Lecture notes, Exam 1 study guide PDF

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Ling 1010 Language and Mind Section 08 (Th. 8:00am - 8:50am) [email protected] Section 09 (Th. 9:00am - 9:50am) Section 11 (Th. 10:00am - 10:50am)

TA:

Zheng

Shen

Office: Oak 370. Office hour: By appointment.

———————————————————————————————————————— Feb. 13 - Things You Need to Know for Exam 1 Lecture 1 Linguistic Sophistication and Material Culture Q1. What is the relation between linguistic sophistication and material culture?  Technology and linguistic sophistication are not directly related Q2. Give a case showing the relationship.  Highlanders of Papa New Guinea Q3. What is the experiment of nature?  Lecture 2 Descriptive Grammar and Prescriptive Grammar Q4. What does prescriptive grammar do?  Tells you how you SHOULD speak or write Q5. What are some examples of prescriptive rules?  Don’t end a sentence with a preposition Q6a. What are some motives for prescriptive rules?  The center of power “London is better” Talking like people who have power  Conservatism “Older is better” anything that seemed new was viewed with suspicion  Conscious improvement “Latin is better” Latin was held in high esteem and is used as one of the model languages to aspire to Q6b. What are the advantages of prescriptive rules?  Standardization- improving communication in large communities helps reduce misunderstandings  Social Power- The more you sound like the prescriptive rules the more social power you will have Q7. What does descriptive grammar do?  Describes how you ACTUALLY speak or write Q8. What is a native speaker of a language?  Someone who grew up speaking that language Q9. What is grammaticality? How do you decide whether a sentence is grammatical in descriptive linguistics?  Obeys descriptive rules. Sounds like a natural way to express a sentence Q10. What is the goal of descriptive linguistics?  A precise set of rules that predict grammar Q11. What is the fact about like insertion? What is the rule of like insertion?  Like can be inserted only at the left edge of a major constituent phrase  Like is more than just a filler Lecture 3 Tacit and Conscious Knowledge Q12. What are some of the properties of language and rules? 1) Many language rules are language specific. E.g. word order.  Subject, verb, object (SVO) The cat ate the bird 2) All language activities are rule governed. E.g. wanna contraction.  Governed by rules but not listed by any prescriptive grammar 3) Native speakers cannot state the rules. E.g. NPI 4) Grammar rules can be very complex. E.g. wh-questions.  A question word (who, where, etc) is in the front (unless it is a yes/no question)  An auxiliary verb (has, did, etc) precedes the subject (unless the subject is the) Q13. What is tactic knowledge? Give some examples.  You know how to do it without explicitly learning it, you have it but don’t know you have it  Ex: chewing, breathing, speaking

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Q14.  Q15.

What is conscious knowledge? Give some examples. Learned through instruction. You know that you know this language What are some properties of tacit knowledge? 1) Tacit knowledge are know-how knowledge 2) Acquired through emulation and experience (not through formal instruction) 3) Can be applied without deliberation 4) Application does not require awareness

Lecture 4 The Creative Aspect of Language Q16a. What do we mean by saying that language is creative?  The ability to create and understand new combinations of words Q16b. What does “Infinite language from finite means”by Wilhelm von Humboldt refer to?  Finite set of words and finite set of rules can be combined in an infinite amount of ways Q17. What property of language enables the creativity?  Recursion Q18. What are the two definitions of recursion?  The output of a linguistic rule may serve as the input to the same rule  A linguistic unit (ex: a noun) may contain another unit of the same type Q19. What is a compound? What is a nominal compound?  Compound- a word composed of more than one word  Nominal Compound- A noun made of 2 smaller nouns Q20. What does the rule for nominal compounds look like?  N N N A noun may go to a noun followed by another noun Q21. How does a nominal compound show recursion?  It is a unit (noun) that contains another unit of the same type (noun) Q22. What is the head of the nominal compound?  Determines the basic meaning of the compound Q23. In English nominal compounds, what is the rule for their heads?  Right hand head rule. The word on the right is the head of the compound Q24. What is a tree diagram?  Illustrates a noun-noun compound Lecture 5 Nativism and Empiricism Q25. What is the core idea of empiricism?  All knowledge comes from experience Q26. What are John Locke’ s ideas in terms of knowledge, language, and mind?  No such thing as innate knowledge  Knowledge is conscious and based on experience  Languages are all different  At birth, the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate) waiting for experience Q27. What are Skinner’ s ideas on mind and behavior?  Mental processes are an illusion and cannot cause behavior  Behavior is to be explained by either natural selection or operant conditioning Q28. What is the core idea of nativism?  Some knowledge comes from experience and some knowledge is innate Q29. What is Leibniz’ s argument against empiricism?  A blank slate cant do anything  Expect the intellect itself Q30. What are Noam Chomsky’ s ideas?  Much knowledge of language is innate  Knowledge can be tacit  Many aspects of language are universal  Experience accounts for the differences but the differences aren’t as bad as you think Q31. What are empiricism’ s predictions about language? 1) Some people will not have language. 2) Some people will take longer to learn a language. 3) Different people in the same community will have different languages.

