Emergent phonological constraints

van de Weijer, Jeroen

doi:10.1556/2062.2017.64.1.5

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…OT is grounded in faithfulness on the one hand and in well-formedness or markedness on the other hand (more on these terms below). Both of these concepts play an important role in the grammars of languages as opposing forces that serve the needs of both speakers and listeners (see also (van de Weijer, 2014(van de Weijer, , 2017). As mentioned above, other phonological theories also strive to express universal generalizations.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laryngeal Metathesis in Saraiki Language

Atta

Syed

Bano

2023

JCCT

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This study presents an analysis of synchronic metathesis in the Saraiki language based on the Optimality Theory (OT) approach. It is limited to the voiced laryngeal fricative (/ɦ/). Only voiced phonemes are the targets of /ɦ/ metathesis in Saraiki (resulting in breathy voiced consonants), while voiceless plosives are incompatible with this process. Metathesized and non-metathesized forms both occur in Saraiki. They are realized in informal and formal speech styles, respectively. This study analyses the informal speech style and identifies the reasons behind the movement of the above laryngeal fricative in phonetic optimization.

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Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laryngeal Metathesis in Saraiki Language

Atta

Syed

Bano

2023

JCCT

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“…If we dismiss the Chomskyan UG hypothesis and the universal set of distinctive features it contains (in the Hale and Reiss, 2008 view) the structures (syntactic categories, morphosyntactic structure, syllable structure and the internal structure of sounds) that we observe on the basis of linguistic evidence have to come from somewhere else. The typical answer provided by those who reject the innatist view, is that it comes from, or emerges from, language usage rather than being part of UG (Johnson, 1997;Bybee, 2006;van de Weijer, 2014;Van de Weijer, 2017;Archangeli and Pulleyblank, 2015;and many others). Although there are a lot of different usage-based approaches to language, such as, among others, Construction Grammar (cf.…”

Section: Where Does Structure Come From?mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Gestalt Theory Approach to Structure in Language

Buffart¹,

Jacobs

2021

Front. Psychol.

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The fact that human language is highly structured and that, moreover, the way it is structured shows striking similarities in the world’s languages has been addressed from two different perspectives. The first, and more traditional, generative hypothesis is that the similarities are due to an innate language faculty. There is an inborn ‘grammar’ with universal principles that manifest themselves in each language and cross-linguistic variation arises due to a different parameter setting of universal principles. A second perspective is that there is no inborn, innate language faculty, but that instead structure emerges from language usage. This paper purports to develop and illustrate a third perspective, according to which the structural similarities in human languages are the result of the way the cognitive system works in perception. The essential claim is that structural properties follow from the limitations of human cognition in focus.

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Frequency and Universal Principles in the Acquisition of Word-Initial Consonant Clusters in Palestinian Arabic

Watad,

Bat-El Foux,

Ben-David

2024

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: In this article, we present the results of our study on the acquisition of word-initial consonant clusters in Palestinian Arabic. The remarkable property of word-initial clusters in Palestinian Arabic is that they often violate the Sonority Sequencing Principle, a universal constraint that disfavors sonority fall (e.g., lba:n “gum”) and, to a lesser degree, sonority plateau (e.g., kta:b “book”). Given the violation of the Sonority Sequencing Principle, the acquisition of word-initial consonant clusters serves as a fruitful ground for studying the interaction of universal principles and language-specific effects. The goal of the study was to shed light on the role of universal principles in language acquisition and how they interact with frequency. Method: We carried out picture naming and sentence completion tasks with 60 monolingual and monodialectal children aged 2;00–5;00 (years;months), equally divided into six age groups. In addition, we built a small corpus of child-directed speech (CDS) to evaluate the distribution of the three sonority profiles of word-initial consonant clusters—rise, plateau, and fall. Results: We found a major language-specific effect in the cluster simplification strategies, with prothesis being the most common strategy (e.g., lbá:n → ilbá:n “gum”). However, this effect was not found in the youngest group (2;00–2;05), where the cross-linguistically favorite strategy of C-deletion was most common (e.g., lbá:n → bá:n “gum”). We also found a major effect of the Sonority Sequencing Principle in the children's productions, contrary to insignificant differences in CDS. Conclusions: Our study supports the claim that language acquisition is affected by both language-specific effects and universal principles. As for the interaction of these factors, we show that the effect of universal principles emerges under two conditions: (a) in early speech (youngest age group), before children accumulate sufficient data that allow language-specific properties to override, and/or (b) when frequency does not play a role.

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Emergent phonological constraints

Cited by 6 publications

References 22 publications

Laryngeal Metathesis in Saraiki Language

Laryngeal Metathesis in Saraiki Language

A Gestalt Theory Approach to Structure in Language

Frequency and Universal Principles in the Acquisition of Word-Initial Consonant Clusters in Palestinian Arabic

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