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UID:20260730T044705EDT-0336v9vpi9@132.216.98.100
DTSTAMP:20260730T084705Z
DESCRIPTION:Perceptual Dispersion in the Lexicon\nPeter Graff (MIT)\nIt has
  often been noted that the phoneme inventories of human\nlanguage are subj
 ect to considerations of distinctness (e.g.\,\nMartinet 1955\, Liljencrant
 s and Lindblom 1972\, Flemming 2002). In\nthis talk\, I show that it is no
 t only inventories of phonemes but\nalso a language’s inventory of words (
 i.e.\, the lexicon) that is\nsubject to the very same perceptual pressures
 . Words\, just like\nphonemes\, preferentially rely on highly perceptible 
 contrasts for\ndistinctness. I present evidence for this from the cross-li
 nguistic\ndistribution of minimal pairs.\nUsing a corpus of phonetically t
 ranscribed dictionaries of 61\ndifferent languages from 25 major language 
 families\, I show that\nthe number of words disambiguated solely by place 
 contrasts in\nintervocalic (a[p]end:a[t]end\; V_V)\, prevocalic (s[p]y:s[t
 ]y\; C_V)\,\npostvocalic (swee[p]s:swee[t]s\; V_C)\, and interconsonantal
 \n(cor[p]se:cour[t]s\; C_C) context decreases as a function of the\npercep
 tibility of cues to place in those contexts (Repp 1978\,\nFujimura et al. 
 1978\, Ohala 1990\, Wright 1996\, Kochetov 2004).\nUsing log-linear mixed-
 effects models\, I show that these\nasymmetries go beyond what is expected
  from the frequency and\nrelative distribution of individual sounds in dif
 ferent\nlanguages.\nIn a second study I show that analogous results obtain
  for\nlaryngeal contrasts in different languages. There are more minimal\n
 pairs like a[p]ace:a[b]ase (V_V) than pairs like\ndis[p]erse:dis[b]urse (C
 _V) than pairs like sta[p]le:sta[b]le (V_C)\nthan pairs like am[p]le:am[b]
 le (C_C)\, mirroring the availability\nof cues to voicing (Raphael 1981\, 
 Slis 1986\, Lisker 1986). Again\, I\nshow that results hold while controll
 ing for sound-specific\ndistributions.\nA third study finds that the numbe
 r of minimal pairs based on\nconsonantal differences in English increases 
 significantly with the\nperceptual distinctness of the consonants distingu
 ishing them.\nThere are more pairs like pop:shop relying on the highly dis
 tinct\n/p/:/ʃ/ contrast\, than pairs like thought:fought relying on highly
 \nsimilar /θ/:/f/ in the English lexicon.\nI argue that these results have
  important implications for\ntheories of the kind of knowledge speakers ha
 ve access to in\nlearning and using their language (cf Hayes and Steriade 
 2004 and\nBlevins 2004 for differing views). While many cross-linguistic\n
 patterns in phoneme inventories are amenable to explanations in\nterms of 
 what Ohala (1990) refers to as innocent misapprehension\,\ndispersion of w
 ords is not. If speakers simply misperceived certain\ncontrasts more\, the
 n these contrasts should drop out regardless of\nwhether they distinguish 
 among words or not. For the patterns\nidentified above to arise\, language
  usage or learning must be\nsensitive to the perceptual similarity of word
 s.\n
DTSTART:20120123T200000Z
DTEND:20120123T220000Z
LOCATION:Education Building\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 1Y2\, 3700 rue McTav
 ish
SUMMARY:91Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ Linguistics Phonology Job Talk - Peter Graff (MIT)
URL:/channels/event/mcgill-linguistics-phonology-job-t
 alk-peter-graff-mit-213368
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