scholarly journals A wug-shaped curve in sound symbolism: the case of Japanese Pokémon names

Phonology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-418
Author(s):  
Shigeto Kawahara
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Evolution Status ◽  
Stochastic Optimality

An experiment showed that Japanese speakers’ judgement of Pokémons’ evolution status on the basis of nonce names is affected both by mora count and by the presence of a voiced obstruent. The effects of mora count are a case of counting cumulativity, and the interaction between the two factors a case of ganging-up cumulativity. Together, the patterns result in what Hayes (2020) calls ‘wug-shaped curves’, a quantitative signature predicted by MaxEnt. I show in this paper that the experimental results can indeed be successfully modelled with MaxEnt, and also that Stochastic Optimality Theory faces an interesting set of challenges. The study was inspired by a proposal made within formal phonology, and reveals important previously understudied aspects of sound symbolism. In addition, it demonstrates how cumulativity is manifested in linguistic patterns. The work here shows that formal phonology and research on sound symbolism can be mutually beneficial.

scholarly journals Do Sibilants Fly? Evidence from a Sound Symbolic Pattern in Pokémon Names

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 386-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigeto Kawahara ◽  
Mahayana C. Godoy ◽  
Gakuji Kumagai
Keyword(s):  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
Current Experiment ◽  
Normal Type ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Symbolic Value

AbstractAncient writers, including Socrates and the Upanishads, argued that sibilants are associated with the notions of wind, air and sky. From modern perspectives, these statements can be understood as an assertion about sound symbolism, i.e., systematic connections between sounds and meanings. Inspired by these writers, this article reports on an experiment that tests a sound symbolic value of sibilants. The experiment is a case study situated within the Pokémonastics research paradigm, in which the researchers explore the sound symbolic patterns in natural languages using Pokémon names. The current experiment shows that when presented with pairs of a flying-type Pokémon character and a normal-type Pokémon character, Japanese speakers are more likely to associate the flying-type Pokémons with names that contain sibilants than those names that do not contain sibilants. As was pointed out by Socrates, the sound symbolic connection identified in the experiment is likely to be grounded in the articulatory properties of sibilants – the large amount of oral airflow that accompanies the production of sibilants. Various implications of the current experiment for the sound symbolism research are discussed throughout the article.

Web Page Ranking Algorithm Based on the Meta-Information

2014 ◽  
Vol 596 ◽  
pp. 292-296
Author(s):  
Xin Li Li
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Results ◽  
High Rank ◽  
Ranking Algorithm ◽  
Web Page ◽  
Page Ranking ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Meta Information ◽  
The Web

PageRank algorithms only consider hyperlink information, without other page information such as page hits frequency, page update time and web page category. Therefore, the algorithms rank a lot of advertising pages and old pages pretty high and can’t meet the users' needs. This paper further studies the page meta-information such as category, page hits frequency and page update time. The Web page with high hits frequency and with smaller age should get a high rank, while the above two factors are more or less dependent on page category. Experimental results show that the algorithm has good results.

Effects of wavelength error and spectral band width on measurement of alkaline phosphatase activity.

1979 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
R S Schifreen ◽  
R W Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Alkaline Phosphatase ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Phosphatase Activity ◽  
Alkaline Phosphatase Activity ◽  
Spectral Band ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Band Width ◽  
Published Report ◽  
Two Factors

Abstract We re-examined the effects of wavelength error and spectral band width on the measurement of alkaline phosphatase activity. The methods we studied is relatively insensitive to these two factors, a conclusion we base on both experimental results and theoretical analysis. These findings are in conflict with a recently published report [Lott et al., Clin. Chem. 24, 938 (1978)], and we suggest a possible explanation for this.

Patterns and scales of expressive palatalization: Experimental evidence from Japanese

2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei Kochetov ◽  
John Alderete
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Structural Differences ◽  
The Cross

This article argues for the existence of expressive palatalization (E-Pal) – a phonologically unmotivated process that applies in sound symbolism, diminutive constructions, and babytalk registers. It is proposed that E-Pal is grounded in iconic sound-meaning associations exploiting acoustic properties of palatalized consonants and thus is inherently different from regular phonological palatalization (P-Pal). A cross-linguistic survey of patterns of E-Pal in 37 languages shows that it exhibits a set of properties different from P-Pal. The case study focuses on patterns of palatalization in Japanese mimetic vocabulary and babytalk. Two experiments testing native speaker intuitions of these patterns revealed that both patterns exhibit place and manner asymmetries typical of cross-linguistic patterns of E-Pal. The cross-linguistic survey, the two experiments, and analysis of the origins and structural differences of E-Pal and P-Pal provide strong empirical and theoretical motivation to distinguish the two.

