37.3007, Diss: Indo-Aryan; Mankiyali, Western Panjabi; Cognitive Science, Phonetics, Phonology: Jonathan Charles Paramore: "From Abstract to Episodic: Representations in Speech Production"

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3007. Fri Sep 18 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3007, Diss: Indo-Aryan; Mankiyali, Western Panjabi; Cognitive Science, Phonetics, Phonology: Jonathan Charles Paramore: "From Abstract to Episodic: Representations in Speech Production"

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Date: 17-Sep-2026
From: Jonathan Charles Paramore [j.paramore at wustl.edu]
Subject: From Abstract to Episodic: Representations in Speech Production


Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz
Program: Linguistics
Degree Date: 2026
Level: PhD

Author: Jonathan Charles Paramore

Dissertation Title: From Abstract to Episodic: Representations in
Speech Production

Dissertation URL: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2z12k9rs

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science
                     Phonetics
                     Phonology

Subject Language(s): Mankiyali (nlm, mank1256)
                     Western Panjabi (pnb, west2386)

Language Family(ies): Indo-Aryan (indo1321)

Dissertation Director(s): Ryan Bennett

Dissertation Abstract:

Eliminativist usage-based and classical generative speech production
models differ fundamentally in two respects: (i) the nature of speech
representations and (ii) the locus of linguistic knowledge. In this
dissertation, I ask what levels of abstraction and detail are present
in speech representations and whether a lexicon of detailed speech
memories is sufficient to explain a speaker’s linguistic knowledge of
their language. I investigate these questions using phonetic,
phonological, experimental, and computational evidence from two
understudied Pakistani languages, Punjabi and Mankiyali.
First, I present evidence from Punjabi that lexical representations
can be completely covert, containing information that is not present
in any experienced realization of a lexical item. I then demonstrate
that, given an appropriately structured learning architecture, a
learner can acquire covert speech representations efficiently. At the
same time, a pilot study provides preliminary evidence that
talker-specific phonetic and socially indexed information from recent
linguistic experience is retained and reflected in subsequent
production. Crucially, the same lexical items used to motivate covert
representations also appear to be represented at a richly detailed
episodic level.
Turning to the locus of linguistic knowledge, I present acoustic data
from a production experiment in Mankiyali, showing that the
neutralization of a phonological contrast can be phonetically
complete. I then use simulations of exemplar accumulation to examine
whether a lexicon of detailed speech memories can account for the
stable realization of such patterns. In these simulations, once the
production and similarity biases define a stable target for an
acoustic parameter, introducing exemplars with different values cannot
by itself shift that target. A persistent shift in a category's
optimal acoustic realization instead seems to require recalibration of
the biases shaping production, motivating higher-order linguistic
knowledge that operates beyond stored speech memories.
Taken together, these findings challenge both eliminativist
usage-based models, which reduce linguistic knowledge to accumulated
exemplars, and classical generative models, which exclude fine-grained
phonetic and social detail from linguistic competence. I argue for a
hybrid architecture in which speakers retain detailed episodic
memories, maintain abstract categories that may diverge substantially
from experience, and possess higher-order knowledge that regulates
their joint influence on speech production.



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