{"id":18248,"date":"2026-09-21T06:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whamit.mit.edu\/?p=18248"},"modified":"2026-09-21T06:02:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:02:00","slug":"linglunch-eyal-marco-mit-roni-katzir-tel-aviv-university-ezer-rasin-tel-aviv-university-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/2026\/09\/21\/linglunch-eyal-marco-mit-roni-katzir-tel-aviv-university-ezer-rasin-tel-aviv-university-2\/","title":{"rendered":"LingLunch  - Eyal Marco (MIT), Roni Katzir (Tel-Aviv University), Ezer Rasin (Tel-Aviv University)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Speaker: <\/strong> Eyal Marco (MIT), Roni Katzir (Tel-Aviv University), Ezer Rasin (Tel-Aviv University)<br class=\"\"><strong>Title: <\/strong>The complementary-distribution challenge for phonological learning: The case of [h] and [?] in English<br class=\"\"><strong>Time: <\/strong>, 12:30pm - 2pm<br class=\"\"><strong>Location: <\/strong>32-D461<br class=\"\"><br class=\"\"><strong>Abstract: <\/strong>The distribution of [h] and [?] in English poses a well-known challenge for the structuralist assumption that segments in complementary distribution are allophones of the same phoneme. In this study, we show that this distribution also poses a challenge within generative linguistics, a challenge of explanatory adequacy. The challenge is to explain why the English-learning child does not acquire a grammar in which [h] and [?] are derived from the same underlying representation. The generative literature has not identified this as a problem, largely because of the assumption that [h] and [?] are too phonetically dissimilar to participate in an alternation. However, we argue that phonetic accounts do not eliminate the challenge. We discuss simplicity-based theories of learning and show that under naive representational assumptions, simplicity-based learners prefer to derive [?] from an underlying \/h\/, rather than a longer sequence of \/ng\/ (or an underlying \/?\/), and therefore make wrong predictions about English speakers&#8217; knowledge. The same learners, however, make correct predictions when combined with a representational framework that assumes underspecification and lexical redundancy rules. We therefore conclude that the acquisition problem can be addressed using simplicity-based learning, and that the complementary distribution of [h] and [?] provides an argument for underspecification and lexical redundancy rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaker: Eyal Marco (MIT), Roni Katzir (Tel-Aviv University), Ezer Rasin (Tel-Aviv University)Title: The complementary-distribution challenge for phonological learning: The case of [h] and [?] in EnglishTime: , 12:30pm - 2pmLocation: 32-D461Abstract: The distribution of [h] and [?] in English poses a well-known challenge for the structuralist assumption that segments in complementary distribution are allophones of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}