Tri-Syllabic Vowel Laxing and the Mental Lexicon of Native English Speakers

Valerie Fridland & Laura Hartley

Sat. 11:00-12:40 A

The phenomenon of tri-syllabic laxing (TSL) in English describes the surface alternations in vowels triggered by the application of specific suffixes in word pairs such as profane [e] ~ profanity [æ], derive [a^] ~ derivative [^], penal [i] ~ penalize [']. In The Sound Pattern of English, Chomsky and Halle (1968) account for these alternations by positing three rules which work together: Diphthongization, Laxing, and Vowel Shift (VS). The results of previous research, including a pilot study by the authors, suggest that these rules are non-productive for young adult native speakers of English and only psychologically real in the sense that known TSL word pairs are available as a basis for analogy in situations of primed behavior. Furthermore, this study suggests that vowel alternations are being leveled in many word pairs (e.g. profane/profanity, brief/brevity) based on degree of familiarity. Finally, this paper questions the assumption that the individual members of word pairs are always associated in the mental lexicon and suggests that even when the words are associated, the nature of their connection may vary from word pair to word pair.

In this experiment, subjects were presented with a large sample of TSL word pairs which used the suffix -ity. The words were presented to subjects in one of two orders: familiar to unfamiliar or unfamiliar to familiar. Half of the subjects were given the root word and asked to form the suffixed word, while the other half were presented with the suffixed form and asked to give the root. Each group consisted of both male and female subjects.

The data was subjected to statistical analysis using VARBRUL, and the results indicated that the greater the familiarity of the words in a word pair, the more likely speakers would produce the correct vowel alternation, regardless of task. A few word pairs, such as cave/cavity, provided an interesting exception, suggesting that although both words are familiar, they are not at all connected in the mental lexicons of these speakers. As hypothesized, unfamiliar words (e.g. urbane/urbanity) tended not to exhibit vowel alternations, although there was a significant increase in performance when subjects were presented with the words in familiar to unfamiliar order, rather than unfamiliar to familiar order.

VARBRUL analysis also revealed a significant difference in the way that men and women performed the tasks, with women more often giving the correct form. Since the majority of words in this study could be considered "learned" forms, this result supports claims in the sociolinguistic literature that women tend to be more attracted to prestige forms than men.