<OT> New Posting: ROA-699

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ROA 699-1104

Multiple Parallel Grammars in the Acquisition of Stress in Greek L1

Marina Tzakosta <M.Tzakosta at let.leidenuniv.nl>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=699


Abstract:
This dissertation focuses on the acquisition of stress in
Greek L1. It investigates phonological development in a
language with a lexical accent system where the position
of stress is determined by the phonology-morphology interface.
It demonstrates that the acquisition of stress in lexical
accent systems proceeds differently compared to languages
with less complex or non-lexical accentual systems.
The production of multiple truncated outputs of variable
prosodic shape as well as faithfully produced forms during
the same phases of phonological development led to the conclusion
that children employ multiple parallel grammars generated
by the permutation of universal and innate constraints,
or else follow several developmental paths, during the acquisitio
n process. This implies that language development does not
proceed in a strictly stage-like fashion as was assumed
until now.


It is argued that learning proceeds in three major phases.
In the first phase, the child grammar is in a state where
all markedness constraints dominate all faithfulness constraints.
This is the initial ranking proposed by Tesar and Smolensky
(2000). Given this initial ranking, we have an explanation
as to how children proceed from unmarked and, consequently,
easy to produce forms to more marked and difficult structures.


During the second developmental phase, constraint permutation
results in a radical expansion of grammars. Constraint permutatio
n provides a huge number of grammars. In language acquisition,
all possible rankings predict all possible developmental
paths children follow in their task of acquiring the phonology
of their language. However, the Greek data showed that during
the second major learning phase children adopt only 30 grammars
out of a total of 1.015.104.368.000 (!) grammars that permutation
of the 15 constraints provides. Moreover, not all children
followed all of these 30 grammars; Rather, they employ grammars
which are related to the first state of acquisition where
MARKEDNESS >> FAITHFULNESS and the final state where roughly
FAITHFULNESS >> MARKEDNESS. The fully faithful or adult
grammar is also available to the child during this second
phase where multiple grammars are generated, since it is
one of the grammars provided by factorial typology. In the
same phase and depending on the order of acquisition, grammars
can be activated and deactivated in parallel. More specifically,
if learning proceeds without regressive steps, the number
of accessed grammars may decrease gradually, leading to
the use of only one grammar, that is, the fully faithful
adult grammar. However, if regressions to earlier stages
of development do occur, then grammars may be activated
and deactivated in parallel during this second phase of
development. This is possible until positive evidence and
frequency effects of child-directed speech leads the child
to the adoption of the �correct� final grammar. Both
of these distinct developmental patterns characterize the
phonological development of Greek children.


In the third phase of phonological development, Greek children
are considered to have reached the final state of the adult
grammar.
In the current study, I also deviate from the traditional
definition of stage in L1 acquisition (Fikkert 1994a; Demuth
and Fee 1995) that views stages as developmental phases,
which exhibit a unified linguistic behavior on the children�s
part. I assume that a stage refers to a phase in language
acquisition associated with a set of grammars that share
specific typological characteristics. This redefinition
of the notion of �stage� leaves room for the occurrence
of variation and regression. Output variation further challenges
the idea of the trochaic bias according to which there is
a universal tendency for disyllabic trochees in child speech
cross-linguistically.


The multiple parallel grammars model developed here refers
to production but has important implications, on the one
hand, for perception, since it makes the prediction that
the latter may be characterized by multiple grammars as
well and, on the other hand, for the study of synchrony
and diachrony, given that it can provide a unified account
of synchronic, diachronic and language change phenomena.

Comments: LOT Dissertation Series 93
Keywords: theoretical phonology, phonological acquisition, Greek, stress
Areas: Language Acquisition, Phonology
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=699