PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

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PSY 369 Psycholinguistics

• Language Acquisition

2
Announcements

• Language development section includes information
  from Chapter 3, pages 72-87
• Homework 2 due Feb 20 (moved from Feb 18)

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Homework 1

• Two banks in neighboring towns were reported
  robbed by the state police yesterday.

/T/ /oo/ /b/ /a/ /n/ /k/ /s/ /i/ /n/ main
point not a one to one correspondence between
letters and sounds
Free two, bank, in, neighbor, town, were, report
(but not port), rob, by, the, state, police,
day Bound -s, -ing, -ed, yester-
Police reported the robbery the day before, vs
the police robbed the store the day before
Bank as either financial institution or a
riverside (or other meanings of bank)
Pragmatics involves how the utterance is used. In
Context A it is being used to convey the news,
while it B it is about whether the security needs
to be upgraded
Spoken vs. written language. At the front end
the signals are very different, so the processing
must be different. However, at some point the
processes seem to converge. I was looking for
something along the lines of thoughts like these.
4
Acquiring language
Dr. Cutting, language sure is complicated. How
do you expect us to learn all this stuff?

• Student in my psycholinguistics course

5
Acquiring language
Whadda ya mean, mommy. I can talk. I can
understand what you say. Whats so hard?

• Student in my psycholinguistics course

• 2 year old

6
Acquiring language

• How do we (humans) do it? How do we learn to use
  this complex behavior?

• Student in my psycholinguistics course

• 2 year old

7
Overview

• Some of the major issues
• Imitation vs Innateness
• Born to walk
• Born to talk?
• How much explicit teaching do we get?
• Very little on syntax phonology, some on
  meaning
• Commonalities across individuals, languages and
  cultures
• Language is complex everywhere
• Sounds, words, syntax, and more
• No primitive (simple) languages
• Language development is similar everywhere
• Similar stages

8
Different approaches

• Behaviorist accounts
• Imitation ( conditioning) accounts
• e.g., B. F. Skinner children learn through
  imitation and reinforcement.
• Nativist (Innateness) accounts
• e.g., Chomskys Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
• Language works by internalizing the rules of
  grammar to produce sentences.
• They do this without practice, reinforcement, or
  adult modeling
• Universal Grammar Parameter setting

9
Different approaches

• Cognitive hypotheses
• Piaget cognitive development drives language
  development
• Vygotsky language and cognition are initially
  separate, but as each develop become tightly
  interconnected, with each influencing each other
• Social hypothesis
• e.g., Bruners Language acquisition socialization
  system (LASS) emphasized the social setting in
  acquiring language
• Exposure to language is not enough, learners must
  experience language in social/interactive
  contexts
• E.g, child-directed speech, turn taking situations

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Typical language development

• Similar stages

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Typical language development

• 6 Months
• Responds to his name
• Responds to human voices without visual cues by
  turning his head and eyes
• Responds appropriately to friendly and angry tones

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Typical language development

• 12 Months
• Uses one or more words with meaning (this may be
  a fragment of a word)
• Understands simple instructions, especially if
  vocal or physical cues are given
• Practices inflection
• Is aware of the social value of speech

13
Typical language development

• 18 Months
• Has vocabulary of approximately 5-20 words
• Vocabulary made up chiefly of nouns
• Some echolalia (repeating a word or phrase over
  and over)
• Is able to follow simple commands

14
Typical language development

• 24 Months
• Can name a number of objects common to his
  surroundings
• Is able to use at least two prepositions
• Combines words into a short sentence
  (telegraphic)
• Vocabulary of approximately 150-300 words
• Volume and pitch of voice not yet well-controlled

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Typical language development

• 36 Months
• Use pronouns I, you, me correctly
• Is using some plurals and past tenses
• Knows at least three prepositions
• Handles three word sentences easily
• Has in the neighborhood of 900-1000 words
• About 90 of what child says should be
  intelligible
• Verbs begin to predominate

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In the beginning
and the womb

• Prelinguistic communication

• We experience language before were even born

What was that? Youre mumbling.

