Estimating historical probabilities of natural and unnatural processes

Beguš, Gašper

doi:10.1017/s0952675720000263

Cited by 11 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…There is no obvious grounding for the pattern. Phonetically unmotivated processes are fairly well understood on the segmental level (Blevins 2004;Kiparsky 2006Kiparsky , 2008Coetzee & Pretorius 2010;Beguš 2018Beguš , 2019Beguš , 2020. For instance, in Ojibwe [n] alternates with [S]: ki-na:n-a: 'you fetch him' versus kina:S-im-i 'you fetch us' (Buckley 2000).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This not only complements our understanding of possible interactions between segmental and suprasegmental properties, but also adds to the literature on the phonetically unmotivated and unnatural processes. These have been discussed substantially in the literature (Blevins, 2004;Kiparsky, 2006Kiparsky, , 2008Coetzee & Pretorius, 2010;Beguš, 2018Beguš, , 2019Beguš, , 2020, but most of the discussion focuses on segmental patterns. Substantially fewer work exist on phonetically unmotivated suprasegmental phonology.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tone, stress, quantity, and quality: prosodic patterns and tonal wug-tests in Žiri Slovenian

Beguš¹,

Jurgec²

2021

Preprint

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The prosodic systems of the world’s languages vary widely in their complexity. In this paper, we report on a prosodic pattern in Žiri Slovenian, which displays an intricate set of interactions between tone, stress, quantity, and vowel quality. Some of the prosodic patterns are well motivated (e.g. the preference of High tone syllables to be stressed) while others lack phonetic or phonological motivation (e.g. the preference of long vowels to fall on the second syllable of a trochaic foot). Žiri also displays a rare case of interaction of prosody with vowel quality. To confirm productivity of the observed patterns, we conducted a wug experiment that tested the dependence of stress on vowel quality, word length, and tone. All in all, this paper brings forth new instances of phonetically unmotivated phonological processes at the suprasegmental level, which appear less discussed than at the segmental level. We also discuss methodological issues arising from artificial experiments on tonal processes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tone, stress, quantity, and quality: prosodic patterns and tonal wug-tests in Žiri Slovenian

Beguš¹,

Jurgec²

2021

Preprint

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“…While these limitations are undesired because they make models less realistic, they can also be advantageous from a cognitive modeling perspective. A long-standing debate in linguistics and speech science concerns whether typological tendencies in speech patterns across the world's languages result from articulatory pressures and transmission of language in space and time, or from cognitive biases [55][56][57][58][59][60] . Another major debate in linguistics assesses which properties of language are domain-specific and innate and which can be explained by domain-general cognitive principles 61 .…”

Section: Limitations Of Comparison Between Brains and Deep Neural Net...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Encoding of speech in convolutional layers and the brain stem based on language experience

Beguš¹,

Zhou²,

Zhao

2022

Preprint

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Comparing artificial neural networks (ANNs) with outputs of brain imaging techniques has recently seen substantial advances in (computer) vision and text-based language models. Here, we propose a framework to compare biological and artificial neural computations of spoken language representations and propose several new challenges to this paradigm. Using a technique proposed by Begus and Zhou (2021b), we can analyze encoding of any acoustic property in intermediate convolutional layers of an artificial neural network. This allows us to test similarities in speech encoding between the brain and artificial neural networks in a way that is more interpretable than the majority of existing proposals that focus on correlations and supervised models. We introduce fully unsupervised deep generative models (the Generative Adversarial Network architecture) trained on raw speech to the brain-and-ANN-comparison paradigm, which enable testing of both the production and perception principles in human speech. We present a framework that parallels electrophysiological experiments measuring complex Auditory Brainstem Response (cABR) in human brain with intermediate layers in deep convolutional networks. We compared peak latency in cABR relative to the stimulus in the brain stem experiment, and in intermediate convolutional layers relative to the input/output in deep convolutional networks. We also examined and compared the effect of prior language exposure on the peak latency in cABR, and in intermediate convolutional layers of a phonetic property. Specifically, the phonetic property (i.e., VOT =10 ms) is perceived differently by English vs. Spanish speakers as voiced (e.g. [ba]) vs voiceless (e.g. [pa]). Critically, the cABR peak latency to the VOT phonetic property is different between English and Spanish speakers, and peak latency in intermediate convolutional layers is different between English-trained and Spanish-trained computational models. Substantial similarities in peak latency encoding between the human brain and intermediate convolutional networks emerge based on results from eight trained networks (including a replication experiment). The proposed technique can be used to compare encoding between the human brain and intermediate convolutional layers for any acoustic property.

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“…This assumption may well be wrong, but Ito & Mester (2003b) accept it, and as a result, they have to resort to a stratal version of OT. For discussions of opacity, sound change, and phonetically unnatural patterns, see Sanders (2003), Hayes & White (2015) and Beguš (2020).…”

Section: Lyman's Law and The Obligatory Contour Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

The diachronic origins of Lyman's Law: evidence from phonetics, dialectology and philology

2021

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Modern Japanese has a set of morphophonemic alternations known collectively as rendaku that involve initial consonants in second elements of compounds, as in /jama+dera/ ‘mountain temple’ (cf. /tera/ ‘temple’). An alternating element like /tera/ ~ /dera/ has an initial voiced obstruent in its rendaku allomorph and an initial voiceless obstruent in its non-rendaku allomorph. Lyman's Law blocks rendaku in a second element containing a medial voiced obstruent. This paper gives three arguments that Lyman's Law originated as a constraint prohibiting prenasalisation in consecutive syllables. First, constraints on similar consonants in close proximity generally apply not to voicing but to features with phonetic cues that are more spread out, such as prenasalisation. Second, in some Japanese dialects with prenasalised voiced obstruents, rendaku cannot occur if it would result in adjacent syllables containing these marked consonants. Third, phonographically attested Old Japanese compounds are consistent with a constraint on adjacent syllables.

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Estimating historical probabilities of natural and unnatural processes

Cited by 11 publications

References 58 publications

Tone, stress, quantity, and quality: prosodic patterns and tonal wug-tests in Žiri Slovenian

Tone, stress, quantity, and quality: prosodic patterns and tonal wug-tests in Žiri Slovenian

Encoding of speech in convolutional layers and the brain stem based on language experience

The diachronic origins of Lyman's Law: evidence from phonetics, dialectology and philology

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