Phil Monahan in Glossa with Ellen and Bill

Finding neurophysiological evidence for phonological abstraction.

Now out in a Special Collection on Substance Free Phonology from Glossa, a review from alum Phil Monahan (Toronto) with his Class of 2009 classmate Ellen Lau and and PhD advisor Bill Idsardi on "Substantiating substance free phonology: Evidence from the neurobiology of phonology." The paper, abstracted below, reviews empirical findings from the past decade suggesting that the brain supports abstract phonological features, then outlines key unresolved challenges and identifies directions for future research.

A central goal of the substance-free phonology (SFP) framework is to identify how much abstraction from phonetic detail is present in human phonological representations. One large challenge, however, is identifying clear neurophysiological evidence for such abstract representations, largely because phonological properties often correlate with auditory cues, making it difficult to unambiguously assign explanatory credit. In this article, we update an earlier chapter (Monahan et al., 2013) by (1) providing essential background on current methodologies and experimental paradigms, (2) reviewing empirical findings from the past decade, (3) outlining key remaining challenges, and (4) highlighting promising directions for future research.