Transcript Today

Questions for the Week
Questions
Can (all?) modifications in foreign language
production be explained as transfer from
the native language grammar? Does
universal markedness play a role?
Language-independent phonetic factors?
Questions, continued
Why are some foreign structures mastered
more quickly than other (equally new)
structures?
Japanese: chiimu ‘team’
shiifuudo ‘seafood’
shiitibanku ‘Citibank’
never: *siichibanku
Questions, continued
What determines how illegal structures are
modified?
‘Christmas’
Japanese:
Hawaiian:
Maori:
Samoan:
kurisumasu
kalikimaki
kirihimete
kilisimasi
Questions, continued
How much of foreign language modification
is a result of misperception? Of
misproduction? And how can we tell?
For example…
Does a Japanese speaker who pronounces
‘Christmas’ as [kurisumasu] actually
HEAR the English pronunciation as
[kurisumasu]?
English
[krɪsməs]
Japanese
=
[kurisumasu] ?
Grammar
Acoustic Form
||
perception (e.g.,Boersma 1998,
V
Pater 2004)
Phonological Representation => UR =>
||
production
V
Phonetic Representation
(1) Modification= Misproduction
(e.g., Paradis and LaCharité 1997)


Adapters correctly identify FL phonemes,
map to UR.
Production grammar repairs underlying
representations to conform to native
language constraints.
Problems with claim that all
modification = misproduction
Modification may be influenced by
subphonemic information.
e.g., Kang 2003: Vowels in Korean loans
may be inserted even after legal stop
codas. Likelihood of insertion is related
to likelihood of the release of that stop in
the English source.
(2) Modification=Misperception
(e.g., Peperkamp & Dupoux 2003)
Japanese listeners hear [ebzo] as [ebuzo].
Cf. Dupoux et al. 1999, Dehaene-Lambertz et
al. 2000, Jacquemot et al. 2003 for
experimental support.
Not a lexical effect: Dupoux et al. 2001
Lexical decision task:
nonword stimuli
sokdo
mikdo
real words
sokudo ‘speed’
mikado ‘emperor’
Sokdo classified as real words, mikdo as
nonwords
Problems with claim that all adaptation
= misperception

Some perception is accurate (e.g. Berent
et al. syllable-counting experiments)

Still must explain direction of
misperception: why kurisumasu and not
kilihimete, etc.?
(3) Modification = misproduction, but
guided by phonetic similarity
P-map Hypothesis (Steriade 2001, etc.):
Learners perceive FL phonological forms
accurately, but the production grammar
contains constraints that enforce
phonetic similarity between UR and PR.
Problem with claim that adaptation =
production + perceptual similarity
Even after adding perceptual similarity
constraints to the production grammar,
we are left with a residue of cases that
must be analyzed as misperception
(inaccurate mapping from foreign
acoustic form to adapter’s UR).
(4) Dual-level model
(e.g., Silverman 1992, Yip 2002, 2006)

Listeners misperceive less salient
features (partially inaccurate mapping to
UR).

Listeners accurately perceive more
salient features, but production grammar
may still make changes in mapping from
UR to PR.
Problem with Dual-Level Model of
adaptation
Lack of clear criteria for deciding whether a
particular modification pattern is a
function of
 Misperception
 Misproduction
Questions, continued

If foreign forms are misperceived, at what
level of processing does this
misperception occur?
Questions, continued

To what extent is perception determined
by early language experience?

Is there a ‘neural commitment’ to L1
contrasts?
Questions, continued

Can formal theories of grammar shed
light on foreign language production
patterns?
One Potential Criterion for perception
vs. production: Learnability
OT aims to define
 What is a possible grammar (set of ranked
constraints).

What is a learnable grammar (rankings
can be derived from input data, using an
error-driven algorithm).
Modification patterns that cannot be
described in terms of learnable
production grammar rankings must be a
function of


Misperception, or
Other factors (frequency, timeline of
exposure to FL, etc.).
Today
Models of Acquisition:
First Language and
Foreign Languages
To build a phonological grammar,
children must learn…

What is linguistically significant in the
target language (possible contrasts).

What is legal in the target language
(possible structures, phonotactics).

