<OT> New Posting: ROA-1065

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 1065-1209

The persistence and obliteration of opaque Interactions

Marc Ettlinger <marc at northwestern.edu>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1065


Abstract:
In this paper, we focus on the learnability of marked interaction
s of phonological processes. In particular, we explore the
learnability of opaque interactions relative to transparent
ones using an artificial-grammar learning paradigm. Participants
behaved in one of three ways, either correctly learning
the opaque grammar, not learning anything, or leveling the
grammar into a transparent grammar. This grouping of participants
accounts for the typological pattern found with respect
to opaque interactions: They persist in languages despite
being marked without any apparent benefit in perceptibility
(first group), but they are less common than transparent
relationships (last group). Furthermore, to explore the
role memory has in supporting the acquisition of generalizations
and opacity, these same participants took a battery of standardiz
ed cognitive and memory tests to assess whether performance
on these general cognitive tests predicted language-learning
success.

Comments: Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society
Keywords: opacity, memory, acquisition
Areas: Learnability,Phonology,Language Acquisition
Type: Conference Proceedings Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=1065