Learning phonotactics

[Orlando Bisacchi Coelho]

Dear info-childes members,

An interesting phonotactic feature, which seems to hold in several languages, is known as OCP (the obligatory contour principle): the preference for a certain level of contrast between consecutive vowels in a word. Contour can be described in terms of differences in opening (or tongue height), place (or tongue position), and rounding between such vowels. Harmony, on the other hand, is the absence of contrast between consecutive vowels.

Since I am interested in using connectionist networks to model phonotactic preferences for contour or harmony (vis-a-vis statistical biases that we have identified in a Brazilian Portuguese corpus), I wonder if any of the members of this list has come across a marked degree of preference for either harmony or contour in the language that is either produced by or directly spoken to early language learners. 

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Orlando Bisacchi Coelho
UMC/UNICAMP
orlandoc at terra.com.br 
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