Experimental support for a one-step model of phoneme acquisition

Phonetic category acquisition involves a distributional learning mechanism (Maye, Werker, and Gerken 2002). Some researchers suggest that phonetic category acquisition is only the first step in a two-step model of phonological acquisition by modelling these two steps separately (Guenther and Gjaja, 1996; Boersma, Escudero, and Hayes, 2003; Peperkamp, Pettinato, and Dupoux 2003; Peperkamp, Calvez, Nadal, and Dupoux 2006), while others have argued for a one-step model (Dillon, Dunbar, and Idsardi 2013). This experimental study maps the learning trajectory of three groups of adult learners: (1) a group exposed to a bimodal frequency distribution where both halves of the bimodal distribution occur in complementary environments (Bimodal-Comp group), (2) a group exposed to a bimodal frequency distribution where both halves of the bimodal distribution occur in non-complementary environments (Bimodal-NonComp group), and (3) a group exposed to a monomodal frequency distribution (Monomodal group). This study finds support for a one-step model of phoneme acquisition, with the Bimodal-Comp group having lower sensitivities to critical stimuli than even the Monomodal group at all three exposure times tested

The Acquisition of Phonetic Categories: An Artificial Language Learning Study

Part of learning a language includes determining what variation is meaningful and what variation is not meaningful. This dissertation presents a series of artificial language learning experiments to provide a timeline of early phonological acquisition in naïve adult learners. The core contribution of this dissertation is to propose a domain-general, two-stage model of distributional learning consisting of a Bias Stage followed by a Sensitivity Stage. Additionally, this dissertation will explore the relation that distributional learning holds with three factors, attention, environmental context, and lexical acquisition. Chapter 3 presents a set of experiments to make the core argument that distributional learning occurs in two stages. It is argued that the underlying mechanism behind distributional learning is not to directly warp the learner’s perceptual space, contrary to models which have been proposed. Chapter 3 will also examine the role of attention and its relation to distributional learning. Chapter 4 presents an experiment which investigates the relationship between environmental context and distributional learning. Results of this experiment will be used to support a one-stage model of allophony acquisition. Chapter 5 presents a set of experiments which explore the disparity between distributional learning and lexical acquisition.Doctor of Philosoph

Do Phonologically Active Classes Cause Warping of the Perceptual Space?

Perceptual warping has been observed in various domains, both linguistic and non linguistic. The perceptual space is warped so that stimuli which belong to the same category are perceived as more similar to one another, while stimuli which belong to different categories are perceived as less similar to one another. Observations of perceptual warping in the linguistic domain have been confined to those of individual phonemes (for example, categorical perception of consonants, and the Perceptual Magnet Effect for vowels). This thesis attempts to replicate a study done by Dale Terbeek (1977) which may hint at perceptual warping caused by phonological classes of sounds. More specifically, this study trains English speakers on an artificial language with front/back vowel harmony. Similarity judgments of vowels are obtained before and after training to determine whether language training has warped the perceptual space. Results do not reach statistical significance, and recommendations for further study are made.Master of Art

Distributional learning on Mechanical Turk and effects of attentional shifts

This study seeks to determine whether distributional learning can be replicated on an online platform like Mechanical Turk. In doing so, factors that may affect distributional learning, such as level of attention, participant age, and stimuli, are explored. It is found that even distributional learning, which requires making fine phonetic distinctions, can be replicated on Mechanical Turk, and that attention may nullify the effect of distributional learning

Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL

Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics

The papers in this volume were presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics at UC Berkeley in 2016. The papers offer new descriptions of African languages and propose novel theoretical analyses of them. The contributions span topics in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics and reflect the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa. Four papers in the volume examine Areal Features and Linguistic Reconstruction in Africa, and were presented at a special workshop on this topic held alongside the general session of ACAL