Andries Coetzee has published a new paper in Language, the Journal of the Linguistic Society of America.

Coetzee, Andries W.  2008.  Grammaticality and ungrammaticality in
phonology.  Language, 84(2):218-257.

Abstract

In this paper, I make two theoretical claims: (i) For some form to be
grammatical in language L, it is not necessary that the form satisfy
all constraints that are active in L – i.e. even grammatical forms can
violate constraints. (ii) There are degrees of ungrammaticality – i.e.
not all ungrammatical forms are equally ungrammatical. I first show
that these claims follow straightforwardly from the basic architecture
of an Optimality Theoretic grammar. I then show that the surface sound
patterns used most widely in formal phonology cannot be used to test
the truth of these two claims, but argue that results from speech
processing experiments can. Finally, I discuss three experiments on
the processing of non-words of the form [stVt], [skVk] and [spVp] in
English that were designed to test these claims, and show that both
claims are confirmed by the results of the experiments.

Andries Coetzee presented a keynote address at NAPhC  5 (The 5th North American Phonology Conference) at Concordia in Montreal.

Abstract

Many phonological processes apply variably. The likelihood of a variable process applying is determined by a complex interaction between both grammatical and extra-grammatical factors. Over the past decade, several formal models of phonological variation have been developed. These models are quite successful at accounting for the role that the grammatical factors play in phonological variation. However, they are purely grammatical and do not account for the potential influence of extra-grammatical factors on the application of variable processes. Extra-grammatical influences are often equated with performance factors, and if the goal of linguistics is to account for the competence of the language user, then these extra-grammatical factors fall outside the domain of linguistics.

In this paper, I argue for a broader understanding of linguistic competence, where it is taken to encompass all those factors that determine linguistic performance and that that are consciously or subconsciously under the control of the language user. This includes both grammatical and some extra-grammatical factors. A sufficient model of the linguistic competence of the language user therefore needs to incorporate both grammatical and extra-grammatical competence.

By reviewing the literature on English  t/d-deletion I demonstrate that this process is influenced by both grammatical and extra-grammatical factors, and that the language user has at least subconscious control over both of these. I then propose a formal model of the linguistic competence of the language user that integrates both of these components of linguistic competence in the framework of Harmonic Grammar.

Mike Marlo (now visiting assistant professor at UCLA) also presented a talk at the conference. The title of his talk was:  “Post-syntactic spell-out and post-syntactic phonology: evidence from Bantu”.

San Duanmu and Andries Coetzee both gave presentations at the CUNY Phonology Forum Conference on the Syllable held in New York Jan. 17-19.

Coetzee and McGowan. Allophonic Cues to Syllabification

Duanmu. The CVX theory of syllable structure (.pdf for download)

Andries reports:

It was a very interesting conference with phonologists, phoneticians and psycholinguistics from across the US and Europe attending. The many different approaches to the syllable represented resulted in very stimulating discussions, and I think everybody left the conference feeling inspired.

Andries Coetzee presented a talk at NELS in Ottawa.

The title of the  talk was ”Lexical frequency and variation”. Andries proposed a model of how the mental lexicon interacts with phonological grammar. It has been known for a long time that variable phonological processes apply more frequently to words with a higher usage frequency. For, in stance, the shcwa in the second syllable of “memory” is more likely to delete than the schwa in the second

syllable of “mammary”, corresponding to the fact that “memory” is a much more frequent word that “mammary”.  Existing models of phonological variation do not allow a way in which these kinds of lexical properties can interact directly with the grammar.

NELS was heavily dominated by syntax talks, as it is always is. But there was also a semantics workshop on pronouns and binding with Irene Heim (MIT) as invited speaker, and a phonology workshop on “abtractness without innateness” with Bruce Hayes (UCLA) as invited speakers.

