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Asymmetries in Generalizing Alternations to and from Initial Syllables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Michael Becker,
Andrew Nevins and
Jonathan Levine
Michael Becker*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Andrew Nevins*
Affiliation:
University College London
Jonathan Levine*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
Becker, Department of Linguistics, 226 South College, University of Massachusetts, 150 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003 [michael@linguist.umass.edu]
Nevins, UCL Linguistics, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF, United Kingdom [a.nevins@ucl.ac.uk]
Levine, Department of Linguistics, Harvard University, Boylston Hall 317, Cambridge, MA 02138 [jplevine@fas.harvard.edu]
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Abstract

In the English lexicon, laryngeal alternations in the plural (e.g. leaf ~ leaves) impact monosyllables more than finally stressed polysyllables. This is the opposite of what happens typologically, and would thereby run contrary to the predictions of initial-syllable faithfulness. Despite the lexical pattern, in a wug test we found monosyllables to be impacted no more than finally stressed polysyllables were—a ‘surfeit of the stimulus’ effect, in which speakers fail to learn a statistical generalization present in the lexicon. We present two artificial-grammar experiments in which English speakers indeed manifest a universal bias for protecting monosyllables, and initial syllables more generally. The conclusion, therefore, is that speakers can exhibit spontaneous learning that goes directly against the evidence offered by the ambient language, a result we attribute to formal and substantive biases in phonological acquisition.

Keywords

initial-syllable protectionlaryngeal alternationsEnglish fricative voicingartificial-grammar learningunderlearning

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , June 2012, pp. 231 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by Linguistic Society of America

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