Paul Boersma’s writings on grammaticality

Grammaticality can be measured as output frequencies in Stochastic Optimality Theory, conditional on given information. The Gradual Learning Algorithm is used either to simulate acquisition or as a frequency matching device.

1. Grammaticality judgments

The following paper discusses grammaticality judgments on dark and light /l/ in American English.

2001 Paul Boersma & Bruce Hayes:
Empirical tests of the Gradual Learning Algorithm.
Linguistic Inquiry 32: 45–86. [copyright]
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive 348, 1999/09/29.
Additional material: the GLA web page.

The first part of the following paper extends the model to more than two candidates:

2004/03/18 A Stochastic OT account of paralinguistic tasks such as grammaticality and prototypicality judgments.
Rutgers Optimality Archive 648. 18 pages.

2. Prototypicality judgments

The /i/ prototype effect is the fact when asked to select the best token of /i/, listeners tend to judge a peripheral token, e.g. one with an F1 of 250 Hz, as being better than the average token of /i/, which has an F1 of 300 Hz. The second part of the following paper explains this within a listener-oriented view of production, i.e. with probabilistic faithfulness constraints.

2004/03/18 A Stochastic OT account of paralinguistic tasks such as grammaticality and prototypicality judgments.
Rutgers Optimality Archive 648. 18 pages.

A more parsimonious explanation is given within the framework of Parallel Bidirectional Phonology and Phonetics (BiPhon), where cue constraints interact directly with articulatory constraints:

2006 Prototypicality judgments as inverted perception.
In Gisbert Fanselow, Caroline Féry, Matthias Schlesewsky & Ralf Vogel (eds.): Gradience in Grammar, 167–184. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Abstract]
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive 742, 2005/05/17.

In sound change, the prototype effect leads to non-teleological phonetic enhancement and chain shifts:

2008 Paul Boersma & Silke Hamann:
The evolution of auditory dispersion in bidirectional constraint grammars.
Phonology 25: 217–270.
Material: scripts for the simulations and pictures.
Earlier version: Rutgers Optimality Archive 909, 2007/04/17.
Earlier version: Handout OCP 3, Budapest, 2006/01/17.

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