Algorithms for acquiring phonological features in Substance-Free Phonology and Emergent Feature Theory

Most phonological theories have held the position that the phonological component of the
language faculty is based around the innate unit of the phonological feature, and that the acoustic
and/or articulatory content of features is also innate. This is a foundational assumption in rule-based
theories such as SPE (Chomsky & Halle, 1968) and later formulations in which features are given
hierarchical structure, such as Feature Geometry (Clements, 1985), as well as constraint-based
theories starting with Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993). However, recent approaches
challenge these assumptions, such as Substance-Free Phonology, in which the phonetic content of
innate features is irrelevant to phonological computation, and Emergent Feature Theory, which
claims that the content of features is acquired, rather than innate. My research interest is in this
area, namely the extent to which phonological structures can be acquired, and how the cognitive
mechanisms of acquisition itself might influence the nature of those structures.