• Normal human language uses sounds between 100 and
  4000 Hz
• Sound travels through skin and fluids too
• In the womb, sounds up to 1000 Hz
• Cant hear individual words
• But can hear
• Intonation, durations, rhythm, stress

Add link to Annie Murphy Pauls TED talk (first
5-6 mins) http//www.ted.com/talks/annie_murphy_
paul_what_we_learn_before_we_re_born.html
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In the beginning
and the womb

• Prelinguistic communication

• We experience language before were even born

• DeCasper Spence (1986)

• Had mothers read stories everyday to fetuses
  during final 6 weeks of pregnancy
• After babies were born tested to see if babies
  preferred familiar story over novel one
• Results babies preferred the familiar stories

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In the beginning
and the womb

• Prelinguistic communication

• We experience language before were even born

• Mahler et al. (1988, in France)
• 4 day old babies
• Non-Nutritive Sucking method

• Played French or Russian
• Sucking pattern changed if language was switched
• Sucking pattern didnt change if language wasnt
  switched
• Babies knew (something about) the languages (most
  likely prosody)

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In the beginning
and the womb

• Prelinguistic communication

• We experience language before were even born

• DeCasper, et al (1994)

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In the beginning
and the womb

• Prelinguistic communication

• We experience language before were even born

• DeCasper, et al (1994)

Fetal heart monitor

• Had mothers read stories everyday to fetuses
  during 34-38 weeks of pregnancy
• After 38th week, two stories were played to the
  fetuses (but mom couldnt hear it)

• Same story
• Different story

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In the beginning
and the womb

• Prelinguistic communication

• We experience language before were even born

• DeCasper, et al (1994)

Fetal heart monitor

• Had mothers read stories everyday to fetuses
  during 34-38 weeks of pregnancy
• After 38th week, two stories were played to the
  fetuses (but mom couldnt hear it)

• Same story
• Different story

22
In the beginning
and the womb

• Prelinguistic communication

• We experience language before were even born

• DeCasper, et al (1994)
• Had mothers read stories everyday to fetuses
  during 34-38 weeks of pregnancy
• After 38th week, two stories were played to the
  fetuses (but mom couldnt hear it)

Fetal heart monitor
Decreased fetal heart-rate

• Same story
• Different story

• Baby learned something about the story before it
  was born!

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The early days

• Prelinguistic communication

• After birth

• Child-directed speech (motherese)

• Phonological differences are key
• Slower
• Higher in pitch
• More variable in pitch
• More exaggerated intonation
• All may help to orient and maintain attention of
  infant
• Typically deal with the here now
• May help bootstrap later learning

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The early days

• Prelinguistic communication

• After birth

• Early conversations

• Turn taking behaviors
• From the movie - breast feeding conversations
• Parents interpret infants vocalizations as
  having meaning (also from the movie, Snows work)

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The early days gestures

• Prelinguistic gestures (around 8 months)

• Demonstration that the infant is trying to
  communicate in some way
• e.g., pointing behaviors
• Criteria
• Waiting
• Persistence
• Development of alternative plans

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The early days phonology

• Eimas et al, (1971)
• Categorical perception in infants (1 month olds)

Sharp phoneme boundary
Young infants can distinguish different phonemes
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The early days phonology

• Categorical perception in infants

• A number of studies suggest that very young
  infants can perceive between a number of phonemic
  distinctions (e.g., Kuhl Meltzhoff, 1997)
• Not limited to their language context
• However, as they age/experience their context
  language the ability to perceive some of these
  distinctions are lost (10 to 12 months)

• Nature/nurture debate
• Are humans pre-programmed to distinguish speech
  sounds?

Add link to Patricia Kuhls TED talk (10
mins) http//www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the
_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html
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The early days phonology

• Eimas et al, (1971)
• Categorical perception in infants (1 month olds)

100
Sharp phoneme boundary
Chinchillas do it too! Kuhl and Miller (1975)
/ba/
Are they pre-programmed to perceive human speech?
0
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The early days speech production

• Vocal track differences

Infant
Adult

• Infants vocal tracts are smaller, and initially
  shaped differently
• The infants tongue fills the entire mouth,
  reducing the range of movement
• As the facial skeleton grows, the range for
  movement increases (which probably contributes to
  the increased variety of sounds infants start to
  produce)
• May be (in part) why production lags behind
  comprehension

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Speech production

• The progression of cooing and babbling follows a
  universal pattern.

• Role of both nature and nurture
• Nature/Biology plays an important role in the
  emergence of cooing babbling.
• The form of the childs vocalization is also
  affected by the linguistic environment.

