Category: Publication

Youngah and Tingyu’s paper have recently published in the journal Glossa. The paper is titled “Substantive bias and variation in the acquisition of vowel harmony.”

The study delves into substantive bias, a phenomenon where learners exhibit a preference for phonetically motivated patterns during language acquisition. The paper provides evidence that variable input, as opposed to categorical input, can activate substantive bias. In the experiment, native Hong Kong Cantonese speakers were randomly assigned to either categorical or variable training conditions for vowel backness harmony or disharmony, or to a no-training control condition. The results reveal that participants in the categorical and control conditions did not show a bias towards either pattern. However, those in the variable conditions demonstrated a preference for vowel harmony. This suggests that input variability can strengthen the effect of substantive bias. This research contributes to our understanding of the role of input variability in phonological learning and the mechanisms involved in acquiring phonetically motivated and unmotivated phonological patterns.

Congratulations to Youngah and Tingyu on their successful publication! The paper is accessible through Glossa under open access.

Huang, T., & Do, Y. (2023). Substantive bias and variation in the acquisition of vowel harmony. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 8(1), Article 1. open_in_new DOI

Youngah, Jon, and Samuel’s article, “Variation learning in phonology and morphosyntax”, has been published in the journal “Cognition”.

Phonological variation includes phonetic variation, which is influenced by articulatory or perceptual factors, whereas morphosyntactic variation is not. The researchers aimed to identify whether learning differences exist when children are exposed to phonological or morphosyntactic patterns with equal complexity. Cantonese-speaking children were taught an artificial language involving rounding harmony and gender agreement, with patterns applying variably or categorically.

The results showed that in the categorical learning conditions, participants had comparable rates of harmony and agreement. However, in the variable phonological learning conditions, children’s application of harmony exceeded the rate of exposure in training, suggesting a bias towards phonetically grounded rounding harmony. In the variable morphosyntactic condition, participants applied agreement below the rate of exposure.

These findings reveal a qualitative difference between learning in the two domains, with phonological learning being influenced by substantive grounding, while morphosyntactic learning is not. This research contributes to our understanding of language acquisition in children and may have implications for educational practices and interventions.

The article can be accessed here until 13 September 2023.

Do, Y., Havenhill, J., & Sze, S. S. L. (2023). Variation learning in phonology and morphosyntax. Cognition, 239, 105573. open_in_new DOI