Morphemes and allomorphs
(alternations).
Stages of Acquisition
(e.g., Hayes 2004)




Birth to 6 months: can distinguish all possible
phoneme contrasts.
6-8 months: begin to form sound categories
(perceptual magnet effects).
8-10 months: begin to form a lexicon; begin to
learn phoneme categories of ambient language.
Older: begin to learn morphological processes,
alternations.
Perception vs. Production:
Common Assumptions

Children generally perceive L1 accurately.

Many of children’s simplifications of adult
forms are due to misproduction rather
than misperception.
Example: One Argument for Accurate
Perception
Gnanadesikan (2004): Productions by G, 2733 months
Simplification of onset clusters
G
Adult
a. s-stop
gaj
skaj
bɪw
spɪl
dɔ
star
b. s-sonorant
so
sno
sip
slip
‘sky’
‘spill’
‘star’
‘snow’
‘sleep’


s-obstruent > obstruent (‘sky’ > [gaj])
s-sonorant > s
(‘snow’ > [so])
Onset C of lowest sonority is maintained.
Clusters containing labial [r] or [w]
G
a. pi
b. bɪk
c. paj
d. bep
e. pajt
f. fɛ'Də
g. fɛw
Adult
tri
drɪŋk
kraj
grep
kwajt
swɛ'Də
smɛl
‘tree’
‘drink’
‘cry’
‘grape’
‘quite’
‘sweater’
‘smell’
pr, tr, kr, kw > p (‘tree’ > [pi])
br, dr, gr > b
(‘grape’ > [bep])
sm, sw > f
(‘smell’ > [fɛw]
Labial articulation is always maintained,
though labial segment may disappear.
G’s perception: [bep] ‘grape’
Does G actually hear (e.g.) [gr] as [b]?
Replacement of initial unstressed
syllable
G
a. fiténə
b. figɛ'Di
c. fibɛ'kə
d. fimáwo
Adult
kənténər
spəgɛ'Di
rəbɛ'kə
təmáro
‘container’
‘spaghetti’
‘Rebecca’
‘tomorrow’
Accurate perception?
Does G actually hear the material in the
initial syllable replaced by [fi]?
Preference for obstruent onsets
G
a. fikálə
b. fibún
c. fipís
d. fibó
Adult
koálə
bəlún
pəlís
bəló
‘koala’
‘balloon’
‘police’
‘below’
When the syllable following [fi] begins with
a high sonority onset (liquid, glide) or no
onset, the word-initial onset is recruited
‘balloon’ > fibún
G’s Perception
Although G replaces initial unstressed
syllables with [fi], she apparently does
hear the segmental content (at least the
onset) of these syllables--because
features of that onset may appear
elsewhere in the word.
fibɪ’jə
gərɪ’lə
‘gorilla’
It seems unlikely that G hears [g…r] in
‘gorilla’ as [b], since G seems to hear that
‘gorilla’ contains 3 syllables.
Gnanadesikan’s analysis

G’s modifications result from a grammar that
differs from the adult grammar.

These modfications result from a preference for
less marked surface structures.

Each feature of G’s grammar is attested in some
adult NL grammar.
OT is intended as a theory of

typology—defines possible grammars.

learnability--defines how a grammar is
learned from exposure to a set of data.
Architecture of the theory

Markedness constraints (or wellformedness constraints, structural
constraints) define possible surface
structures.
e.g. NoCoda, NoComplexOnset

Faithfulness constraints define possible
mappings from lexical representations to
surface representations.
e.g. Dep (no insertion), Max (no deletion)
Ranking Tableau: M>>F
/sno/
a. sno
> b. so
NoComplexOnset
(Markedness)
Max (no deletion)
(Faithfulness)
*!
*
Ranking Tableau: F>>M
/sno/
Max (no deletion)
(Faithfulness)
> a. sno
b. so
NoComplexOnset
(Markedness)
*
*!
Rankings determine surface structures

M >>F suppresses surface contrasts.
NoComplexOnset >> Max:
/so/ > [so]
/sno/ > [so]
(no CV-CCV contrast is possible)

F >> M preserves lexical contrasts.
Max >> NoComplexOnset:
/so/ > [so]
/sno/ > [sno]
(CV-CCV contrast is possible)
Rankings determine preferred repair

Dep >> Max: /sno/ > [so]
(deletion is preferred to insertion)

Max >> Dep: /sno/ > [sVno]
(insertion is preferred to deletion)
Rankings determine…

Choice of deletion vs. insertion

Which C is deleted (/sno/ > [so] vs. [no])

Which V is inserted (/sno/ > [sino], [sono],
etc.)
Assumptions (‘classical’ OT)

Constraint set is universal.

