Anne‐michelle Tessier
Biographic Data
| ID | 3844432 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anne‐michelle Tessier |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anne‐michelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Tessier |
| SIGNATURE | TESSIER A M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alberta |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8261-9955 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Learning Accurate Onset Clusters
This study investigates young school-aged children’s knowledge (at 4–7 years) of accurate English word-initial onset clusters. By this age, we expect children to be mostly accurate in producing #CC clusters (rather than repairing them with deletion or epenthesis). We ask how well can they recognize and reject cluster repair errors, in both real and nonce word tasks. The results suggest that these learners’ cluster judgment skills lag behind their…
Modeling the consequences of an L1 grammar for L2 production
Introduction This paper presents a constraint-based grammar of Mandarin low vowel + nasal coda (loVN) sequences first as acquired by L1 learners, and then as transferred to L2 English. Methods We simulate phonological learning in Harmonic Grammar using a gradual, error-driven GLA learner, drawing on evidence from L1 Mandarin speakers' perceptual data to support our initial state assumptions. We then compare our simulation results with L2 English …
The Productive Status of Laurentian French Liaison
There are competing views in contemporary phonological theory about how to best represent processes that are pervasive, frequent, and phonologically motivated, yet still lexically sensitive. To what extent can – or should – a process that applies idiosyncratically to different morphemes, words, and even phrases, be represented in a way that allows it to generalize to novel forms? We examine this question by looking at prenominal liaison as it is …
Learning French Liaison with Gradient Symbolic Representations
Smolensky & Goldrick (2016) first made the case for Gradient Symbolic Representations (GSRs) as the inputs to phonological grammar using the phenomena of French liaison. Under this view, many common French words are stored underlyingly with partially-activated word-final consonants, and others with gradient blends of partially-activated word-initial consonants. In this paper, we follow up some of that view's predictions and consequences, focusing…
The effect of allophonic processes on word recognition
Whether lexical representations are stored as abstract forms or exemplar tokens is the focus of much debate in both the phonological and word-recognition literature. This research report examines the recognition of words that have undergone Canadian raising and/or intervocalic flapping. Two eye-tracking experiments suggest that listeners are slower to fixate words that have undergone one or more phonological processes within their own raising dia…
Vowel but not consonant identity and the very informal English lexicon
This paper studies the phonological properties of shitgibbons, a class of insulting English compounds made up of a monosyllabic obscenity followed by a trochaic innocuous noun. Our experimental data shows that in addition to these categorical prosodic requirements, there are gradient segmental requirements: native speakers judge shitgibbons as more wellformed when their two stressed vowels are identical (e.g. shit-whistle is better than fuck-whis…
Motor Influences on Grammar in an Emergentist Model of Phonology
Any account aiming to provide a comprehensive picture of children's acquisition of speech must consider both the development of the phonological grammar and the maturation of the structures and motor skills used to implement the sounds of a language. Much previous literature has been marked by a tendency to draw sharp demarcations between motor and grammatical influences, or to assert that all of child speech can be reduced to one or the other. T…
Learning in Harmonic Serialism and the necessity of a richer base
This paper reassesses the hypothesis that early phonotactic learning of constraint-based grammars relies on the Identity Map – i.e. it uses observed surface forms as the inputs which cause errors and drive learning via constraint reranking. We argue that this approach's success is closely tied to Optimality Theory's fully parallel grammatical evaluation. In the constraint-based derivational framework of Harmonic Serialism (HS; McCarthy 2000, 2007…
The nature of regressions in the acquisition of phonological grammars
Children’s acquisition of their L1 phonological grammar is typically understood as a gradual progression from an initial universal state towards a language-specific one, in which learners incrementally change their grammars to better approximate the target. One challenging problem for this view, however, are the many reports of ‘U-shaped development’ in which production temporarily regresses, diverging further from the target rather than drawing …
Trajectories of faithfulness in child-specific phonology
This paper provides new evidence and analysis of gradual and U-shaped phonological learning. Using a rich longitudinal corpus from Trevor (Compton & Streeter 1977, Pater 1997 b ) we demonstrate that some of Trevor's consonant harmony follows a statistically significant U-shaped trajectory, in contrast to the more typical S-shaped progression of his complex onsets. We then analyse these two developmental paths using an OT model of phonological acq…
Biases in Harmonic Grammar
Frequency of violation and constraint-based phonological learning
Frequency of violation and constraint-based phonological learning
Biases in Harmonic Grammar
Motor Influences on Grammar in an Emergentist Model of Phonology
