Gradient phonological relationships: Evidence from vowels in French
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The dichotomy of contrastive and allophonic phonological relationships has a long-standing tradition in phonology, but there is growing research that points to phonological relationships that fall between contrastive and allophonic. Measures of lexical distinction (minimal pair counts) and predictability of distribution were applied to Laurentian French vowels to quantify three degrees of contrast between pairs: high, mid, and low contrast. According to traditional definitions, both the high and mid contrast pairs are classified as phonologically contrastive, and low contrast pairs as allophonic. As such, a binary view of contrast (contrastive vs. non-contrastive) predicted that high and mid contrast pairs would pattern together on tasks of speech perception, and low contrast pairs would show a different pattern. The gradient view predicted all vowel pairs would fall along a continuum. Thirty-two speakers of Laurentian French participated in two experiments: an AX task and a similarity rating task. The results did not support a strict binary interpretation of contrast, since the high, mid, and low contrast vowel pairs pattern differently across the experiments. Instead, the results support a gradient view of phonological relationships. This article is part of the special collection: Marginal Contrasts
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".