LIN 201

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LIN 201

• Fall 2005
• Lecture XIV (14)
• ASL II (concl.)
• Animal communication I

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Reminder

• Quiz 2 in Recitation this week. Covers Weeks IV
  through VIII Language Acquisition, American
  Sign Language, and Animal Communication (not
  Origin of Language).

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Agenda

• 1. ASL review.
• 2. Language and speech.
• 3. Modularity again.
• 4. Overview of sub-modules of grammar.
• 5. Animal communication General.
• 6. Animal communication Chimps.
• 7. Video Chimp Talk.

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Agenda

• 1. ASL -- review and preview.

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Sign languages of the deaf (1)

• Claim The sign languages of the deaf have all of
  the major properties of language and, therefore
  are full-fledged languages in our sense.

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Sign languages of the deaf (2)

• Evidence so far
• 1. Knowledge Lex, Rules -- Yes.
• 2. Brain -- Yes.
• 3. Acquisition -- To do.
• 4. Critical Period -- To do.

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Agenda

• 2. Acquisition of ASL The logical problem of
  language acquisition.

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Acq of ASL the logical problem (1)

• ASL obeys the Structure Dependency Principle and
  the Coordinate Structure Constraint.

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Acq of ASL the logical problem (1)

• Topicalization (FR, p. 147)
• Both English and ASL --
• Sam Spade insulted the fat mans henchman.
• The fat mans henchman, Sam Spade insulted.
• Sam Spade insulted the fat mans henchman.
• Henchman, Sam Spade insulted the fat mans.

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Agenda

• 3. Acquisition of ASL the process of
  acquisition.

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ASL Acquisition

• Distinguish between
• Acquisition in children of signing parents. (10
  of cases)
• Acquisition in children of non-signing parents.
  (90 of cases)

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Acq from signing parents -- about the same ages
as for spoken

• Manual babbling.
• One-sign (holophrastic) stage.
• Two-sign stage.
• Telegraphic stage.
• Acquisition of functional elements.
• Explosion.

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Acquisition from signing parents -- negation

• Stage I
• No Subject Verb.
• Stage II
• Subject no Verb.
• Stage III
• Subject not Verb. ( adult form)

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Acquisition from non-signing parents

• Home sign
• Input from non-signing parents Unstructured and
  pantomime-like.
• Childrens grammars Relatively highly
  structured and enriched.

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Agenda

• 4. Critical period for ASL?

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ASL -- Critical Period

• Children who acquire ASL after 12 years of age
• master lexicon and word order.
• fail to master morphological complexity
  (functional elements).

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Agenda

• 5. ASL overview.

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ASL overview

• Properties shared with spoken languages.
• Knowledge lexicon, rules (morphological and
  syntactic).
• Representation in the brain.
• Innate principles and the process of acquisition.
• Critical Period.

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Agenda

• 6. Language and speech.

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Language and speech

• ASL and other sign languages of the deaf) are
  true languages but are not spoken, so we must
  distinguish between language and speech.
• Language An internalized, abstract system of
  rules and principles represented in the brain.
• Speech The external, physical aspect of
  linguistic events for spoken languages.

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Agenda

• 7. Modularity again.

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Autonomy of language (1)

• Language impaired, other capacities intact
  aphasia, Specific Language Impairment.
• Language intact, other capacities impaired
  savants (Laura, Christopher), Turner and Williams
  syndromes.

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Autonomy of language (2)

• Another case Spatial perception for a sign
  language of the deaf is autonomous from general
  spatial perception.

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Agenda

• 8. Overview of sub-modules of grammar Lexical
  and functional (syntactic) structure.

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Evidence for lexical and functional sub-modules
of grammar (1)

• Lexical morphemes vs. function morphemes -- ASL
  as well as spoken.
• Ev (1) Brocas aphasia.
• Ev (2) Telegraphic stage of acquisition.
• Ev (3) Language acquired after the Critical
  Period (Genie, second lg acq, pidgins vs creoles).

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Agenda

• 9. Videotape excerpts from Language questions
  on pp. 85-86 of the Course Reader.

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Agenda

• 10. A case of language creation -- Nicaraguan
  Sign Language.

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NSL -- Historical background (1)

• 1. Before 1977 -- no school for the deaf, no
  public services, not contact among deaf people.
• 2. 1977 -- founding of a public school for the
  deaf in the capital (Managua).
• 3. 1981 -- founding of a vocational school for
  the deaf in Managua.

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NSL -- historical background (2)

• Schools for the deaf (in general) -- two
  different philosophies
• Oralism Students are taught in such a way as to
  become part of the hearing community -- (1)
  taught to read lips, (2) taught to vocalize, (3)
  taught to read and write a spoken language. Use
  of signs is often prohibited.
• Total communication Students learn to
  communicate in whatever way they choose --
  signing, spoken language, etc.

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NSL -- Historical background (3)

• The schools in Managua --
• In the classroom Oralism -- taught Spanish.
• Outside of the classroom Total communication --
  allowed to use whatever form of communication
  they wished.
• Outcome Outside of class, students developed a
  new language for communication among themselves.

