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Domain Specificity in Learning Phonology DOMAIN SPECIFICITY IN LEARNING PHONOLOGY by Yeeking Regine Lai A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Fall 2012 © 2012 Lai All Rights Reserved DOMAIN SPECIFICITY IN LEARNING PHONOLOGY by Yeeking Regine Lai Approved: __________________________________________________________ Benjamin Bruening, Ph.D. Chair of the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science Approved: __________________________________________________________ George H. Watson, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Approved: __________________________________________________________ Charles G. Riordan, Ph.D. Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Jeffrey Heinz, Ph.D. Professor in charge of dissertation I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Arild Hestvik, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ William Idsardi, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Irene Vogel, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express the deepest gratitude to my committee chair, Professor Jeffrey Heinz, who has the attitude and the substance of a genius: he continually and convincingly conveyed a spirit of adventure in regard to research and scholarship, and an excitement in regard to teaching. Without his guidance and persistent help this dissertation would not have been possible. I would like to thank my committee members, Professor Arild Hestvik Professor William Idsardi, and Professor Professor Irene Vogel for their input and guidance. In addition, a big thank you to my fellow students at UD for their help. Finally, I would like to thank the financial support provided by the Linguistics and Cognitive Science Department and the Graduate Office at UD and the National Science Foundation. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... xi ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ xiii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Overview of the Dissertation ..................................................................... 4 2 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................ 5 2.1 Computational Characterizations of Attested Language Patterns ............. 5 2.1.1 Is Phonology Regular? .................................................................. 7 2.1.2 Non-Regular Language Patterns .................................................... 9 2.1.3 Subregular Boundaries ................................................................ 12 2.2 Strictly Local, Strictly Piecewise and Tier-based Strictly Local ............. 14 2.3 Hypotheses .............................................................................................. 15 2.3.1 H1: Domain General .................................................................... 16 2.3.2 H2: Domain Specific ................................................................... 17 2.3.3 H3: Domain General (ignores subregular boundaries) ................ 18 2.3.4 H4: Domain Specific (respects subregular boundaries) .............. 19 2.4 Artificial Language Learning Paradigm .................................................. 20 2.4.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of ALL Paradigm ...................... 21 2.4.2 Phonotactic Experiments ............................................................. 22 2.4.2.1 Adjacent dependencies ................................................. 22 2.4.2.2 Non-adjacent dependencies with exactly one intervening segment ...................................................... 26 2.4.2.3 Non-adjacent dependencies with two or more intervening segments .................................................... 30 2.4.3 Syntactic Experiments ................................................................. 33 v 2.4.4 Summary of Remaining Questions .............................................. 40 3 EXPERIMENT 1: CONTEXT FREE EXPERIMENT .................................... 41 3.1 General vs. Specific language learners .................................................... 42 3.1.1 Instantiation of NE Syntactic Pattern .......................................... 45 3.1.2 Instantiation of NE Phonotactic Pattern ...................................... 46 3.2 Hypothesis ............................................................................................... 49 3.2.1 Possible Outcomes ....................................................................... 49 3.3 Experiment 1a: Syntax Experiment ......................................................... 51 3.3.1 Subjects ........................................................................................ 51 3.3.2 Procedure ..................................................................................... 51 3.3.3 Stimuli ......................................................................................... 52 3.3.4 Predictions ................................................................................... 53 3.3.5 Results ......................................................................................... 53 3.4 Experiment 1b: Phonotactic Experiment ................................................. 57 3.4.1 Subjects ........................................................................................ 57 3.4.2 Procedure ..................................................................................... 57 3.4.3 Stimuli ......................................................................................... 58 3.5 Predictions ............................................................................................... 59 3.6 Results ..................................................................................................... 60 3.7 Discussion ................................................................................................ 63 3.8 Conclusions ............................................................................................. 65 4 EXPERIMENT 2: SUBREGULAR EXPERIMENTS .................................... 68 4.1 Is the Subregular boundary psychologically real? ................................... 68 4.1.1 FL and SH patterns ...................................................................... 70 4.1.1.1 C’Lela ........................................................................... 73 4.2 Hypothesis ............................................................................................... 75 4.3 Methodology ............................................................................................ 75 4.3.1 Subjects ........................................................................................ 75 4.3.2 Procedure ..................................................................................... 76 vi 4.3.3 Stimuli ......................................................................................... 77 4.4 Predictions ............................................................................................... 79 4.5 Results ..................................................................................................... 80 4.6 Additional Condition- Intensive FL (IFL) ............................................... 90 4.7 Discussion ................................................................................................ 95 4.8 Conclusions ............................................................................................. 97 5 EXPERIMENT 3: NON-LINGUISTIC EXPERIMENTS ............................... 99 5.1 Experiment 3a: Visual Shape Experiment ............................................... 99 5.1.1 Subjects ........................................................................................ 99 5.1.2 Procedure ..................................................................................... 99 5.1.3 Stimuli ....................................................................................... 100 5.1.4 Predictions ................................................................................. 102 5.1.5 Results ....................................................................................... 102 5.1.6 Discussion .................................................................................
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