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

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.

Calibration of Constraint Promotion Does Not Help with Learning Variation in Stochastic Optimality Theory

The Calibrated Error-Driven Ranking Algorithm (CEDRA; Magri 2012 ) is shown to fail on two test cases of phonologically conditioned variation from Boersma and Hayes 2001 . The failure of the CEDRA raises a serious unsolved challenge for learnability research in stochastic Optimality Theory, because the CEDRA itself was proposed to repair a learnability problem ( Pater 2008 ) encountered by the original Gradual Learning Algorithm. This result is supported by both simulation results and a detailed analysis whereby a few constraints and a few candidates at a time are recursively “peeled off” until we are left with a “core” small enough that the behavior of the learner is easy to interpret.

Optimal control analysis of deterministic and stochastic epidemic model with media awareness programs

The present study considered the optimal control analysis of both deterministic differential equation modeling and stochastic differential equation modeling of infectious disease by taking effects of media awareness programs and treatment of infectives on the epidemic into account. Optimal media awareness strategy under the quadratic cost functional using Pontrygin's Maximum Principle and Hamiltonian-Jacobi-Bellman equation are derived for both deterministic and stochastic optimal problem respectively. The Hamiltonian-Jacobi-Bellman equation is used to solve stochastic system, which is fully non-linear equation, however it ought to be pointed out that for stochastic optimality system it may be difficult to obtain the numerical results. For the analysis of the stochastic optimality system, the results of deterministic control problem are used to find an approximate numerical solution for the stochastic control problem. Outputs of the simulations shows that media awareness programs place important role in the minimization of infectious population with minimum cost.

Variation in Phonology

Language is a system that maps meanings to forms, but the mapping is not always one-to-one. Variation means that one meaning corresponds to multiple forms, for example faster ~ more fast. The choice is not uniquely determined by the rules of the language, but is made by the individual at the time of performance (speaking, writing). Such choices abound in human language. They are usually not just a matter of free will, but involve preferences that depend on the context, including the phonological context. Phonological variation is a situation where the choice among expressions is phonologically conditioned, sometimes statistically, sometimes categorically. In this overview, we take a look at three studies of variable vowel harmony in three languages (Finnish, Hungarian, and Tommo So) formulated in three frameworks (Partial Order Optimality Theory, Stochastic Optimality Theory, and Maximum Entropy Grammar). For example, both Finnish and Hungarian have Backness Harmony: vowels must be all [+back] or all [−back] within a single word, with the exception of neutral vowels that are compatible with either. Surprisingly, some stems allow both [+back] and [−back] suffixes in free variation, for example, analyysi-na ~ analyysi-nä ‘analysis-ess’ (Finnish) and arzén-nak ~ arzén-nek ‘arsenic-dat’ (Hungarian). Several questions arise. Is the variation random or in some way systematic? Where is the variation possible? Is it limited to specific lexical items? Is the choice predictable to some extent? Are the observed statistical patterns dictated by universal constraints or learned from the ambient data? The analyses illustrate the usefulness of recent advances in the technological infrastructure of linguistics, in particular the constantly improving computational tools.

Corpus Phonology

Corpus Phonology is an approach to phonology that places corpora at the center of phonological research. Some practitioners of corpus phonology see corpora as the only object of investigation; others use corpora alongside other available techniques (for instance, intuitions, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic experimentation, laboratory phonology, the study of the acquisition of phonology or of language pathology, etc.). Whatever version of corpus phonology one advocates, corpora have become part and parcel of the modern research environment, and their construction and exploitation has been modified by the multidisciplinary advances made within various fields. Indeed, for the study of spoken usage, the term ‘corpus’ should nowadays only be applied to bodies of data meeting certain technical requirements, even if corpora of spoken usage are by no means new and coincide with the birth of recording techniques. It is therefore essential to understand what criteria must be met by a modern corpus (quality of recordings, diversity of speech situations, ethical guidelines, time-alignment with transcriptions and annotations, etc.) and what tools are available to researchers. Once these requirements are met, the way is open to varying and possibly conflicting uses of spoken corpora by phonological practitioners. A traditional stance in theoretical phonology sees the data as a degenerate version of a more abstract underlying system, but more and more researchers within various frameworks (e.g., usage-based approaches, exemplar models, stochastic Optimality Theory, sociophonetics) are constructing models that tightly bind phonological competence to language use, rely heavily on quantitative information, and attempt to account for intra-speaker and inter-speaker variation. This renders corpora essential to phonological research and not a mere adjunct to the phonological description of the languages of the world.

Focus marking asymmetries in Colloquial and Standard French: A stochastic optimality-theoretic account

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the grammatical realization of the notion of focus in Colloquial French and Standard French. Based on two production experiments, the article reveals three findings: (i) focus marking is not as categorical as previously acknowledged, (ii) focus marking asymmetry for subjects vs. non-subjects is only supported in CoF and (iii) there is no strict relationship between focus realization and interpretation in either variety. I develop a stochastic optimality-theory analysis, which explains the canonical-cleft sentence alternation in terms of prosody and expands on past literature by accounting for the variation observed both within and across language variety.