Exam 2

Linguistics 1010 with Bobaljik/wurnbrand at University of Connecticut

About this deck

By: Mallory Walsh
Textbook:

An Introduction to Linguistic Theory and Language Acquisition (Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics)

Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 1: Theoretical Models of Human Development, 6th Edition (Volume 1)

I-Language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science (Core Linguistics)

The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science (Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change)

The Assessment of Bilingual Aphasia

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (P.S.)

The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (MITECS) (Bradford Books)
Created: 2011-03-23
Size: 68 flashcards
Views: 363

About StudyBlue

STUDYBLUE makes things that make you better at school. Things like online flashcards with photos and audio. Things like personalized quizzes and friendly reminders about when (and what) to study next. Think of it as a digital backpack™: access to all of your study materials online and on your phone. STUDYBLUE exists to make studying efficient and effective for every student, for free. Join us.

“I have used this website for three exams, and I see a huge difference in my test results.”
Naj

Sign up (free) to study this.

Innateness As Instinct

knowledge in the absence of a stimulus

absence of input
at birth

Poverty of the Stimulus

information in the environment isn't rich enough to allow a human learner to attain adult competence

language acquisition has an innate compenent

Primary Linguistic Data

input that the child is given

Categorical Perceptions in Neonates

infants perceive continuum in categories

can sometimes hear the difference in different categories of language that is not their own language that they are learning

Learning in the Womb

1980s- discovered that some learning takes place in the womb
categorical perception is not learned in the womb
ex- French babies get fussy when their foreign language speaking mothers switch to french

babies can tell difference

Negative Evidence

evidence that an utterance in ungrammatical

when a parent corrects a child that what his/her saying is wrong

Language as Instinct

grammar is abstract and complex

yet kids acquire language RAPIDLY, and with basically NO INSTRUCTION

Language Acquisition

PLD--> UG--> Final State Grammar

Yes/No Rule of POS

move auxiliary verb to the front

Mike is drunk
IS Mike drunk?

Rythmic Classes

syllable-timed: each syllable takes about the same time

Italian, French, Spanish

stressed-timed: less regular, unstressed vowels shorter (or absent

English, German, Dutch, Russian

Correction For Content (Negative Feedback)

when parents correct their children it is usually for truth not grammar

Noisy Feedback (Negative Feedback)

all kids of responses are used with both grammatical and ungrammatical utterance s(the kid doesn't know whether or not they were corrected or content for grammaticability

Hypolingualism

kids don't talk until about 5
when they talk, its age appropriate

Cleft Palate

kids w/ it cannot talk until its repaired
once they can, they quickly reach age- mates

Child-Directed Speech

special "speech register" used by some adults when they talk to children
high pitch
short sentences
few grammatical errors

Cultural Variation in Adult-Child Interaction

western middle class CDS is not universal
in some cultures, adults do not talk directly to their children
in others, they do not simplify speech to children

American Middle Class CDS

infants treated as social beings, communication power
adults accomodates to child by "simplifying
adult brings up child's apparent competence by rich interpretation

Western Samoa CDS

infants are not treated as conversational participants
adults don't simplify speech to infants
adults don't try to guess what a child's utterance means

Kaluli CDS

dont simplify speech, but provide extensive modeling
don't guess at children's attempts or expand utterances

Motherese

not universal, not needed for successful acquisition
mother's talk to their child

Acquisition Succeeds WITHOUT...

explicit instruction on grammar
simplified speech to children
language examples in particular order
evidence for all the rules
correction of grammatical errors
POVERTY OF THE STIMULUS

First Year-Perception

neonates show

categorical perception
phonetic discriminations

Babbling (2 months)

uttering linguistic sounds without meaning

early- cooing (most vowel sounds)

Babbling (6 months)

varied babbling
with consonants (ba ba)

Babbling (10 months)

restricted phonetic inventory

only sounds of the native language

manual babbling

Holophrastic Speech

1 year
one-word utterances

Noun Bias

most of child's first words are nouns
children are prepared to learn nouns before verbs
nouns are used in the acquisition of verbs