Rankings are language-specific.

Each possible ranking defines a possible
grammar.
‘Classical’ OT model of First Language
Acquisition

Constraints are innate.

Rankings must be learned.
Corollary

Each developing grammar (each stage of
language acquisition) must represent a
possible human grammar, since
grammars differ only in ranking of
constraints.
Parallels between G’s grammar and
adult grammars

onset simplification to lowest-sonority C:
[gay] for ‘sky’, [so] for ‘snow’
Sanskrit reduplication pa-prach, tha-stha
Coalescence of segments
[bep] for 'grape', [fɛw] for 'smell’
Navajo: d+x => g, Luganda: m+u => mw,
Kirundi: t+u => tkw
Preference for trochaic feet, aligned
with left edge : [fibún] for ‘balloon’
Fikkert 1994, Demuth 1996
Dutch: ó:xant (ólifant), ándə, ánRə (andere),
bálə (bal)
Sesotho: kolo (sekolo) ‘school’
K’iche’ (word-final stress): lóm (jolóm) ‘head’
Melodic overwriting: [fi]
Kolami: pal-gil, kota-gita, maasur-giisur
Chinese secret language: may ka for ma,
xway kwey for xwey
Child grammar = possible adult
grammar
Each developing grammar should reflect
some possible constraint ranking.
Question
Is there an initial state/default constraint
ranking?
Answer from Gnanadesikan and others:
M>>F
Arguments for Default M>>F
1. Children’s modifications are generally in
the direction of reduced markedness.
Subset Problem
(Angluin 1980, Baker 1979)
2. If children can only use positive evidence
(actual linguistic forms) in constructing a
grammar, they must begin with the most
restrictive grammar possible—otherwise
their grammars will overgenerate.
Illustration
Child C (for conservative) assumes M>>F
NoComplexOnset >> Faithfulness.
Child C’s grammar allows only CV syllables.
Child R (for reckless) assumes F>>M
Faithfulness >> NoComplexOnset.
Child R’s grammar allows both CV and CCV
syllables.
If Child C (M>>F) is born to




Hawaiian-speaking parents,
Child’s grammar = adult grammar
English-speaking parents,
Child’s grammar ≠ adult grammar, but no
worries--child gets positive evidence
(CCV) telling her to rerank constraints.
If Child R (F>>M) is born to


English-speaking parents,
Child’s grammar = adult grammar
Hawaiian-speaking parents,
☹ Child’s grammar ≠ adult grammar, AND
no positive evidence can ever trigger
reranking.

Learning is error-driven

Default ranking = M>>F.

Other rankings (M>>M, F>>F) must be
learned from data.
What is default for language contact
situations?
Presumably, the learner/adapter begins
from the NL rankings.
Therefore, adaptation/error patterns should
be explainable as either
• transfer of NL rankings, or
• universal default rankings.
Potential Problems in Language
Contact Phonology
1. M >>M rankings (differential difficulty)
NL bans 2 structures
FL allows both structures
BUT learners/adapters master one structure
more easily.
e.g. Japanese shiitibanku (both [ti] and [si]
are illegal in Japanese).
2. F>>F rankings (differential repair)
NL has no inputs with illegal structures, so
no evidence for repair preference
• BUT learners/adapters adopt specific
repairs,
• AND these repairs may vary across
languages (therefore not universal),
• AND different repairs may be used within
a single language in different contexts.
Dehu (Tryon 1970)
a. Obstruent__Sonorant: copy V

peleit
‘plate’

galas
‘glas’
b. Obstruent__Obstruent: default [i]

sipö
‘spur’

sipun
‘spoon’
3. Ranking Reversals
Korean NL: stop+nasal > nasal + nasal
/kuk+mul/ > [kuŋmul] ‘soup’
But in SLA, Koreans often insert vowel:
/tegnal/ > [tegɨnal] (Hwang 2006).
Proposal
Where modification patterns would require
a grammar with unlearnable rankings,
these patterns have their source in
factors such as
misperception
frequency
orthography
time course of language contact
etc.