Stochastic phonological grammars and acceptability

In foundational works of generative phonology it is claimed that subjects can reliably discriminate between possible but non-occurring words and words that could not be English. In this paper we examine the use of a probabilistic phonological parser for words to model experimentally-obtained judgements of the acceptability of a set of nonsense words. We compared various methods of scoring the goodness of the parse as a predictor of acceptability. We found that the probability of the worst part is not the best score of acceptability, indicating that classical generative phonology and Optimality Theory miss an important fact, as these approaches do not recognise a mechanism by which the frequency of well-formed parts may ameliorate the unacceptability of low-frequency parts. We argue that probabilistic generative grammars are demonstrably a more psychologically realistic model of phonological competence than standard generative phonology or Optimality Theory.Comment: compressed postscript, 8 pages, 1 figur

Spanish epenthesis: Formal and performance perspectives

published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Phonotactics, prophylaxis, acquisitionism and change:*Rime-xxŋ and ash-tensing in the history of English

This article revisits, extends and interrogates the position advocated in Honeybone (2019) — that phonotactic constraints are psychologically real phonological entities (namely: constraints on output-like forms), which have a diachrony of their own, and which can also interfere with diachronic segmental change by inhibiting otherwise regular innovations. I focus in the latter part of the article on the role of one phonotactic constraint in the history of English: *Rime-xxŋ. I argue that we need to investigate the emergence of such constraints in the history of languages and I show how this particular constraint, once innovated (which occurs through constraint scattering), can be understood to have inhibited the patterning of ash-tensing in certain varieties of American English (and also that it may now have been lost in some varieties). To do this, I adopt a phonological model which combines aspects of Rule-Based Phonology and aspects of Constraint-Based Phonology, and which is firmly rooted in the variation that exists when changes are innovated. Finally, I evaluate the extent to which the type of phonotactically-driven process-inhibition that I propose here involves prophylaxis in phonological change (I show that it doesn't), and I consider the interaction of these ideas with the proposal that all change occurs in language acquisition (‘acquisitionism’).   &nbsp

On empirical methodology, constraints, and hierarchy in artificial grammar learning

This paper considers the AGL literature from a psycholinguistic perspective. It first presents a taxonomy of the experimental familiarization test procedures used, which is followed by a consideration of shortcomings and potential improvements of the empirical methodology. It then turns to reconsidering the issue of grammar learning from the point of view of acquiring constraints, instead of the traditional AGL approach in terms of acquiring sets of rewrite rules. This is, in particular, a natural way of handling long‐distance dependences. The final section addresses an underdeveloped issue in the AGL literature, namely how to detect latent hierarchical structure in AGL response patterns

Two-Dimensional Phonotactics in a Generative Grammar of German

Paper by James E. Copelan

Words cluster phonetically beyond phonotactic regularities

Recent evidence suggests that cognitive pressures associated with language acquisition and use could affect the organization of the lexicon. On one hand, consistent with noisy channel models of language (e.g., Levy, 2008), the phonological distance between wordforms should be maximized to avoid perceptual confusability (a pressure for dispersion). On the other hand, a lexicon with high phonological regularity would be simpler to learn, remember and produce (e.g., Monaghan et al., 2011) (a pressure for clumpiness). Here we investigate wordform similarity in the lexicon, using measures of word distance (e.g., phonological neighborhood density) to ask whether there is evidence for dispersion or clumpiness of wordforms in the lexicon. We develop a novel method to compare lexicons to phonotactically-controlled baselines that provide a null hypothesis for how clumpy or sparse wordforms would be as the result of only phonotactics. Results for four languages, Dutch, English, German and French, show that the space of monomorphemic wordforms is clumpier than what would be expected by the best chance model according to a wide variety of measures: minimal pairs, average Levenshtein distance and several network properties. This suggests a fundamental drive for regularity in the lexicon that conflicts with the pressure for words to be as phonologically distinct as possible. Keywords: Linguistics; Lexical design; Communication; Phonotactic

Porting concepts from DNNs back to GMMs

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have been shown to outperform Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) on a variety of speech recognition benchmarks. In this paper we analyze the differences between the DNN and GMM modeling techniques and port the best ideas from the DNN-based modeling to a GMM-based system. By going both deep (multiple layers) and wide (multiple parallel sub-models) and by sharing model parameters, we are able to close the gap between the two modeling techniques on the TIMIT database. Since the 'deep' GMMs retain the maximum-likelihood trained Gaussians as first layer, advanced techniques such as speaker adaptation and model-based noise robustness can be readily incorporated. Regardless of their similarities, the DNNs and the deep GMMs still show a sufficient amount of complementarity to allow effective system combination

