The Tolerance Principle and the Orthographic-Phonological Mapping of Chinese Characters

Abstract

The Tolerance Principle is a computational principle that posits a theoretical threshold for linguistic generalization. Chinese phono-semantic compounds are characters with phonetic radicals that are associated with particular pronunciations. This thesis tests if the Tolerance Principle can be applied to the learning of Chinese phono-semantic compounds, more specifically the orthographic-phonological mapping between phonetic radicals and pronunciations, by both Chinese and non-Chinese readers. The first experiment examines if the reading intuitions of Chinese readers seeing pseudo-characters are constrained by the Tolerance Principle, while the second experiment investigates if the acquisition of the orthographic-phonological mappings by non-Chinese readers is also conditioned by the Tolerance Principle. Results show that the Tolerance Principle does not predict the performance of Chinese readers, nor explain the acquisition of non-Chinese readers.