Predicting the Unpredictable: Interpreting Neutralized Segments in Dutch

Among the most fascinating data for phonology are those showing how speakers incorporate new words and foreign words into their language system, since these data provide cues to the actual principles underlying language. In this article, we address how speakers deal with neutralized obstruents in ne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language (Baltimore) 2003-03, Vol.79 (1), p.5-38
Main Authors: Mirjam Ernestus, Baayen, R. Harald
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alveolar consonants
Carts
Consonants
Descriptive studies and applied theories
Dutch
Fricative consonants
Language
Linguistics
Modeling
Morphemes
Phonology
Speech
Syllables
Vowels
Words
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Summary:Among the most fascinating data for phonology are those showing how speakers incorporate new words and foreign words into their language system, since these data provide cues to the actual principles underlying language. In this article, we address how speakers deal with neutralized obstruents in new words. We formulate four hypotheses and test them on the basis of Dutch word-final obstruents, which are neutral for [voice]. Our experiments show that speakers predict the characteristics of neutralized segments on the basis of phonologically similar morphemes stored in the mental lexicon. This effect of the similar morphemes can be modeled in several ways. We compare five models, among them stochastic optimality theory and analogical modeling of language; all perform approximately equally well, but they differ in their complexity, with analogical modeling of language providing the most economical explanation
ISSN:0097-8507
1535-0665
1535-0665
DOI:10.1353/lan.2003.0076