LIN 201

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LIN 201

• Fall 2007
• Lecture IX (9).
• Language Acquisition III

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Reminder

• Journal Entry I is due Oct.4/5 (next week) in
  Recitation.

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Exam I (1)

• Exam I will be graded and posted by about 4 this
  afternoon. Mean score was 24/30. Its 10 of
  your course grade.
• The exam will be discussed in Recitation this
  week.
• Be sure to compare your hand-graded score with
  the official, posted score.

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Exam I (2)

• If there is a discrepancy between your
  hand-graded score and the official score, we will
  re-consider your score only if
• 1. you used a 2 pencil or a black pen.
• 2. There are no erasures on your Answer Sheet.
• 3. You filled in the Test Form bubble that
  matches your question sheet.

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Agenda

• 1. The Innateness Hypothesis (concl.).
• 2. Very early acquisition.
• 3. Evidence for innateness Review.
• 4. First words.
• 5. Acquisition of word meaning.
• 6. Acquisition of morphology.
• 7. The acquisition of syntax.
• 8. Acquisition of Auxs in English.

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Agenda

• 2. The Innateness Hypothesis.
• b. The innateness of specific principles of UG
  (concl.).

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Evidence for the innateness of specific
principles of UG

• 1. Structure dependency of rules.
• 2. The Coordinate Structure Constraint.

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Evidence for the innateness of specific principles

• Assumption A given feature of linguistic
  knowledge is either (1) innate or (2) acquired on
  the basis of experience.
• Therefore, if an aspect of knowledge can be shown
  not to have been acquired on the basis of
  experience, then it must be innate.

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What clearly isnt innate

• The Lexicon of a language is clearly not innate.
  It must be acquired on the basis of experience.

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Acquisition by experience

• Example Overgeneralization.
• Stage 1. bring bringed
• play played
• Stage 2. bring brought
• play played

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• How does a child acquire the knowledge on the
  basis of experience that a particular form that
  should be grammatical (e.g., bringed) is
  ungrammatical in the adult language?

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One form of acquisition by experience

• 1. The child produces an utterance that is
  ungrammatical with respect to the mental grammars
  of the adults around him/her. E.g., Johnny
  bringed me a present.
• 2. The child is corrected by the adult Dont
  say bringed say brought.
• 3. The child replaces bringed with brought in
  his/her mental grammar.

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• Evidence that a specific principle of grammar is
  innate The Structure Dependency Principle.

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Structure dependency of rules (1)

• Statement
• Jill is going up the hill that Jack is climbing.
• Question
• Is Jill __ going up the hill that Jack is
  climbing?

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Structure dependency (2)

• Structure
• Jill is going up the hill that Jack is climbing.
• Two possible rules
• Not structure-dependent Move the first is.
• Structure-dependent Move the is in the main
  clause.

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Structure dependency (3)

• Statement
• Jill, who is my sister, is going up the hill.
• Non-structure-dependent rule
• Move the first is in the sentence.
• Is Jill, who __ my sister, is going up the
  hill?

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Structure dependency (4)

• Statement
• Jill, who is my sister, is going up the hill.
• Structure-dependent rule
• Move the is in the main clause.
• Is Jill, who is my sister, __ going up the hill?

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Structure dependency (5)

• The Principle of Structure Dependency All rules
  in languages refer to the structures of the
  sentences to which they apply, not just to the
  order of words.

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Structure dependency (6)

• Claim The Principle of Structure Dependency
  (PSD) is innate.
• Evidence Children never produce sentences that
  violate the PSD. So there is no opportunity to
  correct them for producing such sentences. Hence
  the PSD must be in childs the mind to begin with
  (included as part of Universal Grammar), and is
  therefore innate.

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Structure dependency (7)

• IMPORTANT The claim is not that the rule of
  Aux-Movement is innate (it isnt) only that its
  structure dependency is innate.

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The poverty of the stimulus

• Since evidence for the innateness of the
  Principle of Structure Dependency consists in the
  absence of an experience that might lead the
  child to knowledge of those principles, this
  evidence is said to be based on the poverty of
  the stimulus.

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• Poverty of the stimulus evidence that another
  specific principle of grammar is innate The
  Coordinate Structure Constraint.

