Learning Phonotactics in a Differentiable Framework of Subregular Languages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3765/amp.v9i0.5173Keywords:
Nonlocal phonotactics, Quechua, Phonotactic learning, Strictly Piecewise languagesAbstract
Phonotactic constraints have been argued to beregular, meaning that they can be represented usingfinite-state automata (Heinz, 2018); furthermore, they have been argued to occupy a even more restrictedregion of the regular language class known as the subregular hierarchy (Rogers & Pullum, 2011). Ourcontribution is to present a simple model of phonotactic learning from positive evidence. Our approach isbased on probabilistic finite-state automata (Vidal et al., 2005a,b). We study the model’s ability to induce localand nonlocal phonotactics from wordlist data, both with and without formal constraints on the automaton.In particular, we evaluate the ability of our learner to induce nonlocal phonotactic constraints from data ofNavajo and Quechua. Our work provides a framework in which different formal models of phonotactics canbe compared, and sheds light on the structural nature of phonological acquisition (Dai, 2021; Shibata & Heinz,2019; Heinz & Rogers, 2010, 2013).Downloads
Published
2022-08-05
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Proceedings
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Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY 3.0 license.