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Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus)

Albeit diverse, human languages exhibit universal structures. A salient example is the syllable, an important structure of language acquisition. The structure of syllables is determined by the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), a linguistic constraint according to which phoneme intensity must incr...

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Autores principales: Santolin, Chiara, Crespo-Bojorque, Paola, Sebastian-Galles, Nuria, Toro, Juan Manuel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10562444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37813950
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44081-y
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author Santolin, Chiara
Crespo-Bojorque, Paola
Sebastian-Galles, Nuria
Toro, Juan Manuel
author_facet Santolin, Chiara
Crespo-Bojorque, Paola
Sebastian-Galles, Nuria
Toro, Juan Manuel
author_sort Santolin, Chiara
collection PubMed
description Albeit diverse, human languages exhibit universal structures. A salient example is the syllable, an important structure of language acquisition. The structure of syllables is determined by the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), a linguistic constraint according to which phoneme intensity must increase at onset, reaching a peak at nucleus (vowel), and decline at offset. Such structure generates an intensity pattern with an arch shape. In humans, sensitivity to restrictions imposed by the SSP on syllables appears at birth, raising questions about its emergence. We investigated the biological mechanisms at the foundations of the SSP, testing a nonhuman, non-vocal-learner species with the same language materials used with humans. Rats discriminated well-structured syllables (e.g., pras) from ill-structured ones (e.g., lbug) after being familiarized with syllabic structures conforming to the SSP. In contrast, we did not observe evidence that rats familiarized with syllables that violate such constraint discriminated at test. This research provides the first evidence of sensitivity to the SSP in a nonhuman species, which likely stems from evolutionary-ancient cross-species biological predispositions for natural acoustic patterns. Humans’ early sensitivity to the SSP possibly emerges from general auditory processing that favors sounds depicting an arch-shaped envelope, common amongst animal vocalizations. Ancient sensory mechanisms, responsible for processing vocalizations in the wild, would constitute an entry-gate for human language acquisition.
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spelling pubmed-105624442023-10-11 Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus) Santolin, Chiara Crespo-Bojorque, Paola Sebastian-Galles, Nuria Toro, Juan Manuel Sci Rep Article Albeit diverse, human languages exhibit universal structures. A salient example is the syllable, an important structure of language acquisition. The structure of syllables is determined by the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), a linguistic constraint according to which phoneme intensity must increase at onset, reaching a peak at nucleus (vowel), and decline at offset. Such structure generates an intensity pattern with an arch shape. In humans, sensitivity to restrictions imposed by the SSP on syllables appears at birth, raising questions about its emergence. We investigated the biological mechanisms at the foundations of the SSP, testing a nonhuman, non-vocal-learner species with the same language materials used with humans. Rats discriminated well-structured syllables (e.g., pras) from ill-structured ones (e.g., lbug) after being familiarized with syllabic structures conforming to the SSP. In contrast, we did not observe evidence that rats familiarized with syllables that violate such constraint discriminated at test. This research provides the first evidence of sensitivity to the SSP in a nonhuman species, which likely stems from evolutionary-ancient cross-species biological predispositions for natural acoustic patterns. Humans’ early sensitivity to the SSP possibly emerges from general auditory processing that favors sounds depicting an arch-shaped envelope, common amongst animal vocalizations. Ancient sensory mechanisms, responsible for processing vocalizations in the wild, would constitute an entry-gate for human language acquisition. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-10-09 /pmc/articles/PMC10562444/ /pubmed/37813950 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44081-y Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Santolin, Chiara
Crespo-Bojorque, Paola
Sebastian-Galles, Nuria
Toro, Juan Manuel
Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus)
title Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus)
title_full Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus)
title_fullStr Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus)
title_full_unstemmed Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus)
title_short Sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (Rattus norvegicus)
title_sort sensitivity to the sonority sequencing principle in rats (rattus norvegicus)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10562444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37813950
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44081-y
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