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Lexicon, phonology and phonetics. Or: Rule-based and usage-based approaches to phonological variation
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Usage-based approaches constitute a young paradigm of linguistic thinking, contrasting with formal (especially generative) theory in that they do not assume language users to have at their disposal abstract grammatical knowledge, but rather to store detailed information about the words of their language each time they hear them. This contribution constricts the discussion to the domain of language variation in the sound components and their relations with syntax, morphology and the lexicon. After a succinct discussion of the concepts of language variation and linguistic universals, rule-based and usage-based paradigms will both be outlined, along with the types of universals which typically feature in their respective accounts of language variation. Both models will be illustrated with insights from studies of the variable deletion of word-final /t/ or /d/ in varieties of several Germanic languages. Next, several types of empirical questions from different areas of the study of language variation and change will be briefly sketched, followed by the presentation of a quantitative case study of the reduction and deletion of unstressed vowels in spoken modern standard Dutch. After a discussion of the potential implications of the findings from this study, a few thoughts concerning the chances and needs for further research conclude this contribution.
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... A number of psycholinguistic studies (Cole et al. 1974;Goldinger 1998;McLennan et al. 2003;Pierrehumbert 2002;McLennan and Luce 2005;Goldinger 2007;Mattys and Liss 2008;Ernestus 2013) bring evidence that more than one pronunciation variant of the same word is stored in the mental lexicon and that reduction is word-specific and sensitive to both structural factors and frequency. As a result, frequent words are more likely to undergo reduction than rare words, short words are more likely than long words and function words more likely than content words (Bürki et al. 2010;Hinskens 2011). How to account for that in OT? First of all, following van Oostendorp's proposal (1997), I assume that faithfulness and markedness constraints are ranked differently depending on the speech style (e.g., casual, intermediate, careful, etc.). ...
Notwithstanding the primacy of the CV syllable, a number of languages allow for more complex types of syllables. In particular, word-initial consonant clusters are particularly challenging for any phonological theory. In this paper it is argued that obstruent clusters may be the result of casual speech processes where the most salient/ frequent phonemes and features occurring in most pronunciation variants of a word are preserved. As a result, sibilants, being acoustically salient, tend to occur more often than other obstruents as the first member of word-initial obstruent clusters. A framework couched in Optimality Theory is presented, where a subfamily of faithfulness constraints refer to strength values stored in the underlying representation. The more salient and/or frequent a phoneme/feature is, the higher the strength value assigned to it. Finally, a number of languages are compared, arguing that their phonotactic differences may be due to the different ranking of markedness constraints and MAX-STRENGTHVALUE constraints.
In this article, we investigate if conversational priming in repetitional responses could be a factor in language change. In this mechanism, an interlocutor responds to an utterance by the other interactant using a repetitional response. Due to comprehension-to-production priming, the interlocutor producing the repetitional response is more likely to employ the same linguistic variant as the interlocutor producing the original utterance, resulting in a double exposure to the variant which, in turn, is assumed to reinforce the original priming effect, making the form more familiar to the repeating interlocutor. An agent-based model, with interactions shaped as conversations, shows that when conversational priming is added as a parameter, interlocutors converge faster on their linguistic choices than without conversational priming. Moreover, we find that when an innovative form is in some way favoured over another form (replicator selection), this convergence also leads to faster spread of innovations across a population. In a second simulation, we find that conversational priming is, under certain assumptions, able to overcome the conserving effect of frequency. Our work highlights the importance of including the conversation level in models of language change that link different timescales.
In this thesis, I study how languages change in situations where languages or groups of speakers are in contact with each other. As language change is inherently caused by interaction between individuals, I use a technique from multi-agent Artificial Intelligence (AI) that puts the interaction of individuals central: agent-based computer simulations. I apply these agent-based models to specific case studies of language change in the real world. The goal of the thesis is two-fold: getting a better view of the mechanisms behind language change and studying how computational methods work on real-world problems with small amounts of data. I present three different computer models, which each answer a particular linguistic question given a specific case study or dataset.
