Learning novel phonotactics from exposure to continuous speech

Frans Adriaans,René Kager

doi:10.5334/labphon.20

Abstract

<p class="p1">Knowledge of phonotactics is commonly assumed to derive from the lexicon. However, computational studies have suggested that phonotactic constraints might arise before the lexicon is in place, in particular from co-occurrences in continuous speech. The current study presents two artificial language learning experiments aimed at testing whether phonotactic learning can take place in the absence of words. Dutch participants were presented with novel consonant constraints embedded in continuous artificial languages. Vowels occurred at random, which resulted in an absence of recurring word forms in the speech stream. In Experiment 1 participants with different training languages showed significantly different preferences on a set of novel test items. However, only one of the two languages resulted in preferences that were above chance-level performance. In Experiment 2 participants were exposed to a control language without novel statistical cues. Participants did not develop a preference for either phonotactic structure in the test items. An analysis of Dutch phonotactics indicated that the failure to induce novel phonotactics in one condition might have been due to interference from the native language. Our findings suggest that novel phonotactics can be learned from continuous speech, but participants have difficulty learning novel patterns that go against the native language.

Highlights

One of the major challenges in early language acquisition is to learn the phonology that defines the words of the native language
The current study provides a direct test for the possibility that learners induce phonotactics from continuous speech
In two experiments with artificial languages, we investigate whether phonotactic learning can take place in the absence of recurring word forms in the speech stream

Summary

Introduction

One of the major challenges in early language acquisition is to learn the phonology that defines the words of the native language. Phonological acquisition starts in the first year of life, and includes the learning of stress patterns (Jusczyk et al, 1993a; Jusczyk et al, 1999b; Mehler et al, 1988; Morgan & Saffran, 1995; Nazzi et al, 1998), co-a rticulation (e.g., Fowler et al, 1990; Johnson & Jusczyk, 2001), allophony (e.g., Jusczyk et al, 1999a), and phonotactics (e.g., Friederici & Wessels, 1993; Jusczyk et al, 1993b; Jusczyk et al, 1994). Experimental studies addressing the learning of phonotactics show that both adults and infants induce constraints from exposure to items designed to meet those constraints. Similar findings have been reported in studies on phonotactic learning through speech production (e.g., Dell et al, 2000; Goldrick & Larson, 2008), and in studies with infants (Chambers et al, 2003)

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