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1. Learning morphology with inductive bias: Evidence from infixation

   Wilson, C. (January 2022, Proceedings of the 46th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development)

   Gong, Y.; Kpogo, F. (Ed.)

   In acquiring morphology, the language learner faces the challenge of identifying both the form of morphemes and their location within words. For example, individuals acquiring Chamorro (Austronesian) must learn an agreement morpheme with the form -um- that is infixed before the first vowel of the stem (1a). This challenge is more difficult when a morpheme has multiple forms and/or locations: in some varieties of Chamorro, the same agreement morpheme appears as mu- prefixed on verbs beginning with a nasal/liquid consonant (1b). The learner could potentially overcome the acquisition challenge by employing strong inductive biases. This hypothesis is consistent with the typological finding that, across languages, morphemes occupy a restricted set of prosodically-defined locations (Yu, 2007) and there are strong correlations between morpheme form and position (Anderson, 1972). We conducted a series of artificial morphology experiments, modeled after the Chamorro pattern, that provide converging evidence for such inductive biases (Pierrehumbert & Nair, 1995; Staroverov & Finley, 2021). 

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2. An Ultrasound Study of Connemara Irish Palatalization and Velarization

   Bennett, Ryan; Ní Chiosáin, Máire; Padgett, Jaye; McGuire, Grant (January 2018, Journal of the International Phonetic Association)

   We present the first ultrasound analysis of the secondary palatalization contrast in Irish, analyzing data from five speakers from the Connemara dialect group. Word-initial /pʲ(bʲ),pˠ(bˠ),tʲ,tˠ,kʲ,kˠ,fʲ,fˠ,sʲ,sˠ,xʲ,xˠ/ are analyzed in the context of /iː,uː/. We find, first, that tongue body position robustly distinguishes palatalized from velarized consonants, across place of articulation, manner, and vowel place contexts, with palatalized consonants having fronter and/or higher tongue body realizations than their velarized counterparts. This conclusion holds equally for labial consonants, contrary to some previous descriptive claims. Second, the nature and degree of palatalization and velarization depend in systematic ways on consonant place and manner. In coronal consonants, for example, velarization is weaker or absent. Third, the Irish consonants examined resist coarticulation in backness with a following vowel. In all of these respects Irish palatalization is remarkably similar to that of Russian. Our results also support an independent role for pharyngeal cavity expansion/retraction in the production of the palatalization contrast. Finally, we discuss preliminary findings on the dynamics of the secondary articulation gestures. Our use of principal component analysis (PCA) in reaching these findings is also of interest, since PCA has not been employed a great deal in analyses of tongue body movement. 

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3. Numeral mutation and ablaut in Lower Fungom languages

   https://doi.org/10.15460/auue.2024.97.1.390  

   Tschonghongei, Nelson C; Good, Jeff (December 2024, Afrika und Übersee)

   This paper provides new information on patterns of consonant mutation and vowel ablaut found in the numeral systems of four language varieties of the Lower Fungom region of Cameroon. This phenomenon is of interest in the context of the comparative investigation of noun class marking in Niger-Congo languages, and a particularly noteworthy pattern found in some of the varieties are apparent cases of mutated numeral roots being analogically extended to contexts where they would not be predicted to be found on the basis of regular patterns of sound change. 

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4. Failure to consolidate statistical learning in developmental dyslexia

   https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-022-02169-y  

   Ballan, Ranin; Durrant, Simon J.; Manoach, Dara S.; Gabay, Yafit (January 2022, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review)

   Statistical learning (SL), the ability to pick up patterns in sensory input, serves as one of the building blocks of language acquisition. Although SL has been studied extensively in developmental dyslexia (DD), much less is known about the way SL evolves over time. The handful of studies examining this question were all limited to the acquisition of motor sequential knowledge or highly learned segmented linguistic units. Here we examined memory consolidation of statistical regularities in adults with DD and typically developed (TD) readers by using auditory SL requiring the segmentation of units from continuous input, which represents one of the earliest learning challenges in language acquisition. DD and TD groups were exposed to tones in a probabilistically determined sequential structure varying in difficulty and subsequently tested for recognition of novel short sequences that adhered to this statistical pattern in immediate and delayed-recall sessions separated by a night of sleep. SL performance of the DD group at the easy and hard difficulty levels was poorer than that of the TD group in the immediate-recall session. Importantly, DD participants showed a significant overnight deterioration in SL performance at the medium difficulty level compared to TD, who instead showed overnight stabilization of the learned information. These findings imply that SL difficulties in DD may arise not only from impaired initial learning but also due to a failure to consolidate statistically structured information into long-term memory. We hypothesize that these deficits disrupt the typical course of language acquisition in those with DD. 

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5. Differences in Implicit vs. Explicit Grammar Processing as Revealed by Drift-Diffusion Modeling of Reaction Times

   Abugaber, D.; Morgan-Short, K. (January 2021, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society)

   Learning new languages is a complex cognitive task involving both implicit and explicit processes. Batterink, Oudiette, Reber, and Paller (2014) report that participants with vs. without conscious awareness of a hidden semi-artificial language regularity showed no significant differences in behavioral measures of grammar learning, suggesting that implicit/explicit routes may be functionally equivalent. However, their operationalization of learning via median reaction times might not capture underlying differences in cognitive processes. In a conceptual replication, we compared rule-aware (n=14) and rule-unaware (n=21) participants via drift-diffusion modeling, which can quantify distinct subcomponents of evidence-accumulation processes (Ratcliff & Rouder, 1998). For both groups, grammar learning was manifested in non-decision parameters, suggesting anticipation of motor responses. For rule-aware participants only, learning also affected bias in evidence accumulation during word reading. These results suggest that implicit grammar learning may be manifested through low-level mechanisms whereas explicit grammar learning may involve more direct engagement with encoded target meanings. 

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