The Phonological Mind
Cambridge University Press, 1/10/2013
EAN 9780521769402, ISBN10: 052176940X
Hardcover, 378 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
Humans instinctively form words by weaving patterns of meaningless speech elements. Moreover, we do so in specific, regular ways. We contrast dogs and gods, favour blogs to lbogs. We begin forming sound-patterns at birth and, like songbirds, we do so spontaneously, even in the absence of an adult model. We even impose these phonological patterns on invented cultural technologies such as reading and writing. But why are humans compelled to generate phonological patterns? And why do different phonological systems - signed and spoken - share aspects of their design? Drawing on findings from a broad range of disciplines including linguistics, experimental psychology, neuroscience and comparative animal studies, Iris Berent explores these questions and proposes a new hypothesis about the architecture of the phonological mind.
Part I. Introduction
1. Genesis
2. Instinctive phonology
3. The anatomy of the phonological mind
Part II. Algebraic Phonology
4. How are phonological categories represented
the role of equivalence classes
5. How phonological patterns are assembled
the role of algebraic variables in phonology
Part III. Universal Design - Phonological Universals and their Role in Individual Grammars
6. Phonological universals
typological evidence and grammatical explanations
7. Phonological universals are mirrored in behavior
evidence from artificial language learning
8. Phonological universals are core knowledge
evidence from sonority restrictions
Part IV. Ontogeny, Phylogeny, Phonological Hardware and Technology
9. Out of the mouths of babes
10. The phonological mind evolves
11. The phonological brain
12. Phonological technologies
reading and writing
13. Conclusions, caveats, questions.
'Although research on sentence processing has long been informed by syntactic theory, there has been more of a disconnect between phonological theory and research on word/sub-word processing. No more! This monograph establishes firmly how phonological theory and theories of speech processing are intricately connected. With this book, Berent cements her position as a major contributor to the research on speech processing and phonological theory, and the interface between these two fields.' Andries W. Coetzee, University of Michigan