Author: Yu-Leng Lin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
An important question in linguistics involves the nature of apparent substantive biases. Biases are often claimed to be universal based on typological evidence. This thesis tests for a substantive bias, the proposed universal implicational nasalized segment hierarchy in vowel-consonant nasal harmony, using an Artificial Grammar paradigm. In particular, I address whether a pattern that is predicted by the implicational hierarchy is in fact easier to learn than one that is not predicted or that is indeterminate with regard to predictions. I use a grammaticality judgment wug test paradigm to investigate whether it is easier to make a generalization when a more marked blocker (more sonorant segment) or target (less sonorant segment) is presented during an exposure phase and a less marked blocker (less sonorant segment) or target (more sonorant segment) in the test phase than vice versa. I call this the sonority hierarchy type prediction. In addition to testing the predictions on the basis of the hierarchy, I also test predictions based on natural classes. The natural class hypothesis predicts that a grammar is more learnable if a new segment (a segment introduced in the test phase but not present in the exposure phase) is of the same natural class as an old segment (a segment introduced in the exposure phase). The experiment was run with speakers of Min (Taiwan Southern Min), a language with no apparent evidence for sonority classes, using a method based on that of Wilson (2006). Experiments were carried out that allow both the sonority hierarchy type and the natural class hypotheses to be tested, taking individual differences (learner types) into account. The results show that both the sonority hierarchy and natural classes play a role, supporting the claim that it is easier to learn a grammar that exhibits a substantive bias than one that does not. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that the implicational nasalized segment hierarchy is testable and learnable in artificial grammar learning to some extent and natural classes are psychologically real and actively used by participants in nasal harmony.
Author: Yu-Leng Lin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811335346
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 130
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Book Description
This book offers a laboratory phonological analysis of the sonority hierarchy and natural classes in nasal harmony using an artificial grammar-learning paradigm. It is aimed at postgraduate students and linguists in general whose research interests lie in phonology, phonetics, and/or psycholinguistics. It is useful for linguists who are struggling to figure out how to effectively design an artificial phonological grammar and those who have not designed experiments on their own but would like to do so as an additional means to testing linguistic theories. This book is also a valuable resource for anyone building crosslinguistic artificial grammar paradigm resources.
Author: Rachel Leah Walker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Comparative linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Author: Kuniya Nasukawa
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110184815
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.
Author: James Clifford White
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 199
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Book Description
Understanding how people learn the phonological patterns of their language is a major challenge facing the field of phonology. In this dissertation, I approach the issue of phonological learning by focusing on saltatory alternations, which occur when two alternating sounds leap over an intermediate, invariant sound (e.g., [p] becomes [v] between vowels, but [b] remains unchanged in that context). Saltation poses a theoretical challenge because it represents excessive modification: large perceptual changes (e.g., [p ~ v]) are licensed where small changes (e.g., [b ~ v] are not. I present evidence from adult artificial language experiments that saltatory systems are dispreferred by learners. Specifically, participants who receive training data that are ambiguous between a saltatory system and a non-saltatory system are biased towards the non-saltatory system (Experiment 1). Moreover, when trained on a system that is explicitly saltatory, participants find the system difficult to learn (Experiment 2). An artificial language experiment with 12-month-old infants suggests that this anti-saltation bias is also present during early language acquisition. On the basis of the experimental results, I argue that learners have an a priori substantive bias that causes them to consider alternations between similar sounds to be more likely than alternations between dissimilar sounds, consistent with the principles in Steriade's (2001/2008) theory of the P-map. This bias must be a soft bias, rather than an absolute bias, because it must be overturned in order to learn saltations. Because saltations are attested in real languages, they must be learnable. To account for these observations, I propose a phonological framework with three components: (1) a set of *MAP faithfulness constraints (Zuraw, 2007) that makes it possible to penalize correspondences between specific pairs of segments, (2) a substantive bias making alternations more likely if they occur between perceptually similar sounds, and (3) a Maximum Entropy learning architecture, which allows the bias to be implemented computationally via the model's prior. The proposed learning model closely matches the pattern of experimental results and it makes the right general predictions: saltations are dispreferred, but learnable given sufficient training data. More broadly, the model represents a grammatical framework that can be used to make explicit, testable predictions for future research on phonological learning. I conclude by considering the potential implications of my analysis for phonological theory, phonological acquisition, and language change.
