LEARNING FROM NATURAL AND UNNATURAL GRAMMARS: WHAT IS THERE INSIDE UG

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LEARNING FROM NATURAL AND UNNATURAL GRAMMARS
WHAT IS THERE INSIDE UG?

• Itziar Laka

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INNATE/GENETIC SIDE OF LANGUAGE

• Noam Chomsky "A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal
  Behavior" in Language, 35, No. 1 (1959), 26-58.
• R. Bayés (ed.) Chomsky o Skinner? Fontanella,
  Barcelona, 1977
• P. Huizi B.F. Skinnerren Verbal Behavior
  liburuaren kritika Gogoa, V-1, apirila, 9-50,
  2005.

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As far as acquisition of language is concerned,
it seems clear that reinforcement, casual
observation, and natural inquisitiveness (coupled
with a strong tendency to imitate) are important
factors, as is the remarkable capacity of the
child to generalize, hypothesize, and "process
information" in a variety of very special and
apparently highly complex ways which we cannot
yet describe or begin to understand, and which
may be largely innate, or may develop through
some sort of learning or through maturation of
the nervous system.
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ALSO ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• Here too, however, it is possible that
  ability to select out of the complex auditory
  input those features that are phonologically
  relevant may develop largely independently of
  reinforcement, through genetically determined
  maturation. To the extent that this is true, an
  account of the development and causation of
  behavior that fails to consider the structure of
  the organism will provide no understanding of the
  real processes involved.

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HOW TO FIND OUT WHAT IS INNATE

• Although present-day linguistics cannot provide
  a precise account of these integrative processes,
  imposed patterns, and selective mechanisms, it
  can at least set itself the problem of
  characterizing these completely.

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• The results of such a study might, as Lashley
  suggests, be of independent interest for
  psychology and neurology (and conversely).

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WHAT IS A HUMAN GRAMMAR LIKE?

• Chomsky, N. 1957 Syntactic Structures, Mouton,
  The Hague
• C.P. Otero, Estructuras Sintácticas, Siglo XXI,
  México, 1974
• I.Laka, Egitura Sintaktikoak, Klasikoak, Bilbao,
  2003

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GOALS OF LINGUISTICS

• More generally, linguists must be concerned
  with the problem of determining the fundamental
  underlying properties of successful grammars. The
  ultimate outcome of these investigations should
  be a theory of linguistic structure in which the
  descriptive devices utilized in particular
  grammars are presented and studied abstractly,
  with no specific reference to particular
  languages.

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NATURE AND FORM OF LANGUAGE

• The nature of this faculty is the subject
  matter of a general theory of linguistic
  structure that aims to discover the framework of
  principles and elements common to attainable
  human languages this theory is now often called
  universal grammar (UG), adapting a traditional
  term to a new context of inquiry. UG may be
  regarded as a characterization of the genetically
  determined language faculty.
• (Chomsky, 19863)

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INNATENESS AND SPECIFICITY

• On this point I agree with Premack. I think he
  is right in talking about two different problems
  that enter into this whole innateness
  controversy. The first is the quesiton of the
  genetic determination of structures the second
  problem concerns specificity. Chomsky 1983176
• Piatelli-Palmarini, M. (ed.) 1983 Language and
  learning. The debate between jean Piaget and Noam
  Chomsky. London Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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/e-?/ contrast in adult bilingualsPallier, Bosch
Sebastián-Gallés (1997)
CATEGORICAL PERCEPTION ALL OR NONE
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Categorical perception who doesnt?
EVEN CRICKETS DO IT!
Wyttenbach et al. 1996
HUMAN BABIES DO IT
CHINCHILLAS DO IT!
Kuhl Miller (1978)
Liberman et al. (1957), Eimas et al. (1971)
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Rythmic/prosodic properties

• Newborns use rhythmic information (the
  vowel/consonant ratio) to identify their mothers
  language (Mehler et al.(1988), Cutler Mehler
  1993, Ramus Mehler 1999, Nazzi et al. 1998).
• Tamarins can discriminate sentences from Dutch
  and Japanese Ramus et al. (2000)
• Rats can be trained to Toro (2005)

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Transitional probabilities

• Babies use transitional probabilities to segment
  speech into words. Saffran et al. (1996)
• Necessary for language acquisition, apparently
  innate, not specific to humans or language.

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ASPECTS OF UG

• The empirical challenge is to determine
• what was inherited unchanged from this common
  ancestor,
• what has been subjected to minor modifications,
  and
• what (if anything) is qualitatively new (Hauser,
  Chomsky, Fitch 2002)

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concepts, events
Argument structure quantification
recursion
Phonology
Rythm, phonetic categories
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From sound perception to phonemes

• Infants can perceive any phonetic contrast, even
  if not present in environment language (Mehler,
  Jusczyk, Lambertz, Halsted, Bertoncini,
  Amiel-Tison 1988).
• Second half of the first year of life, infants
  lose their capacity to perceive contrasts
  non-existing in their environment (Werker 1991).
• Tuning of perceptual vowel and consonantal space
  to the maternal language in the first year of
  life (Cheour et al 1998, Cheour-Luhtanen et al
  1998, Kuhl, Williams, Lacerda, Stevens Lindblom
  1992, Werker Tees 1984).