• Pre 6 weeks vegetative sounds
• Cry, burp, sucking noises
• Post 6 week cooing and later babbling

Babbling other videos
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Speech production

• The progression of cooing and babbling follows a
  universal pattern.
• Babies, until around 6 months old, can produce
  sounds/phonemes that their parents cannot produce
  or distinguish

• 6 - 8 weeks cooing
• 4 - 6 months babbling

• Clear consonants and vowels are produced
• da, gi

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Speech production

• The progression of cooing and babbling follows a
  universal pattern.
• Babies, until around 6 months old, can produce
  sounds/phonemes that their parents cannot produce
  or distinguish

• 6 - 8 weeks cooing
• 4 - 6 months babbling

• 6 - 7 months Reduplicated babbling
• dada, gigi

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Speech production

• The progression of cooing and babbling follows a
  universal pattern.
• Babies, until around 6 months old, can produce
  sounds/phonemes that their parents cannot produce
  or distinguish

• 6 - 8 weeks cooing
• 4 - 6 months babbling

• 6 - 7 months Reduplicated babbling

• 8 - 9 months CVC clusters may appear
• bod, tat

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Speech production

• The progression of cooing and babbling follows a
  universal pattern.
• Babies, until around 6 months old, can produce
  sounds/phonemes that their parents cannot produce
  or distinguish

• 10 or 11 months Variegated babbling
• Combining incomprehensible words
• dab gogotah
• Intonation patterns
• May reflect phonological rules of spoken language
  context

• By 12 to 14 months some evidence of language
  specific phonological rules

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The first words
Of course he said arf. What else did you
expect his first word to be?
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Language Sponges

• Learning words

• About 3,000 new words per year, especially in the
  primary grades
• As many as 8 new words per day
• Production typically lags behind comprehension

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Language Sponges

• Lots of individual differences
• But there is also a consistent pattern

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Vocabulary growth

• Methods used to study this
• Observational data (60s to present)
• Diary studies
• Parents record their kids language development
• Taped language samples (Roger Brown)
• Small numbers of children (Eve, Adam, Sarah)
• Went to home every month made tape recordings
• Extensive study needed
• Hard to kids to say all the words you know or
  say a question
• Early phonological production isnt like adult
  production, often need to take great care
  deciding what the child meant
• Large database CHILDES
• Many kids, many languages, including children
  with language difficulties

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Language Sponges

• Learning words
• General patterns and observations
• Sounds
• Meaning
• Proposed Strategies
• Fast mapping
• Whole object
• Mutual exclusivity
• Learning Syntax
• Learning Morphology

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Early word learning

• First words (Around 10-15 months)

• Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of
  phonologically consistent forms
• 1 word stage typically lasts around 10 months
• Have learned first 50 words by 15 24 months
• Typically focused on the here and now

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Early word learning

• First words (Around 10-15 months)

• Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of
  phonologically consistent forms
• Idiomorphs - personalized words

• Developed in systematic ways
• Not simply imitation, rather are creative
• Learned importance of consistency of names

• Adult words - Typically context bound (relevant
  to the immediate environment)
• Important people, Objects that move, Objects that
  can be acted upon, Familiar actions
• Nouns typically appear before verbs

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What kinds of words?

• 1-general names
• dog
• 2- specific names
• mommy
• 3-action words
• bye-bye
• 4-modifiers
• red
• 5-personal/social
• yes, no, please
• 6-functional
• what

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Early speech production

• Transition to speech

No. my fis.
No. My fis!
This is your fis?
Yes, my fis.
Your fis?
Oh, your fish.
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Early speech production

• Transition to speech

• This is your fis?

No, my fis.

• Cant hear the difference?
• Rejects adult saying fis
• Cant produce the correct sounds?
• Sometimes, but evidence suggests not always the
  case
• More general process of simplification
• frees up resources for concentrating on other
  aspects of language learning

Your fis.
No, my fis.
Oh, your fish.
Yes, my fis.
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Early speech production

• Transition to speech
• individual diffs, but some common processes

• Common Phonological processes
• Reduction
• Delete sounds from words (da for dog)
• Coalescence
• Combine different syllables into one syllable
  (paf for pacifier)
• Assimilation
• Change one sound into a similar sound within the
  word (fweet for sweet)
• Reduplication
• One syllable from a multi-syllabic word is
  repeated (baba for bottle)

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Extensions of meaning

• Applying the words to referents

• Extension
• Finding the appropriate limits of the meaning of
  words
• Underextension
• Applying a word too narrowly
• Overextension
• Applying a word too broadly

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Extensions of meaning
tee
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
111,2
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
111,2
111,24
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
111,2
111,24
tee/hosh
111,25
54
Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
111,2
111,24
tee/hosh
111,25
hosh
111,26
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
111,2
111,24
tee/hosh
111,25
hosh
111,26
111,27
pushi
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
111,2
111,24
tee/hosh
111,25
hosh
111,26
111,27
pushi
moo-ka
hosh
20,10
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Extensions of meaning
tee
19,11
110,18
googie
111,1
111,2
111,24
tee/hosh
111,25
hosh
111,26
111,27
pushi
moo-ka
hosh
20,10
20,20
biggie googie
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Extensions of meaning

