ARE PHONOLOGICAL ENTITIES FICTITIOUS OR REAL? - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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ARE PHONOLOGICAL ENTITIES FICTITIOUS OR REAL?

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Title: ARE PHONOLOGICAL ENTITIES FICTITIOUS OR REAL?


1
ARE PHONOLOGICAL ENTITIES FICTITIOUS OR REAL?
  • Prepared by Agnieszka Sowinska and Beata
    Szymczak
  • Based on Self-organizing processes and the
    explanation of phonological universals by
    B.Lindblom

2
  • Where do phonological universals such as segments
    and features come from?

3
...we will be using
  • a self-organizing model of phonological
    structure
  • implemented in a series of computational
    experiments organized to simulate the emergence
    of segments and features
  • which was to select a subset of k phonetic
    signals from a larger inventory of n universally
    possible gestures.

4
holistic coding

phonemic coding
  • every derived syllable remains a gestalt pattern
    that cannot be fractioned into smaller parts
    occurring also in other syllables
  • one holistic phonetic signal per morpheme
  • every selected signal can be reduced to subparts
    shared with other syllables of the subset
  • mapping meaning onto sound by forming combinatory
    patterns of segments and features

5
THREE RESULTS LOOM LARGE
  • 1) the occurrence of MINIMAL PAIRS, (instances of
    phonemic and segmental coding)
  • 2) the possibility of analyzing the derived
    contrasts in terms of DISTINCTIVE FEATURES (eg.
    grave-acute)
  • 3) the RULE governing the distribution of palatal
    and velar allophone of the /g/ phoneme

SEGMENT, FEATURE, RULE - are not explicit
constructs of the present theory - BUT are
IMPLICIT properties of the phonetic signals
6
The conditions under which structuration into
segments and features arise
  • the mechanism favouring phonemic coding ( the
    repeated contrastive use of a syllable onset and
    offset) requires that k - the lexicon - be much
    greater than the number of available onsets and
    offsets
  • IF
  • 1 the performance constraints severely limit the
    phonetic variation of onsets and offsets
  • 2 k becomes sufficiently large relative to the
    phonetic repertoire
  • THEN
  • speakers can find a way of making their
    inventory of phonetic signals grow ONLY by
    invoking gesture onsets and offsets repeatedly
    and in new combinations

7
It leads us further to...
  • THE SEGMENTAL AND FEATURAL STRUCTURATION BUILT
    INTO THE PHYLOGENY AND ONTOGENY OF SPEECH AS A
    STATISTICAL BIAS, AND ARISING IMPLICITLY IN A
    SELF-ORGANIZING MANNER

8
And now its high time we got down to the
nitty-gritty
WHERE DO SEGMENTS AND FEATURES COME FROM?
9
Two general approaches
  • MENTALISTIC
  • based on information theory that treats speech as
    an error-correcting code ( eg. our early
    ancestors...)
  • MECHANISTIC
  • eg. children-appear to use words as unanalyzed
    wholes never aware of having acquired phonemic
    coding, which seems to emerge in an automatic
    and implicit manner

10
THE THEORY OF SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEMS (a
mechanistic explanation)
  • a scientific paradigm which has recently arisen
    at the intersection of physics, chemistry,
    biology, and sociology
  • aims at formulating the general laws governing
    the spontaneous occurrence of order in nature and
    the evolutionary dynamics

11
PHONOLOGICAL STRUCTURE
  • INTERACTION AMONG SUBSYSTEMS
  • SELF-ORGANIZATION

STRUCTURATION
12
TERMITE NEST BUILDING (M. Turvey)
  • The form of these nests appears to arise as a
    result of a simple local behavioral pattern
    followed by each individual insect in the
    presence of certain local stimulus conditions

13
SIMULATIONS OF EMERGING PHONETIC STRUCTURE
  • Size of lexicon or signal inventory - k
  • Universal phonetic signal space (specific at
    three levels articulation, acoustics,
    perception)

