On the role of substance, locality, and amount of exposure in the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations

Abstract

We discuss what factors influence the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations. What mechanisms are available to the learner; what is the basis for grammatical generalizations? Using the Artificial Language Paradigm we compared the acquisition of three alternations differing in phonetic substance, locality, and amount of exposure: one alternation was substantively based and structurally l ocal, another one was structurally local but not substantively based, and the last alternation was neither substantively based nor structurally local. Within each alternation we exposed the experimental groups to a greater or smaller number of instances. Results show a clear advantage for the substantively based alternation during acquisition. In addition, the local dependency has an advantage over the non-local one and alternations that are presented frequently have an advantage over those that are presented infrequently. We show that all three factors influence the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations, but they do so to a different d egree. Phonetic substance causes the strongest boost in the acquisition process and builds on locality, which also plays a role, and amount of exposure influences the acquisition process independent of the nature of the alternation. We argue that acquisition models should take the interaction of these factors into account.

Evidence for a learning bias against saltatory phonological alternations

“…(Saffran & Thiessen, 2003;Wilson, 2006;Zuraw, 2007;Finley & Badecker, 2008;Moreton, 2008;Hayes et al, 2009;Becker et al, 2011;Skoruppa, Lambrechts, & Peperkamp, 2011;Baer-Henney & van de Vijver, 2012;Becker et al, 2012;Finley & Badecker, 2012;Hayes & White, 2013).…”

The Interaction of Language‐Specific and Universal Factors During the Acquisition of Morphophonemic Alternations With Exceptions

“…These findings contradict usage-based theories that predict the frequency of occurrence to be the sole influential factor (Bybee, 2001;Tomasello, 2003), but tie in with and augment other recent findings that the course of development is influenced by many supporting factors in addition to frequency. Recent studies discuss the role of universal factors like substance (Finley, 2012b;Redford, 2008;van de Vijver & Baer-Henney, 2012b;Wilson, 2006) and more specifically, the role of knowledge of natural classes (Baer-Henney & van de Vijver, 2012;Cristi a et al, 2011;Skoruppa & Peperkamp, 2011) as well as the frequency of a pattern and of locality (Baer-Henney & van de Vijver, 2012;Finley, 2012a;Newport & Aslin, 2004).…”

“…Research has focused on studies in which the process of acquisition of regularities in natural languages has been observed over time, beginning with infants during their first year of life (Fikkert & Freitas, 2006) up to children at the age of around 8 years (Berko-Gleason, 1958;Flege, 1982;Kerkhoff, 2007;van de Vijver & Baer-Henney, 2012b). These studies are complemented by an increasing amount of research in which children (Cristi a & Peperkamp, 2012;Cristi a & Seidl, 2008;Cristi a, Seidl, & Gerken, 2011;Seidl & Buckley, 2005) or adults (Baer-Henney & van de Vijver, 2012;Finley, 2012a;Pycha, Nowak, Shin, & Shosted, 2003;Redford, 2008;Schane, Tranel, & Lane, 1975;Wilson, 2003Wilson, , 2006 are taught artificial languages which contain new phonological regularities. In these studies populations of different ages starting with children in their first year of life up to the point of adulthood have been investigated and a possible advantageous influence of substance is debated.…”

“…We only mention two well-known examples: research on the acquisition of the English past tense (Berko-Gleason, 1958;Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986) and of German plurals (Clahsen, 1999;K€ opcke, 1998). Recent research discusses various factors that influence both the acquisition process and the generalization behavior, such as frequency of occurrence, locality, knowledge about abstract features, and substance (Baer-Henney & van de Vijver, 2012;Cristi a & Seidl, 2008;Hayes & White, 2013;Newport & Aslin, 2004;Wilson, 2006). Acquisition studies mostly rely on data based on populations that have a certain language experience.…”

Inductive learning of locality relations in segmental phonology

“…For example, the Universal Grammar (UG) notion familiar from generative models amounts to a set of domain-specific and (largely) categorical inductive biases, delimiting the space of possible (i.e., learnable) linguistic systems. In recent years, a growing body of research has used artificial grammar learning experiments (Reber, 1967(Reber, , 1989 to probe for inductive biases in a controlled laboratory setting (e.g., Baer-Henney, Kügler, & van de Vijver, 2015;Baer-Henney & van de Vijver, 2012;Carpenter, 2010;Cristia, Mielke, Daland, & Peperkamp, 2013;Finley, 2011Finley, , 2012Finley, , 2015Finley & Badecker, 2009;Gallagher, 2013;Kapatsinski, 2010;Kuo, 2009;Lai, 2015;Linzen & Gallagher, 2017;Moreton, 2008Moreton, , 2012Peperkamp & Dupoux, 2007;Pycha, Nowak, Shin, & Shosted, 2003;White, 2014;Wilson, 2003Wilson, , 2006 for overviews, see Culbertson, 2012;Moreton & Pater, 2012a, 2012b. In the literature on artificial phonology learning, two main types of inductive biases have been proposed, which appear to influence the ease with which a learner is able to acquire sound patterns.…”