• One-word-per-referent heuristic
• If a new word comes in for a referent that is
  already named, replace it
• Exception to that was horse, but it only
  lasted a day here

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Strategies for learning

• Expansion and contraction can occur at the same
  time

60
Strategies for learning

• Child tries different things, if a word doesnt
  work then try something else
• e.g., hosh didnt for for the large dog,
  switched to biggie doggie

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Indeterminacy Frog
Frog
Frog? Green? Ugly? Jumping?
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Quines gavagai problem

• The problem of reference
• a word may refer to a number of referents (real
  world objects)
• a single object or event has many objects, parts
  and features that can be referred to

Frog
Frog? Green? Ugly? Jumping?
63
Learning word meanings

• Learning words

• Fast mapping (Carey Bartlett, 1978)
• Using the context to guess the meaning of a word

• All got the olive tray
• Several weeks later still had some of the meaning

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Constraints on Word Learning

• Learning words

• Perhaps children are biased to entertain certain
  hypotheses about word meanings over others
• These first guesses save them from logical
  ambiguity
• Get them started out on the right track

• Cognitive Constraints (Markman, 1989)

• Object-scope (whole object) constraint
• Taxonomic constraint
• Mutual exclusivity constraint

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Strategies for learning

• Object-scope (whole object) constraint
• Words refer to whole objects rather than to parts
  of objects

Dog
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Strategies for learning

• Taxonomic constraint
• Words refer to categories of similar objects
• Taxonomies rather than thematically related
  obejcts

Here is a lux
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Strategies for learning

• But in no-word conditions, they would be shown
  the first picture

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Strategies for learning
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Strategies for learning

• Mutual exclusivity constraint (Markam and Watchel
  1988)
• Each object has one label different words refer
  to separate, non-overlapping categories of
  objects
• An object can have only one label

• they choose the corkscrew
• because it is a less well known object for which
  they dont have a label yet.

70
Problem with constraints

• Most of the constraints proposed apply only to
  object names.
• What about verbs? (Nelson 1988)
• There have been cases where children have been
  observed violating these constraints
• Using for example the word car only to refer to
  cars moving on the street from a certain
  location (Bloom 1973)
• The mutual exclusivity constraint would prevent
  children from learning subordinate and
  superordinate information (animal lt dog lt poodle)

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Language explosion continues

• The language explosion is not just the result of
  simple semantic development the child is not
  just adding more words to his/her vocabulary.
• Child is mastering basic syntactic and
  morphological processes.

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Language explosion continues

• Syntax
• Mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes
• Take 100 utterances and count the number of
  morphemes per utterance

Daddy coming. Hi, car. Daddy car comed. Two car
outside. It getting dark. Allgone outside.
Bye-bye outside.
morphemes 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, 2, 2 -ing and -ed
separate morphemes allgone treated as a single
word
MLU morphemes/utterances 20/7 2.86
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Language explosion continues

• Syntax
• Mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes

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Language explosion continues

• Proto-syntax (??)
• Holophrases (around 1-1.5 years)
• Single-word utterances may be used to express
  more than the meaning usually attributed to that
  single word by adults

dog might refer to the dog is drinking water

• Typically idiosyncratic, but some
  conventional/common (e.g., indicate the existence
  of an object, request recurrence of object or
  event)
• Often combined with intonation or gesture
• Controversial claim May reflect a developing
  sense of syntax, but not yet knowing how to use
  it (e.g., see Bloom, 1973)

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Language explosion continues

• Syntax
• Roger Brown (1973) proposed 5 stages
• Stage 1 Telegraphic speech (MLU 1.75 around
  24 months)
• Children begin to combine words into utterances
• Limited to a small set of semantic relations
  (e.g., nomination, recurrence, attribution,
  possession see table 10.3 for examples)
• Debate learning semantic relations or syntactic
  (position rules)
• baby sleep agentaction or Noun Verb

• Children in telegraphic speech stage are said to
  leave out the little words and inflections
• e.g. Mummy shoe NOT Mummys shoe
• Two cat NOT two cats

76
Language explosion continues

• Syntax
• Roger Brown (1973) proposed 5 stages

• More than two words
• Stages 2 through 5
• Stage 2 (MLU 2.25)
• begin to modulate meaning using word order
  (syntax)
• Modulations for number, time, aspect
• Gradual acquisition of grammatical morphemes
  (-ing, -s
• Later stages reflect generally more complex use
  of syntax (e.g., questions, negatives)

