Wedel, A. B. (2007). Feedback and regularity in the lexicon. Phonology, 24:147–185.
[online at Google scholar]

This paper shows how simple simulations can model phonologic phenomena as emergent from the dynamics of a rich memory model. Using an exemplar-based model of the lexicon, Wedel discusses two sets of simulations.

One shows how cross-linguistic patterns of allophony can be seen as different attractors in a dynamic system. Like how some languages only use apical /l/, some only use velar /l/, and some use both in different contexts, random production or perception error and articulatory or perceptual markedness preferences, along with similarity bias resulting from analogical error over the variety of contexts in the lexicon produces three metastable states, corresponding to the three kinds of patterns witnessed in natural languages. Furthermore, this series of simulations shows how strict dominance in OT is often true, but can nevertheless sometimes be violated. The model predicts that strict dominance is violated when a majority of examples in the lexicon have the constraints in conflict, whereas strict dominance does hold true when constraints conflict less often in the lexicon.

The second simulation shows how word stress patterns can emerge from a similar interaction of kinds of error, driven by the distribution of features in the lexicon. The simulation is set up with a bias toward alternating stress and a bias toward vowel+sonorant as the minimum heavy rhyme. The interaction of these constraints in the lexicon gives two different patterns, depending on how large a portion of syllables in the lexicon have vowel+sonorant rhymes. If the number is small, the alternating stress bias dominates, and the stress pattern becomes consistently alternating, basically ignoring the heavy syllable constraint. However, if the number is large, the pattern is generalized as any vowel+consonant is heavy also, because the [+sonorant] feature together with half the [+consonantal] that are in alternating syllables looks like a [+cons] constraint. This is the pattern observed in the languages of the world, that CVV = heavy is common, and CVV+CVC = heavy is common, but CVV + CV[+son] = heavy is rare.

These studies provide a new perspective into the causes underlying phonological patterns. This model apparently currently lacks an analytic formulation, but the general patterns exhibited here suggest that a more phonetically-driven, dynamical model of phonology promises a better understanding of how phonological patterns arise.