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Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages
A learner’s linguistic input is more variable if it comes from a greater number of speakers. Higher speaker input variability has been shown to facilitate the acquisition of phonemic boundaries, since data drawn from multiple speakers provides more information about the distribution of phonemes in a...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4461169/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26057624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129463 |
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author | Atkinson, Mark Kirby, Simon Smith, Kenny |
author_facet | Atkinson, Mark Kirby, Simon Smith, Kenny |
author_sort | Atkinson, Mark |
collection | PubMed |
description | A learner’s linguistic input is more variable if it comes from a greater number of speakers. Higher speaker input variability has been shown to facilitate the acquisition of phonemic boundaries, since data drawn from multiple speakers provides more information about the distribution of phonemes in a speech community. It has also been proposed that speaker input variability may have a systematic influence on individual-level learning of morphology, which can in turn influence the group-level characteristics of a language. Languages spoken by larger groups of people have less complex morphology than those spoken in smaller communities. While a mechanism by which the number of speakers could have such an effect is yet to be convincingly identified, differences in speaker input variability, which is thought to be larger in larger groups, may provide an explanation. By hindering the acquisition, and hence faithful cross-generational transfer, of complex morphology, higher speaker input variability may result in structural simplification. We assess this claim in two experiments which investigate the effect of such variability on language learning, considering its influence on a learner’s ability to segment a continuous speech stream and acquire a morphologically complex miniature language. We ultimately find no evidence to support the proposal that speaker input variability influences language learning and so cannot support the hypothesis that it explains how population size determines the structural properties of language. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4461169 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-44611692015-06-16 Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages Atkinson, Mark Kirby, Simon Smith, Kenny PLoS One Research Article A learner’s linguistic input is more variable if it comes from a greater number of speakers. Higher speaker input variability has been shown to facilitate the acquisition of phonemic boundaries, since data drawn from multiple speakers provides more information about the distribution of phonemes in a speech community. It has also been proposed that speaker input variability may have a systematic influence on individual-level learning of morphology, which can in turn influence the group-level characteristics of a language. Languages spoken by larger groups of people have less complex morphology than those spoken in smaller communities. While a mechanism by which the number of speakers could have such an effect is yet to be convincingly identified, differences in speaker input variability, which is thought to be larger in larger groups, may provide an explanation. By hindering the acquisition, and hence faithful cross-generational transfer, of complex morphology, higher speaker input variability may result in structural simplification. We assess this claim in two experiments which investigate the effect of such variability on language learning, considering its influence on a learner’s ability to segment a continuous speech stream and acquire a morphologically complex miniature language. We ultimately find no evidence to support the proposal that speaker input variability influences language learning and so cannot support the hypothesis that it explains how population size determines the structural properties of language. Public Library of Science 2015-06-09 /pmc/articles/PMC4461169/ /pubmed/26057624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129463 Text en © 2015 Atkinson et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Atkinson, Mark Kirby, Simon Smith, Kenny Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages |
title | Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages |
title_full | Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages |
title_fullStr | Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages |
title_full_unstemmed | Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages |
title_short | Speaker Input Variability Does Not Explain Why Larger Populations Have Simpler Languages |
title_sort | speaker input variability does not explain why larger populations have simpler languages |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4461169/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26057624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129463 |
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