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Contribution to Book
L1 Phonotactic Knowledge and the L2 Acquisition of Alternations
Inquiries in Linguistic Development: Studies in Honor of Lydia White (2006)
  • Joe Pater
  • Anne-Michelle Tessier, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract
Phonological alternations often serve to modify forms so that they respect a phonotactic
restriction that applies across the words of language. Although it has long been assumed that
an adequate theory of phonology should capture the connection between phonotactics and
alternations, there is no psycholinguistic evidence that speakers actually do use a single
mechanism for them both. In this study, we used an artificial language learning experiment
with adult subjects to test whether an alternation that meets a phonotactic target is easier to
learn than one that does not. The results suggest that phonotactic knowledge does aid in the
acquisition of alternations, and also provide a novel example of the influence of the first
language on second language learning.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2006
Editor
R. Slabakova, S. Montrul, and P. Prévost
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Citation Information
Joe Pater and Anne-Michelle Tessier. "L1 Phonotactic Knowledge and the L2 Acquisition of Alternations" AmsterdamInquiries in Linguistic Development: Studies in Honor of Lydia White (2006)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/joe_pater/30/