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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Phonotactic Learning With Distributional Representations, Max A. Nelson Oct 2022

Phonotactic Learning With Distributional Representations, Max A. Nelson

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the possibility that the phonological grammar manipulates phone representations based on learned distributional class memberships rather than those based on substantive linguistic features. In doing so, this work makes three primary contributions. First, I propose three novel algorithms for learning a phonological class system from the distributional statistics of a language, all of which are based on partitioning graph representations of phone distributions. Second, I propose a new method for fitting Maximum Entropy phonotactic grammars, MaxEntGrams, which offers theoretical complexity improvements over the widely-adopted approach taken by Hayes and Wilson [2008]. Third, I present a series of …


Examining Variability In Spanish Monolingual And Bilingual Phonotactics: A Look At Sc-Clusters, Katerina A. Tetzloff Oct 2022

Examining Variability In Spanish Monolingual And Bilingual Phonotactics: A Look At Sc-Clusters, Katerina A. Tetzloff

Doctoral Dissertations

Current models of generative phonology have failed to address the variability that is observed in bilingual language patterns patterns. This dissertation addresses exactly that issue by examining the perception of Spanish sC-clusters in Spanish monolinguals and English-Spanish bilinguals. Surface sC-clusters in onset position are prohibited in Spanish and are repaired by inserting a prothetic /e/ (sC $\rightarrow$ esC). English differs in that it allows sC-cluster onsets, and the structure of the sC-cluster has been shown to differ based on the sonority profile (i.e., s+stop clusters are bisyllabic, s+liquid clusters are tautosyllabic). A batch version of a Harmonic Grammar Gradual Learning …