<OT> New Posting: ROA-736

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 736-0505

Gradience, phonotactics, and the lexicon in English phonology

Michael Hammond <hammond at u.arizona.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=736


Abstract:
Experimental work has established that when subjects judge
the phonological wellformedness of nonsense forms, they
are strongly affected by the frequency of the phonological
elements of the form and by the number of actual words that
such a form is similar to. These results challenge phonological
theory by suggesting a central role for frequency and the
lexicon. In this paper, I review these results and show
how they can be easily modelled with Probabilistic Optimality
Theory. The payoff is that from very few phonological assumptions
we can derive virtually the whole panoply of experimental
effects. We can also derive various Local Conjunction effects
as well.

Comments: appeared in International Journal of English Studies 4 (2004) pp. 1-24.
Keywords: gradience, phonotactics, lexicon, English, frequency
Areas: Phonology,Psycholinguistics
Type: Journal Article

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=736