Learning morpho-phonological alternations like French liaison : an artificial language learning study
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Linguistics, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Khalaji Pirbaluti, Zara
issued: 2025-04-30T13:44:13Z
issued: 2025
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Morpho-phonological phenomena present challenges to learners because they interface with morpho-syntactic, semantic, and phonological grammar. A common difficulty encountered in these interface phenomena lies in navigating idiosyncrasies and exceptional cases. This thesis explores the nature of learning implications of morpho-phonological alternations, in particular focusing on the case study of patterns akin to French liaison. Liaison is a prevalent and complex phenomenon in French that occurs at word boundaries. I propose a theoretical account of the learnability of French liaison within the Optimality Theory framework which gives rise to predictions regarding various components and dimensions of learning. I evaluate these predictions in an experimental study with an artificial language learning paradigm that consists of a training phase and a testing phase with two-alternative-forced-choice tasks. The training phase has a between-subject design where learners experience different hypothesized learning trajectories. The aim of the experiment is to investigate the extent to which learners would face challenges in learning given that the artificial language includes idiosyncratic patterns. The results demonstrate that in a controlled experimental setting, adult learners do show partial differential learning outcomes depending on their learning trajectory in training. However, participants also show task-dependent performance: above-chance for noun phrase choices but near-chance for word segmentation with both novel and familiar nouns. These results, taken together, imply that one of the most challenging components of learning in patterns similar to liaison predominantly lies in mechanisms related to computing word boundaries and deriving representations.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90893
note: LEARNING MORPHO-PHONOLOGICAL ALTERNATIONS LIKE FRENCH LIAISON: AN ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGE LEARNING STUDY by Zara Khalaji Pirbaluti A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Linguistics) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2025 © Zara Khalaji Pirbaluti, 2025 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Learning morpho-phonological alternations like French liaison: an artificial language learning study submitted by Zara Khalaji Pirbaluti in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics Examining Committee: Anne-Michelle Tessier, Associate Professor, Linguistics, UBC Supervisor Gunnar Ã. Hansson, Associate Professor, Linguistics, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Carla L. Hudson Kam, Professor, Linguistics, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract Morpho-phonological phenomena present challenges to learners because they interface with morpho-syntactic, semantic, and phonological grammar. A common difficulty encountered in these interface phenomena lies in navigating idiosyncrasies and exceptional cases. This thesis explores the nature of learning implications of morpho-phonological alternations, in particular focusing on the case study of patterns akin to French liaison. Liaison is a prevalent and complex phenomenon in French that occurs at word boundaries. I propose a theoretical account of the learnability of French liaison within the Optimality Theory framework which gives rise to predictions regarding various components and dimensions of learning. I evaluate these predictions in an experimental study with an artificial language learning paradigm that consists of a training phase and a testing phase with two-alternative-forced-choice tasks. The training phase has a between-subject design wh…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2025-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448645
language: eng
degree discipline: Linguistics
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Tessier, Anne-Michelle, 1979-
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90893