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (1)

• What will he compare apples with?
• Deep he will compare apples with what
• Aux-mvt will he __ compare apples with what
• Wh-mvt what will he __ compare apples with __
• Surface what will he __ compare apples with __

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (2)

• What will he compare apples and?
• Deep he will compare apples and what
• Aux-mvt will he __ compare apples and what
• Wh-mvt what will he __ compare apples and __
• Surface what will he __ compare apples and __

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (3)

• The Coordinate Structure Constraint Nothing can
  be moved out of a structure containing and.

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (4)

• Claim The Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC)
  is innate.
• Evidence Children never produce utterances that
  violate the CSC ,,, . Hence the CSC must be in
  the mind to begin with.

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Innateness of specific principles Summary

• Neither the Principle of Structure Dependency
  (PSD), nor the Coordinate Structure Constraint
  (CSC) could have been acquired on the basis of
  experience and therefore must be innate.

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Innateness review more evidence

• Ev (1) Complexity, speed.
• Ev (2) The Whole Object Assumption.
• Ev (3) The Mutual Exclusivity Principle.
• Ev (4) Innateness of specific principles (PSD
  and CSC).

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Agenda

• 2. Very early acquisition.

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Early stages Sound perception

• In the perception of speech sounds
• 1. Newborns distinguish between sounds that
  differ within languages but not between those
  that dont.
• 2. Newborns ignore differences between speech
  sounds that are not linguistic (e.g., sex or age
  of speaker).

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Early stages Sound production

• In the early production of speech sounds
  (babbling)
• 1. When they babble, children produce tend to
  produce the sounds that appear most frequently in
  the languages of the world.
• 2. As they mature, their babbling becomes more
  and more like the sounds of the surrounding
  language.

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Agenda

• 3. Evidence for innateness Summary to this point.

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Evidence for Innateness review more

• Ev (1) Complexity, speed.
• Ev (2) The Whole Object Assumption.
• Ev (3) The Mutual Exclusivity Principle.
• Ev (4) Specific principles (structure
  dependency, coordinate structure constraint,
  wh-constraint).
• Ev (5) Early discrimination in sound perception
  and production.

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Agenda

• 4. First words.

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First words

• Appear about 12 mos. of age.
• Acquisition requires of the child that he/she
  analyze the continuous speech stream into words.
• At first, single word whole sentence. (Speech
  is holophrastic.)

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Agenda

• 5. Acquisition of word meaning.

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Word learning Process (1)

• 1. Early.
• a. Will overextend the application of a word.
  socks all underwear.
• b. Object must be visible for use.
• 2. Later.
• a. Refines meaning social use.
• b. Presence of the object not necessary.

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Word learning Process (2)

• 3. General.
• a. Nature of overextensions. In terms of some
  properties of objects (size, shape, texture) and
  not others (color).
• b. Whole Object Principle.
• c. Syntactic bootstrapping Children identify
  the category of the word (verb, noun, etc.) and
  therefore its meaning on the basis of syntactic
  characteristics (where it occurs in sentences).

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Agenda

• 6. Acquisition of morphology.
• a. Overgeneralization.
• b. Acquisition of languages with the two great
  ground plans.
• i. Noun case.
• ii. Verb agreement

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Agenda

• 6a. Overgeneralization.

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Present Past

• Stage 1. bring brought
• play played
• Stage 2. bring bringed
• play played
• Stage 3. bring brought
• play played

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Childs grammar (Stage 1)

• Lexicon
• bring
• brought
• play
• played
• No Rules for these forms.

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Childs grammar (Stage 2) (Overgeneralization)

• Lexicon
• bring
• play
• .
• Rule For past tense, add -ed.

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Childs grammar (Stage 3)

• Lexicon
• bring/special past form brought
• play
• walk
• ..
• Rule For past tense (for lexical items with no
  special past form), add -ed.

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Agenda

• 6b. Acquisition of the two great ground plans.
• i. Noun case.

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Two ground plans Inflectional ground plan (Latin)

• Cattus canem sustinet.
• cat dog supports
• The cat supports the dog.
• Canis cattum sustinet.
• dog cat supports
• The dog supports the cat.
• Cattum canis sustinet.
• The dog supports the cat.

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Case markers in Latin (1)

• Nominative the form of the Subject of a
  sentence ( the doer of the action) -s in Latin
• CattuS canem sustinet.
• cat dog supports
• The cat supports the dog.
• CaniS cattum sustinet.
• dog cat supports
• The dog supports the cat.
• Cattum caniS sustinet.
• The dog supports the cat.