In my first model, I study how language contact can make languages simplify, using a case study of Alorese, a language in Eastern Indonesia. By integrating data from the language into an agent-based model, I study if the phonotactics of the language -- the allowed structure of sounds following each other -- could play a role in simplification. In my second model, I investigate if mechanisms in conversations could be a factor in language change. Using an agent-based model, I show how speakers influencing each other's linguistic choices in conversations can under certain circumstances, lead to spread of an innovative form In my third model, I investigate what could be a cognitively realistic computer model for the `brain' of the speakers, that could be used in an agent-based simulation. I develop a neural network model, based on a technique called Adaptive Resonance Theory, which has as its task to cluster verbs that conjugate in the same way into groups. The model is able to learn the systems of verbs of languages from different families while being interpretable: it is possible to visualise to which parts of the words the network attends.
Together, the three models show how different mechanisms that interact with each other can lead to language change when languages are in contact. The models show how mechanisms working on short timescales, such as on the scale of a conversation, can cause effects in the longer term, leading to language change. At the same time, this thesis gives insights for the development of communication in multi-agent AI systems, especially when there are multiple types of agents, as is the case in language contact situations.
In this paper, we investigate the rate of change of different person-number subject markers. We perform a cross-linguistic study on the dissimilarity between proto and modern forms, showing that 3SG is the most conservative subject marker across languages. We discuss the mechanisms that could explain this diachronic pattern, such as frequency of use, markedness, and attractor lengths. Our exploratory analysis highlights how existing linguistic datasets can be used to study new research questions.
This chapter demonstrates that only a usage‐based connectionist model accounts for the empirical evidence of the behavior of words undergoing sound change. It provides a brief overview of the competing models and their views of the connection between the lexicon and the phonology of a language. The chapter presents the implications of the differences between the competing models, including the importance of taking frequency effects into account, their relationship to analogy and borrowing, and the role of production in lexical diffusion, as evidenced by the behavior of homophones. It provides evidence that frequency effects exist from the very onset of a change and hence cannot be solely attributable to borrowing or to analogy as it is usually conceived. The additive nature of some frequency effects is called the frequency inheritance effect, whereby the behavior of homophones seems to depend on their total frequency rather than the individual frequency of each.
The pronunciation of words is highly variable. This variation provides crucial information about the cognitive architecture of the language production system. This review summarizes key empirical findings about variation phenomena, integrating corpus, acoustic, articulatory, and chronometric data from phonetic and psycholinguistic studies. It examines how these data constrain our current understanding of word production processes and highlights major challenges and open issues that should be addressed in future research.
This contribution addresses a number of conceptual and methodological issues regarding processes of dialect change leading to koineization. After a discussion of some notions and key findings from a few recent relevant studies concerning present-day Dutch dialects, two paradigms
of linguistic theorizing will be briefly presented. Next, these paradigms will be compared on the basis of the findings from a recent diachronic study of the deletion of postvocalic /r/ before coronal obstruents. It will be shown that only one of the paradigms survives this test. As to the
internal factors, the study offers evidence for the claim that, as far as phonological and morphophonological variation is concerned, the place of a given dialect feature in the typology of phonological rules plays a determining role in its chances for survival in situations of long-lasting,
extensive dialect contact. Finally, attention will be paid to some desiderata and possibilities for further research which are either of a methodological (especially data related) or of a more theoretical nature.
This paper explores the contexts of emergence and application of Cognitive Sociolinguistics. This novel field of scientific enquiry draws on the convergence of methods and theoretical frameworks typically associated with Cognitive Linguistics and Sociolinguistics. Here, we trace and systematize the key theoretical and epistemological bases for the emergence of Cognitive Sociolinguistics, by outlining main research strands and highlighting some challenges that face the development of this field. More specifically, we focus on the following terms and concepts which are foundational to the discussion of Cognitive Sociolinguistics: (i) usage-based linguistics and language-internal variation; (ii) rule-based vs. usage-based conceptions of language; (iii) meaning variation; (iv) categorization and prototypes; and (v) the interplay between language, culture, and ideology. Finally, we consider the benefits of taking a Cognitive Sociolinguistic perspective in research by looking at the actual studies that are presented in the current volume.
