Substantive Bias and Natural Classes

This book offers a laboratory phonological analysis of the sonority hierarchy and natural classes in nasal harmony using an artificial grammar-learning paradigm. It is aimed at postgraduate students and linguists in general whose research interests lie in phonology, phonetics, and/or  psycholinguistics. It is useful for linguists who are struggling to figure out how to effectively design an artificial phonological grammar and those who have not designed experiments on their own but would like to do so as an additional means to testing linguistic theories. This book is also a valuable resource for anyone building crosslinguistic artificial grammar paradigm resources.

?Yu-Leng Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the Feng Chia University. She received her PhD degree from the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto in 2016. Before joining the Feng Chia University, she served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies. Her research interests include psycholinguistics, Chinese linguistics, laboratory phonology, and sociophonetics. Her publications include a journal paper, a book chapter and conference proceedings, and she has presented her work - ranging from learning bias, speech perception and production, tonal studies, and comparative studies among Mandarin, Taiwan Southern Min, Cantonese, and English - at several international conferences.

Auteur
Yu-Leng Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the Feng Chia University. She received her PhD degree from the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto in 2016. Before joining the Feng Chia University, she served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies. Her research interests include psycholinguistics, Chinese linguistics, laboratory phonology, and sociophonetics. Her publications include a journal paper, a book chapter and conference proceedings, and she has presented her work ranging from learning bias, speech perception and production, tonal studies, and comparative studies among Mandarin, Taiwan Southern Min, Cantonese, and English at several international conferences.

Contenu
Chapter 1Introduction1.1Universal implicational nasalized segment hierarchy1.2Artificial grammar learning paradigm as the methodology1.3Outline of the current studyChapter 2An introduction to Vowel-consonant nasal harmony2.1Typology of nasal vowel-consonant harmony2.2Nasal vowel-consonant harmony with opaque segments2.3Predictions of the nasalized segment hierarchyChapter 3Introduction to artificial goals and challenges3.1Assumptions of artificial grammar learning: poverty of the stimulus3.2Natural markedness and substantive bias3.2.1Implicational universals in substantive bias3.2.2Statistical tendencies3.2.3Robustness and learnability3.2.4Summary3.3Artificial grammar studies in substance bias3.3.1Implicational universals involving a substance bias: palatalization3.3.1.1Fronting effect3.3.1.2Experimental design3.3.1.3Procedure3.3.1.4Results and analysis3.3.2Implicational universals involving a formal complexity bias: sibilant harmony3.3.3Implicational universals involving a substantive bias: round vowel harmony3.3.4Sonority hierarchy3.3.5Implicational universals: natural classes/features3.3.5.1Nasal assimilation and dissimilation3.3.5.2Height-voice and voice-voice3.3.6Summary3.4Formal complexity bias3.4.1Domain-general: attribute-based object classification3.4.1.1Contiguity-similarity tradeoff3.4.1.2Feature agreement3.4.2Domain-specific: natural language3.5SummaryChapter 4Experiment 14.1Testing the prediction of learnability4.2Determining which grammar is learned better: learner types4.3Rationale of the current design4.4Methods4.4.1Language choice4.4.1.1Inventory, phonotactics and syllable shapes4.4.1.2Limited nasal spreading4.4.1.3Reasons for choosing S. Min speakers as participants4.4.2Design4.4.2.1Shapes of words and syllable forms4.4.2.2Stimuli4.4.2.3Task4.4.2.4Exposure and test phases4.4.2.5Post-test and post-interview4.4.3Participants4.4.4Procedure4.5Grouped statistics: Patterns 1 and 24.6Individual learner types4.7Individual data: Patterns 1 (S(k)W(k)) and 2 (W(k)S(k))4.7.1Categorization learner-generalizer4.7.2Categorization learner-generalized (opposite)4.7.3Categorization learner-pattern learner4.7.4Statistical learner-positional statistician4.7.5Statistical learner-unbound nasalizer4.8Discussion: learner types4.8.1Possibility 1: reference to the sonority hierarchy type4.8.2Possibility 2: reference to sonority natural classes4.8.3Possibility 3: floor effect4.8.4Possibility 4: game strategy4.8.5Possibility 1 vs. Possibility 24.9Follow-up experiments:4.9.1Hypothesis 1: game strategy4.9.2Hypothesis 2: phonological processes4.9.3Hypothesis 3: floor effect4.10Methods4.10.1Participants4.11Grouped statistics: Patterns 3 kt(S) and 4 kt(W)4.12Individual data: Patterns 3 kt(S) and 4 kt(W)4.13General discussion: Patterns 1-44.13.1Inferential statistics4.13.2Learner types4.14Discussion: interactive approach vs. pure sonority natural classes4.15SummaryChapter 5Experiment 2: sonority effects5.1Predictions: directionality (sonority hierarchy type)5.2Sonority natural classes:5.3Continuancy5.4Summary5.5Methods5.5.1Materials&lt...