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Formal is Natural: Toward an Ecological Phonology
Naturalism Phonology (NP) has a history of opposition to abstractness, to generative linguistics, to formalist approaches, and differs from these in its strong focus on external rather than distributional, structural evidential domains. But evidence domains are orthogonal to empirical and formal met...
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... of these complex factors, tone sequences are more or less arbitrary from a tonological perspective alone, and could be represented by a 1-node network and two tonal transitions, one for H and one for L. However, tonal terracing requires a phonetic interpretation which takes four different possible tone-to-tone transitions into account: HH, HL, LH, LL, for which the following phonetic conditions hold, in which lower case "h" and "l" stand for the phonetic correlates of "H and L": HH: h1 = h2 LH: h > l HL: h >> l LL: l1=l2 Consequently, a more complex network is required in order to capture these constraints. A FSN which will generate or recognise such sequences is shown in Figure 2. These relations can be quantified in terms of pitch ratios (Gibbon 2001); in some languages, the "=" relation is rising for H contexts (upsweep) and falling for L contexts (downdrift), and there are languages with more complex but still FS terracing contexts. ...
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The present volume is meant to give the reader an impression of the range of questions and topics that are currently subject of international research in the discovery of complexity, the organization of complexity, and the modelling of complexity. These are the main sections of our volume. Each section includes four carefully selected chapters. The...
Citations
... Such syllables (or words) may currently have no meaning but are available for semanticisation and lexicalisation in the creation of brand name neologisms, such as BiC, or Twix, or slang neologisms such as twerk. For modelling syllable phonotactics an acyclic subregular grammar is sufficient (Gibbon 2007); for modelling alternations at syllable boundaries a different kind of cyclical subregular grammar was introduced (Koskenniemi 1984). It is hardly necessary to point out that τ word and φ word are adequately described at rank α word by flat linear grammars. ...
Multilinear Grammar (MLG) is an approach to integrating the many different syntagmatic structures of language into a coherent architecture, the Rank-Interpretation Architecture. The architecture defines ranks from discourse structure through utterances, phrasal structures, word structures to speech sounds. Each rank has its own specific kind of prosodic-phonetic interpretation and semantic-pragmatic interpretation. Common to models of all these subdomains are models based on regular languages, and processors with finite working memory.
... Such an agreement seems not to have been reached in phonology between formalists and functionalists who argue about the essence and role of description, explanation and practical applications. This paper discusses aspects of functionalism and formalism in relation to Natural Phonology as a reaction to Gibbon's (2007) paper. Gibbon (2007) implies that Natural Phonology is anti-formalist and claims that in order to be operationally functional Natural Phonology should express itself more formally, more computationally. ...
... This paper discusses aspects of functionalism and formalism in relation to Natural Phonology as a reaction to Gibbon's (2007) paper. Gibbon (2007) implies that Natural Phonology is anti-formalist and claims that in order to be operationally functional Natural Phonology should express itself more formally, more computationally. This contribution argues that although Natural Phonology emphasizes function, it is not anti-formalist. ...
... For the approach favoring direct technological implementations postulated by Gibbon (2007), it seems necessary to assume the autonomy of language because viewing language as a closed, self-contained structure helps in listing and formalizing of the elements involved. Language can, however, be viewed as an autonomous or non-autonomous cognitive faculty. ...
This paper presents Natural Phonology as a functional theory. Natural Phonology is shown to be functional
in two senses: as focusing on explanation and thus increasing our understanding of how language works, and
as having practical applications, especially to second language acquisition and speech therapy. The
contribution argues that crucial as formalism is in computational linguistics and speech technology, Natural
Phonology, with less rigid and less formalized claims, has important applications in the areas where language
and not totally predictable human factors are involved. The paper discusses approaches to autonomy in
language, explanation and hypothesis in Natural Phonology, and applications of Natural Phonology.
Keywords: Natural Phonology, functionalism, second language acquisition.
http://versita.metapress.com/content/qn65224345504228/?p=01c88a41437e43da809f01375e42f751&pi=2
... For the approach favoring direct technological implementations postulated by Gibbon [14], it seems necessary to assume the autonomy of language because viewing language as a closed, self-contained structure helps in listing and formalizing of the elements involved. Language can, however, be viewed as an autonomous or nonautonomous cognitive faculty. ...
This contribution argues that crucial as formalism is in computational linguistics and speech technology, Natural Phonology, with less rigid and less formalized claims, has important applications in the areas where language and not totally predictable human factors are involved. The paper discusses approaches to autonomy in language, explanation in Natural Phonology and applications of Natural Phonology.
Comparing and Contrasting Natural Phonology, Optimality Theory and the Theory of Phonology as Human Behavior
This paper compares and contrasts the theories of Natural Phonology, Optimality Theory and Phonology as Human Behavior from diverse theoretical and methodological aspects including: the interaction between the opposing forces of markedness (the human factor) and faithfulness (the communication factor); the sentence-oriented versus sign-oriented approaches; and the concepts of naturalistic versus generative research paradigms. Despite these basic differences, similarities are also found in their shared functional basis which is discussed in the context of the natural phonological processes of Natural Phonology. I will further show how each theory views the notion of language universals. The concepts of combinatory phonology, phonotactics, and diachronic, developmental and clinical phonology will be discussed as measures of defining and determining the concept of language universals. The author maintains that biological, physiological, cognitive, psychological, sociological and other universals of human behavior are merely reflected in language rather than being specific "language universals" per se.