77
How do kids learn the syntax?

• Innateness accounts
• Semantic bootstrapping
• Learned accounts
• Acquired from the linguistic input from the
  environment
• It is in the stimulus

78
How do kids learn the syntax?

• Innateness account
• Pinker (1984, 1989)
• Semantic bootstrapping

Child has innate knowledge of syntactic
categories and linking rules
Child learns the meanings of some content words
Child constructs some semantic representations
of simple sentences
Child makes guesses about syntactic structure
based on surface form and semantic meaning
79
How do kids learn the syntax?

• It is in the stimulus accounts (e.g. Bates,
  1979)
• Speech to children is not impoverished (Snow,
  1977)
• Children learn grammar by mapping semantic roles
  (agent, action, patient) onto grammatical
  categories (subject, verb, object)
• In all languages there are multiple potential
  cues indicating semantic/syntactic relations
  (e.g., word order, case marking)
• Similar words occur in similar linguistic
  contexts
• Acoustic information (e.g., prosody) may provide
  syntactic cues
• Children do not need innate knowledge to learn
  grammar

80
Acquiring Morphology

• Morphology
• Typically things like inflections and
  prepositions start around MLU of 2.5 (usually in
  2 yr olds)
• Remember the Wug experiment (Berko-Gleason, 1958)

81
Acquiring Morphology

• Morphology

This person knows how to rick. She did the same
thing yesterday.
Yesterday she ________.
Typically children say that she ricked.
82
Acquiring Morphology

• Morphology order of acquisition

Age (yrs) Morpheme Example(s)
2 Present progressive I driving
2 Articles A dog, the doctor
2 Plural Balls
2 Uncontractible Copula He is asleep, am, are
3 Third person singular He wants an apple
3 Full progressive Be ing, I am singing
3 Regular past tense She walked
83
Acquiring Morphology

• Children sometimes make mistakes.

My teacher holded the baby rabbits.
Yes
She holded the baby rabbits.
No, she holded them loosely.
Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbit?
What did you say she did?
Did you say held them tightly?
84
Acquiring Morphology

• Children sometimes make mistakes.

My teacher holded the baby rabbits.

• This is ungrammatical in the adult language
• Shows that children are not simply imitating
• In this case, what they produce something that is
  not in their input.

85
Acquiring Morphology

• Children sometimes make mistakes.

My teacher holded the baby rabbits.

• Why do they make errors like these?
• In the case at hand, we have what is called
  overregularization
• The verb hold has an irregular past tense form,
  held
• Because this form is used, the regular past
  tense-- that with -ed-- is not found (hold-ed)

86
Acquiring Morphology

• The case of verb past tense
• Regular verb forms require no stored knowledge of
  the past tense form (wug test)
• Past tense is accomplished by applying a past
  tense rule (e.g., add -ed) to the verb stem
• With irregular verbs something must be memorized

• Examples
• Horton heared a Who
• I finded Renée
• The alligator goed kerplunk

87
Acquiring Morphology

• The case of verb past tense

• Stages in the acquisition of irregular inflections

• With regular verbs, the default form -ed is used
• With irregulars, lists associating the verb with
  a particular form of the past tense have to be
  memorized
• Past tense is -t when attached to leave, keep,
  etc.
• Is -gt was
• Dig -gt dug
• Has -gt had

88
Acquiring Morphology

• Stages in the acquisition of irregular inflections

time

• On the face of it, learning these morphological
  quirks follows a peculiar pattern
• Early correct irregular forms are used
• Middle incorrect regular forms are used
• Late correct forms are used again

89
Memory Rules

• Why do we find this type of pattern?
• Memory and rules
• The use of overregularized forms starts at around
  the same that that the child is beginning to
  apply the default -ed rule successfully
• Early All forms-- whether regular or
  irregular-- are memorized
• Middle The regular rule is learned, and in some
  cases overapplied
• Late Irregulars are used based on memory,
  regulars use the rule (the idea is that if the
  word can provide its own past tense from memory,
  then the past tense rule is blocked)

90
Memory Rules

• Why do we find this type of pattern?
• Memory and rules
• Other accounts
• Maratsos (2000) frequency explanation

• It is possible to predict which verbs will be
  subject to overregularization
• The more often an irregular form occurs in the
  input, the less likely the child is to use it as
  an overregularization
• This is evidence that some part of
  overregularization occurs because of memory
  failures
• Something about irregulars is unpredictable,
  hence has to be memorized

91
What kind of teaching do kids get?

• If language is learned (and not innate), how do
  kids do it?
• What kind of feedback do they get?
• Claim Positive evidence is not sufficient for
  learning a language.

