Learning Morpho-phonological Alternations like French Liaison

an Artificial Language Learning Study

Author

Z. Khalaji Pirbaluti

Published

May 1, 2025

Doi

http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0448645

About

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  • All of the statistical analyses and plots were created with R packages. The experiments were coded using jsPsych framework.

  • The experiments material including the stimuli list, javascript codes for jsPsych, and R codes for the statistical analysis are stored at an osf repository for open source access.

  • 📔 The official thesis document is available open-access in the UBC Theses and Dissertation collection. (Disclaimer: This version has better OT Tableux!)

Lay Summary

The goal of this thesis is to improve our understanding of how certain sound patterns are learned when they are exceptions to the general sound patterns in a language. My study focuses on one system of sound patterns in French as its unique characteristics presents various challenges for language acquisition. In French, certain arbitrary words, like petite meaning ‘small’, have two forms in pronunciation, and the choice between forms depends on whether the following noun starts with a vowel or a consonant. In this thesis, I create an artificial mini-language using nonsense words that mimic the sound patterns of French and present it to adult participants in an online experimental study. The participant errors are similar to children and show that they struggle learning the nouns starting with a vowel. However, they can judge which pattern is correct when they get the full phrase.

Citation

BibTeX:

author = {Khalaji Pirbaluti, Zara}, date = {2025}, title = {}, type = {Master Thesis}, publisher = {University of British Columbia}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90893}

APA:

Khalaji Pirbaluti, Z. (2025). Learning morpho-phonological alternations like French liaison : an artificial language learning study. (Master Thesis). University of British Columbia.