TY - JOUR
T1 - Khalkha Mongolian speakers' vowel bias
T2 - L1 influences on the acquisition of non-adjacent vocalic dependencies
AU - LaCross, Amy
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a Research Fellowship from the American Center for Mongolian Studies, a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (COARC) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2015/10/21
Y1 - 2015/10/21
N2 - Native language (L1) phonology has been shown to play an important role in influencing humans' perception and production of novel speech. Yet research examining the conditions which trigger humans to calculate transitional probability between non-adjacent linguistic elements has not considered the potential influence of L1 phonology. For example, previous artificial grammar learning (AGL) literature has shown that participants acquire certain non-adjacent phonological dependencies only with difficulty. However, this previous research used only speakers of English or French, languages which do not exhibit such dependencies. This paper investigates how L1 phonology influences participants' acquisition of non-adjacent phonological dependencies in an AGL task. Five experiments were conducted with speakers of Khalkha Mongolian, a language which exhibits a non-adjacent dependency, vowel harmony and with speakers of American English, a language which exhibits no such dependencies. Khalkha Mongolian speakers successfully acquired non-adjacent vocalic dependencies while American English speakers failed to do so under identical statistical conditions. Besides providing further evidence that statistical learning is not limited to the acquisition of adjacent dependencies, these findings suggest that L1 phonology plays an important role in biasing speakers' attention towards certain aspects of language.
AB - Native language (L1) phonology has been shown to play an important role in influencing humans' perception and production of novel speech. Yet research examining the conditions which trigger humans to calculate transitional probability between non-adjacent linguistic elements has not considered the potential influence of L1 phonology. For example, previous artificial grammar learning (AGL) literature has shown that participants acquire certain non-adjacent phonological dependencies only with difficulty. However, this previous research used only speakers of English or French, languages which do not exhibit such dependencies. This paper investigates how L1 phonology influences participants' acquisition of non-adjacent phonological dependencies in an AGL task. Five experiments were conducted with speakers of Khalkha Mongolian, a language which exhibits a non-adjacent dependency, vowel harmony and with speakers of American English, a language which exhibits no such dependencies. Khalkha Mongolian speakers successfully acquired non-adjacent vocalic dependencies while American English speakers failed to do so under identical statistical conditions. Besides providing further evidence that statistical learning is not limited to the acquisition of adjacent dependencies, these findings suggest that L1 phonology plays an important role in biasing speakers' attention towards certain aspects of language.
KW - Khalkha Mongolian
KW - L1 phonology bias
KW - artificial grammar learning
KW - non-adjacent phonological dependencies
KW - vowel harmony
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U2 - 10.1080/23273798.2014.915976
DO - 10.1080/23273798.2014.915976
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84944688450
SN - 2327-3798
VL - 30
SP - 1033
EP - 1047
JO - Language, Cognition and Neuroscience
JF - Language, Cognition and Neuroscience
IS - 9
ER -