MSU Colloquium Series (2007)

Dr. Andries Coetzee.
“Lexical Frequency and Variation”

Wells-A607
Nov. 1; 4:30 pm. A coffee hour will be held at 3:30

Abstract
The problem. Variable phonological processes are influenced by the same grammatical factors as categorical processes. In English, t/d variably deletes from word-final clusters – cf. (1). Table 1 (next page) shows that the frequency of deletion is at least partially determined by phonological context. Several formal models have been developed over the past decade or so that can account fairly well for this grammatical influence on variable processes (Anttila 1997; Boersma & Hayes 2001; Coetzee 2006; etc.).
(1) Pre-C context Pre-V context Pre-Pause context
west bank ~ wes bank west end ~ wes end west ~ wes
However, usage frequency also influences the application frequency of a variable process. t/d-deletion is more likely in more frequent words – west and vest are very similar, but west is more likely to undergo t/d-deletion, corresponding to its higher usage frequency (Table 2). Current models of variation are all strictly grammatical, and cannot account for this frequency influence. I propose a model that allows grammar and lexical frequency to co-determine the application frequency of a variable process.
(2) *PRE-C: No word-final [-Ct/d] before a C-initial word.
*PRE-V: No word-final [-Ct/d] before a V-initial word.
*PRE-##: No word-final [-Ct/d] before a pause.
Chicano English ranking: MAX-L1 à *PRE-C à MAX-L2 à *PRE-V à MAX-L3 à PRE-## à MAX-L4.
The proposal. (i) Variable lexical indexation. I assume that faithfulness constraints can be indexed to lexical classes, and that these constraints are interspersed between the markedness constraints, as shown in (2). An indexed constraint only evaluates words that share its indexation. The novel proposal here is that words do not have to belong to one lexical class exclusively. Since a word can vary its affiliation, it can be evaluated by different indexed constraints on different occasions, resulting in variation. Assume that /west/ can be assigned to L1, L2, L3, or L4. The faithful candidate of /west bank/ violates *PRE-C, and the deletion candidate one of the indexed MAX-constraints, depending on /west/’s lexical class affiliation. If it is assigned to L1, the faithful candidate is optimal, but any other indexation results in deletion. Pre-vocalically (/west end/), the faithful candidate violates *PRE-V. Now two indexations result in preservation (L1, L2), and two in deletion (L3, L4) (cf. tableau below). Pre-pausally only an L4-affiliation results in deletion. The grammatical influence on variation is hence captured – deletion is observed under 3/4 indexations pre-consonantally, 2/4 pre-vocalically position, and only 1/4 pre-pausally.
(ii) Frequency and lexical class affiliation. In the current model, the lexical class of a word is determined at each evaluation occasion. I propose that this process is influenced by the word’s usage frequency. Every word is stored with its own probability distribution function. These functions range from 0 to 1, with the range divided into regions corresponding to the lexical classes. In the example here, values from 0 to .25 correspond to L1, .25 to .5 to L2, etc. Every time a word is submitted to the grammar, a value is chosen randomly from its probability distribution to determine its lexical class affiliation for that evaluation occasion. If a value under .25 is selected it will be evaluated by MAX-L1, etc.
The shape of a word’s distribution function is determined by its frequency. Frequent words have left-skewed distributions so that their distribution mass is concentrated at the higher end. A frequent word will hence more likely select a value resulting in it being classified as L3 or L4 than L1 or L2. Consequently, a frequent word is more likely to be protected by low ranking faithfulness, and hence to undergo deletion. Infrequent words have right-skewed distributions. By similar reasoning, they are more likely to be assigned to L1 or L2, and hence to resist deletion (cf. figure below). Since usage frequency determines the shape of the distribution functions, lexical frequency gets to influence the likelihood of deletion.
Conclusions. There is mounting evidence that lexical factors (usage frequency) play a role in phonology. An adequate model of phonology must include a mechanism through which such lexical factors can contribute to phonological performance. Lexically indexed constraints allow lexical information an indirect entrance into the grammar, which I exploit here to allow grammar and the lexicon to co-determine the frequency with which variable processes apply.

San Duanmu went to a feature conference at University of Paris 3 (Sorbonne-nouvelle) Oct 4-5. The conference title was ‘Where Do Features Come From? Phonological Primitives in the Brain, the Mouth, and the Ear‘.

