LINGUIST List 24.1016

Tue Feb 26 2013

Diss: Phonetics/Phonology/Psycholing/Socioling/German/Indonesian/Japanese: Sloos: 'Phonological Grammar and Frequency...'

Editor for this issue: Lili Xia <lxialinguistlist.org>


Date: 25-Feb-2013
From: Marjoleine Sloos <marj.sloosgmail.com>
Subject: Phonological Grammar and Frequency: An integrated approach: Evidence from German, Indonesian and Japanese
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Institution: CLCG Groningen Institute for Linguistics, the Netherlands Program: Phonology PhD Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2013

Author: Marjoleine Sloos

Dissertation Title: Phonological Grammar and Frequency: An integrated approach: Evidence from German, Indonesian and Japanese

Dissertation URL: http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/faculties/arts/2013/m.sloos/

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics                             Phonology                             Psycholinguistics                             Sociolinguistics
Subject Language(s): German (deu)                             Indonesian (ind)                             Japanese (jpn)
Dissertation Director:
John Nerbonne Jeroen van de Weijer
Dissertation Abstract:

In language change, we usually find that words with a relatively low wordfrequency change at a faster rate than words with a relatively high wordfrequency. Reversely, in reduction processes, we observe that high-frequencywords tend to change first and low-frequency words change later. How do thesefacts relate to variable processes in which neither analogical change norreduction is involved? Does frequency also play a role, for instance, in stablepatterns of variation or in loanword adaptation?

This dissertation investigates phonological variation and change in three casestudies: the pronunciation of the long vowel <รค> in Standard German, Dutchloanword integration in Indonesian, and sequential voicing in Japanese. It showsthat frequency effects occur such that relatively high-frequency words adapt to ageneral phonological rule and relatively low-frequency words behave differently.This exceptional behaviour of low-frequency words may be related to theirrelatively unstable or opaque lexical representation or their opaquemorphophonological structure.

This thesis also investigates the relation between frequency effects andgrammar. It is shown that these two factors are not independent, as suggestedby earlier literature, but, on the contrary, intimately related. Frequency effects aresensitive to grammatical structure. This calls for an amalgamation ofphonological models which were previously regarded as disconnected; thereforethis thesis proposes a combined Exemplar-Prototype-Optimality theoreticalmodel (EPOT).


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