Project Details
Projekt
The acquisition of voicing an vowel alternations in German
Applicant
Professor Dr. Ruben van de Vijver
Subject Area
General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
Term
from 2009 to 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 140637275
The goal of this project is to study the acquisition of voicing and vowel alternations in singular-plural pairs in German. Alternation of voicing is a regular process of German, in the sense that there are all stem-final voiced obstruents in the plural correspond to a stem-final voiceless obstruent in the singular. In the literature this process is known as final devoicing (see Beckmann, 1997, and references therein). Vowel alternation, also known as Umlaut, is a process in which a back stem vowel in the singular corresponds to a front stem vowel in the plural. It is an irregular process, since not all front stem vowels in the plural correspond to a back stem vowel in the singular. Phonological theories make different predictions concerning the acquisition of these processes on the basis of how they explain alternations. Theories that make a difference between regular alternations, which are a consequence of blind application of rules or constraints, and irregular alternations, which are learned on an item-by-item basis, predict that once a regular alternation is acquired all relevant new items will be affected by the alternation. Irregular alternations, on the other hand, are never extrapolated to new items. Theories that explain alternations based on similarities with other items, predict a gradual acquisition of both regular and irregular items. Whenever a new item resembles–in a way that will be made explicit below–another item that alternates, the new item will also alternate. Based on a study on the acquisition of voicing alternations in Dutch (Kerkhoff, 2007), I have designed a set of experiments to test these hypotheses. The topic of this project is at the center of a current debate in phonological theory about the question if phonology is categorical or stochastic, and a venue such as the priority framework of the DFG, in which many data are brought into purview of phonological theories, seems an excellent framework in which to conduct this research.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
