The Phonological Mind

A study of how humans weave the sound-patterns of language, informed by insights from linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience and genetics.

Iris Berent (Author)

9780521149709, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 January 2013

374 pages, 30 b/w illus. 9 tables
22.7 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.59 kg

'Iris Berent's book The Phonological Mind offers a clear and convincing dissenting voice in this debate, arguing forcefully on the basis of interesting arguments for a moderately nativist position in phonology, one which incorporates a great deal of insight acquired in the course of years by her and her collaborators' Marc van Oostendorp, Phonology

Humans instinctively form words by weaving patterns of meaningless speech elements. Moreover, we do so in specific, regular ways. We contrast dogs and gods, favour blogs to lbogs. We begin forming sound-patterns at birth and, like songbirds, we do so spontaneously, even in the absence of an adult model. We even impose these phonological patterns on invented cultural technologies such as reading and writing. But why are humans compelled to generate phonological patterns? And why do different phonological systems - signed and spoken - share aspects of their design? Drawing on findings from a broad range of disciplines including linguistics, experimental psychology, neuroscience and comparative animal studies, Iris Berent explores these questions and proposes a new hypothesis about the architecture of the phonological mind.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Genesis
2. Instinctive phonology
3. The anatomy of the phonological mind
Part II. Algebraic Phonology: 4. How are phonological categories represented: the role of equivalence classes
5. How phonological patterns are assembled: the role of algebraic variables in phonology
Part III. Universal Design - Phonological Universals and their Role in Individual Grammars: 6. Phonological universals: typological evidence and grammatical explanations
7. Phonological universals are mirrored in behavior: evidence from artificial language learning
8. Phonological universals are core knowledge: evidence from sonority restrictions
Part IV. Ontogeny, Phylogeny, Phonological Hardware and Technology: 9. Out of the mouths of babes
10. The phonological mind evolves
11. The phonological brain
12. Phonological technologies: reading and writing
13. Conclusions, caveats, questions.

Subject Areas: Neurosciences [PSAN], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Phonetics, phonology [CFH], Linguistics [CF]