Examining variability in Spanish monolingual and bilingual phonotactics: A look at sC-clusters

Current models of generative phonology have failed to address the variability that is observed in bilingual language patterns patterns. This dissertation addresses exactly that issue by examining the perception of Spanish sC-clusters in Spanish monolinguals and English-Spanish bilinguals. Surface sC-clusters in onset position are prohibited in Spanish and are repaired by inserting a prothetic /e/ (sC $\rightarrow$ esC). English differs in that it allows sC-cluster onsets, and the structure of the sC-cluster has been shown to differ based on the sonority profile (i.e., s+stop clusters are bisyllabic, s+liquid clusters are tautosyllabic). A batch version of a Harmonic Grammar Gradual Learning Algorithm (HG-GLA) was given Spanish input and predicted that Spanish sC-clusters may be syllabified differently based on the sonority of the sC-cluster. It predicted that s+stop clusters are more likely to instantiate /e/ prothesis than s+liqud clusters, but that s+liquid clusters are most likely to be syllabified as a true branching onset like in English. This led to the hypothesis that s+stop and s+liquid clusters may show observable differences in perception in Spanish. Furthermore, studies in bilingualism have shown strong evidence for bilingual variability, or non-monolingual-like language behavior, particularly in areas where there is non-identical structural overlap, as is the case with sC-clusters in Spanish and English. The perception of s+stop and s+liquid clusters was thus also analyzed with respect to the following language-external variables that affect bilingual variability: language profile (monolingual versus bilingual), age of exposure to bilingualism, and bilingual dominance. To test these hypotheses, two experiments were performed. The first was a replication of an AX task that has been shown to exhibit variability in Spanish sC-cluster perception in past studies. In this task, native Spanish speakers (monolingual and bilingual) listened to stimuli pairs that differed in the duration and quality of the initial vowel preceding the sC-cluster and were asked to respond if they were the same or different. The second was a nonce word judgment task where participants were presented with Spanish-like nonce words beginning with sC-clusters and had to give them acceptability ratings of how `Spanish-like\u27 they sounded. The results did not show evidence of a language-internal effect. s+stop and s+liquid clusters were treated the same in perception by Spanish native speakers, contrary to the predictions of the HG-GLA. Regarding the language-external variables, there was a strong effect of language profile on perception of sC-clusters in Spanish: monolinguals showed a strong dis-preference for sC-initial words, whereas bilinguals were more accepting of such clusters. However, the bilingual variability observed was not affected by age of exposure to bilingualism or by language dominance. Finally, a sketch of a proposal is made for how generative theories of phonology, like Harmonic Grammar, could potentially be adapted to accommodate the observed differences between the phonotactics of monolinguals and bilinguals, particularly for the case of sC-clusters in English-Spanish bilinguals

A CONSTRAINT BASED STUDY OF THE TIV LEARNERS OF ENGLISH PHONOTACTICS

The study presents explanation on the likely pronunciation errors evident to Tiv learners of English phonotactics. The researchers adopted a descriptive method and optimality theoretical framework to note the possible constraints the Tiv learners of English as L2 encountered. Tiv speakers of the English realize phonotactics of English words differently. They violate the phonotactic rules of the language in realizing consonant clusters, assimilation and vowel harmony. The study observes that the Tiv learners experienced difficulties in realising English syllabic pattern with consonant clusters; they find it difficult pronouncing it without the insertion of a vowel sound, hence, transferring this feature from their language to the L2. Tiv also has onset restriction for syllables i.e. most syllables have onset. In other words, no vowel can begin a syllable except at word initial stage.Key Words:  Phonotactics, Optimality theory, Tiv, English

Learning Nonlocal Phonotactics in a Strictly Piecewise Probabilistic Phonotactic Model

Phonotactic learning is a crucial aspect of phonological acquisition and has figured significantly in computational research in phonology (Prince & Tesar 2004). However, one persistent challenge for this line of research is inducing non-local co-occurrence patterns (Hayes & Wilson 2008). The current study develops a probabilistic phonotactic model based on the Strictly Piecewise class of subregular languages (Heinz 2010). The model successfully learns both segmental and featural representations, and correctly predicts the acceptabilities of the nonce forms in Quechua (Gouskova & Gallagher 2020)