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NSL -- Historical background (4)

• Course of development of NSL
• 1. Before the founding of schools -- individual
  home sign.
• 2. Initially after the founding -- a pidgin
  from the various forms of home sign.
• 3. Later students -- a creole based on the
  original pidgin.

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Agenda

• 12. Nicaraguan Sign Language -- an experiment.

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Gestures with spoken language vs. signs (1)

• Home sign A form of gestural communication
  developed within a family with deaf children and
  hearing adults.
• Develops through interaction between deaf
  children and hearing (gesturing) adults.

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Gestures with spoken language vs. signs (2)

• General comparison of signs of the deaf and
  gestures of hearing people as they speak.
• Example 1 Representation of verbs referring to
  motion.

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Gestures with spoken language vs. signs (3)

• The ball went rolling down the street. Three
  aspects to this motion
• Simple motion went.
• Manner of motion rolling.
• Path of motion down the street.
• In this sentence in a spoken language these three
  aspects of motion are expressed in three
  different expressions arranged sequentially.

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Gestures with spoken language and signs (4)

• Gestures that accompany speech All three
  aspects are represented simultaneously.
• Fully-developed sign languages Three aspects
  represented sequentially as in spoken language.

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Gestures with spoken language vs. signs (5)
Study

• Task represent the motion of a cat that had
  swallowed a bowling ball wobbling and rolling
  down a street.
• 1. For hearing/speaking subjects -- gestures
  represented the motion simultaneously.
• 2. For deaf/signing subjects.
• a. older, early-entry (1977-1984) students in the
  Managua schools.
• b. younger, later-entry students in these schools.

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Gestures with spoken language vs. signs (6)
Study results

• Early-entry students showed much more
  simultaneous representation (like the gestures of
  hearing people) than later-entry students, who
  showed more sequential representation (as in a
  fully-developed sign language).

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Gestures with spoken language vs. signs (7)
Explanation

• Early-entry students created a pidgin from their
  various versions of home sign.
• This pidgin became the source of input for
  later-entry students, who creolized the pidgin to
  make it more like a fully-developed sign language.

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NSL -- Additional observations

• Early-entry students continued to communicate
  among themselves as well as with later-entry
  students using their version of NSL but never
  developed the structures that the later-entry
  students incorporated into the language through
  creolization.

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NSL -- Summary

• A case of genuine language creation.
• Shows clear parallels with the pidgin-creole
  progression in spoken language.
• Shows Critical Period effects.

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Agenda

• 11. Animal communication General.

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Communication

• Communication any way in which one organism
  conveys information to another. Language is
  (often) a form of communication, not all
  communication is language.
• All animals have ways of communicating. Do any
  non-human animals have language as we have
  defined it? (lexicon, rules, etc.)

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Properties of language (for comparison with other
species)

• Knowledge
• Lexicon (arbitrariness).
• Rules (creativity).
• Use Stimulus-free.
• Acquisition No instruction.

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Animal Comm (FR, 24-26)

• Spiders and fiddler crabs.
• Bird calls.
• Bird songs.
• Honeybees.

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Agenda

• 12. Animal communication Chimpanzees.

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Common chimps

• A. Vocalizing Gua and Viki.
• B. Signing (ASL).
• 1. Washoe (Nevada).
• 2. Nim Chimpsky (New York).
• C. Lexigrams (Yerkish -- cartoon in FR, p. 387
  tape Chimp talk)
• 1. Austin.
• 2. Sherman

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Bonobo (pygmy) chimps

• Lexigrams
• 1. Kanzi.
• 2. Panbanisha.

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Chimpanzees (1)

• Knowledge Lexicon
• Washoe -- 85 ASL signs (many arbitrary).
• Other signing chimps -- same or more.

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Chimpanzees (2)

• Knowledge -- Rules (creativity) Chimp syntax
  -- Nim Chimpsky (FR, p. 387)
• GIVE ORANGE ME GIVE EAT ORANGE ME EAT ORANGE GIVE
  ME EAT ORANGE GIVE ME YOU.
• Unlike childs telegraphic speech in that longer
  utterances dont show combinations of semantic
  relations from earlier stages.

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Chimpanzees (3)

• Claimed knowledge -- Rules (creativity 2)
• Washoe WATER BIRD duck
• Koko FINGER BRACELET finger ring
• Course Reader, p. 55 -- Panbanisha Fight. Mad.
  Austin. (in various combinations)

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Created forms in chimps

• Water. Bird.
• Waterbird.

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Chimpanzees (3)

• Stimulus-freedom.
• Only 12 of Nim Chimpskys sign productions were
  spontaneous.
• 40 were repetitions of trainers productions.

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Chimpanzees (4)

• No instruction.
• All but Kanzi and Panbanisha required heavy
  instruction (careful arrangement of signs,
  etc.)
• Kanzi and Panbanisha Apparently spontaneous
  acquisition.

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Chimps (5) Concl

• Lexicon -- maybe.
• Rules -- very unlikely.
• Stimulus-freedom -- limited.
• Instructionless acquisition --
• common chimps no.
• bonobo chimps probably.

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Agenda

• 7. Video Chimp Talk Questions, pp. 59-60 of
  the Course Reader.