Joseph Paul Stemberger

Handbook of phonological development : from the perspective of constraint-based nonlinear phonology

Introduction. Worldviews for Phonology. Phonological Representations and Processes. Constraints. Segmental Development. Prosodic Development. Sequences of Elements. Theory and Application: Not Just for the Clinician. Acquisition of Adult Alternations. Discussion and Conclusions. Appendix A: International Phonetic Association (1989) Symbols Used in This book. Appendix B: The Features Used in This Book. Appendix C: List of the Constraints of Optimality Theory. Appendix D: Practical Guidelines for Using Constraints. References. Index.

Frequency and the Lexical Storage of Regularly Inflected Forms

It has often been hypothesized that speakers store regularly inflected forms as separate entries in the lexicon. If this hypothesis is true, high-frequency lexical items will have lower error rates on their inflections than will low-frequency lexical items. This is shown to be the case for errors on irregular inflected forms in naturally occurring speech errors. High-frequency regularly inflected forms exhibit a small (but nonsignificant) advantage in naturally occurring errors, and a larger (significant) advantage in a more controlled experimental task in which subjects produced the past-tense forms of regular verbs. These data are best explained by assuming that high frequency inflected forms are stored as separate entries in the lexicon. Consequences of this finding for theories of language production and language learning are discussed.

Wordshape errors in language production

Errors in natural speech that crucially involve the shape of the target word, i.e. interact in some way with the number of consonants and vowels in the word and their relative positioning, are examined in detail. It is shown that context highly constrains the rate of such errors. The data implicate a distinction between a segment level that encodes fine phonemic distinctions and a wordshape level with a course encoding. Implications for the representation of language and cognitive processing in language production are explored.

Speech errors in early child language production

Abstract There has been very little attention paid to nonsystemic errors in child language that closely resemble the speech errors made by adults. I have collected 576 such errors in the course of doing diary studies on my two children. Analyses reveal strong similarities with adult errors, suggesting that the language production system is set up in an adult-like fashion from a very early age. However, a number of differences suggest interesting ways in which the childs language production system differs from that of adults: a lower rate of decay for the activation of elements that have been accessed and less interdependence between different phonological elements in a word or segment. The data are useful for settling some of the controversies about adult language production that are based on error phenomena and support some of the predictions made by recent connectionist models.

Apparent anti-frequency effects in language production : the addition bias and phonological underspecification

Abstract Speech errors are explored using an experimental task. It is shown that there are asymmetries between certain pairs of consonants: alveolar consonants are more often replaced by consonants of other places of articulation than vice versa; oral stops are more often replaced by consonants of other manners of articulation than vice versa; and voiceless consonants are more often replaced by voiced consonants than vice versa. In most instances, the higher error rate is on the phoneme of higher frequency. The same contrasts show a high proportion of exchange errors. Other contrasts show a greater error rate on the phoneme of lower frequency and a low proportion of exchange errors. It is argued that the data reflect two biases in language production: the Frequency Effect and the Addition Bias (which has been demonstrated with consonant clusters). The data argue for the psychological reality of the concept of underspecification from linguistic theory, which holds that some feature values of phonological segments are left blank in lexical representations and filled in later with default feature-filling rules.

Structural errors in normal and agrammatic speech

Abstract Many errors in normal speech are best described as instances where the wrong morphological or syntactic structure is accessed. This often leads to the addition or loss of closed class lexical items. Structural substitutions are biased towards more frequent structures and towards minimal structures that are shared by many more elaborated structures. In English, both biases favour structures without closed class items, so that closed class items are more often lost than added. The loss of open class lexical items is qualitatively different, and is much less common. It is not necessary to assume that open and closed class lexical items constitute separate processing vocabularies. Brocas aphasics show a similar pattern of errors, known as agrammatism, that can be accounted for in the same fashion.

The internal structure of word-initial consonant clusters ☆

The representation of word-initial consonant clusters is explored by examining speech errors that involve a cluster made up of two consonants, such as /pr/ of pray. Spontaneous speech errors and four studies of experimentally induced speech errors yielded similar results. The first member of a cluster is less likely to be lost, added, or mispronounced than the second member of the cluster. In addition, the first member of the cluster is more similar to a singleton consonant than the second member. Simple activation-based explanations cannot account for this data. We argue that clusters must contain two distinct types of syllable positions: a C1 position (also found with singleton consonants) and a C2 position (found only in clusters).

The nature of segments in the lexicon: Evidence from speech errors

Abstract Phonological theory provides two hypotheses about the nature of segments in the lexicon. The Feature-Segment Hypothesis (FSH) holds that segments are bundles of features. The Indivisible-Segment Hypothesis (ISH) maintains that segments in the lexicon are unanalyzable, and that features are obtained from a segmental lexicon. Under FSH, putting archisegments and fine phonetic detail into the lexicon constitutes a simplification, while these add complexity under ISH. Evidence is presented from three types of speech errors that are problems of lexical access: word blends, noncontextually-related phonological errors, and within-word phonological sequencing errors. Mechanisms involved in accessing segments from the lexicon under both hypotheses are discussed in detail. In all cases, FSH makes incorrect predictions about the types of errors that can occur, while ISH is compatible with all the data. It is concluded that features cannot be present in lexical entries. Errors in aphasia and child language support this conclusion.

THE UNDERSPECIFICATION OF CORONALS: EVIDENCE FROM LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND PERFORMANCE ERRORS

Publisher Summary Coronals often take part in phonological patterns that are different from those of other places of articulation. In many languages, coronals assimilate to other places of articulation even though velars and labials do not assimilate. Such behavior has been used to argue that coronals are not specified for place of articulation in underlying forms. This chapter discusses the underspecification of coronals, which is evident from language acquisition and performance errors. It explores error phenomena involving the interaction of coronals with other places of articulation. In English, [coronal] would be specified for obstruents and /n/ because place of articulation is contrastive. The only alveolars for which it would be underspecified are /l/ and /r/; as the only liquids in English are alveolars, their place of articulation is not contrastive.

Syntactic errors in speech

Speech errors can be used to examine the nature of syntactic processing in speech production. Using such evidence, Fay (1980a, 1980b) maintains that deep structure and transformations are psychologically real. However, an interactive activation model that generates surface syntactic structures directly can account for all the data. Most syntactic errors are substitutions: The target phrase structure is replaced by a semantically related structure. Blends of two syntactic structures are also common. Transformations cannot account for much of the data and are not necessary to explain any of them. While it is impossible to prove that transformations do not exist, syntactic theories that do not include transformations have the potential to be psychologically valid.