In all domains in linguistics, categorical variation exists, e.g., English be vs. get passives. Compared to other linguistic variation, phonological variation is much more gradient, because it encompasses subcategorical phonetic adjustments, with many categories occupying a continuous range of values, e.g., English / fronting. Moreover, many phonological patterns are grounded in physiological properties, e.g., /ki/ → alternation, which is motivated by articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual factors that enhance its learnability. This talk presents a series of phonological variation learning studies, from which I show how phonological patterns’ inherent gradience and physical grounding shape learning. Based on the findings, I propose learning […]
