Combining phonetics and phonology in Lx acquisition using current theoretical models and probabilistic approaches: a response to Archibald

In this commentary, we respond to Archibald’s assertion that phonology is underrepresented in Lx speech acquisition literature due to the field’s predominant focus on surface phonetic aspects rather than underlying phonological structures. While we appreciate Archibald’s call to bring phonology into the spotlight, we believe that his characterization overlooks essential aspects of existing Lx speech models such as the revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r), the Perceptual Assimilation Model for L2 speech learning (PAM-L2), and the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model, since these frameworks already incorporate abstract phonological representations such as features, syllables, and tones, alongside phonetic components. We argue that the prominence of phonetic approaches in the field is not due to theoretical shortcomings of these models but rather to a compelling need to deal with the highly variable nature of actual Lx speech data, for which traditional phonological theories lack sufficient explanatory and predictive power. To bridge this gap, we propose that integrating probabilistic phonological grammars (e.g. Stochastic Optimality Theory and Noisy Harmonic Grammar) with existing Lx speech acquisition models offers a particularly promising direction for the future of Lx phonetics and phonology as a unified field.