<OT> New Posting: ROA-864

[Rutgers Optimality Archive]

ROA 864-0906

Grammar is both categorical and gradient

Andries W Coetzee <coetzee at umich.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=864


Abstract:
In this paper, I discuss the results of word-likeness rating
experiments with Hebrew and English speakers that show that
language users use their grammar in a categorical and a
gradient manner. In word-likeness rating tasks, subjects
make the categorical distinction between grammatical and
ungrammatical – they assign all grammatical forms equally
high ratings and all ungrammatical forms equally low ratings.
However, in comparative word-likeness tasks, subjects are
forced to make distinctions between different grammatical
or ungrammatical forms. In these experiments, they make
finer gradient well-formedness distinctions. This poses
a challenge on the one hand to standard derivational models
of generative grammar, which can easily account for the
categorical distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical,
but have more difficulty with the gradient well-formedness
distinctions. It also challenges models in which the categorical
distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical does not
exist, but in which an ungrammatical form is simply a form
with very low probability. I show that the inherent comparative
character of an OT grammar enables it to model both kinds
of behaviors in a straightforward manner.

Comments: To appear in Stephen Parker, ed.  Phonological
Argumentation. London: Equinox Publishers.
Keywords: word-likeness, psycholinguistics, Hebrew, OCP, gradience
Areas: Phonology,Psycholinguistics
Type: Book Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=864