The weather in Paris was great. The conference was a very interesting and focused. All the talks were on features, mostly with an experimental component. The organizers have asked speakers to provide their handouts or PowerPoint files on the internet. So soon they should be available from the conference website:

This conference was a concluding event of a multi-year research project on features at Paris 3. Several PhD students worked on 1-2 features each and presented their works. Ken Stevens also gave a special session on the quantal theory and the latest work by him and his colleagues and students.

After successfully defending his dissertation in April, Robert Felty started a post-doctoral fellowship at Indiana University in July, under the tutelage of Prof. David Pisoni. The Speech Research Lab at Indiana University has been in operation for over 30 years, and Prof. Pisoni has funded post-docs throughout this time with an NIH training grant. The lab is built in an interdisciplinary and collaborative manner, with a variety of psychologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, speech and hearing scientists, and linguists.

Robert is currently working on two projects in the lab:

Discovering neighborhoods through recognition errors

In this collaborative project with Adam Buchwald, we have developed a large (> 1400 words) stimulus list which is designed to be representative of the entire English lexicon in terms of lexical frequency, number of syllables, syllable structure, and initial phoneme. We are presenting these materials in open-set word recognition tasks in order to discover what words are actually being activated in the mental lexicon

A new perceptually robust test of spoken word recognition

In this project with David Pisoni, we are developing a new spoken word recognition test battery to be used in clinical situations, which more accurately represents normal communicative situations, by including sources of variation that we commonly encounter, including speaker specific characteristics such as gender and dialectal variation, as well as a variety of degraded listening situations

You can learn more about Robert’s research from his website.

POST-NASAL DEVOICING IN TSWANA
Andries W. Coetzee, Susan Lin & Rigardt Pretorius
ICPhS XVI. p. 861-864

Tswana is traditionally described as having a process of post-nasal devoicing (/mba/ > [mpa]). If this is accurate, then Tswana poses a challenge to views that neutralization processes should be articulatorily grounded. Airflow leakage through the nasal cavity should promote, not inhibit, voicing post-nasally. Zsiga et al. performed acoustic analysis of the speech of 6 Tswana speakers, and found no evidence of post-nasal devoicing. They conclude that, counter to traditional descriptions, Tswana does not have post-nasal devoicing. In an independent study, we collected speech from 12 Tswana speakers. Four of our speakers showed clear and consistent post-nasal devoicing. In this paper, we present the data for these 4 speakers to show that at least some speakers of Tswana do have an active process of postnasal devoicing. We also consider possible explanations for this process, arguing that it is motivated by perceptual rather than articulatory considerations.

Full paper

Coetzee, Andries W. and Daan Wissing. 2007. Global and local
durational properties in three varieties of South African English. The
Linguistic Review, 24:263-289.

Abstract
This article investigates the relationship between the global and local durational properties of an utterance. We show that languages that are similar in terms of their global durational properties are also similar in terms of their local durational properties. However, languages that differ globally also differ locally. We illustrate this with three varieties of South African English. We show that South African English L1 and Afrikaans English both pattern with stress-timed languages and both apply phrase-final lengthening. Tswana English, however, patterns with syllable-timed languages, and does not apply phrase-final lengthening.

And about Andries’ co-author
Daan Wissing was my first linguistics professor — from the North-West University in South Africa. I had one semester, similar to our Ling 111, from him when I was an undergrad. Since then, he and I have worked together on several projects. This paper
marks the completion of a project that has been in the making for several
years.

Solé, M. J., Beddor, P. S., Ohala, M. Eds. (2007) Experimental Approaches
to Phonology. Oxford University Press.

Table of contents

From the publisher:
This wide-ranging survey of experimental methods in phonetics and phonology shows the insights and results provided by different methods of investigation, including laboratory-based, statistical, psycholinguistic, computational-modeling, corpus, and field techniques. The five chapters in the first part of the book examine the recent history and interrelations of theory and method. The remaining 18 chapters are organized into parts devoted to four key current areas of research: phonological universals; phonetic variation and phonological change; maintaining, enhancing, and modeling phonological contrasts; and phonological knowledge. The book provides fresh insights into the findings and theoretical advances that emerge from experimental investigation of phonological structure and phonological knowledge, as well as critical perspectives on experimental methods in the perception, production, and modeling of speech.