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Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
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High functional load inhibits phonological contrast loss: a corpus study.

Andrew Wedel1, Abby Kaplan, Scott Jackson

  • 1University of Arizona, Dept. of Linguistics, Douglass Bldg., Rm. 200E, P.O. Box 210028, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. wedel@u.arizona.edu

Cognition
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Summary

Linguists proposed that phonemes distinguishing many words are less likely to merge. This study confirms that phoneme pairs undergoing merger distinguish fewer words, supporting the functional load hypothesis.

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Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Phonology
  • Historical Linguistics

Background:

  • The functional load hypothesis posits that phonemes distinguishing more words (higher functional load) are more resistant to merger.
  • Previous research was limited by data and computational constraints, hindering large-scale testing.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the functional load hypothesis using a large-scale dataset of sound changes across diverse languages.
  • To determine if phoneme functional load influences the likelihood of diachronic merger.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of sound changes in a diverse language sample.
  • Quantitative assessment of minimal pair counts for phoneme pairs.
  • Correlation analysis between phoneme probability, minimal pair count, and merger.

Main Results:

  • Phoneme pairs undergoing merger distinguish significantly fewer minimal pairs than unmerged pairs.
  • Higher phoneme probability correlates with merger, especially for phonemes with no minimal pairs.
  • Minimal pair count and phoneme probability are stronger predictors of merger than system entropy changes.

Conclusions:

  • The study provides strong empirical support for the functional load hypothesis in diachronic phonology.
  • Lexical statistics, specifically minimal pair counts and phoneme probability, are key factors in predicting phoneme merger.
  • Findings advance our understanding of sound change mechanisms and linguistic evolution.