Author: Paul de Lacy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139462059
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 660
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Book Description
Phonology - the study of how the sounds of speech are represented in our minds - is one of the core areas of linguistic theory, and is central to the study of human language. This handbook brings together the world's leading experts in phonology to present the most comprehensive and detailed overview of the field. Focusing on research and the most influential theories, the authors discuss each of the central issues in phonological theory, explore a variety of empirical phenomena, and show how phonology interacts with other aspects of language such as syntax, morphology, phonetics, and language acquisition. Providing a one-stop guide to every aspect of this important field, The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology will serve as an invaluable source of readings for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, an informative overview for linguists and a useful starting point for anyone beginning phonological research.
Author: Bruce Hayes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521825784
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 387
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Book Description
Phonetically Based Phonology is centred around the hypothesis that phonologies of languages are determined by phonetic principles; that is, phonetic patterns involving ease of articulation and perception are expressed linguistically as grammatical constraints. This book brings together a team of scholars to provide a wide-ranging study of phonetically based phonology. It investigates the role of phonetics in many phonological phenomena - such as assimilation, vowel reduction, vowel harmony, syllable weight, contour line distribution, metathesis, lenition, sonority sequencing, and the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) - exploring in particular the phonetic bases of phonological markedness in these key areas. The analyses also illustrate several analytical strategies whereby phonological sound patterns can be related to their phonological underpinnings. Each chapter includes a tutorial discussion of the phonetics on which the phonological discussion is based. Diverse and comprehensive in its coverage, Phonetically Based Phonology will be welcomed by all linguists interested in the relationship between phonetics and phonological theory.
Author: Péter Siptár
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019823841X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
In this first account of the phonology of Hungarian to appear in English, the authors place an emphasis on descriptive coverage rather than theoretical issues. It provides an interest not only for phonology specialists, but also for a wider audience.
Author: Rachael-Anne Knight
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108596568
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 902
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Book Description
Phonetics - the study and classification of speech sounds - is a major sub-discipline of linguistics. Bringing together a team of internationally renowned phoneticians, this handbook provides comprehensive coverage of the most recent, cutting-edge work in the field, and focuses on the most widely-debated contemporary issues. Chapters are divided into five thematic areas: segmental production, prosodic production, measuring speech, audition and perception, and applications of phonetics. Each chapter presents an historical overview of the area, along with critical issues, current research and advice on the best practice for teaching phonetics to undergraduates. It brings together global perspectives, and includes examples from a wide range of languages, allowing readers to extend their knowledge beyond English. By providing both state-of-the-art research information, and an appreciation of how it can be shared with students, this handbook is essential both for academic phoneticians, and anyone with an interest in this exciting, rapidly developing field.
Author: Doris L. Payne
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3946234704
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 604
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Book Description
Diversity in African Languages contains a selection of revised papers from the 46th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at the University of Oregon. Most chapters focus on single languages, addressing diverse aspects of their phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, information structure, or historical development. These chapters represent nine different genera: Mande, Gur, Kwa, Edoid, Bantu, Nilotic, Gumuzic, Cushitic, and Omotic. Other chapters investigate a mix of languages and families, moving from typological issues to sociolinguistic and inter-ethnic factors that affect language and accent switching. Some chapters are primarily descriptive, while others push forward the theoretical understanding of tone, semantic problems, discourse related structures, and other linguistic systems. The papers on Bantu languages reflect something of the internal richness and continued fascination of the family for linguists, as well as maturation of research on the family. The distribution of other papers highlights the need for intensified research into all the language families of Africa, including basic documentation, in order to comprehend linguistic diversities and convergences across the continent. In this regard, the chapter on Daats’íin (Gumuzic) stands out as the first-ever published article on this hitherto unknown and endangered language found in the Ethiopian-Sudanese border lands.