Acoustic reduction refers to the frequent phenomenon in conversational speech that words are produced with fewer or lenited segments compared to their citation forms. The few published studies on the production and comprehension of acoustic reduction have important implications for the debate on the relevance of abstractions and exemplars in speech processing. This article discusses these implications. It first briefly introduces the key assumptions of simple abstractionist and simple exemplar-based models. It then discusses the literature on acoustic reduction and draws the conclusion that both types of models need to be extended to explain all findings. The ultimate model should allow for the storage of different pronunciation variants, but also reserve an important role for phonetic implementation. Furthermore, the recognition of a highly reduced pronunciation variant requires top down information and leads to activation of the corresponding unreduced variant, the variant that reaches listeners’ consciousness. These findings are best accounted for in hybrids models, assuming both abstract representations and exemplars. None of the hybrid models formulated so far can account for all data on reduced speech and we need further research for obtaining detailed insight into how speakers produce and listeners comprehend reduced speech.
The paper examines a classical problem of French phonology, so-called h-aspiré words. These words have a special behavior with respect to resyllabification, such as enchaˆınement (a coda is syllabified as the onset of the next vowel-initial syllable), liaison (a latent coda consonant is pronounced) and ´elision (a vowel is not pronounced in a hiatus environment). The authors show that these processes are optional in h-aspiré words, but near to obligatory in other vowel-initial words. The investigation is based on a production experiment in which 12 native speakers of French produced 48 sentences. Most speakers made a distinction between h-aspiré words and vowel initial words, although there was a great deal of variation. It looks as if the left edge of these words is protected by a consonantal slot which is proposed to be a creaky glottal stop. This consonantal slot is then realized in different ways in different environments. The second part of the paper proposes an optimality-theoretic analysis
of the variation. A small amount of constraints can be used which deliver the observed realizations. The paper ends with an account of variation and optionality in Optimality Theory (OT) and makes a comparison between the predictions made by Anttila’s (1997, 2002) Stratified Grammars and Hayes’ (2001) stochastic Gradual Learning Algorithm (GLA). The latter approach accounts for the proportions between the variants more closely than Anttila’s model.
Lexical DiffusionThe Structure-Dependence of Sound ChangeNaturalness in Sound ChangeConclusion
Notes
Introduction The main aim of this chapter is to examine some features of the relationship between convergence in a linguistic system and convergence, confluence, or interpenetration of forms from two varieties in use. On the basis of the most salient features of contact between the national language and the Italoromance dialects in Italy the applicability of a theoretical model designed to embrace the apparently very heterogeneous phenomena of language contact within a single concept will be discussed, namely Myers-Scotton's Matrix Language Frame model. This discussion should allow us not only to gain a better sociolinguistic understanding of the Italian situation but also, and above all, to focus on certain features of theoretical significance in the general treatment of convergence and contact. Language Convergence and the Relationship Between Standard Language and Dialects Let us begin with a few observations of a terminological and conceptual nature with regard to the two main terms involved, namely ‘convergence’ and ‘dialect’. I shall leave aside problems raised by the use of the term ‘convergence’ with reference to the language behaviour of individual persons in verbal interaction, such as situational accommodation between interlocutors. My employment of the term will be confined to the relationship between language varieties. The term ‘language convergence’ is well known as one of the hobby-horses of historical linguistics.
This volume presents 16 original studies of variation in languages representing the three main European language families, as well as in varieties of Greek and Hungarian. The studies concern variation in or across dialects or dialect groups, in standard varieties or in emerging regional varieties of the standard. Several studies investigate a specific linguistic element or structure, while others focus on areas of tension between variation and prescriptive standard norms, on regional standard varieties and regiolects, on problems of linguistic classification (from folk linguistic or dialect geographical perspectives) and the classification of speakers. Language acquisition plays a main role in three studies. The studies in this volume represent a range of methods, including ethnographic and 'interpretative' approaches, conversation analysis, analyses of the internal and geographical distribution of dialect features, the classification and quantitative analyses of socio-demographic speaker background data, quantitative analyses of both diachronic and synchronic language data, phonetic measurements, as well as (quasi-)experimental perception studies. The volume thus offers a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmos of world-wide research on variability in (originally) European languages at the beginning of the 21th century and the linguistic expression of cultural diversity.