92
What kind of teaching do kids get?

• Are the kids even aware of mistakes?
• The children are apparently aware of the fact
  that their forms are strange
• Parent Wheres Mommy?
• Child Mommy goed to the store
• Parent Mommy goed to the store?
• Child NO! Daddy, I say it that way, not you

93
Positive and negative evidence

• What kind of feedback is available for learning?

• Positive evidence Kids hear grammatical
  sentences
• Negative evidence information that a given
  sentence is ungrammatical
• Kids are not told which sentences are
  ungrammatical(no negative evidence)
• Lets consider no negative evidence further

94
What kind of teaching do kids get?

• How much Positive Evidence is there?
• Estimated 5000 7000 utterances a day
• Between ¼ and 1/3 are questions
• Over 20 are not full adult sentences
  (typically Noun or prepositional phrases)
• Only about 15 have typical English SVO form
• Roughly 45 of all maternal utterances began with
  one of 17 words (e.g., what, that, it,
  you)
• Cameron-Faulkner, et al (2003)

• So what kids do hear may be somewhat limited.

95
Negative evidence

• Negative evidence could come in various
  conceivable forms.
• The sentence Bill a cookie ate is not a sentence
  in English, Timmy. No sentence with SOV word
  order is.
• Upon hearing Bill a cookie ate, an adult might
• Not understand
• Look pained
• Rephrase the ungrammatical sentence grammatically

96
Kids resist instruction

• McNeill (1966)
• Child Nobody dont like me.
• Adult No, say nobody likes me.
• Child Nobody dont like me.
• repeats eight times
• Adult No, now listen carefully say nobody
  likes me.
• Child Oh! Nobody dont likes me.

97
Kids resist instruction

• Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean
  Berko Gleason)
• Child My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we
  patted them.
• Adult Did you say your teacher held the baby
  rabbits?
• Child Yes.
• Adult What did you say she did?
• Child She holded the baby rabbits and we patted
  them.
• Adult Did you say she held them tightly?
• Child No, she holded them loosely.
• So there doesnt seem to be a lot of explicit
  negative evidence, and what there is the kids
  often resist

98
Negative evidence via feedback?

• Do kids get implicit negative evidence?
• Do adults understand grammatical sentences and
  not understand ungrammatical ones?
• Do adults respond positively to grammatical
  sentences and negatively to ungrammatical ones?

99
Negative evidence via feedback?

• Brown Hanlon (1970)
• Case study of Adam - looked at things that were
  said to him by adults, and what he said to them
• Adults understood 42 of the grammatical
  sentences.
• Adults understood 47 of the ungrammatical ones.
• Adults expressed approval after 45 of
  thegrammatical sentences.
• Adults expressed approval after 45 of the
  ungrammatical sentences.
• Suggests that there isnt a lot of good negative
  evidence.

100
In a way, its moot anyway

• One of the striking things about child language
  is how few errors they actually make.
• For negative feedback to work, the kids have to
  make the errors (so that it can get the negative
  response).
• But they dont make enough relevant kinds of
  errors to determine the complex grammar.
• Pinker, Marcus and others, conclude that much of
  this stuff must be innate.
• But this isnt the only view. There is an
  ongoing debate about whether there are rules, or
  whether these patterns of behavior can be learned
  based on the language evidence that is available
  to the kids

101
Critical (sensitive) periods
102
Critical (sensitive) periods

• Certain behavior is developed more quickly within
  a critical period than outside of it. This
  period is biologically determined.
• Examples
• Imprinting in ducks (Lorenz, Hess, 1973)
• Ducklings will follow the first moving thing they
  see
• Only happens if they see something moving within
  the first few hours (after 32 hours it wont
  happen) of hatching
• Binocular cells in humans
• Cells in visual system that respond only to input
  from both eyes.
• If these cells dont get input from both eyes
  within first year of life, they dont develop

103
Critical (sensitive) periods

• Certain behavior is developed more quickly within
  a critical period than outside of it. This
  period is biologically determined.

