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Sound systems are shaped by their users

The recombination of phonetic substance
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Abstract

Computational experiments were run using an optimization criterion based on independently motivated definitions of perceptual contrast, articulatory cost and learning cost. The question: If stop+vowel inventories are seen as adaptations to perceptual, articulatory and developmental constraints what would they be like? Simulations successfully predicted typologically widely observed place preferences and the re-use of place features (‘phonemic coding’) in voiced stop inventories. These results demonstrate the feasibility of user-based accounts of phonological facts and indicate the nature of the constraints that over time might shape the formation of both the formal structure and the intrinsic content of sound patterns. While phonetic factors are commonly invoked to account for substantive aspects of phonology, their explanatory scope is here also extended to a fundamental attribute of its formal organization: the combinatorial re-use of phonetic content. Keywords: phonological universals; phonetic systems; formal structure; intrinsic content; behavioral origins; substance-based explanation

Abstract

Computational experiments were run using an optimization criterion based on independently motivated definitions of perceptual contrast, articulatory cost and learning cost. The question: If stop+vowel inventories are seen as adaptations to perceptual, articulatory and developmental constraints what would they be like? Simulations successfully predicted typologically widely observed place preferences and the re-use of place features (‘phonemic coding’) in voiced stop inventories. These results demonstrate the feasibility of user-based accounts of phonological facts and indicate the nature of the constraints that over time might shape the formation of both the formal structure and the intrinsic content of sound patterns. While phonetic factors are commonly invoked to account for substantive aspects of phonology, their explanatory scope is here also extended to a fundamental attribute of its formal organization: the combinatorial re-use of phonetic content. Keywords: phonological universals; phonetic systems; formal structure; intrinsic content; behavioral origins; substance-based explanation

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Obituary ix
  4. List of contributors xiii
  5. Part I. Introduction
  6. Editors’ overview 3
  7. Part II. General and cognitive issues
  8. Features, segments, and the sources of phonological primitives 15
  9. Feature economy in natural, random, and synthetic inventories 43
  10. Part III. Acoustic and articulatory bases of features
  11. Sound systems are shaped by their users 67
  12. What features underline the /s/ vs. /s’/ contrast in Korean? 99
  13. Automaticity vs. feature-enhancement in the control of segmental F0 131
  14. Part IV. Extracting features from the signal
  15. Categorization and features 175
  16. Features as an emergent product of computing perceptual cues relative to expectations 197
  17. Features are phonological transforms of natural boundaries 237
  18. Part V. Features in phonological development
  19. Features in child phonology 261
  20. Phonological features in infancy 303
  21. Acoustic cues to stop-coda voicing contrasts in the speech of 2-3-year-olds learning American English 327
  22. Language index 343
  23. Subject index 345
Where Do Phonological Features Come From?
This chapter is in the book Where Do Phonological Features Come From?
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.6.04lin

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Obituary ix
  4. List of contributors xiii
  5. Part I. Introduction
  6. Editors’ overview 3
  7. Part II. General and cognitive issues
  8. Features, segments, and the sources of phonological primitives 15
  9. Feature economy in natural, random, and synthetic inventories 43
  10. Part III. Acoustic and articulatory bases of features
  11. Sound systems are shaped by their users 67
  12. What features underline the /s/ vs. /s’/ contrast in Korean? 99
  13. Automaticity vs. feature-enhancement in the control of segmental F0 131
  14. Part IV. Extracting features from the signal
  15. Categorization and features 175
  16. Features as an emergent product of computing perceptual cues relative to expectations 197
  17. Features are phonological transforms of natural boundaries 237
  18. Part V. Features in phonological development
  19. Features in child phonology 261
  20. Phonological features in infancy 303
  21. Acoustic cues to stop-coda voicing contrasts in the speech of 2-3-year-olds learning American English 327
  22. Language index 343
  23. Subject index 345
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