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Case markers in Latin (1)

• Accusative the form of the Object of a sentence
  ( the receiver of the action) -m in Latin
• Cattus caneM sustinet.
• cat dog supports
• The cat supports the dog.
• Canis cattuM sustinet.
• dog cat supports
• The dog supports the cat.
• CattuM canis sustinet.
• The dog supports the cat.

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Two ground plans Word Order ground plan

• The cat_ supports the dog_.
• The dog_ supports the cat_.

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The Inflectional ground plan

• Another example -- Russian

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Case markers in Russian (1)

• 1. doktor chitayet. (doktor Nominative)
• doctor reads The doctor reads.
• 2. on znayet doktora. (doktoraAccusative)
• he knows doctor He knows the doctor.
• 3. on pishet doktoru pismo. (doktoru
• he writes doctor letter.
  Dative)
• He writes the doctor a letter.

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Case markers in Russian (2)

• Dative the case marker of the Indirect Object
  ( the receiver of the Object -- in these
  examples, the receiver of the letter) -u in
  Russian.

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Acquisition of Noun Case in Russian

• Subject Zhenya.
• At 23 months No case markers.
• At 24 months Nominative, Accusative, and Dative
  acquired.

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Agenda

• 6b. Acquisition of the two great ground plans.
• ii. Verb agreement.

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Verb Agreement (1)

• Subject-Verb agreement in Italian and English --
• io leggO I read
• tu leggI you (sg.) read
• lui leggE he readS
• noi leggIAMO we read
• voi leggETE you (pl.) read
• loro leggONO they read

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Verb Agreement (2)

• The Italian-acquiring child attains the full
  Italian agreement system by 26 mos.
• The English-acquiring child attains the English
  system (that is, -s) only at 36 mos.

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The two great ground plans, Universal Grammar,
Acquisition

• Universal Grammar specifies that there are two
  ground plans.
• Since UG is innate in the child, all the child
  has to do is (tacitly) figure out whether the
  language he/she is learning has one of these
  ground plans or the other.
• Once he/she does this, the whole system of case
  markers falls into place.

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Language (review so far)

• Knowledge Lex Rules
• Use Stimulus-free
• Brain (1) Brcas and Wrncks areas and (2) an
  autonomous module of the mind/brain
• Acq No instruction much is innate.

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Agenda

• 7. The acquisition of syntax.

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Stages in the acquisition of syntax

• All ages approximate individual variation.
• 1. 12 mos. One-word stage.
• 2. 24 mos. Two-word stage.
• 3. 24-30 mos. Telegraphic stage.
• 4. 30-42 mos. Language explosion.

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One-word stage -- 12-18 mos.

• Holophrastic (one word a whole sentence).
• By 16 mos. Perception of word order rules
  (videotape Playing the Language Game).

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Two-word stage

• 18-24 mos. Two-word utterances show certain
  semantic and syntactic relations (about 14
  relations).
• a. Subjectobject Mommy sock Mommys putting on
  my sock.
• b. Possessorpossessed Mommy sock Mommys
  sock.
• c. Subjectlocative Sweater chair
• d. etc.

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Telegraphic stage 24-30 mos.

• 1. Utterances longer that two words.
• 2. Combinations of relations from the two-word
  stage. E.g., Mommy sock chair Mommys sock is
  on the chair.
• 3. Inconsistent or no use of function words and
  morphemes at first.

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Telegraphic stage (cont.)

• 4. When function (grammatical) morphemes are
  acquired, they are acquired in essentially the
  same order by all children. This order is not
  related to the frequency of occurrence of these
  morphemes in the speech of the environment.

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Language explosion -- 30-42 mos.

• From the tape -- Sammy (three and a half years
  old)
• What do you think Cookie Monster eats?

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Agenda

• 8. Acquisition of Aux in English Negative
  sentences and questions.

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Negative sentences in Adult English (1) Review

• Examples
• John Aux will not study.
• John Aux is not studying.
• John Aux is not tall.
• John Aux has not studied.
• John studies not.
• Rule of Neg Insertion Insert not after Aux.

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Acquisition of auxiliaries, negation, and
questions

• At the telegraphic stage, children have not yet
  acquired auxiliaries.
• Negative sentences at this stage
• He no bite you.
• Mommy not going store.
• Yes-no questions.
• He bite you?
• Mommy going store?

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Acquisition of auxiliaries, negation, and
questions (cont.)

• Wh-questions.
• What he bite?
• Where Mommy going?