A stochastic optimality theory of preparedness and plasticity

1995 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelio José Figueredo
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Behavioral Adaptation ◽  
Evolutionary Time ◽  
Varying Parameters ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Stochastic Optimality

AbstractMany now consider “instinct” and “learning” opposite poles of a unidimensional continuum. An alternative model with two independently varying parameters predicts different selective pressures. Behavioral adaptation matches the organism's utilizations of stimuli and responses to their ecological validities: the mean validity over evolutionary time specifies the optimal initial potency of the prepared association; the variance specifies the optimal prepared plasticity.

scholarly journals Vowel Epenthesis and Consonant Deletion in Japanese Loanwords from English

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinichi Shoji ◽  
Kazuko Shoji
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Vowel Epenthesis ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Constraint Ranking

<p>The current study examines Japanese loanwords from English in the framework of optimality theory (OT). The goal of this study is to investigate which vowels native Japanese-speaking borrowers epenthesize and when they delete consonants in modifying English source words. We aim to offer (i) a unified explanation with a single ranking of constraints for vowel epenthesis and (ii) a perceptual explanation for consonant deletion. Two experiments with native Japanese speakers were conducted to support the proposed analyses. The first experiment demonstrated that, when modifying illicit phonotactics in foreign words, native Japanese speakers select epenthetic vowels based on the constraint ranking of: Complex, CodaCond &gt;&gt; Max-IO  &gt;&gt; Palatal-Front, SyllableInventoryStructure (SIS), Ident-IO &gt;&gt; *Round, *Low &gt;&gt; *Front &gt;&gt; High &gt;&gt; Back &gt;&gt; Dep-IO. The second experiment revealed that Japanese loanwords can be subject to deletion of consonants rather than vowel epenthesis, due to the lack of perceptual salience; Japanese speakers delete consonants when they fail to perceive consonants in coda and clusters in source words, especially when the source words are aurally given.</p>

Expressing evolution in Pokémon names: Experimental explorations

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigeto Kawahara ◽  
Gakuji Kumagai
Keyword(s):  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Phonological Length ◽  
The Way

AbstractThere has been a growing interest in sound symbolic patterns in natural languages, in which some sounds are associated with particular meanings. Previous corpus-based research identified some specific sound symbolic relationships in Pokémon naming patterns in Japanese (Kawahara et al. 2018b). One of the main findings was that the names of Pokémon characters are more likely to contain voiced obstruents, and are longer in terms of mora count, when the Pokémon characters undergo evolution (e.g.nyoromo→nyorozo; poppo→pijotto). The current study reports three experiments that test whether (i) these patterns are productive in the minds of general Japanese speakers, and whether (ii) the same tendency holds with English speakers. The results show that the effect of phonological length was clearly observed both with Japanese and English speakers; the effects of voiced obstruents were observed clearly with Japanese speakers, but less clearly with English speakers. Along the way, we address other general issues related to sound symbolism: (iii) to what extent the sound symbolic effects identified in Kawahara et al. (2018b) rely on familiarity with Pokémon, and (iv) whether word-initial segments invoke stronger images than word-internal segments. In addition to its research value, we emphasize that this general project on Pokémon names can be useful for undergraduate phonetics education.

Evolution of Visual Resolution Constrained by a Trade-off

2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rens Kortmann ◽  
Eric Postma ◽  
Jaap van den Herik
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Artificial System ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Visual Resolution ◽  
Visual Systems ◽  
Two Factors

The evolution of visual systems is constrained by a trade-off between spatial and temporal resolution. In this article we aim at identifying the causes of the trade-off at the retinal level in both artificial and natural visual systems. We start by selecting two factors that limit the values of spatial and temporal resolution. Then we show in two experiments on the evolution of an artificial system that the two factors induce trade-off curves connecting the evolved values of spatial and temporal resolution. A comparison of the experimental results with the resolution evolved in natural visual systems leads us to the conclusion that in natural systems the same factors are responsible for the observed trade-off.

Adversarial Separation Network for Text Style Transfer

2022 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Haitong Yang ◽  
Guangyou Zhou ◽  
Tingting He
Keyword(s):  
Generative Model ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Adversarial Learning ◽  
Style Transfer ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Benchmark Datasets ◽  
Strong Representation ◽  
Content Factor ◽  
Better Than

This article considers the task of text style transfer: transforming a specific style of sentence into another while preserving its style-independent content. A dominate approach to text style transfer is to learn a good content factor of text, define a fixed vector for every style and recombine them to generate text in the required style. In fact, there are a large number of different words to convey the same style from different aspects. Thus, using a fixed vector to represent one style is very inefficient, which causes the weak representation power of the style vector and limits text diversity of the same style. To address this problem, we propose a novel neural generative model called Adversarial Separation Network (ASN), which can learn the content and style vector jointly and the learnt vectors have strong representation power and good interpretabilities. In our method, adversarial learning is implemented to enhance our model’s capability of disentangling the two factors. To evaluate our method, we conduct experiments on two benchmark datasets. Experimental results show our method can perform style transfer better than strong comparison systems. We also demonstrate the strong interpretability of the learnt latent vectors.

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