• Some environmental input is necessary for normal
  development, but biology determines when the
  organism is responsive to that input.
• That when is the critical period

104
Critical period for language

• Lenneberg (1967) proposed that there is a
  critical period for human language

• It assumes that language acquisition must occur
  before the end of the critical period
• Estimates range from 5 years up to onset of
  puberty

105
Evidence for critical period for language

• Feral Children
• Children raised in the wild or with reduced
  exposure to human language
• What is the effect of this lack of exposure on
  language acquisition?
• Two classic cases
• Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron
• Genie

106
Victor, The Wild Boy of Aveyron

• Found in 1800 near the outskirts of Aveyron,
  France
• Estimated to be about 7-years-old
• Considered by some to be the first documented
  case of autism
• Neither spoke or responded to speech
• Taken to and studied by Dr. Jean-Marc-Gaspard
  Itard, and educator of deaf-mute and retarded
  children
• Never learned to speak and his receptive language
  ability was limited to a few simple commands.
• Described by Itard as an almost normal boy who
  could not speak

107
Genie

• Found in Arcadia, California in 1970, was not
  exposed to human language until age 13.5.
• Raised in isolation a situation of extreme abuse
• Genie could barely walk and could not talk when
  found
• Dr. Susan Curtiss made great efforts to teach her
  language, and she did learn how to talk, but her
  grammar never fully developed.
• Only capable of producing telegraphic utterances
  (e.g. Mike paint or Applesauce buy store)
• Used few closed-class morphemes and function
  words
• Speech sounded like that of a 2-year-old

108
Genie

• By age of 17 (after 4 years of extensive
  training)
• Vocabulary of a 5 year old
• Poor syntax (telegraphic speech mostly)
• Examples
• Mama wash hair in sink
• At school scratch face
• I want Curtiss play piano
• Like go ride yellow school bus
• Father take piece wood. Hit. Cry.

109
What Do These Cases Tell Us?

• Suggestive of the position that there is a
  critical period for first language learning (in
  particular for syntax and phonological
  development)
• If child is not exposed to language during early
  childhood (prior to the age of 6 or 7), then the
  ability to learn syntax will be impaired while
  other abilities are less strongly affected
• Not uncontroversial Victor and Genie and
  children like them were deprived in many ways
  other than not being exposed to language
• Genie stopped talking after age 30 and was
  institutionalized shortly afterward (Rymer, 1993)

110
What Do These Cases Tell Us?

• Suggestive of the position that there is a
  critical period for first language learning (in
  particular for syntax and phonological
  development)
• Why?
• Nativist explanation (see pg 79 of text)
• Maturational explanation less is more

111
Second language learning

• Learning a new language
• What if we already know one language, but want to
  learn another?
• Adults learning another language typically have a
  persistent foreign accent perhaps a critical
  period for phonology (Flege Hillenbrand, 1984)
• Adults typically do better initially at learning
  a new language compared to kids, but kids
  typically do better over the long term (Krashen,
  Long, Scarcella, 1982)

112
Second language learning

• Johnson and Newport (1989)
• Native Chinese/Korean speakers moving to US
• Task Listen to sentences and judge whether
  grammatically correct

113
Second language learning

• Johnson and Newport (1989)
• Native Chinese/Korean speakers moving to US
• Task Listen to sentences and judge whether
  grammatically correct

• Concluded that around the age of 16 something
  happens
• Different factors operate on language acquisition
  before and after the age of 16

• Birdsong and Molis (2001)
• Replicated the Johnson and Newport study in
  Spanish/English speakers.
• Did not find a discontinuity around the age of 16

114
Effects of the Critical Period

• Learning a language
• Under 7 years perfect command of the language
  possible
• Ages 8- c.15 Perfect command less possible
  progressively
• Age 15- Imperfect command possible
• But these claims are far from universally accepted

115
Bilinguals Polyglots

• Many people speak more than one language
• Tucker (1999) - multilinguals outnumber
  monolinguals
• What is the impact of knowing/using more than one
  language?
• Factors affecting second language acquisition?
• What does the lexicon look like?
• Interesting effects in bilinguals
• Interference
• Code switching
• Cognitive advantages

116
Second language acquisition

• Contexts of childhood bilingualism
• Simultaneous
• Both languages are acquired at the same time
• Vocabulary growth of bilinguals is similar to
  that of monolinguals
• Some aspects of acquisition may be slowed, but by
  age of 4 typically caught up
• Doesnt seem to matter whether languages are
  related or not (e.g., English - French versus
  English Japanese)
• Can achieve fluency in both languages
• Sequential acquisition
• The second language is learned after a first
  language
• When the second language (L2) is acquired is
  important
• Early versus late learning (e.g., see the Johnson
  and Newport study)

