Introduction to English Linguistics (II)
Professor Seongha Rhee
[email protected]
Chapter 7. Language Acquisition (I) (324-345) 1. 2. 3. 4.
Introduction Mechanisms Children construct grammars. The Development of Grammar
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1. Introduction • Uniqueness of language acquisition • Linguistic rules are very complex. • Children acquire grammatical knowledge by age 5. (cf. mathematical operations)
• Orthographic knowledge (literacy) is separate from linguistic knowledge per se. (cf. orate societies) • Language skill is different from other skills. (cf. piano playing, typing, etc.; cf. walking vs. bike-riding) 3
• Observations from acquisition studies: • (i) Language learning is not like storing in the brain. • (ii) Children learn through rule construction and creative experiments. • (iii) Children do not learn linguistic rules explicitly. • (iv) The data input to children are impoverished.
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2. Mechanisms 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4
The The The The
Imitation Theory Reinforcement Theory Analogy Theory Structure Input Theory
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• General Issues: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
Language Language Language Language
acquisition acquisition acquisition acquisition
through through through through
imitation? reinforcement? analogy? structured input?
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2.1 The Imitation Theory • Behaviorist psychology • Data (1) (Cazden 1972) C: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. A: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? C: Yes. A: What did you say she did? C: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. A: Did you say she held them tightly? C:No, she holded them loosely. 7
• Data (2) (Assorted) • holded, tooths, Cat stand up table,
a my pencil, two foot, what the boy hit?, other one pants, Mommy get it my ladder, cowboy did fighting me...
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• Data (3) (Assorted; Imitation failure)
A: He's going out. C: He go out. A: That's an old-time train. C: Old-time train. A: Adam, say what I say. Where can I put them? C: Where I can put them? 9
• Conclusion on the Imitation Theory • There is an imitation component in language acquisition but many of children's errors cannot be explained by adult input. The imitation theory is inadequate as an acquisition theory.
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2.2 The Reinforcement Theory • Positive reinforcement for correct utterances • Negative reinforcement for incorrect utterances • Negative: Scolding for incorrect utterances; Grammatical error correction • Positive: Compliments for correct utterances 11
• Data (1) (Attempted Correction; MacWhinney & Snow 1985)
C: M: C: M: C:
Nobody don't like me. No, say 'Nobody likes me.' Nobody don't like me. (x 8 times) Now, listen carefully, say 'Nobody likes me.' Oh, nobody don't likes me.
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• Data (2) (Attempted Correction; MacWhinney & Snow 1985) C: Want other one spoon, Daddy. F: You mean, you want the other spoon. C: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy. F: Can you say 'the other spoon'? C: Other...one...spoon. F: Say, 'other'. C: Other. F: Spoon. C: Spoon. F: Other...spoon. C: Other...spoon. Now give me other one spoon? 13
• Data (3) (Brown 1973) C: A: C: A:
Her curl my hair. [no correction]
Walt Disney comes on Tuesday. No, it comes on Wednesday.
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• Conclusion on the Reinforcement Theory • Reinforcement rarely occurs and is not effective. The reinforcement theory is inadequate as an acquisition theory.
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2.3 The Analogy Theory • General formula: A:B=C:? E.g. dog : dogs = cow : xx = cows (cf. kine) dog : dogs = memorandum : xx = memorandums (cf. memoranda) • (agendas, criterias,...)
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• Practical problem (1) (Gleitman, 1994)
I painted a red barn. → I painted a blue barn. I painted a red barn. I painted a barn red. →*I saw a barn red. 17
• Practical problem (2) (Unattested, hypothetical utterance) The boy was sleeping.
The boy who is sleeping is dreaming about a new car.
Was the boy sleeping?
*Is the boy who sleeping is dreaming about a new car? analogy
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Connectionism • Behaviorist flavor • No rule storage, but representation by a set of neuronlike connections • Repeated exposure reinforces connection • Findings contradict the connectionist assumptions. (cf. Past formation of denominal verb uses regular form instead of extant irregular form: e.g. a fly ball → He flied out. *He flew out.) 19
Conclusion on the Analogy Theory • Analogy is one of the major strategies in language use, but the analogy theory is inadequate as an acquisition theory.
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2.4 The Structured Input Theory • Language learning is enabled through structured, simplified, input. (cf. CDS (Child Directed Speech); motherese, teacherese, baby talk, foreigner talk...) • Typical characteristics: More slowly, More clearly, In exaggerated intonation 21
• Syntactic complexity is not lower. e.g. • Do you want your juice now? • Mommy thinks you should sleep now. • Pat the dog gently! • We don't want to hurt him, do we? 22
• Other considerations • Infants prefer motherese to normal speech. • Input styles vary across cultures. • Adults often follow children's speech, not lead it.
