Dissertation Improvement Grant: Domain Specificity in Learning Phonology

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

A fundamental question facing researchers in linguistics and cognitive science is whether children's ability to learn language is due to specialized cognitive modules or to more general learning capacities. This research tests a strong version of the hypothesis that specialized cognitive modules for language learning exist. Specifically, the goal of this research is to find evidence for or against the claim that a specialized module is present for learning how sounds pattern in languages. This claim is grounded by computational considerations, which reveal that the way languages combine speech sounds to make words (phonology) is fundamentally different from the way languages combine words to make sentences (syntax). The PIs exploit this computational understanding to develop a series of artificial language learning experiments that investigate how specialized the module for learning phonology is in two ways. First, the learnability of an attested sound pattern is compared with the learnability of a minimally different, but unattested, sound pattern. Theoretically, the only known difference between these two patterns is their computational complexity. A second series of experiments examines the learnability of patterns only found in the syntax, but not the phonology, of natural languages. A distinguishing feature of both series of experiments is that the specific patterns to be tested are well understood both in theoretical computer science and in theoretical linguistics. The results of this research will lead to a better understanding of the psychological reality of the computational boundaries investigated here. This in turn will provide a deeper understanding of what constitutes a possible phonological pattern, how such patterns are learned, and first language acquisition in general. The results also directly address the extent to which human language learning is domain-specific or domain-general. Studies of language processing and clinical research into speech and language disorders may also benefit from this investigation.