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Questions for the Week

Questions for the Week. Questions. Can (all?) modifications in foreign language production be explained as transfer from the native language grammar? Does universal markedness play a role? Language-independent phonetic factors?. Questions, continued.

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Questions for the Week

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  1. Questions for the Week

  2. Questions Can (all?) modifications in foreign language production be explained as transfer from the native language grammar? Does universal markedness play a role? Language-independent phonetic factors?

  3. Questions, continued Why are some foreign structures mastered more quickly than other (equally new) structures? Japanese: chiimu ‘team’ shiifuudo ‘seafood’ shiitibanku ‘Citibank’ never: *siichibanku

  4. Questions, continued What determines how illegal structures are modified? ‘Christmas’ Japanese: kurisumasu Hawaiian: kalikimaki Maori: kirihimete Samoan: kilisimasi

  5. Questions, continued How much of foreign language modification is a result of misperception? Of misproduction? And how can we tell?

  6. For example… Does a Japanese speaker who pronounces ‘Christmas’ as [kurisumasu] actually HEAR the English pronunciation as [kurisumasu]? English Japanese [krɪsməs] = [kurisumasu] ?

  7. Grammar Acoustic Form || perception (e.g.,Boersma 1998, V Pater 2004) Phonological Representation => UR => || production V Phonetic Representation

  8. (1) Modification= Misproduction (e.g., Paradis and LaCharité 1997) • Adapters correctly identify FL phonemes, map to UR. • Production grammar repairs underlying representations to conform to native language constraints.

  9. Problems with claim that all modification = misproduction Modification may be influenced by subphonemic information. e.g., Kang 2003: Vowels in Korean loans may be inserted even after legal stop codas. Likelihood of insertion is related to likelihood of the release of that stop in the English source.

  10. (2) Modification=Misperception (e.g., Peperkamp & Dupoux 2003) Japanese listeners hear [ebzo] as [ebuzo]. Cf. Dupoux et al. 1999, Dehaene-Lambertz et al. 2000, Jacquemot et al. 2003 for experimental support.

  11. Not a lexical effect: Dupoux et al. 2001 Lexical decision task: nonword stimuli real words sokdo sokudo ‘speed’ mikdo mikado ‘emperor’ Sokdo classified as real words, mikdo as nonwords

  12. Problems with claim that all adaptation = misperception • Some perception is accurate (e.g. Berent et al. syllable-counting experiments) • Still must explain direction of misperception: why kurisumasu and not kilihimete, etc.?

  13. (3) Modification = misproduction, but guided by phonetic similarity P-map Hypothesis (Steriade 2001, etc.): Learners perceive FL phonological forms accurately, but the production grammar contains constraints that enforce phonetic similarity between UR and PR.

  14. Problem with claim that adaptation = production + perceptual similarity Even after adding perceptual similarity constraints to the production grammar, we are left with a residue of cases that must be analyzed as misperception (inaccurate mapping from foreign acoustic form to adapter’s UR).

  15. (4) Dual-level model(e.g., Silverman 1992, Yip 2002, 2006) • Listeners misperceive less salient features (partially inaccurate mapping to UR). • Listeners accurately perceive more salient features, but production grammar may still make changes in mapping from UR to PR.

  16. Problem with Dual-Level Model of adaptation Lack of clear criteria for deciding whether a particular modification pattern is a function of • Misperception • Misproduction

  17. Questions, continued • If foreign forms are misperceived, at what level of processing does this misperception occur?

  18. Questions, continued • To what extent is perception determined by early language experience? • Is there a ‘neural commitment’ to L1 contrasts?

  19. Questions, continued • Can formal theories of grammar shed light on foreign language production patterns?

  20. One Potential Criterion for perception vs. production: Learnability OT aims to define • What is a possible grammar (set of ranked constraints). • What is a learnable grammar (rankings can be derived from input data, using an error-driven algorithm).

  21. Modification patterns that cannot be described in terms of learnable production grammar rankings must be a function of • Misperception, or • Other factors (frequency, timeline of exposure to FL, etc.).

  22. Today Models of Acquisition: First Language and Foreign Languages

  23. To build a phonological grammar, children must learn… • What is linguistically significant in the target language (possible contrasts). • What is legal in the target language (possible structures, phonotactics). • Morphemes and allomorphs (alternations).

  24. Stages of Acquisition (e.g., Hayes 2004) • Birth to 6 months: can distinguish all possible phoneme contrasts. • 6-8 months: begin to form sound categories (perceptual magnet effects). • 8-10 months: begin to form a lexicon; begin to learn phoneme categories of ambient language. • Older: begin to learn morphological processes, alternations.