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• Conclusion on the Structured Input Theory
• Motherese may be useful for attention getting, but the structured input theory is inadequate.
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3. Children Construct Grammars • Language acquisition: doing? happening? • • • •
"noisy" data (poverty of stimulus) no explicit teaching through observation only similar developmental stages for signed/spoken language acquisition 25
3.1 The Innateness Hypothesis • "born with the innate capacities for generating sentences" [Universal Grammar (UG)] • supported by the poverty of the stimulus • impoverished data vs. richness and complexity of the constructed grammar • no information as to the correctness/falsity of input
• The logical problem of language acquisition (Chomsky): "What accounts for the ease, rapidity, and uniformity of language acquisition in the face of impoverished data?" 26
e.g. • Knowledge of structure-dependency from sequenced sounds only (1) a. *Is the boy who _____ sleeping is dreaming of a new car? b. Is the boy who is sleeping _____ dreaming of a new car?
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e.g. wh-questions (2) Declarative - Interrogative
a. Jack went up the hill. a'. Who went up the hill? b. Jack and Jill went up the hill. b'. Who went up the hill? c. Jack and Jill went home. c'. Jack and who went home? d. Jill ate bagels and lox. d'. Jill ate what?
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e. e'.
Jill ate cookies and ice cream. Jill ate cookies and what?
f. g.
*Who did Jack and _____ go up the hill? *What did Jill eat bagels and _____?
h. h'.
Jill ate bagels with lox. What did Jill eat bagels with _____?
i. i'.
Jack went up the hill with Jill. Who did Jack go up the hill with _____? 29
>>> Issue: difference between "and" and "with" questions (Coordinate NP vs. NP+PP) • (cf. tree diagram)
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>>> Children make errors but never make errors violating coordinate structure constraint.
• language universal (maybe): All languages have a coordinate structure constraint.
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e.g. Word order (SOV vs. SVO) e.g. Question formation and word order (Kor vs. Eng)
• You will come home. >> Will you _____ come home? • 당신은 집에 갑니다.>> 당신은 집에 갑니까? e.g. Question formation with additional do-insertion • You like who. > Who do you like ____? • Ni xihuan shei 'You like who' • 너는 철수를 좋아해. > 너는 누구를 좋아해?
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• In children's acquisition: Acquisition of auxiliary movement in Q-formation takes time. e.g. Early Stage Where Mommy is going? What you can do?
Later Stage Where is Mommy going? What can you do?
• However, they NEVER make mistakes of moving the wrong auxiliary in a complex sentence or wh-phrase out of coordinate structure. 33
• Evaluation of the Innateness Hypothesis • It answers the logical problem of language acquisition. (ex nihilo?)
• It predicts that all languages will conform to the principles of UG.
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3.2 Stages in Language Acquisition • Children are born properly equipped for language acquisition. • But the grammar is not complete. • Acquisition is not instantaneous, but very fast. (3-4 years) • Developmental stages may last long, or be brief. • At each stage of development the child's language conforms to a set of rules. e.g. Question formation e.g. Negation formation 35
3.3 The Perception and Production of Speech Sounds • Infants are highly sensitive to some subtle distinctions in their environment and not to others. >> The mind is "attuned" at birth to receive certain kinds of information.) • evidence from pacifier experiments (linguistic, visual, auditory, object permanence, physical properties...)
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e.g. • Sequence 1. [pa] [pa] [pa] • Sequence 2. [pa] [pa] [pa] [pha] [pha]... >> Adults find it difficult to differentiate between allophones of one phoneme. Infants, no problem. 37
e.g. • [r] [l] distinction for Korean/Japanese: >>
Adults difficult; Infants no problem.
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e.g. • [t] [ʈ] (retroflex t) (cf. Hindi) distinction for English speakers:
>>
Adults difficult; Infants no problem.
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• Infants do not react to distinctions that never correspond to phonemic contrast. • Infants do not react to physical differences by gender/ age/etc. of vowels. (Computationally impossible.) >>
>>
Infants seem to be born with abilities to differentiate phonemic/non-phonemic sounds. Infants seem to be born with abilities to learn any ambient language.
• From the 6th month, infants lose the ability to differentiate language-specific non-phonemic sounds (e.g. r/l for Japanese infants vs. r/l for American infants).
