Course Description

The course will begin by considering the proposal that phonological systems are adaptive emergents shaped by evolutionary processes. We will read papers presenting evidence to this effect from the perspective of typology, language development, speech perception, sound change, and second language acquisition. We will also investigate proposals on the nature and role of functional constraints in phonological adaptation.

The second part of the course will focus on cognitive aspects of phonology. Topics will include: The nature of phonetic categories (prototype or exemplar?), usage (frequency) effects, the role of attention, and a bit on the neural basis of phonology. Evidence from speech processing and first and second language acquisition will be addressed.

Course Requirements

1. Reading and participating in the discussion of all articles. Additionally, each student will lead the discussion for one meeting.

2. Writing a paper on topic discussed with the instructor. Papers can be a literature review and research proposal with some pilot work. Students will have the opportunity to continue projects in the summer and fall terms with 605 credit.

3. Each student will present the work from their term paper in the last week of classes.

Readings

Week 1

Lindblom, B. (2000). Developmental origins of adult phonology: The interplay between phonetic emergents and the evolutionary adaptations of sound patterns. Phonetica, 57, 297-314.

Hayes, B. (1999). Phonetically-driven phonology: The role of optimality theory and inductive grounding. In M. Darnell, E. Moravscik, M. Noonan, F. Newmeyer, & K. Wheatly (Eds.), Functionalism and formalism in linguistics, volume I: General papers (pp. 243-285). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Week 2

Lindblom, B., & Maddieson, I. (1988). Phonetic universals in consonant systems. In L. M. Hyman, & C. N. Li (Eds.), Language, Speech, and Mind (pp. 62-78). New York: Routledge.

Lindblom, B. (1986). Phonetic universals in vowel systems. In J. Ohala, & J. J. Jaeger (Eds.), Experimental Phonology (pp. 13-44). New York: Academic Press.

Guion, S. G. (2001). Evidence for adaptive dispersion in Quichua-Spanish bilinguals.

Week 3

Willerman, R. (1994). The phonetics of pronouns: articulatory bases of markedness. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.

MacNeilage, P. F. (1998). The frame/content theory of evolution of speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21, 499-546.

MacNeilage, P. F., Davis, B. L., Kinney, A., & Matyear, C. L. (2000). The motor core of speech: a comparison of serial organization patterns in infants and languages. Child Development, 71(1), 153-163.

Week 4

Redford, M. A., Chen, C. C., & Miikkulainen, R. (2001). Constrained emergence of universals and variation in syllable systems. Language and Speech, 44(1), 12-56.

Diehl, R. L., Kleunder, K. R., & Walsh, M. A. (1990). Some auditory bases of speech perception and production. In W. A. Ainsworth (ed.), Advances in Speech, Hearing and Language Processing (Vol. 1pp. 243-267). Greenwich, Conn: JAI Press.

Diehl, R. L., Molis, M. R., & Castleman, W. A. (2001). Adaptive design of sound systems: some auditory considerations. In E. Hume, & K. Johnson (Eds.), The role of speech perception in phonology (pp. 123-140). New York: Academic Press.

Week 5

Ohala, J. J. (1993). The phonetics of sound change. In C. Jones (Ed.), Historical linguistics: problems and perspectives (pp. 237-278). London: Longman.

Lindblom, B., Guion, S., Hura, S., Moon, S.-J., & Willerman, R. (1995). Is sound change adaptive? Rivista Di Linguistica, 7(1), 5-37.

Guion, S. G. (1998). The role of perception in the sound change of velar palatalization. Phonetica, 55, 18-53. (optional)

Guion, S. G. (1996). Velar palatalization: coarticulation, perception and sound change (Chapter 5). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.

Week 6

Kuhl, P. A. (1991). Human adults and human infants show a "perceptual magnet effect" for prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do not. Perception and Psychophysics, 50(2), 93-107.

Kuhl, P. A. (2000). A new view of language acquisition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 97(22), 11850-11857.

Lacerda, F. (2001). Distributed memory representation generate the perceptual-magnet effect.

Week 7

Hintzman, D. L. (1986). "Schema abstraction" in a multiple-trace memory model. Psychological Review, 93(4), 411-428. (Optional)

Goldinger, S. D. (1998). Echoes of echoes? An episodic theory of lexical access. Psychological Review, 105 (2), 251-279.

Johnson, K. (1997). Speech perception without speaker normalization. In K. Johnson, & J. W. Mullennix (Eds.), Talker Variability in Speech Processing . NY: Academic Press.

Pierrehumbert, J. B. (2001). Exemplar dynamics: Word frequency, lenition and contrast. J. Bybee, & P. Hopper (Eds.), Frequency and emergence of linguistic structure (pp. 137-157). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Week 8

Bybee, J. (2001). Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Guion, S. G., & Pederson, E. (2002). The role of orienting attention for learning novel phonetic categories.

Week 9

Sussman, H. (2002). Representation of phonological categories: A functional role for auditory columns. Brain and Language, 80, 1-13.

Näätänen, R. (2001). The perception of speech sounds by the human brain as reflected by the mismatch negativity (MMN) and its magnetic equivalent (MMNm). Psychophysiology, 38, 1-21.

Winkler, I., Kujala, T., Tiitinen, H., Sivonen, P., Alku, P., Lehtokoski, A., Czigler, I., Csépe, V., Ilmoniemi, R. J., & Näätänen, R. (1999). Brain responses reveal the learning of foreign language phonemes. Psychophysiology, 36, 638-642.

Sharma, A., & Dorman, M. F. (1999). Cortical auditory evoked potential correlates of categorical perception of voice-onset time. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106(2), 1078-1083.

Wang, Y., Sereno, J., Jongman, A., & Hirsch, J. (2000). Cortical reorganization associated with the acquisition of Mandarin tones by American learners: An fMRI study. Proceedings of the International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, II, 511-514.

Week 10

Student Presentations