Speaker: Jason Shaw (Yale)
Title: Is phonological grammar movement preparation?
Time: Friday, November 15th, 3.30-5pm
Location: 32-141
Abstract: In the Dynamic Field Theory of movement preparation, intentions to move are inputs to Dynamic Neural Fields (DNFs) representing the metric dimensions of the movement (Erlhagen & Schöner, 2002). Although initially developed to explain properties of eye and hand movements, this general theory has proven highly appropriate for modeling movement preparation in speech, which also involves movement targets located within continuous metric dimensions. DNFs provide a natural mechanism through which multiple influences, such as context, prosody, interlocuter, etc., all codetermine the phonetic details of speech. Moreover, the same dynamics that account for phonetic variation also derive categorical patterns that are typically the purview of phonological grammar. To exemplify this point, Ill show how a mini-typology of laryngeal phonological patterns, consisting of intervocalic voicing, vowel devoicing, and voicing contour derive from variation in the timing and amplitude of inputs to a DNF representing glottal width. Besides these strictly categorical patterns, sound patterns which have both a categorical and continuous flavor, such as tonal downstep and incomplete neutralization, are natural consequences of the theory, as are gradient sound change and contextual de-merging of merged phonological categories. Appropriately extended to speech, there is potential for the DFT theory of movement planning to predict the attested range of sound patterns in human language, suggesting that phonology may be movement planning all the way down.