Formal and Empirical Arguments concerning Phonological Acquisition

Abstract

Smolensky (1996a) has proposed an ingenious solution to the wellknown ''comprehension/production'' dilemma in phonological acquisition. In this article we argue that Smolensky's model encounters serious difficulties with respect to the parsing algorithm proposed and the learnability of underlying representations. Drawing on the generative literature in phonological acquisition, as well as the work of phoneticians and psycholinguists, we offer alternative parsing algorithms and examine their implications for learnability and the initial ranking of Optimality Theory constraints. Finally, we propose that the resolution of the comprehension/production dilemma lies not in the phonological domain (linguistic competence), but in the domain of the implementation of linguistic knowledge (performance).

Where is pragmatics in optimality theory?

“…2 gives an brief introduction to this style of OT pragmatics. A similar proposal has been made in the context of OT phonology by [Hale and Reiss, 1998] and it has a problem that my proposal has to face as well. There is no optimality theo-retic account of how the production system is inverted.…”

“…Language learning then demotes the markedness constraints until the point where a symmetric system results. [Hale and Reiss, 1998] is an attack on the whole line of reasoning of Smolensky's paper, but especially on the idea that production should be inverted and that symmetry of the constraint system will eventually result. To show this, a simple counterexample is given: the two German words Rat and Rad that share their pronunciation /rat/ due to FINAL DEVOICING, a constraint outranking FAITH(VOICE).…”

Some listener-oriented accounts of h-aspiré in French

“…A recent instance is Hale and Reiss (1998), who distinguish between the grammar (phonology) and the body (phonetic implementation). However, even researchers who have worked on the phonetics-phonology interface are able to share the view of a separation of the two modules.…”

On the Role of Sympathy in Acquisition

“…The assumption has been that this obtains by the incremental demotion of markedness constraints (Tesar and Smolensky (1998); cf. Hale and Reiss (1998)). Yet, how, why, and when do opacity effects emerge in this progression?…”

“…One reason for this is that early stages of development with their many production errors (relative to the target system) have generally been characterized by a number of markedness constraints outranking faithfulness constraints (e.g., Gnanadesikan (1996), Smolensky (1996b); cf. Dinnsen and Barlow (1998a), Hale and Reiss (1998)). This means that there should be many low-ranked faithfulness constraints that could potentially serve as selectors, identifying a flower candidate.…”