117
Second language acquisition

• Frequency of usage of both languages
• How often and in what contexts do you use the two
  languages
• Use it or lose it - language attrition
• Mode of acquisition
• Native bilingualism - growing up in a two
  language environment
• Immersion - schooling provided in a non-native
  language
• Submersion - one learner surrounded by non-native
  speakers
• Language dominance effects
• Relative fluency of L1 and L2 may impact
  processing

118
Bilingual Representations

• How do we represent linguistic information in a
  bilingual lexicon?
• Probably depends on many of the factors just
  discussed
• Lets look at some models and research focusing
  on the situation where L1 is dominant relative to
  L2

119
Models of the bilingual lexicons
Potter et al (1984) Separate Stores Models
separate lexicons for each language
L1First Language
L2Second Language
120
Models of the bilingual lexicons
Paivio, Clark, Lambert (1988) Common Stores
Models words from both languages in same store
L1First Language
L2Second Language
121
Revised Hierarchical Model

• The results are mixed, supporting more complex
  models
• May be different in different bilinguals
  depending on things like age of acquisition,
  relative proficiency, etc.

122
Interesting effects in bilinguals

• Interference
• Code switching
• Cognitive advantages

123
Interesting effects in bilinguals

• Interference
• Does knowing two languages lead to interference?
• When found, interference is at multiple levels
• Phonological - least amount of interference
• Lexical - mixing words from different languages
• Initially, appear to use a one word per thing
  strategy
• But as they realize there that theyre speaking
  two language, then theyll use words from both
  languages simultaneously
• Syntactic
• Until year two, may use only one syntactic system
  which is common to both languages
• Then a brief period with two sets of lexical
  items, but still a common syntax
• Finally, two lexicons and two sets of syntax

124
Interesting effects in bilinguals

• Determine who or what is the one performing the
  action.
• The waitress pushes the cowboys.
• The telephones pushes the cowboys.
• Kisses the table the apple.
• The baskets the teacher kicks.

• As a native speaker of English we can use many
  cues
• Word order
• Animacy
• Verb agreement
• Not all languages use the same cues to the same
  extent
• e.g., German doesnt rely as much on word order,
  but relies more on agreement processes

125
Interesting effects in bilinguals

• Determine who or what is the one performing the
  action.
• The waitress pushes the cowboys.
• The telephones pushes the cowboys.
• Kisses the table the apple.
• The baskets the teacher kicks.

• Kilborn (1989, 1994)
• Found that bilinguals (English as second
  language) typically carry over the dominant
  processing strategies from their native
  languages.
• This interacts with their level of fluency in the
  second language

126
Code switching

• When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from
  one language with a phrase or word from another
  language
• I want a motorcycle VERDE
• Switching is systematic, not random

127
Code switching

• When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from
  one language with a phrase or word from another
  language
• I want a motorcycle VERDE

• The Spanish adjective verde follows a
  grammatical rule that is observed by most
  bilingual speakers that code-switch
• I want a VERDE motorcycle
• Would be incorrect
• because language switching can occur only if the
  adjective is placed according to the rules of the
  language of the adjective
• In this case, the adjective is in Spanish
  therefore, the adjective must follow the Spanish
  grammatical rule that states that the noun must
  precede the adjective

128
Code switching

• When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from
  one language with a phrase or word from another
  language
• I want a motorcycle VERDE

• Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and
  comprehend sentences containing code-switched
  words
• May be due to a mental switch mechanism that
  determines which of the bilinguals two mental
  dictionaries are on or off during language
  comprehension.
• This mental switch is responsible for selecting
  the appropriate mental dictionary to be employed
  during the comprehension of a sentence.
• E.g., if reading an English, a Spanish
  code-switched word is encountered, the mental
  switch must disable the English linguistic
  system, and enable the Spanish linguistic system.

129
Code switching

• When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from
  one language with a phrase or word from another
  language
• I want a motorcycle VERDE

• Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and
  comprehend sentences containing code-switched
  words

• This time difference depends on similarity of the
  languages
• Chinese-English bilinguals take longer to
  recognize English code-switched words in Chinese
  sentences only if the English words contain
  initial consonant-consonant (e.g., flight)
  clusters, simply because the Chinese language
  lacks this phonotactic structure.
• Another current view suggests that language
  dominance (i.e., which language is used more
  frequently) plays an important role in
  code-switching

130
Cognitive advantages

• Some evidence suggest that being bilingual can
  have an impact on cognition outside of language
• Bialystok and colleagues
• Bilinguals are very proficient at switching
  between languages
• Bilinguals also have to be good at suppressing
  the contextually inappropriate language