title: The Interaction of Language-Specific and Universal Factors During the Acquisition of Morphophonemic Alternations With Exceptions.
abstract: Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance (phonetic motivation), and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning.
authors.affiliation: Linguistics Department, University of Potsdam.|Institute for Language and Information, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.
authors.forename: Dinah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Baer-Henney
authors.affiliation: Linguistics Department, University of Potsdam.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kügler
authors.affiliation: Institute for Language and Information, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.
authors.forename: Ruben
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van de Vijver
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Acquisition; Artificial language paradigm; Exceptional alternation; Phonology; Phonotactics; Substance