Domain generalisation in artificial language learning

Phonology ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Myers ◽  
Jaye Padgett
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Distributional Patterns

Many languages have restrictions on word-final segments, such as a requirement that any word-final obstruent be voiceless. There is a phonetic basis for such restrictions at the ends of utterances, but not the ends of words. Historical linguists have long noted this mismatch, and have attributed it to an analogical generalisation of such restrictions from utterance-final to word-final position. To test whether language learners actually generalise in this way, two artificial language learning experiments were conducted. Participants heard nonsense utterances in which there was a restriction on utterance-final obstruents, but in which no information was available about word-final utterance-medial obstruents. They were then tested on utterances that included obstruents in both positions. They learned the pattern and generalised it to word-final utterance-medial position, confirming that learners are biased toward word-based distributional patterns.

scholarly journals Compositional Hierarchical Structure Evolves through Cultural Transmission: An Experimental Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Saldana ◽  
Simon Kirby ◽  
Robert Truswell ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Compositional Structure ◽  
Evolutionary Linguistics ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Iterated Learning

AbstractCompositional hierarchical structure is a prerequisite for productive languages; it allows language learners to express and understand an infinity of meanings from finite sources (i.e., a lexicon and a grammar). Understanding how such structure evolved is central to evolutionary linguistics. Previous work combining artificial language learning and iterated learning techniques has shown how basic compositional structure can evolve from the trade-off between learnability and expressivity pressures at play in language transmission. In the present study we show, across two experiments, how the same mechanisms involved in the evolution of basic compositionality can also lead to the evolution of compositional hierarchical structure. We thus provide experimental evidence showing that cultural transmission allows advantages of compositional hierarchical structure in language learning and use to permeate language as a system of behaviour.

scholarly journals THE USE OF PROSODIC CUES IN LEARNING NEW WORDS IN AN UNFAMILIAR LANGUAGE

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahyang Kim ◽  
Mirjam Broersma ◽  
Taehong Cho
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Initial Exposure ◽  
New Words ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Nonnative Language

The artificial language learning paradigm was used to investigate to what extent the use of prosodic features is universally applicable or specifically language driven in learning an unfamiliar language, and how nonnative prosodic patterns can be learned. Listeners of unrelated languages—Dutch (n= 100) and Korean (n= 100)—participated. The words to be learned varied with prosodic cues: no prosody, fundamental frequency (F0) rise in initial and final position, final lengthening, and final lengthening plus F0 rise. Both listener groups performed well above chance level with the final lengthening cue, confirming its crosslinguistic use. As for final F0 rise, however, Dutch listeners did not use it until the second exposure session, whereas Korean listeners used it at initial exposure. Neither group used initial F0 rise. On the basis of these results, F0 and durational cues appear to be universal in the sense that they are used across languages for their universally applicable auditory-perceptual saliency, but how they are used is language specific and constrains the use of available prosodic cues in processing a nonnative language. A discussion on how these findings bear on theories of second language (L2) speech perception and learning is provided.

scholarly journals Infinite use of finite means? Evaluating the generalization of center embedding learned from an artificial grammar

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Thomas McCoy ◽  
Jennifer Culbertson ◽  
Paul Smolensky ◽  
Géraldine Legendre
Keyword(s):  
Finite Number ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Generative Capacity ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Training Sequences ◽  
Center Embedding

Human language is often assumed to make "infinite use of finite means" - that is, to generate an infinite number of possible utterances from a finite number of building blocks. From an acquisition perspective, this assumed property of language is interesting because learners must acquire their languages from a finite number of examples. To acquire an infinite language, learners must therefore generalize beyond the finite bounds of the linguistic data they have observed. In this work, we use an artificial language learning experiment to investigate whether people generalize in this way. We train participants on sequences from a simple grammar featuring center embedding, where the training sequences have at most two levels of embedding, and then evaluate whether participants accept sequences of a greater depth of embedding. We find that, when participants learn the pattern for sequences of the sizes they have observed, they also extrapolate it to sequences with a greater depth of embedding. These results support the hypothesis that the learning biases of humans favor languages with an infinite generative capacity.

scholarly journals Compositional hierarchical structure evolves through cultural transmission: an experimental study

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Saldana ◽  
Simon Kirby ◽  
Rob Truswell ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Compositional Structure ◽  
Evolutionary Linguistics ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Iterated Learning

Compositional hierarchical structure is a prerequisite for productive languages; it allows language learners to express and understand an infinity of meanings from finite sources (i.e., a lexicon and a grammar). Understanding how such structure evolved is central to evolutionary linguistics. Previous work combining artificial language learning and iterated learning techniques has shown how basic compositional structure can evolve from the trade-off between learnability and expressivity pressures at play in language transmission. In the present study we show, across two experiments, how the same mechanisms involved in the evolution of basic compositionality can also lead to the evolution of compositional hierarchical structure. We thus provide experimental evidence showing that cultural transmission allows advantages of compositional hierarchical structure in language learning and use to permeate language as a system of behaviour.

scholarly journals The status of word-final phonetic phenomena

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 599
Author(s):  
Megan Rouch ◽  
Anya Lunden
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Speech Stream ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Word Level ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right

