Markedness in Acquisition

1
Markedness in Acquisition

• Is there evidence for innate markedness-based
  bias in language processing?
• Look to see whether young infants are sensitive
  to markedness before theyve had sufficient
  relevant experience
• Before 6 months, infants have not shown
  sensitivity to language-particular phonotactics

2
Experimental Exploration of the Initial State

• Collaborators
• Peter Jusczyk Theresa AlloccoLanguage
  Acquisition, 2002
• Karen Arnold Elliott Moretonin progress
• Grammar at 4.5 months?

3
The Initial State

• OT-general MARKEDNESS FAITHFULNESS
• Learnability demands (Richness of the Base)
• (Alan Prince, p.c., 93 Smolensky 96a)
• ? Child production restricted to the unmarked
• ? Child comprehension not so restricted
• (Smolensky 96b)

4
Testing the Initial State

• Linking hypothesis
• More harmonic phonological stimuli ? Longer
  listening time
• More harmonic
• ?M ? M, when equal on F
• ?F ? F, when equal on M
• When must choose one or the other, more harmonic
  to satisfy M M F
• M Nasal Place Assimilation (NPA)

5
Experimental Paradigm

• Headturn Preference Procedure (Kemler Nelson et
  al. 95 Jusczyk 97)

• X/Y/XY paradigm (P. Jusczyk)
• un...b?...umb?
• un...b?...umb?

FNP
R
p .006
?FAITH

• Highly general paradigm Main result

6
4.5 Months (NPA)
7
4.5 Months (NPA)
8
4.5 Months (NPA)
9
5 Experiments
10
? Experimental Paradigm

• Headturn Preference Procedure (Kemler Nelson et
  al. 95 Jusczyk 97)

• X/Y/XY paradigm (P. Jusczyk)
• un...b?...umb? un...b?...umb? XYXY

FNP
R
p .006
?FAITH

• Highly general paradigm Main result

11
? Linking Hypothesis

• Experimental results challenging to explain
• Suppose stimuli A and B differ w.r.t. f.
• Child MARKf FAITHf (M F). Then
• If A is consistent with M F and B is
  consistent with F M then prefer (attend
  longer to) A A gt B

• Confirmation disconfirmation bias
• Most preferred Evidence that both confirms their
  favored hypothesis re M vs. F ranking, and
  disconfirms their disfavored hypothesis
• Attend longest to most informative stimuli

12
? Linking Hypothesis

• Experimental results challenging to explain
• Suppose stimuli A and B differ w.r.t. f.
• Child MARKf FAITHf (M F). Then
• If A is consistent with M F and B is
  consistent with F M then prefer (attend
  longer to) A A gt B

• MARKf Nasal Place Agreement
• f Place

13
? Experimental Results
If A is consistent with M F and B is
consistent with F M then prefer (attend
longer to) A A gt B
gt
mb ? mb
nb ? nb
gt
?
gt
?
nb ? nd
nb ? mb
p lt .05 ?MARK
p lt .001 nb ? mb M F
p lt .05 n ? m detectable
p gt .40 /nb/ nd ?UG mb
p gt .30 UG ? unreliability