The contrastive hierarchy in phonology 2009 Dresher.pdf - CUNY ...

their perceptual system to the contrasts used in their language, while learning to
disregard contrasts that are not used (Werker and Tees 1984, Kuhl et al. 1992).
Meanwhile, phonological representations are impoverished to begin with
(Fikkert 2007). Infants’ rich perception of phonetic contrast does not translate into
a system of phonological representations (Stager and Werker 1997). Phonological
representations are built into systems of increasing complexity (Rice and Avery
1995), based on the input from phonetic perception together with evidence from
the grammar, which itself becomes more complex and removed from the initial
percepts (Dresher 1996, 1999).
An important part of phonological learning is the acquisition of the
contrastive feature hierarchy. The evidence presented throughout this book
suggests that this hierarchy cannot possibly be present from the beginning,
because it depends not just on accurate phonetic perception, but on an
understanding of various subtle aspects of phonological patterning.
7.9. Refining the Contrastivist Hypothesis
Throughout this study I have been assuming the form of the Contrastivist
Hypothesis as stated in (3.47) in §3.7: ‘the phonological component of a language
L operates only on those features which are necessary to distinguish the
phonemes of L from one another’ (Hall 2007: 20). This formulation captures the
intuitive idea that the ‘phonemic content’ or ‘pattern alignment’ of a phoneme is
made up of its contrastive feature specifications. I have cited examples that
support the Contrastivist Hypothesis to the extent that they suggest that only
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