The right edge of the word is a known domain for processes like phonological devoicing. This has been argued to be the effect of analogy from higher prosodic domains, rather than an in situ motivated change (Hock 1999, Hualde and Eager 2016). Phonetic word-level phenomena of final lengthening and final devoicing have been found to occur natively word-finally (Lunden 2006, 2017, Nakai et al. 2009) despite claims that they have no natural phonetic pressure originating in this position (Hock 1999). We present the results of artificial language learning studies that seek to answer the question of whether phonetic-level cues to the word-final position can aid in language parsing. If they do, it provides evidence that listeners can make use of word-level phonetic phenomena, which, together with studies that have found them to be present, speaks to their inherent presence at the word level. We find that adult listeners are better able to recognize the words they heard in a speech stream, and better able to reject words that they did not hear, when final lengthening was present at the right edge of the word. Final devoicing was not found to give the same boost to parsing.

scholarly journals Is regularisation uniform across linguistic levels? Comparing learning and production of unconditioned probabilistic variation in morphology and word order.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Saldana ◽  
Kenny Smith ◽  
Simon Kirby ◽  
Jennifer Culbertson
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Morphological Variation ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Natural Language Learning

Languages exhibit variation at all linguistic levels, from phonology, to the lexicon, to syntax. Importantly, that variation tends to be (at least partially) conditioned on some aspect of the social or linguistic context. When variation is unconditioned, language learners regularise it—removing some or all variants, or conditioning variant use on context. Previous studies using artificial language learning experiments have documented regularising behaviour in learning of lexical, morphological, and syntactic variation. These studies implicitly assume that regularisation reflects uniform mechanisms and processes across linguistic levels. However, studies on natural language learning and pidginisation suggest that morphological and syntactic variation may be treated differently. In particular, there is evidence that morphological variation may be more susceptible to regularisation (Good 2015;Siegel 2006; Slobin 1986). Here we provide the first systematic comparison of the strength of regularisation across these two linguistic levels. In line with previous studies, we find that the presence of a favoured variant can induce different degrees of regularisation. However, when input languages are carefully matched—with comparable initial variability, and no variant-specific biases—regularisation can be comparable across morphology and word order. This is the case regard-less of whether the task is explicitly communicative. Overall, our findings suggest an overarching regularising mechanism at work, with apparent differences among levels likely due to differences in inherent complexity or variant-specific biases. Differences between production and encoding in our tasks further suggests this overarching mechanism is driven by production

scholarly journals In search of resilient and fragile properties of language

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. 64-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Fundamental Properties ◽  
Linguistic Input ◽  
Language Input

ABSTRACTYoung children are skilled language learners. They apply their skills to the language input they receive from their parents and, in this way, derive patterns that are statistically related to their input. But being an excellent statistical learner does not explain why children who are not exposed to usable linguistic input nevertheless communicate using systems containing the fundamental properties of language. Nor does it explain why learners sometimes alter the linguistic input to which they are exposed (input from either a natural or an artificial language). These observations suggest that children are prepared to learn language. Our task now, as it was in 1974, is to figure out what they are prepared with – to identify properties of language that are relatively easy to learn, the resilient properties, as well as properties of language that are more difficult to learn, the fragile properties. The new tools and paradigms for describing and explaining language learning that have been introduced into the field since 1974 offer great promise for accomplishing this task.

scholarly journals Children’s sensitivity to phonological and semantic cues during noun class learning: evidence for a phonological bias

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Culbertson ◽  
Hanna Jarvinen ◽  
Frances Haggarty ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Classification Systems ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Phonological Information ◽  
Semantic Cues ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Cue Use ◽  
Noun Class

Previous research on the acquisition of noun classification systems (e.g., grammatical gender) has found that child learners rely disproportionately on phonological cues to determine the class of a new noun, even when competing semantic cues are more reliable in their language. Culbertson, Gagliardi, and Smith (2017) argue that this likely results from the early availability of phonological information during acquisition; learners base their initial representations on formal features of nouns, only later integrating semantic cues from noun meanings . Here, we use artificial language learning experiments to show that early availability drives cue use in children (67 year-olds). However, we also find evidence of developmental changes in sensitivity to semantics; when both cues types are simultaneously available, children are more likely to rely on phonology than adults. Our results suggest that early availability and a bias favoring phonological cues both contribute to children’s over-reliance on phonology in natural language acquisition.

Learning Paradigmatic Structure

2018 ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
Vsevolod Kapatsinski
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Production Plan ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Noun Classes ◽  
Paradigmatic Structure ◽  
New Evidence

This chapter reviews research on the acquisition of paradigmatic structure (including research on canonical antonyms, morphological paradigms, associative inference, grammatical gender and noun classes). It discusses the second-order schema hypothesis, which views paradigmatic structure as mappings between constructions. New evidence from miniature artificial language learning of morphology is reported, which suggests that paradigmatic mappings involve paradigmatic associations between corresponding structures as well as an operation, copying an activated representation into the production plan. Producing a novel form of a known word is argued to involve selecting a prosodic template and filling it out with segmental material using form-meaning connections, syntagmatic and paradigmatic form-form connections and copying, which is itself an outcome cued by both semantics and phonology.

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