CAS LX 400 Second Language AcquisitionPhonological parametersSome basic conceptsSlide 4Segment distinctionsSlide 6R vs. LL1A and contrastsL2A and UGPhonological interferencePhonological featuresPhonological features, filteringSlide 13More phonological parameters: SyllablesCrosslinguistic variationSonorityVariationSlide 18Syllable structureProsodic structureSlide 21Point is…Broselow & Finer (1991)Slide 24Breaking up clustersSlide 26Archibald (1998)Slide 28Slide 29Slide 30Slide 31Metrical structureSlide 33So where are we?Slide 35Slide 36Slide 37Week 13a. Second languageacquisition of phonologyCAS LX 400Second Language AcquisitionPhonological parameters•Describing adult native-speaker phonological grammars requires abstract structures not unlike the structures required for syntax.•Just like for syntax, differences between languages can be characterized in terms of phonological parameters.Some basic concepts•There is a fairly well-defined set of possible sounds that languages make use of.•Languages differ in which of these sounds play a role in the language.•For example, some languages have a sound like the English v, some don’t.•The “unit of sound” is the segment.Some basic concepts•There are a lot of different things that go into determining a segment.–Place of articulation–Voicing–Manner of articulation–Aspiration–Tenseness/laxness of tongue–…Segment distinctions•/p/ vs. /t/ vs. /k/ : place of articulation•/p/ vs. /b/, /t/ vs. /d/: ±voice•/t/ vs. /s/: ±continuant•/s/ vs. /sh/: ±distributive•/e/ vs. /i/: ±high•/e/ vs. /a/: ±back•/a/ vs. /o/: ±round•…Some basic concepts•Languages differ in what they “pay attention to” when differentiating segments from one another.•English does not distinguish aspirated and non-aspirated consonants. The p in pit is aspirated (ph), the p in spit. They “sound the same” to speakers of English.•Other languages distinguish p from ph—so pit and phit could be different words, with different meanings.•The distinguishable segments in a language are the phonemes of the language. One parameter of variation between languages is their phonemic inventory.R vs. L•An oft-used example of this is the distinction between r vs. l in English and the lack of said distinction in languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.•In Korean, for example, both segments are used, but it is phonologically conditioned—between vowels, it is r and elsewhere it is l. You don’t get to choose which one you use in a given context. So there’s no distinction. (Sunhi-lul = […-rul])L1A and contrasts•Little kids start out being able to distinguish contrasts between all possible segments, but quickly zoom in on the contrasts in their environment, losing the contrasts… Looks like a critical period, difficult for UG in L2A…•From Werker (1994): Hindi-Englishba ~ da dha ~ tha Ta ~ taH adults Fine Fine FineE infants (6-8mo) Fine Fine FineE kids (up to 4) Fine Bad BadE adults Fine Poor BadL2A and UG•We can ask many of the same questions we asked about syntax, but of phonology.•Learners have an interlanguage grammar of phonology as well.–Is this grammar primarily a product of transfer?–Can parameters be re-set for the target language values?–Do interlanguage phonologies act like real languages (constrained by UG)?•Here, it appears that transfer plays a big role and parameters are hard to re-set.Phonological interference•If L1’ers lose the ability to hear a contrast not in the L1, there is a strong possibility that the L1 phonology filters the L2 input.•L2’ers may not be getting the same data as L1’ers.•If you don’t perceive the contrast, you won’t acquire the contrast.Phonological features•Phonologists over the years have come up with a system of (universal) features that differentiate between sounds.–/p/ vs. /b/ differ in [+voice].–/p/ vs. /f/ differ in [+continuant].–…•What L1’ers seem to be doing is determining which features contrast in the language. If the language doesn’t distinguish voiced from voiceless consonants, L1’ers come to ignore [±voice].Phonological features, filtering•Brown (2000): Presented pairs of nonwords to speakers of Japanese, Korean, Mandarin.•Japanese and Korean speakers didn’t perceive the l ~ r contrast, Mandarin speakers did, although none of the languages has an l ~ r contrast.•However, Mandarin does have other segments which differ in [+coronal] ([r]), so Mandarin speakers do need to distinguish [±coronal] elsewhere.Phonological features, filtering•Han (1992). Japanese distinguishes geminate from non-geminate stops (consonant length; k vs. kk, e.g., black owl vs. black cat). English doesn’t (*kkat vs. kat).•English speakers of Japanese (even highly proficient otherwise) either missed this contrast altogether or produced long consonants that were not native-like (too short).More phonological parameters: Syllables•We have some intuitive idea of what syllables are. They are generally centered around a vowel and have some number of consonants before and after the vowel.•The vowel part of the syllable is the nucleus. We call the initial consonant(s) the onset, and we call the trailing consonant(s) the coda.Crosslinguistic variationV CV CVC VC CCV CCVC CVCC VCC CCVCC CVCCCHua √Cayuvava √ √Mazateco √ √ √Mokilese √ √ √ √Sedang √ √ √ √Klamath √ √ √Spanish √ √ √ √ √ √ Finnish √ √ √ √ √ √Totonac √ √ √ √ √ √ √English √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √Sonority•There is also a universal sonority hierarchy, ranking segments roughly by the amount of airflow (but really, sonority is a formal property, varies slightly from language to language seemingly depending on the phonemes distinguished).•High sonority segments make good nuclei, low sonority segments make good onsets and codas.–… a > i > r > l > n > s > t …Variation•Languages differ in the restrictions they place on their syllables.–The minimum sonority of a syllable nucleus–The maximum sonority of a syllable onset–The maximum sonority of a syllable coda–Whether onsets are required–Whether complex onsets are allowed–Whether codas are allowed–Whether complex codas are allowed–…Variation•Languages also place restrictions on the sonority of segments which occur together in a consonant cluster.•Usually, sonority must rise to the nucleus from both