counterattacks that reverberated both in the media and in Woolf's correspondence. Today,

The Discourse of Modernism in the Age of Jefferson

The 18th Century began with a debate between the ancients and the moderns in which the proponents of classicism seemed to enjoy a temporary advantage, but it ended with two revolutions whose victors loudly proclaimed a radical disjunction with the past. The age obviously contains more than one site on which we might locate a discourse of modernism, but the differences between a battle of the books and guillotining a king suggest that we should expect to find more than one kind of modernism. Or better, we might expect to find a discourse of modernism rich with an unrecognized and unresolved problematics that has become somewhat clearer, both to the original speakers and to us, only in the light of subsequent texts and events. In the summer of 1776, for example, many Americans thought that the Declaration of Independence had resolved an ambiguous situation by breaking with the political conventions of the past, but scarcely a decade later they required another text to clarify and constitute relationships among themselves. That Constitution immediately called into play discourse about the possible futures it made possible, and the advent of the French Revolution two years later called for a total reevaluation of the American revolutionary project. Some participants in the national discourse thought the events in France exposed the fallacy of any revolution that sought to go beyond the limits of replacing an unjust regime and aspired to transform human nature and human culture, while others thought the French experience made more explicit and extended the genuine meaning of the American Revolution as a radical transformation of history. The discourse of the Declaration, that of the Constitution, and that of the response to the French Revolution suggest that the origination and establishment of the young United States might be helpfully understood as an exemplary episode of the modernism that transformed the postmedieval world.