Cover not available
Article published In:
Variation in phonology
Edited by Péter Szigetvári
[Linguistic Variation 20:1] 2020
► pp. 3–32
Special issue article

A computational model of phonotactic acquisition

Predictability of exceptional patterns in Hungarian

| New York University

This paper presents a model that connects phonotactic exceptionality to perceptibility, more specifically to functional load and acoustic detail. I identify two patterns in exceptionality: lexical exceptions and phonotactic vacillation, where the former is restricted to specific lexical items, while the latter affects two contrastive sound categories as a whole. Through the example of Hungarian word-final phonotactics, the Model of Perceptual Categorization associates these two patterns with different functional load and acoustic properties of contrasts, that lead to two categorizational malfunctions. On the one hand, phonotactic vacillation is a result of a frequent failure to categorize ambiguous tokens: low functional load coinciding with little acoustic difference. On the other hand, lexical exceptions are systematic categorizational mistakes brought about by salient categories – in this case distributional generalizations are hindered by interference from mislabeled tokens.

Keywords: phonotactics, exceptionality, functional load, perception, Hungarian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Hungarian data
  • 3.Previous literature
  • 4.The model
    • 4.1Forms of input
    • 4.2Algorithm
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Phonotactic variation
    • 6.2Word-level exceptionality
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.16011.sza
References
Anttila, Arto
2002 Morphologically conditioned phonological alternations. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 20(1). 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blevins, Juliette & Andrew Wedel
2009 Inhibited Sound Change: An evolutionary approach to lexical competition. Diachronica 26(2). 143–183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Joe Pater
2016 Convergence properties of a gradual learning algorithm for Harmonic Grammar. In John McCarthy & Joe Pater (eds.), Harmonic grammar and harmonic serialism, London: Equinox Press.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & David Weenink
2010 Praat: doing phonetics by computer Computer program.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan
2001 Phonology and language use, vol. 941. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta J. & David Sankoff
1974 Variable rules: Performance as a statistical reflection of competence. Language 50(2). 333–355. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Morris Halle
1968 The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.Google Scholar
Clements, George N. & Elizabeth V. Hume
1995 The Internal Organization of Speech Sounds. In Goldsmith, John (ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory, 245–306. Cambridge Massachusetts: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Feldman, Naomi & Thomas L. Griffiths
2007 A rational account of the perceptual magnet effect. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Gervain, Judit & Jacques Mehler
2010 Speech perception and language acquisition in the first year of life. Annual review of psychology 611. 191–218. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gouskova, Maria
2003 Deriving economy: Syncope in Optimality Theory: Graduate Linguistics Student Association, University of Massachusetts dissertation.Google Scholar
Halácsy, Péter, András Kornai, László Németh, András Rung, István Szakadát & Viktor Trón
2004 Creating open language resources for Hungarian In Proceedings of Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, 203–210.Google Scholar
Harris, John
1990 Segmental complexity and phonological government. Phonology 7(01). 255–300. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hayes, Bruce
1995 Metrical stress theory: Principles and case studies. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hayes, Bruce, Kie Zuraw, Péter Siptár & Zsuzsa Cziráky Londe
2009 Natural and unnatural constraints in Hungarian vowel harmony. Language 851. 822–863. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hockett, Charles Francis
1955 A manual of phonology. Waverly Press.Google Scholar
Itô, Junko & Armin Mester
1999 The Phonological Lexicon. In Natsuko Tsujimura (ed.), The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics, 62–100. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Abby
2011 How much homophony is normal? Journal of linguistics 47(03). 631–671. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kay, Paul
1978 Variable rules, community grammar, and linguistic change. In David Sankoff (ed.), Linguistic variation: Models and methods, 71–83. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kay, Paul & Chad K. McDaniel
1979 On the logic of variable rules. Language in society 8(2–3). 151–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liberman, Alvin M., Katherine Safford Harris, Howard S. Hoffman & Belver C. Griffith
1957 The discrimination of speech sounds within and across phoneme boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology 54(5). 358–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mády, Katalin