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[Production] • Shaping effect in perception occurs in production as well. • babbling (0;6): Top-frequency 12 consonants consist of 95% of babbling consonants. • The first babbles: mama, gaga, dada... • Later babbles contain language-specific sounds and sound combinations; different babbles by language. • Deaf-children's babbles are different from hearing-children's babbles. 41
• Signed babbles vs. Spoken babbles (0;4-0;7) have sounds/gestures to limited ambient sounds/gestures. • Infants have readiness to respond to linguistic cues: intonation contours. >>
Humans are born with a predisposition to discover the units that have linguistic meanings, at a genetically specified stage in neural development.
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3.4 First Words • holophrastic stage J.P.'s data (1;4) [?aw] 'not, no, don't‘ [da] 'dog‘ [sa] 'sock‘ [ma] 'mommy‘
[aj] 'light' [daw/baw]'down' [haj] 'hi' [dæ] 'daddy' 43
4. The Development of Grammar 4.1 Acquisition of Phonology 4.2 Acquisition of Word Meaning 4.3 Acquisition of Morphology (4.4 Acquisition of Syntax) (4.5 Acquisition of Pragmatics)
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4.1 Acquisition of Phonology • First words are monosyllabic. • Infants have much smaller inventory of phonemes/phones than adults. • Roman Jakobson: universality of 1st sounds ([p] [s] vs. [ɵ]) • J.P.'s [b] [m] [d] [k] • Manner: nasals > glides, stops, liquids, fricatives, affricates • Place: labials, velars, alveolars, palatals (cf. mama) • At early stage, voiced/voiceless are differently perceived but are not produced differently.
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• The first year is spent to figure out phonetic inventory. • The second year is spent to figure out phonology, esp. sounds with phonemic contrasts. e.g. /p/ /b/ distinction, /t/ /d/ distinction, /s/ /z/ distinction • Children perceive more phonological contrasts than produce them. e.g. [r] [w] distinction: rabbit [waebit] in production; but ring/wing differentiation in perception
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• Children make subtle distinction not discernible by adult ears. e.g.
Children's wing, ring sound same to adults, but different for children.
e.g. Children's (3;0) ephant clearly has [l] in spectrogram, but adults cannot perceive it.
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e.g. A: What does [maws] mean? C: (2;0) C: Like a cat. A: Yes, what else? C: Nothing else. A: It's part of your head. C: [fascinated] A: [touching A's mouth] What's this? C: [maws] e.g. light vs. yight >> There's more than what is produced. 48
• Children's substitution shows feature differences.
e.g. mawɵ vs. maws: interdental fricative vs. alveolar fricative e.g.
yight vs. light: glide vs. liquid
e.g.
waebit vs. rabbit: glide vs. liquid (cf. Glides are acquired earlier than liquids.) 49
• Children's pronunciations are simplifications of adult pronunciations. • Children's pronunciations are rule governed. e.g. [pun] 'spoon‘ [peyn] 'plane' [tin] 'clean‘ [pati] 'Papi' [tis] 'kiss‘ [taw] 'cow' >> consonant cluster reduction, [t] for [k], ... • Children's rules are not whimsical, but rule-governed. 50
4.2 Acquisition of Word Meaning • over-generalization (over-extension): dog, daddy, ball, bunny... [Extension & Narrowing] • • • • • •
J.P.'s J.P.'s J.P.'s J.P.'s J.P.'s J.P.'s
up: sock: dog:
Get me up! > & Get up! (to mom) socks & undergarments > socks real-life > & pictures references: physically present > & absent items uh-oh (1;05): mistake > & deliberate no: imperative > & assertive 51
• How children make connections between the word and the object? >> miraculous • 0-6 years: 14 words/day, 5,000 words/year
• Principles: "form over color principle" "whole object principle"
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4.3 Acquisition of Morphology C: M: C: M: C:
I drawed this picture for you, Mommy. Drew. Huh? You drew this picture for me. I know that! I'm the one that drawed it!
•Children's common mistakes:
bringed, goed, drawed, runned, foots, mouses, sheeps
•Developmental phases Phase 1 Phase 2 broke breaked brought bringed
Phase 3 broke brought 53
• Child's morphological rules emerge quite early. cf. The 'wug'/'bik' test • Zero-derivation Child Utterance You have to scale it. I broomed it up. He's keying the door.
Adult Translation "You have to weigh it." "I swept it up." "He's opening the door with a key."
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Thank you! See you next week!
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