14
UNIVERSAL PHONETIC SIGNAL SPACE
  • We specify the lg-independent universal class of
    possible articulations confined to vowels and
    voiced stops
  • these articulations involve transitions from a
    closed (stoplike) to and open (vowellike) state
  • possible CV event (a straight line coursing
    between a possible locus - assigned to each
    closure location - and a possible vowel )
  • possible CV syllable - any trajectory running
    between an arbitrarty but possible locus and an
    arbitrary but possible vowel in the space defined
    by the first four formants
  • the CV space- a continous one made up of
    infinitely many holistic signals (quantally
    structured)

15
Figure 1. The main result of the study
demonstrating that in the presence of certain
constraints a continuous space can become
quantally structured.
16
Phonetic constraints
  • Talker-based conditions
  • sensory discriminability
  • preference for less extreme articulation
  • Listener-based conditions
  • perceptual distance
  • perceptual salience

17
Where the open-close feature comes from in vowels?
  • THE AIM the assigment of phonetic shape to a
    minilexicon consisting of k lexical elements
    with distinct meanings
  • THE RESULT systems of CV syllables tend to be
    selected in such a way that they achieve
    sufficient perceptual differences at acceptable
    articulatory costs
  • every syllable was used once as the initial item

18
  • SYLLABLE END POINTS

Figure 2. Occurence of derived CV
combinations
19
OUR CONCLUSIONS ARE...
  • The computations were insensitive to how the
    recursive search was initiated
  • the most favored vowel turned out to be ?
  • Figure 2 differs from a holistic coding in that
    individual CV transitions can indeed be
    fractioned into smaller parts also occurring in
    other CV sequences

20
Figure 3. Tendency towards complementary
distribution of /g/ allophones
21
It will take us to two extreme outcomes...
  • We need a minilexicon containing 12 words, in
    the form of CV syllables
  • We search for sets of 12 CV sequences

22
The holistic coding -no minimal pairs Every
CV transition is a gestalt that cannot be
fractioned into smaller parts also occurring in
other CV sequences
23
END POINTS 1 2 3 4
STARTING 1 2 POINTS
3
ALL POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS OF POINTS USED
24
running out of onsets/offsets as a numerical
artefact
  • The first item ba - the gradual emergence of a
    near-optimal sequence of syllables in a schematic
    way
  • We ask the computer to generate no more than 7
    syllables

25
(No Transcript)
26
THE RESULTS ARE
  • minimal pairs the simulated phonemic
    constraints are not artefacts, and they could by
    a result of running out of onsets/offsets
  • the size of that inventory is determined by the
    severity of the performance constraints
  • the rank order is determined by the perceptual
    distance and salience criterion

27
The origin of segments and features an
explanation based on the concept of
self-organization
  • - Random sampling of the possibilities offered by
    the universal phonetic space should make all such
    possibilities equally possible. However, in the
    presence of certain constraints, nonuniform
    preferences for certain syllables over others
    arise (quantal structuration).
  • - The notion of system implies certain
    paradigmatic relations among the elements of the
    system must hold. When those relations are
    present, structuration occurs gtimplicit form
    emerges and the causes of such pattern formation
    are indirect.
  • Let us describe our ancestors joint effort to
    define the phonetic shapes of a growing set of
    concepts as A RANDOM SAMPLING OF THE UNIVERSAL
    PHONETIC SPACE IN THE PRESENCE OF PERFORMANCE
    CONSTRAINTS. ?

28
  • ? Our preceding reasoning that quantal
    structuration is built into the phylogeny of
    speech as a statistical bizs should apply. When
    several individuals find that their random
    samplings sometimes converge and similar signals
    are favoured, a situation that might be conducive
    to socially conventionalised naming appesrs to
    be at hand.
  • Results
  • 1) evidence of phonemelike or segmental
    coding
  • 2) the predicted syllables bear some, if not
    strong, resemblance to natural sets of syllables
  • 3) the rather realistic allophonic variation
    of the /g/ phoneme
  • FEATURE, PHONEME, and ALLOPHONIC RULE are present
    only IMPLICIT properties of the behaviour. They
    are derived rather than axiomatically postulated
    as substantive universals.

29
It was worth wading through...because now, its
time for...
THE END
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