2010 Shortening of long high vowels in Hungarian: a perceptual loss? In Proceedings of Sociophonetics at the crossroads of speech variation, processing and communication, Pisa.Google Scholar
Mády, Katalin & Uwe D. Reichel
2007 Quantity distinction in the Hungarian vowel system – just theory or also reality? In Proceedings of International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, [URL].
Martin, Andrew, Sharon Peperkamp & Emmanuel Dupoux
2013 Learning phonemes with a proto-lexicon. Cognitive Science 37(1). 103–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martinet, André
1952 Function, structure, and sound change. Word 8(1). 1–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1968 Phonetics and linguistic evolution 464–487.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J. & Alan Prince
1993 Generalized alignment. In Yearbook of morphology 1993, 79–153. Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mielke, Jeff
2008 The Emergence of Distinctive Features. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nádasdy, Ádám & Péter Siptár
1994 A magánhangzók. In Kiefer Ferenc (ed.), Strukturális magyar nyelvtan, vol. 21. Fonológia, 42–182. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Ohala, John J.
1981 The listener as a source of sound change. Papers from the Parasession on Language and Behavior 178–203.Google Scholar
1993 Sound change as nature’s speech perception experiment. Speech Communication 13(1). 155–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pater, Joe
1994 Against the underlying specification of an ‘exceptional’ English stress pattern. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 131.Google Scholar
2000 Non-uniformity in English secondary stress: the role of ranked and lexically specific constraints. Phonology 17(2). 237–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 Exceptions in optimality theory: Typology and learnability. In Conference on Redefining Elicitation: Novel Data in Phonological Theory.Google Scholar
2009 Weighted constraints in generative linguistics. Cognitive Science 33(6). 999–1035. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet
2001 Exemplar dynamics: Word frequency, lenition, and contrast. In Joan Bybee & Paul Hopper (eds.), Frequency effects and the emergence of lexical structure, 137–157. John Benjamins, Amsterdam. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky
1993. 2004 Optimality Theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, Douglas
2003 Covert Feature Effects. In WCCFL 22: Proceedings of the 22nd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, vol. 221, 398–422.Google Scholar
Sankoff, David & William Labov
1979 On the uses of variable rules. Language in society 8(2–3). 189–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siptár, Péter & Miklós Törkenczy
2000 The Phonology of Hungarian. The Phonology of the World’s languages. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca
1999 Phonetics in phonology: The case of laryngeal neutralization. In Matthew Gordon (ed.), Papers in Phonology, vol. 31 UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 2, 25–146. Los Angeles: UCLA Department of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Studdert-Kennedy, Michael, Alvin Liberman, Katherine Harris & Franklin Cooper
1970 Motor theory of speech perception: a reply to Lane’s critical review. Psychological Review 771. 234–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Szabó, Ildikó Emese
2015 Phonotactics of word-final vowels – Predictability of exceptional patterns in Hungarian. Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest MA thesis.Google Scholar
Törkenczy, Miklós
2006 The Phonotactics of Hungarian: Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest Dsc dissertation.Google Scholar
Trubetzkoy, Nikolai
1939 Grundzüge der Phonologie. Prague. [Bd 7, der Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague.]. English transl. by C. Baltaxe (1969) Principles of phonology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wedel, Andrew
2004 Self-organization and categorical behavior in phonology: UC Santa Cruz dissertation.Google Scholar
Wedel, Andrew, Scott Jackson & Abby Kaplan
2013a Functional load and the lexicon: Evidence that syntactic category and frequency relationships in minimal lemma pairs predict the loss of phoneme contrasts in language change. Language and speech 56(3). 395–417. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wedel, Andrew, Abby Kaplan & Scott Jackson
2013b High functional load inhibits phonological contrast loss: A corpus study. Cognition 128(2). 179–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Werker, Janet F. & Richard C. Tees
1984 Cross-language speech perception: Evidence for perceptual reorganization during the first year of life. Infant behavior and development 7(1). 49–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
White, James, Megha Sundara, Yun Jung Kim & Adam J. Chong
2014 Infant learning of phonological alternations is biased by phonetic similarity. In Poster presentation at the 65th Workshop on Learning Biases in Natural and Artificial Language Acquisition at the Annual meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain.Google Scholar
Zipf, George Kingsley
1949 Human Behaviour and the Principle of Least-Effort. Addison-Wesley, Reading.Google Scholar