  25. Perception vs. Production: Common Assumptions • Children generally perceive L1 accurately. • Many of children’s simplifications of adult forms are due to misproduction rather than misperception.

  26. Example: One Argument for Accurate Perception Gnanadesikan (2004): Productions by G, 27-33 months

  27. Simplification of onset clusters G Adult a. s-stop gaj skaj ‘sky’ bɪw spɪl ‘spill’ dɔ star ‘star’ b. s-sonorant so sno ‘snow’ sip slip ‘sleep’

  28. s-obstruent > obstruent (‘sky’ > [gaj]) • s-sonorant > s (‘snow’ > [so]) Onset C of lowest sonority is maintained.

  29. Clusters containing labial [r] or [w] G Adult a. pi tri ‘tree’ b. bɪk drɪŋk ‘drink’ c. paj kraj ‘cry’ d. bep grep ‘grape’ e. pajt kwajt ‘quite’ f. fɛ'Də swɛ'Də ‘sweater’ g. fɛw smɛl ‘smell’

  30. pr, tr, kr, kw > p (‘tree’ > [pi]) br, dr, gr > b (‘grape’ > [bep]) sm, sw > f (‘smell’ > [fɛw] Labial articulation is always maintained, though labial segment may disappear.

  31. G’s perception: [bep] ‘grape’ Does G actually hear (e.g.) [gr] as [b]?

  32. Replacement of initial unstressed syllable G Adult a. fiténə kənténər ‘container’ b. figɛ'Di spəgɛ'Di ‘spaghetti’ c. fibɛ'kə rəbɛ'kə ‘Rebecca’ d. fimáwo təmáro ‘tomorrow’

  33. Accurate perception? Does G actually hear the material in the initial syllable replaced by [fi]?

  34. Preference for obstruent onsets G Adult a. fikálə koálə ‘koala’ b. fibún bəlún ‘balloon’ c. fipís pəlís ‘police’ d. fibó bəló ‘below’

  35. When the syllable following [fi] begins with a high sonority onset (liquid, glide) or no onset, the word-initial onset is recruited ‘balloon’ > fibún

  36. G’s Perception Although G replaces initial unstressed syllables with [fi], she apparently does hear the segmental content (at least the onset) of these syllables--because features of that onset may appear elsewhere in the word.

  37. fibɪ’jə gərɪ’lə ‘gorilla’ It seems unlikely that G hears [g…r] in ‘gorilla’ as [b], since G seems to hear that ‘gorilla’ contains 3 syllables.

  38. Gnanadesikan’s analysis • G’s modifications result from a grammar that differs from the adult grammar. • These modfications result from a preference for less marked surface structures. • Each feature of G’s grammar is attested in some adult NL grammar.

  39. OT is intended as a theory of • typology—defines possible grammars. • learnability--defines how a grammar is learned from exposure to a set of data.

  40. Architecture of the theory • Markedness constraints (or well-formedness constraints, structural constraints) define possible surface structures. e.g. NoCoda, NoComplexOnset

  41. Faithfulness constraints define possible mappings from lexical representations to surface representations. e.g. Dep (no insertion), Max (no deletion)

  42. Ranking Tableau: M>>F

  43. Ranking Tableau: F>>M

  44. Rankings determine surface structures • M >>F suppresses surface contrasts. NoComplexOnset >> Max: /so/ > [so] /sno/ > [so] (no CV-CCV contrast is possible)

  45. F >> M preserves lexical contrasts. Max >> NoComplexOnset: /so/ > [so] /sno/ > [sno] (CV-CCV contrast is possible)

  46. Rankings determine preferred repair • Dep >> Max: /sno/ > [so] (deletion is preferred to insertion) • Max >> Dep: /sno/ > [sVno] (insertion is preferred to deletion)

  47. Rankings determine… • Choice of deletion vs. insertion • Which C is deleted (/sno/ > [so] vs. [no]) • Which V is inserted (/sno/ > [sino], [sono], etc.)

  48. Assumptions (‘classical’ OT) • Constraint set is universal. • Rankings are language-specific. • Each possible ranking defines a possible grammar.

  49. ‘Classical’ OT model of First Language Acquisition • Constraints are innate. • Rankings must be learned.

  50. Corollary • Each developing grammar (each stage of language acquisition) must represent a possible human grammar, since grammars differ only in ranking of constraints.

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