Hungarian Emerging

Phonological theories tend to focus on the end point of learning, the adult grammar, assuming some innate linguistic component determines the nature of the grammar that is acquired. In Emergent phonology, we explore the hypothesis that adult grammars take the shapes they have because they can be ac...

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Main Authors: Diana Archangeli, Douglas Pulleyblank
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: UPV/EHU Press 2025-01-01
Series:Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo"
Online Access:https://ojs.ehu.eus/index.php/ASJU/article/view/25948
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author Diana Archangeli
Douglas Pulleyblank
author_facet Diana Archangeli
Douglas Pulleyblank
author_sort Diana Archangeli
collection DOAJ
description Phonological theories tend to focus on the end point of learning, the adult grammar, assuming some innate linguistic component determines the nature of the grammar that is acquired. In Emergent phonology, we explore the hypothesis that adult grammars take the shapes they have because they can be acquired; we go further and propose that there is no innate linguistic component for phonological acquisition. Given these hypotheses, grammars are acquired piecemeal and learners rapidly generalise over subparts of the lexicon. One prediction is that we expect languages to have regularities with widely differing effect – both general patterns and subpatterns that exist but only in a narrow domain. We test this hypothesis against Hungarian vowel harmony, a harmony pattern that is often described as involving both [back] harmony and [round] harmony, despite the fact that the language has nonharmonic suffixes, suffixes with limited harmony, disharmony, antiharmony, and both transparency and opacity. In particular, we discuss patterns of suffix alternation involving harmony. The patterns, morphologically determined, range from no alternation, to alternating only along the front-back dimension, to alternating in terms of both backness and rounding, to alternating in terms of backness, rounding and height.
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2444-2992
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series Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo"
spelling doaj-art-378fbe8c7547475aa255aeafb031c21d2025-01-31T08:28:42ZengUPV/EHU PressAnuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo"0582-61522444-29922025-01-0157(1-2)10.1387/asju.25948Hungarian EmergingDiana Archangeli0Douglas PulleyblankUniversity of Arizona Phonological theories tend to focus on the end point of learning, the adult grammar, assuming some innate linguistic component determines the nature of the grammar that is acquired. In Emergent phonology, we explore the hypothesis that adult grammars take the shapes they have because they can be acquired; we go further and propose that there is no innate linguistic component for phonological acquisition. Given these hypotheses, grammars are acquired piecemeal and learners rapidly generalise over subparts of the lexicon. One prediction is that we expect languages to have regularities with widely differing effect – both general patterns and subpatterns that exist but only in a narrow domain. We test this hypothesis against Hungarian vowel harmony, a harmony pattern that is often described as involving both [back] harmony and [round] harmony, despite the fact that the language has nonharmonic suffixes, suffixes with limited harmony, disharmony, antiharmony, and both transparency and opacity. In particular, we discuss patterns of suffix alternation involving harmony. The patterns, morphologically determined, range from no alternation, to alternating only along the front-back dimension, to alternating in terms of both backness and rounding, to alternating in terms of backness, rounding and height. https://ojs.ehu.eus/index.php/ASJU/article/view/25948
spellingShingle Diana Archangeli
Douglas Pulleyblank
Hungarian Emerging
Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo"
title Hungarian Emerging
title_full Hungarian Emerging
title_fullStr Hungarian Emerging
title_full_unstemmed Hungarian Emerging
title_short Hungarian Emerging
title_sort hungarian emerging
url https://ojs.ehu.eus/index.php/ASJU/article/view/25948
work_keys_str_mv AT dianaarchangeli hungarianemerging
AT douglaspulleyblank hungarianemerging