Workshop on Computing and Phonology
A small workshop on computational aspects of phonology is held at the
University of Groningen (RUG), the Netherlands,
on December 8, 2006. The workshop is open to anyone, but we kindly ask you
to register not later than December 4.
Should you have any question, please feel free to contact Tamás Bíró at
birot @ nytud.hu
Location:
Harmony Building, H13.309 (Multimediazaal)
Oude Kijk in't Jatstraat 26, 9712 EK Groningen.
View all abstracts
Program:
| Chair: Dicky Gilbers |
| 9:30 | Opening: John Nerbonne |
| 9:40 | Tamas Biro (ACLC, Universiteit van Amsterdam): |
| Simulated Annealing for Optimality Theory: A performance model for phonology |
| View abstract |
| 10:20 | Bart Cramer and John Nerbonne (CLCG, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen): |
| Scaling Minimal Generalization |
| View abstract |
| 11:00 | Coffee |
Chair: Petra Hendriks |
|
11:30 | Gerhard Jäger (Universität Bielefeld): |
| Exemplar dynamics and George Price's General Theory of Selection |
| View abstract |
| 12:10 | Paul Boersma (ACLC, Universiteit van Amsterdam): |
| The emergence of markedness |
| View abstract |
| 13:00 | Lunch |
Chair: Gosse Bouma |
| 14:30 | Adam Albright (MIT, Cambridge, MA): |
| Modeling gradient phonotactic well-formedness as grammatical competence |
| A commonly stated goal of phonological analysis is to explain what
speakers know that lets them agree that some non-occurring strings
are possible words, while others are not (Halle 1962). Whenever one
gathers judgments about novel words, however, a challenge arises:
words fall along a gradient scale of acceptability: *bnick, *dlip < ?bwip < blick. Often, analysts impose a threshold, and formulate a
grammar generating anything above the cut-off; further distinctions
are assumed to reflect extra-grammatical factors like frequency,
analogy, etc. In this talk, I defend the position that gradience is
best modeled within the grammar itself. I consider three dimensions
along which models may differ: (1) the structure used to encode
generalizations, (2) the way frequency influences generalization, and
(3) access to prior markedness biases. I present computational
models that differ along these dimensions, and report attempts to
model experimental acceptability judgments. The results so far
indicate that a successful model must refer to sequences of natural
classes, rather than raw perceptual similarity. Furthermore, the
strength of a pattern is found to correlate with type frequency, not
token frequency, contrary to what one would expect if gradience arose
"on-line" during lexical access. Finally, preferences can be
observed that have no apparent basis in the lexicon. Taken together,
these facts suggest that gradience is indeed encoded within a learned
grammar, composed partly of lexical generalizations and partly of
phonetic markedness biases. Close abstract |
| 15:30 | Closing and coffee |
Registration:
If you intend to participate in the workshop, please register before
December 4, in order to facilitate organisation.
Further information:
Information Science/Humanities Computing
Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG)
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG)
From Wilbert Heeringa's page:
A list of hotels in Groningen (please note that the prices are outdated).
Travel information
Thanks to Gerlof
Bouma for the design.