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Q32a. Q32b.   Q32c.   Q32d.  Q32e.     Q33.  Q34.      Q35.     Q36.  Q37.  Q38. 

4) Children would go through completely difference processes in language acquisition. 5) Certain languages are harder for children to learn. 6) Learning languages will take the same amount of time as other mental tasks. 7) People who are never exposed to a true language will never have a true language. What are some evidences for nativism? What are evidences for nativism in terms of Universality? All human societies have language All (medically normal) children acquire at least 1 language What are evidences for nativism in terms of Uniformity? Uniformity at EASE- a child can acquire any of the worlds languages in about 5 years Uniformity of SUCCESS- the child acquires grammar that is nearly indistinguishable from the caretakers What are evidences for nativism in terms of Rapidity? Children acquire language much more rapidly than other information of similar complexity What are evidences for nativism in terms of consistency of stages? Children acquire language in highly similar acquisition stages Babbling- Present until 12 months. Utterances sounds that have no meaning Holophrastic Speech- Begins at 12 months. One word utterances Telegraphic speech- begins at 18 months. 2 word utterances. Missing function words and affixes What is double dissociation? Your IQ and your language are not directly correlated. Having a good IQ does not guarantee that you will have language and not having a good IQ does not mean that you won’t have capability of language What do people with Williams syndrome show? Cardiovascular difficulties Average IQ of 55 Limited motor control Excessively social Language preserved What do people with Specific Language Impairment show? Normal (nonverbal) IQ Normal socialization Some areas of language are okay Problems with certain points of language (ex: the endings on verbs and nouns) What is pidgin? The beginning stages of a new language What is creole and what is creolization? Creole is the stage after pidgin. The increasing sophistication of a new language. What do creole languages show? Children are not blank slates, they do have innate language. All people have some sort of language skills already in them so that’s how they can take the pidgin language and turn it into creole

Lecture 6 Milestones of Language Acquisition Q39. What is phonetic discrimination?  The ability to distinguish between any sounds that are distinguished in any of the worlds languages Q40. What method did people use to show the phonetic discrimination of infants? How does it work?  Habituation study shows phonetic discrimination Q41. What is habituation study? What is natural observation study?  A sound is played repeatedly until the child is used to it (the sucking goes down). A new sound is played, if the child hears the difference, the sucking rate goes up Q42. What is categorical perception?  Perception in terms of linguistic categories (ex: pa vs ba with a sharp boundary) even though in terms of physics there is no clear boundary Q43a. What are the stages in language acquisition?  Babbling: Birth- 1 year  Holophrastic: 1-1.5 years

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 Telegraphic: 1.5-2.5 years Q43b. When is the babbling stage and what do children do?  Babbling occurs from birth to 1 year  Utter linguistic sounds without meaning, at first only cooing  By 6 months, varied babbling, syllables may be repeated, more consonant-vowel combinations  By 10 months, restricted phonetic inventory, only the sounds of the communities language Q43bb. What is the behavior of deaf children in this stage?  (Limited) vocal babbling until about 10 months  Only manual babbling after 10 months Q43c. When is the holophrastic stage and what do children do?  1 year- 18 months  One word utterances but with a lot of meaning in the word Q43d. When is the two-word/telegraphic stage and what do children do?  18 months- 2.5 years  Combine words into 2 word utterances  Mainly content words, missing function words and affixes Q43e. What is vocabulary explosion and when does it happen?  Occurs 1.5-2.5 years old  Child acquires up to 12 new words a day  Words are sometimes acquired on a basis of single exposure Q43f. What is grammatical explosion and when does it happen?  Occurs at 2.5 years  MLU-2.25  Function words and affixes (endings) begin to appear (the, him, -ing, -ed)  Overregularization errors begin Q44. What is mean length of utterance? (MLU)  Average number of words per utterance  A much better predictor of childs abilities than age at this point Q45. What is computational bottleneck?  One reason for the shortness of telegraphic utterances seems to be processing limitations (memory, attention, etc) Q46. What is overregularization and when does it happen?  2.5-3 years  Children overregularize irregular forms (“go-ed” “foot-s”)  This shows they have grammatical rules for these endings Q47. Fill out the table below.

St ages

Ti me/ MLU

Behavi or

Bi r t h

Phonetic discrimination and categorical perception

Babbl i ng

Birth-1 year

Sounds without meaning

Hol ogr aphi c

1 year-1.5 years

1 word utterances

Tel egr aphi cst age

1.5-2.5 years

2 word utterances. Missing function words and affexes

Vocabul ar yexpl osi on

1.5-2.5 years

12 new words a day

Gr ammat i calexpl osi on

2.5 years

Function words and affixes appear. Overregularization

Met al i ngui st i cAwar eness Age 4

Awareness of language as an object- defining words, correcting their own errors

Nat i ve

Speaking like an adult

3-5 years 4 of 5

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