<OT> New Posting: ROA-788

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 788-1205

Patterned exceptions in phonology

Kie Zuraw <kie at ucla.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=788


Abstract:
Standard Optimality-Theoretic grammars contain only the
information necessary to transform inputs into outputs;
regularities among inputs are not accounted for. Using the
example of Tagalog nasal substitution, this dissertation
presents a model of how lexical regularities could be learned,
represented in the grammar, used by speakers and listeners,
and perpetuated over time.


Lexical regularities are represented as low-ranking constraints,
their rankings learned through exposure to the lexicon using
Boersma's Gradual Learning Algorithm. High-ranked constraints
ensure the primacy of listed pronunciations; but when a
speaker produces a novel word, these high-ranking constraints
are irrelevant and the constraints that encode lexical regulariti
es take over. The subterranean constraints are stochastically
ranked; speakers' behavior on novel words probabilistically
reflect the lexical regularities. The listener uses the
same grammar to produce well-formedness judgments for novel
words and to reconstruct inputs from an interlocutors' outputs.
The model's well-formedness judgments reproduce the experimental
result that although the productivity of nasal substitution
on novel words is low, nasal-substituted novel words are
judged more acceptable than non-substituted words in certain
cases.


Bayesian reasoning by the listener favors novel nasal-substituted
words--they are disproportionately likely to become listed.
A computer simulation of the speech community confirms that
although nasal substitution is the minority pronunciation
for novel words, a word may eventually enter the lexicon
as nasal-substituted.


Tagalog vowel raising under suffixation is close to exceptionless
in the native vocabulary but quite exceptionful among loanwords.
A loan stem's probability of resisting raising is highly
influenced by its degree of internal similarity. I propose
that internal similarity encourages speakers to construe
a word as reduplicated, even without morphosyntactic motivation;
raising is blocked because it would disrupt base-reduplicant
identity.


Alternatives to encoding lexical regularities in the grammar
are considered. It is argued that the vowel raising facts
are not amenable to an associative-memory account. The qualitativ
e difference between "regulars" and "exceptions" cited by
proponents of the Dual-Mechanism model as evidence for leaving
lexical regularities out of the grammar reduces to a difference
between listed words and synthesized words; this difference
can arise through listener reasoning, without a prior qualitative
difference.

Comments: 
Keywords: Tagalog, lexical variation, stochastic ranking
Areas: Phonology,Learnability
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=788