Whole Object Bias

children interpret a label as applying to a whole object rather than action, attributes, or parts of object

Mutual Exclusivity

a new label should refer to an object without an existing label
if the object has a label, the new label may refer to a part of an object

1.5-2.5 Years

two-word utterances

Telegraphic Speech

combine words

no function words
just content

Vocabulary Explosion

rapid vocabulary growth
child can acquire up to 12 words a day
words can be acquired on the basis of a single exposure (fast mapping)

Mean Length of Utterances (MLU)

average number of words per utterance

"Stages, not Ages"

beginning around 18-24 months, children's rate of development starts to vary more
age is no longer a good predictor of child's abilities

Grammar Explosion

begins around 2.5 years (MLU= 2.25)
function words and ending appear

Overregularization

around 2.5- 3 years
kids overregularize irregular forms

go-eds
foot-s

Metalinguistic Awareness

awareness of language as an object

defining words, correcting their own errors

Structural Ambiguity

A string of words may be ambiguous if it can be represented by 2 or more distinct phrase structures

understanding the ambiguity requires a mental representation of these structures

Lexical Ambiguity

demonstrations of words which have multiple meetings based on content

Syntax

division of sentence into phrases, phrases into further phrases etc

Recursion

embedding phrases within a phrase

Pronoun Substitution

any string that can be replaced by a pronoun is an NP

Principle of UG

S- NP & VP
VP- V & NP

Parameters

points of variation among languages

Headness Parameter (Syntax)

head proceedes/follows argument

English- head preceeds argument (V NP)
Japanese- head follows argument (NP V)

Heads in Morphology

english- head follows modifiers

dog house- is a type of house

vietnamese- head precede modifiers

place wounded- is a type of place

How is VSO Order (Irish) Derived? (find)

V --> NP --> NP

verb comes first

Wh-Movement

move the question word (constituent) to the front of the sentence

relates a statement to a question

John will read THE ARTICLE in the garden

WHAT will John read in the garden?

Movement: Arguments for UG

principles: universal limits on movement

parameters: wh-movement (yes/no questions)

Is there Head-Movement in English?

Yes

Yes/No Movement in English

mary IS sleeping

IS mary sleeping?

move aux verb to the front of the subject

V Movement in English

Mary IS drunk---> IS Mary drunk?
Jodi DIDN'T show up ---> DIDN'T Jodi show up?
That AIN'T right----> AIN'T that right?

Auxiliaries

Mary IS eating bananas

S--> NP (Mary) VP1
VP1---> Vaux (is) VP2
VP2---> V (eating) NP ( bananas)

English Parameters and Rules

Head Parameter: head precedes argument
Wh-Movement: yes
Head Movement: yes (only in questions, only auxiliaries)

Which Auxiliary Moves?

Sarah COULD have been sleeping?---> COULD Sarah have been sleeping?

move the first aux verb (linear)

You WILL pay when you are finished----? WILL you way when you are finished?

move the highest aux verb (struct. dependent)

Should You Move The First Aux Verb or The Highest?

The Highest

Structure Dependence Experiment

children's knowledge of co-reference

children respect restraint on structure

they don't make errors

Elicited Production

experimenter provides a context but not a model

"Ask Jabba if..."

Jabba considers a picture and answers a question

Hypothesis of Structure-Dependence

children never violate the principle of structure-dependence in their formation of yes/no questions
Innate

Anaphora Rule/Principle A

the rules that teach you the relationship between the reflexive

the rule that tells where to put it is also structure dependent

Principle C/Co-reference

a pronoun must not c-command a name (NP) with which it is co-referential

C-Command

A c-commands B if B is contained in the sister of A

Backwards Anaphora (find)

how fast you read a name after you've heard a pronoun that c-commands a pronoun

"because last semester she was taking classes full time while Katherine was working 2 jobs to pay the bills, Erica felt guilty"

Truth-Value Judgment Task

subjects are asked to judge whether or not a sentence is true/false
shows what interpretations are possible

Act-Out Tasks

show children's preferences

not whether backwards anaphora is possible