Priming Maltese plurals

Nieder, Jessica; Vijver, Ruben van de; Mitterer, Holger

doi:10.1075/ml.20008.nie

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Recourse to abstract categories, such as morphemes, is unnecessary (see also Ambridge, 2020). This finding is in turn in line with other work on Maltese nouns (Nieder, Tomaschek, et al, 2021;Nieder, van de Vijver, et al, 2021a, 2021b, and is explained by the theory of Word and Paradigm (Blevins, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“All mimsy were the borogoves” – a discriminative learning model of morphological knowledge in pseudo-word inflection

Nieder

Vijver

Tomaschek

2022

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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Grammatical knowledge of native speakers has often been investigated in so-called wug tests, in which participants have to inflect pseudo-word forms (wugs). Typically it has been argued that in inflecting these pseudo-words, speakers apply their knowledge of word formation processes. However, it remains unclear what exactly this knowledge is and how it is learned.According to one theory, the knowledge is best characterized as abstractions and rules that specify how units can be combined. Another theory maintains that it is best characterized by analogy. In both cases the knowledge is learned by association based on positive evidence alone.In this paper, we model the classification of pseudo-words to Maltese plural classes on the basis of phonetic input using a shallow neural network trained with an error-driven learning algorithm. We demonstrate that the classification patterns mirror those of Maltese native speakers in a wug test.Our results indicate that speakers rely on gradient knowledge of a relation between the phonetics of whole words and plural classes, which is learned in an error-driven way.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“All mimsy were the borogoves” – a discriminative learning model of morphological knowledge in pseudo-word inflection

Nieder

Vijver

Tomaschek

2022

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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“…However, we also discover a considerable number of sound plurals within this group (light grey bar, group on the right). Considering that sound plurals make up the majority of plural forms in the Maltese language, there is no reason to worry about a bias during classification [ 14 , 22 , 24 , 33 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maltese as a merger of two worlds: A cross-language approach to phonotactic classification

Nieder

Tomaschek

2023

PLoS ONE

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Maltese is a prime example of a language that emerged through extensive language contact, joining the two linguistic worlds of Semitic and Italo-Romance languages. Previous studies have shown this shared origin on the basis of hands-on comparative methods. However, such approaches may be biased by the researchers perspective and the selected material. To avoid this bias, we employed a naive computational method that classifies words on the basis of their phonotactics. Specifically, we trained a simple two-layer neural network on Tunisian and Italian nouns, i.e. the languages that Maltese emerged from. We used the trained network to classify Maltese nouns based on their phonotactic characteristics as either of Tunisian or of Italian origin. Overall, the network is capable of correctly classifying Maltese nouns as belonging to either of the original languages. Moreover, we find that the classification depends on whether a noun has a sound or broken plural. By manipulating the segment identity in the training input, we found that consonants are more important for the classification of Maltese nouns than vowels. While our results replicate previous comparative studies, they also demonstrate that a more fine grained classification of a language’s origin can be based on individual words and morphological classes.

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“…In the following, we first discuss the experimental research on Maltese nouns before turning to the computational studies. Two experimental studies have clarified that native speakers use information about pattern frequency to produce and process plural forms for singulars they never heard before (Nieder et al 2021b;Nieder et al 2021c). While some plural suffixes and patterns occur frequently in the language, for example the sound plural forms ending in -i and -ijiet or the broken plural patterns characterized by the CV-templates CCVVCVC (broken A) and CCVVC (broken C), others are found in a relatively small number of plural forms only (see Nieder et al 2021b;Nieder et al 2021c;Schembri 2012, for detailed information about pattern frequency in Maltese).…”

Section: Experimental and Computational Research On Maltese Pluralsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A discriminative lexicon approach to word comprehension, production, and processing: Maltese plurals

Nieder¹,

Chuang²,

Vijver³

et al. 2023

lan

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Comprehending and producing words is a natural process for human speakers. In linguistic theory, investigating this process formally and computationally is often done by focusing on forms only. By moving beyond the world of forms, we show in this study that the Discriminative Lexicon (DL) model operating with word comprehension as a mapping of form onto meaning and word production as a mapping of meaning onto form generates accurate predictions about what meanings listeners understand and what forms speakers produce. Furthermore, we show that measures derived from the computational model are predictive for human reaction times. Although mathematically very simple, the linear mappings between form and meaning posited by our model are powerful enough to capture the complexity and productivity of a Semitic language with a complex hybrid morphological system. 1

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Priming Maltese plurals

Cited by 8 publications

References 41 publications

“All mimsy were the borogoves” – a discriminative learning model of morphological knowledge in pseudo-word inflection

“All mimsy were the borogoves” – a discriminative learning model of morphological knowledge in pseudo-word inflection

Maltese as a merger of two worlds: A cross-language approach to phonotactic classification

A discriminative lexicon approach to word comprehension, production, and processing: Maltese plurals

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