Word-types, not word-tokens, facilitate extraction of phonotactic sequences by adults

Richtsmeier, Peter T.

doi:10.1515/labphon.2011.005

Cited by 33 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Let us now consider type counts, where each expression is counted just once, regardless of how many times it occurs. It has been argued that type frequency has a greater influence on grammatical patterns (Bybee 2006;Richtsmeier 2011 In the present data, only about 15% of the tokens are repeated. Therefore, the result of type count is similar to that of token count.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 57%

Word-length preferences in Chinese: a corpus study

Duanmu

2011

J East Asian Linguist

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Are there preferred word-length combinations in Chinese? If there are, are they motivated by semantics, syntax, prosody, or a combination of these? While the issue has been discussed for some time, opinions remain divided. This study offers a quantitative analysis of word-length patterns in Chinese [N N] and [V O] sequences, using the Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese. It is found that 1þ2 is overwhelmingly disfavored in [N N] and 2þ1 is overwhelmingly disfavored in [V O]. In addition, it is found that apparent exceptions, ranging between 1 and 2%, are limited to certain specific structures, and when these are factored out, both 1þ2 [N N] and 2þ1 [V O] are well below 1% in either token count or type count. The result bears on several theoretical debates, such as the validity of word-length preferences in Chinese, the motivation of the preferences, the extent and the nature of exceptions, and the interaction among syntax, semantics, and phonology.

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 57%

Word-length preferences in Chinese: a corpus study

Duanmu

2011

J East Asian Linguist

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“…In these experiments, participants are presented with individual words in a miniature artificial language, and are then tested on novel words to determine what knowledge they have extracted from the language. Adult participants have shown evidence of learning the phonotactics of artificial languages in such diverse tasks as acceptability judgments (Richtsmeier, 2011), speech error patterns in production (Gaskell et al, 2014;Warker & Dell, 2006) and familiarity judgments (Cristia et al, 2013). Related findings have been reported in artificial language studies of morphological alternations (Finley & Badecker, 2009;Peperkamp et al, 2006;Wilson, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 55%

Rapid generalization in phonotactic learning

Linzen

Gallagher

2017

Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology

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Speakers judge novel strings to be better potential words of their language if those strings consist of sound sequences that are attested in the language. These intuitions are often generalized to new sequences that share some properties with attested ones: Participants exposed to an artificial language where all words start with the voiced stops [b] and [d] will prefer words that start with other voiced stops (e.g., [g]) to words that start with vowels or nasals. The current study tracks the evolution of generalization across sounds during the early stages of artificial language learning. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants received varying amounts of exposure to an artificial language. Learners rapidly generalized to new sounds: In fact, following short exposure to the language, attested patterns were not distinguished from unattested patterns that were similar in their phonological properties to the attested ones. Following additional exposure, participants showed an increasing preference for attested sounds, alongside sustained generalization to unattested ones. Finally, Experiment 3 tested whether participants can rapidly generalize to new sounds based on a single type of sound. We discuss the implications of our results for computational models of phonotactic learning.

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“…The theory we have provided here offers an explanation for why N-Adj-Num-Dem should be preferred, but only under the hypothesis that underlying structural representations are driving performance, not conscious strategizing. Another possibility is that learners choose the order that is most surface-dissimilar to English because they know they are learning a non-English language (57). However, previous studies of laboratory language learning (36,58), as well as the rich body of literature on native-language transfer effects in second-language acquisition (59)(60)(61), suggest that learners acquire rules (e.g., of word order) more easily when they are similar to English and make errors reflecting extension of English patterns to a new language.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language learners privilege structured meaning over surface frequency

Culbertson

Adger

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

111

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Although it is widely agreed that learning the syntax of natural languages involves acquiring structure-dependent rules, recent work on acquisition has nevertheless attempted to characterize the outcome of learning primarily in terms of statistical generalizations about surface distributional information. In this paper we investigate whether surface statistical knowledge or structural knowledge of English is used to infer properties of a novel language under conditions of impoverished input. We expose learners to artificial-language patterns that are equally consistent with two possible underlying grammars-one more similar to English in terms of the linear ordering of words, the other more similar on abstract structural grounds. We show that learners' grammatical inferences overwhelmingly favor structural similarity over preservation of superficial order. Importantly, the relevant shared structure can be characterized in terms of a universal preference for isomorphism in the mapping from meanings to utterances. Whereas previous empirical support for this universal has been based entirely on data from cross-linguistic language samples, our results suggest it may reflect a deep property of the human cognitive system-a property that, together with other structure-sensitive principles, constrains the acquisition of linguistic knowledge. A central goal of linguistics is to provide a formal characterization of human knowledge of language. It has long been argued that this knowledge crucially involves rules that refer to abstract structure rather than surface word order (1-3). One classic example is the relationship between English declarative and interrogative sentences. Although in many cases a rule forming the interrogative from the declarative could simply change the surface position of the auxiliary verb, the full range of English facts can only be captured by a rule making reference to the structural position of the auxiliary. For example, to generate the correct interrogative for complex declaratives such as "The man who is a fool is amusing" and "The man is a fool who is amusing," a rule referring to the superficial surface position of the auxiliary-for instance, leftmost or rightmost-will not do. Rather, the rule must pick out the auxiliary in the main clause. Because these complex cases are relatively rare, language learners could initially entertain a surface-based rule before converging on the structure-based alternative. Interestingly, though, children acquiring English do not seem to do this, suggesting that structurebased generalizations are preferred from the very start (4).The idea that explaining the syntax of natural languages requires abstract structure-and that learners posit structure-based generalizations early in the acquisition process-has been challenged from multiple angles. For example, simple recurrent networks trained on English input can replicate correct interrogative ordering patterns, suggesting that surface-based generalizations may be sufficient to characterize linguistic knowledge (...

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Word-types, not word-tokens, facilitate extraction of phonotactic sequences by adults

Cited by 33 publications

References 32 publications

Word-length preferences in Chinese: a corpus study

Word-length preferences in Chinese: a corpus study

Rapid generalization in phonotactic learning

Language learners privilege structured meaning over surface frequency

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