Any account aiming to provide a comprehensive picture of children's acquisition of speech must consider both the development of the phonological grammar and the maturation of the structures and motor skills used to implement the sounds of a language. Much previous literature has been marked by a tendency to draw sharp demarcations between motor and grammatical influences, or to assert that all of child speech can be reduced to one or the other. T…
Frequency of violation and constraint-based phonological learning
Trajectories of faithfulness in child-specific phonology
This paper provides new evidence and analysis of gradual and U-shaped phonological learning. Using a rich longitudinal corpus from Trevor (Compton & Streeter 1977, Pater 1997 b ) we demonstrate that some of Trevor's consonant harmony follows a statistically significant U-shaped trajectory, in contrast to the more typical S-shaped progression of his complex onsets. We then analyse these two developmental paths using an OT model of phonological acq…
Biases in Harmonic Grammar
Learning in Harmonic Serialism and the necessity of a richer base
This paper reassesses the hypothesis that early phonotactic learning of constraint-based grammars relies on the Identity Map – i.e. it uses observed surface forms as the inputs which cause errors and drive learning via constraint reranking. We argue that this approach's success is closely tied to Optimality Theory's fully parallel grammatical evaluation. In the constraint-based derivational framework of Harmonic Serialism (HS; McCarthy 2000, 2007…
The nature of regressions in the acquisition of phonological grammars
Children’s acquisition of their L1 phonological grammar is typically understood as a gradual progression from an initial universal state towards a language-specific one, in which learners incrementally change their grammars to better approximate the target. One challenging problem for this view, however, are the many reports of ‘U-shaped development’ in which production temporarily regresses, diverging further from the target rather than drawing …
Motor Influences on Grammar in an Emergentist Model of Phonology
Any account aiming to provide a comprehensive picture of children's acquisition of speech must consider both the development of the phonological grammar and the maturation of the structures and motor skills used to implement the sounds of a language. Much previous literature has been marked by a tendency to draw sharp demarcations between motor and grammatical influences, or to assert that all of child speech can be reduced to one or the other. T…
Vowel but not consonant identity and the very informal English lexicon
This paper studies the phonological properties of shitgibbons, a class of insulting English compounds made up of a monosyllabic obscenity followed by a trochaic innocuous noun. Our experimental data shows that in addition to these categorical prosodic requirements, there are gradient segmental requirements: native speakers judge shitgibbons as more wellformed when their two stressed vowels are identical (e.g. shit-whistle is better than fuck-whis…
The effect of allophonic processes on word recognition
Whether lexical representations are stored as abstract forms or exemplar tokens is the focus of much debate in both the phonological and word-recognition literature. This research report examines the recognition of words that have undergone Canadian raising and/or intervocalic flapping. Two eye-tracking experiments suggest that listeners are slower to fixate words that have undergone one or more phonological processes within their own raising dia…
Learning French Liaison with Gradient Symbolic Representations
Smolensky & Goldrick (2016) first made the case for Gradient Symbolic Representations (GSRs) as the inputs to phonological grammar using the phenomena of French liaison. Under this view, many common French words are stored underlyingly with partially-activated word-final consonants, and others with gradient blends of partially-activated word-initial consonants. In this paper, we follow up some of that view's predictions and consequences, focusing…
The Productive Status of Laurentian French Liaison
There are competing views in contemporary phonological theory about how to best represent processes that are pervasive, frequent, and phonologically motivated, yet still lexically sensitive. To what extent can – or should – a process that applies idiosyncratically to different morphemes, words, and even phrases, be represented in a way that allows it to generalize to novel forms? We examine this question by looking at prenominal liaison as it is …
Modeling the consequences of an L1 grammar for L2 production
Introduction This paper presents a constraint-based grammar of Mandarin low vowel + nasal coda (loVN) sequences first as acquired by L1 learners, and then as transferred to L2 English. Methods We simulate phonological learning in Harmonic Grammar using a gradual, error-driven GLA learner, drawing on evidence from L1 Mandarin speakers' perceptual data to support our initial state assumptions. We then compare our simulation results with L2 English …
Learning Accurate Onset Clusters
This study investigates young school-aged children’s knowledge (at 4–7 years) of accurate English word-initial onset clusters. By this age, we expect children to be mostly accurate in producing #CC clusters (rather than repairing them with deletion or epenthesis). We ask how well can they recognize and reject cluster repair errors, in both real and nonce word tasks. The results suggest that these learners’ cluster judgment skills lag behind their…
Computer Science (11 works) · Linguistics (11 works) · Grammar (9 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (9 works) · Phonology (9 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works) · Language Development and Disorders (6 works) · Mathematics (6 works) · Psychology (6 works)