Determinants of Wordlikeness: Phonotactics or Lexical Neighborhoods?

Todd M. Bailey; Ulrike Hahn

doi:10.1006/jmla.2000.2756

Auditory and Visual Lexical Neighborhoods in Audiovisual Speech Perception

Trends in Amplification ◽

10.1177/1084713807307409 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 233-241 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Nancy Tye-Murray ◽

Mitchell Sommers ◽

Brent Spehar

Keyword(s):

Speech Perception ◽

Audiovisual Speech ◽

Audiovisual Speech Perception ◽

Lexical Neighborhoods

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Infant sensitivity to lexical neighborhoods during word learning

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.4743153 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 108 (5) ◽

pp. 2481-2481 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

George J. Hollich ◽

Peter W. Jusczyk ◽

Paul A. Luce

Keyword(s):

Word Learning ◽

Lexical Neighborhoods

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Phoneme Perception and the Structure of Lexical Neighborhoods

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e520602012-418 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Mary M. Flaherty ◽

James R. Sawusch

Keyword(s):

Phoneme Perception ◽

Lexical Neighborhoods

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Lexical Neighborhoods and the Word-Form Representations of 14-Month-Olds

Psychological Science ◽

10.1111/1467-9280.00485 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 480-484 ◽

Cited By ~ 189

Author(s):

Daniel Swingley ◽

Richard N. Aslin

Keyword(s):

Developmental Psychology ◽

Word Form ◽

Word Meanings ◽

Lexical Representations ◽

Fine Detail ◽

Developmental Continuity ◽

Fixation Task ◽

Perceptual Abilities ◽

Lexical Neighborhoods ◽

Vocabulary Spurt

The degree to which infants represent phonetic detail in words has been a source of controversy in phonology and developmental psychology. One prominent hypothesis holds that infants store words in a vague or inaccurate form until the learning of similar-sounding neighbors forces attention to subtle phonetic distinctions. In the experiment reported here, we used a visual fixation task to assess word recognition. We present the first evidence indicating that, in fact, the lexical representations of 14- and 15-month-olds are encoded in fine detail, even when this detail is not functionally necessary for distinguishing similar words in the infant's vocabulary. Exposure to words is sufficient for well-specified lexical representations, even well before the vocabulary spurt. These results suggest developmental continuity in infants' representations of speech: As infants begin to build a vocabulary and learn word meanings, they use the perceptual abilities previously demonstrated in tasks testing the discrimination and categorization of meaningless syllables.

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An Electrophysiological Study of the Effects of Orthographic Neighborhood Size on Printed Word Perception

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/089892902760191153 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 14 (6) ◽

pp. 938-950 ◽

Cited By ~ 223

Author(s):

Phillip J. Holcomb ◽

Jonathan Grainger ◽

Tim O'Rourke

Keyword(s):

Electrophysiological Study ◽

Word Perception ◽

Brain Potentials ◽

Semantic Categorization ◽

Inhibition Effect ◽

Behavioral Studies ◽

Orthographic Neighborhood Size ◽

Printed Word ◽

Lexical Neighbors ◽

Lexical Neighborhoods

In two experiments participants read words and pseudo-words that belonged to either large or small lexical neighborhoods while event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from their scalps. In Experiment 1, participants made speeded lexical decisions to all items, while in Experiment 2 they engaged in a go/no-go semantic categorization task in which the critical items did not require an overt behavioral response. In both experiments, words and pseudo-words produced a consistent pattern of ERP effects: items with many lexical neighbors (large neighborhoods) generated larger N400s than similar items with relatively fewer lexical neighbors (small neighborhoods). Reaction time (RT, Experiment 1), on the other hand, showed a different pattern consistent with previous behavioral studies. While words tended to produce a facilitation in RT for larger neighborhoods, pseudowords produced an inhibition effect. The findings are discussed in terms of recent theories of word recognition and the functional significance of the N400.

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Why do human languages have homophones?

10.31234/osf.io/yrjfc ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sean Trott ◽

Ben Bergen

Keyword(s):

Communication Systems ◽

Design Feature ◽

Upper Bounds ◽

Natural Consequence ◽

Human Communication ◽

The Real ◽

Minimal Pairs ◽

Outer Sheath ◽

Multiple Meanings ◽

Lexical Neighborhoods

Human languages are replete with ambiguity. This is most evident in homophony––where two or more words sound the same, but carry distinct meanings. For example, the wordform “bark” can denote either the sound produced by a dog or the protective outer sheath of a tree trunk. Why would a system evolved for efficient, effective communication display rampant ambiguity? Some accounts argue that ambiguity is actually a design feature of human communication systems, allowing languages to recycle their most optimal wordforms (those which are short, frequent, and phonotactically well-formed) for multiple meanings. We test this claim by constructing five series of artificial lexica matched for the phonotactics and distribution of word lengths found in five real languages (English, German, Dutch, French, and Japanese), and comparing both the quantity and concentration of homophony across the real and artificial lexica. Surprisingly, we find that the artificial lexica exhibit higher upper-bounds on homophony than their real counterparts, and that homophony is even more likely to be found among short, phonotactically plausible wordforms in the artificial than in the real lexica. These results suggest that homophony in real languages is not directly selected for, but rather, that it emerges as a natural consequence of other features of a language. In fact, homophony may even be selected against in real languages, producing lexica that better conform to other requirements of humans who need to use them. Finally, we explore the hypothesis that this is achieved by “smoothing” out dense concentrations of homophones across lexical neighborhoods, resulting in comparatively more minimal pairs in real lexica.

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