23.4569, Diss: Phonology/ Chinese, Mandarin/ English/ Korean: Lu: 'The Role of Alternation in Phonological Relationships'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-4569. Thu Nov 01 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.4569, Diss: Phonology/ Chinese, Mandarin/ English/ Korean: Lu: 'The Role of Alternation in Phonological Relationships'

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Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:26:56
From: YU-AN LU [yuanlusb at gmail.com]
Subject: The Role of Alternation in Phonological Relationships

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Institution: State University of New York at Stony Brook 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Yu-An Lu

Dissertation Title: The Role of Alternation in Phonological Relationships 

Linguistic Field(s): Phonology

Subject Language(s): Chinese, Mandarin (cmn)
                     English (eng)
                     Korean (kor)


Dissertation Director(s):
Ellen Broselow
Marie Huffman
Jose Elias-Ulloa
Arthur Samuel
Kathleen Currie Hall

Dissertation Abstract:

The concept of phonological relationships has been central in most, if not all, 
theories of phonology. The goal of this dissertation is to determine the 
contributions of two factors, distribution and alternation, in leading speakers 
to group sounds as members of the same category. Using previously 
established methods of testing speakers' perception and processing of 
sounds—similarity ratings, discrimination on a continuum, and semantic 
priming—I investigate the processing of coronal fricatives in three different 
languages: (i) English, in which the contrast between s and sh may signal 
differences in meaning (as in see vs. she), though the two sounds participate 
in limited morphological alternations as in press/pressure; (ii) Korean, in 
which s and sh are in complementary distribution and participate in regular 
and productive morphological alternations; and (iii) Mandarin, in which s and 
sh are in complementary distribution but do not participate in allomorphic 
alternations due to Mandarin's lack of affixation and its phonotactic 
restrictions. The relationship between s and sh in Mandarin, due to the 
conflicting evidence from distribution and alternation, has been a matter of 
controversy. The results from the similarity rating experiment showed that 
both the Mandarin and English speakers rated s vs. sh as more different than 
did Korean speakers, suggesting that the Mandarin speakers, who have 
access only to distributional evidence, are less likely to treat s/sh as 
members of a single category than the Korean speakers, who are exposed to 
evidence from both distribution and morphological alternation. Furthermore, 
the judgments from the speakers of all three languages varied in different 
vowel contexts, suggesting that the assignment of two sounds as members 
of the same or separate categories is not necessarily absolute. These 
findings suggest that multiple factors contribute to the formation of phoneme 
categories and that phonological relationships are gradient rather than 
categorical. 






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