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UG/FLN WHAT CAN WE LOOK FOR?

• Chomsky 1956,1957 human languages cannot be
  captured by finite state grammars.

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ENGLISH IS NOT A FINITE STATE LANGUAGE

• (11) (i) If S1, then S2
• (ii) Either S3, or S4
• (iii) The man who said that S5, is arriving
  today
• (12) if either (11iii) or S4, then S2

Chomsky 1959
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TRANSFORMATIONAL PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR

• Discrete units/words
• Hierarchy/structure
• Phrases/constituents
• Recursion/unbounded merge
• Transformations/displacement

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FORMAL UNIVERSALS

• There are other universals, which are so
  basic that they are implicit in every linguistic
  theory and become most obvious when we compare
  language with other animal communication systems.
  These include the fact that language is built up
  from a set of reusable units, that these units
  combine hierarchically and recursively, and that
  there is systematic correspondence between how
  units combine and what the combination means.
  (ODonnell et al 2005)

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Fitch Hauser 2004Computational Constraints on
Syntactic Processing in a Nonhuman Primate
LEXICON A ba di yo tu la mi no wu B
pa li mo nu ka bi do gu
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(No Transcript)
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(Can I learn to) sing that I sing?
Gentner et al. (2006) Recursive syntactic pattern
learning by songbirds, Nature 440
European starling, sturnus vulgaris, estornino,
araba-zozoa
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Recursion and the brain

• Tettamanti,M., Alkadhi,H., Moro A. , Perani D.
  Kollias S. and Weniger D. (2002) Neural
  Correlates for the Acquisition of Natural
  Language Syntax NeuroImage 17, 700709 (2002)
• Musso M., Moro A., Glauche V., Rjintjes M.,
  Reichenbach J., Büchel C. Weiller C. (2003)
  Brocas area and the language instinct, Nature
  neuroscience Vol. 6, No. 7 774-781.
• Friederici A., Bahlmann J., Heim S., Schubotz R.,
  and Anwander A. (2006) The brain differentiates
  human and non-human grammars Functional
  localization and structural connectivity, PNAS,
  February 14, vol. 103, no. 7, 24582463

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Musso, Moro et al (2003)
Possible vs. impossible rules in Italian
Negation after third word
Reverse linear order
Agree with last noun
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Musso, Moro et al (2003)
Possible vs. impossible rules in Japanese
Add ta on second word to left
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Italian
The activation rCBF of Brocas area augmented
when the accuracy of possible rules increased,
whereas it diminuished when the accuracy of
impossible rules increased.
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Japanese
The activation rCBF of Brocas area augmented
when the accuracy of possible rules increased,
whereas it diminuished when the accuracy of
impossible rules increased.
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the brain differentiates human and non-human
grammars

• languagegoes beyond the capacity to process
  sequences with simple transitional probabilities
  of adjacent elements observable in non-human
  primates.
• Here we show that the processing of these two
  sequence types is supported by different areas in
  the human brain. Processing of local transitions
  is subserved by the left frontal operculum, a
  region that is phylogenetically older than
  Brocas area, which specifically holds
  responsible the computation of hierarchical
  dependencies.

Friederici et al. (2006) PNAS
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(No Transcript)
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The present results indicate a functional
differentiation between two cytoarchitectonically
and phylogenetically different brain areas in the
left frontal cortex. The evaluation of
transitional dependencies in sequences generated
by an FSG, a type of grammar that was shown to be
learnable by non-human primates, activated a
phylogenetically older cortex, the frontal
operculum. In contrast, the computation of
hierarchical dependencies in sequences generated
according to a PSG, the type of grammar
characterizing human language, additionally
recruits a phylogenetically younger cortex,
namely Brocas area (BA 44 45).
Friererici et al. (2006)
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THE CHALLENGE OF VARIATION

• The diverse array of languages we observe can
  all be characterized as different arrangements of
  a smallish number of discrete elements.
• The Atoms of Language
• Baker 200145

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PARAMETERS (Baker 2001, 2003)
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MACROPARAMETERS THE HEAD PARAMETER Baker 2003
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AP-interface and variation

• Nespor Vogel 1986 Nespor, Guasti, Christophe
  1996
• head initial languages (SVO type) correlate with
  rightmost prominence iambic rhythm,
• head final languages (SOV type), have leftmost
  prominence, that is, a trochaic rhythm.

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AP-interface and variation
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concepts, events
Argument structure quantification
recursion
Morphology Phonology linearization
Rythm, phonetic categories
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