It also provides a novel perspective on paradigm gaps. In particular, it provides a mechanism for degrammaticalization and affix liberation (e.g., the detachment of -holic from the context(s) in which it occurs), explaining how chunks can gain productivity despite occurring in a single fixed context. The negative feedback cycle provides a mechanistic explanation for several phenomena in language change that have so far eluded usage-based accounts. I show that these cases can be accounted for by spreading activation down paradigmatic associations as the source of the activation is being inhibited by negative feedback. However, there remains an important residue of cases for which paradigmatic mappings are necessary. The negative feedback cycle explains away much of the evidence for paradigmatic mappings, allowing more of the grammar to be described with only direct form-meaning mappings/constructions. The negative feedback cycle suppresses activated form chunks with unintended semantics or connotations and allows the speaker to decide when to begin speaking. A negative feedback cycle is argued to be responsible. However, it also raises the question of how leveling is avoided. This process accounts for both the synchronic phenomenon of paradigm uniformity and the diachronic process of paradigm leveling i.e., the shaping or reshaping of relatively infrequent forms by semantically-related forms of higher frequency. How do speakers produce novel words? This programmatic paper synthesizes research in linguistics and neuroscience to argue for a parallel distributed architecture of the language system, in which distributed semantic representations activate competing form chunks in parallel. We attribute this effect to homophony avoidance interfering with participants' ability to extract the phonological generalization. When the rule created homophony between lexical items, participants were less able to learn the rule, but it did not affect their choice of prefix. We attribute this effect to a paradigm uniformity bias leading participants to avoid phonological alternations (particularly in the stem). The results showed that participants shifted away from using the rule-triggering prefix (ni-), but only when it was already the less frequent prefix.
We also manipulated the relative frequency of the two prefix variants. In some conditions, the rule additionally created homophony. We exposed adult participants to an artificial language in which noun plurals were marked by one of two prefix forms (ba- or ni-), one of which also triggered a velar palatalization rule (e.g., singular kimu, plural ni-chimu). We examine how learning a phonological rule in an artificial language interacts with morphological and lexical learning.
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