Interaction of phonological biases and frequency in learning a probabilistic language pattern

Song, Hanbyul; White, James

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105170

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…use a suffixal marker in those plural values that would be otherwise homophonous with the SG. A bias towards homophony avoidance (Song & White 2022;Trott & Bergen 2022), together with the markednes of PL (vs SG) could potentially explain the tendency found in this paper for plural values to be associated to more and later positions within the word. This might explain the findings in Trommer (2003), where it is shown that in cases of more-or-less separative marking of person and plural number, the latter marker occurs almost unexceptionally in a later position, regardless of the affixes' order with respect to the root (cf.…”

Section: Relation To Category Clustering and Other Related Biasesmentioning

confidence: 57%

Naturalness is gradient in morphological paradigms: Evidence from positional splits

Herce¹,

Saldana²,

Mansfield³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Agreement markers that refer to the same feature or argument tend to be found in the same position (e.g., all subject agreement markers as suffixes, all object agreement markers as prefixes). However, little is known about the exceptions to this trend: cases where different values of the same feature are marked in different positions in the word (i.e., positional splits). In this study, we explore the positional properties of subject and object person-number agreement markers in a phylogenetically diverse sample of 227 languages. We find that the recurrence of a positional split is proportional to its degree of naturalness, that is, to the amount of shared feature values amongst the forms with the same positional arrangement. Natural patterns (e.g., where prefixal forms all share SG and suffixal forms all share PL) are over-represented in natural languages compared to a random baseline. The most unnatural patterns are underrepresented, and splits with an intermediate level of unnaturalness occur at around chance levels. We hypothesise that this graded bias for naturalness is grounded in a preference for morphological similarity amongst semantically similar forms during language learning and transmission. To test this hypothesis we conducted two online artificial language learning experiments where we trained and tested participants on person-number verbal agreement paradigms of different sizes with positional splits of different degrees of naturalness. We found that their relative learnability is also gradient (proportional to the amount of meaning overlap), thus matching the observed cross-linguistic tendencies. Our findings support the notion that semantic similarity shapes the evolution and transmission of morphological structure and that it does so in a gradient way.

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Section: Relation To Category Clustering and Other Related Biasesmentioning

confidence: 57%

Naturalness is gradient in morphological paradigms: Evidence from positional splits

Herce¹,

Saldana²,

Mansfield³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As a result, the knowledge of learners reflects the distribution of cues and outcomes in their input (Ambridge, Kidd, Rowland, & Theakston, 2015; Bybee, 1995; Mirković, Seidenberg, & Joanisse, 2011). Although much evidence supports the view that learning is affected by this kind of positive evidence (Adriaans & Kager, 2010; Ambridge et al., 2015; Baer‐Henney, Kügler, & van de Vijver, 2015; Baer‐Henney & van de Vijver, 2012; Hayes, Zuraw, Siptár, & Londe, 2009; Hayes & Londe, 2006; Kapatsinski, 2010; Olejarczuk & Kapatsinski, 2018; Saiegh‐Haddad, Hadieh, & Ravid, 2012; Song & White, 2022; Szagun, 2011), the role of negative evidence is left unexplored.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One Cue's Loss Is Another Cue's Gain—Learning Morphophonology Through Unlearning

Mujezinović,

Kapatsinski,

van de Vijver

2024

Cognitive Science

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A word often expresses many different morphological functions. Which part of a word contributes to which part of the overall meaning is not always clear, which raises the question as to how such functions are learned. While linguistic studies tacitly assume the co‐occurrence of cues and outcomes to suffice in learning these functions (Baer‐Henney, Kügler, & van de Vijver, 2015; Baer‐Henney & van de Vijver, 2012), error‐driven learning suggests that contingency rather than contiguity is crucial (Nixon, 2020; Ramscar, Yarlett, Dye, Denny, & Thorpe, 2010). In error‐driven learning, cues gain association strength if they predict a certain outcome, and they lose strength if the outcome is absent. This reduction of association strength is called unlearning. So far, it is unclear if such unlearning has consequences for cue–outcome associations beyond the ones that get reduced. To test for such consequences of unlearning, we taught participants morphophonological patterns in an artificial language learning experiment. In one block, the cues to two morphological outcomes—plural and diminutive—co‐occurred within the same word forms. In another block, a single cue to only one of these two outcomes was presented in a different set of word forms. We wanted to find out, if participants unlearn this cue's association with the outcome that is not predicted by the cue alone, and if this allows the absent cue to be associated with the absent outcome. Our results show that if unlearning was possible, participants learned that the absent cue predicts the absent outcome better than if no unlearning was possible. This effect was stronger if the unlearned cue was more salient. This shows that unlearning takes place even if no alternative cues to an absent outcome are provided, which highlights that learners take both positive and negative evidence into account—as predicted by domain general error‐driven learning.

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“…As a result, the knowledge of learners reflects the distribution of cues and outcomes in their input (Ambridge et al, 2015, Bybee, 1995, Mirković, Seidenberg, and Joanisse, 2011. Although much evidence supports the view that learning is affected by this kind of positive evidence (Adriaans and Kager, 2010, Ambridge et al, 2015, Baer-Henney, Kügler, and van de Vijver, 2015, Baer-Henney and van de Vijver, 2012, Hayes et al, 2009, Hayes and Londe, 2006, Kapatsinski, 2010, Saiegh-Haddad, Hadieh, and Ravid, 2012, Song and White, 2022, Szagun, 2011, the role of negative evidence is left unexplored.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One cue’s loss is another cue’s gain – Learning morphophonology through unlearning

Mujezinović,

Kapatsinski,

van de Vijver

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A word often expresses many different morphological functions. Which part of a form contributes to which part of the overall meaning is often unclear, which raises the question as to how such functions are learned. While linguistic studies tacitly assume cooccurrence of cues and outcomes to suffice in learning these functions, recent studies suggest contingency rather than contiguity to be crucial (Nixon, 2020, Ramscar et al., 2010). Within error-driven learning theory, cues gain association strength if they predict a certain outcome, and lose strength if the outcome is absent. This reduction of association strength is called unlearning. So far, it is unclear if such unlearning has consequences for cue-outcome associations beyond the ones which get reduced. To test for such consequences of unlearning, we taught participants morphophonological patterns in an artificial language learning experiment. In one block, the cues to two functions – plural and diminutive – co-occurred within the same word forms. In another block, a single cue to only one of these two functions was presented in a different set of word forms. We wanted to find out, if participants unlearn this cue’s association to the incorrect function, and if this results in a higher relative weight to this function for the absent cue. Our results show that participants learned that the absent cue predicts the absent function better, if unlearning was possible. This effect was stronger, in case the present cue was more salient. This shows that unlearning takes place, even if no alternative cues to an absent outcome are provided, highlighting that learners take both positive and negative evidence into account – as predicted by domain general error driven learning.

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Interaction of phonological biases and frequency in learning a probabilistic language pattern

Cited by 6 publications

References 55 publications

Naturalness is gradient in morphological paradigms: Evidence from positional splits

Naturalness is gradient in morphological paradigms: Evidence from positional splits

One Cue's Loss Is Another Cue's Gain—Learning Morphophonology Through Unlearning

One cue’s loss is another cue’s gain – Learning morphophonology through unlearning

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