Talking and Chewing Gum: Processing Real Speech Variation with the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon
Date
2004
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
Type
Thesis (B.A.)
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
en_US
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
The human capacity to successfully understand the wide variety of spoken language
encountered constantly by listeners is nothing short of astounding. Findings and theories from
both theoretical phonology and psycho linguistics have been brqught together in attempts to
explain listeners' ability to process the variation produced by real speakers of natural language.
This study proposes to examine one such theory, Lahiri's and Reetz' (2002) Featurally
Underspecified Lexicon (FUL). While FUL is supported by a great deal of theoretical and
experimental evidence from both phonology and psycho linguistics, it has never been tested
directly on the behaviour of real speakers and listeners. An analysis of data taken from
children's speech errors both provides support for the model and illuminates ways that FUL fails
to account for real human responses to variation in language .