Language Development

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Language Development

• Big Goal Provide a sense of the mystery and
  promise in child language research.
• What are the challenges?
• Two competing approaches (Chomskyan and
  (Neuro)Constructivist)
• Poverty of the Stimulus Hypothesis - What are our
  capacities and what information is in the
  environment?

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Learning to recognize what we dont know

• The more we learn, the more we are - or ought to
  be - dumbfounded. Our proper business is to
  learn more and more and thereby separate our mere
  ignorance from genuine mystery. Lewis Thomas

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Yearning and Learning

• In science, learning means trying as hard to
  prove that something is false as to prove it is
  true, even if that something is a cherished
  belief
• Yeaning is iosity. Yearning is the driving force
  of science, art, and religionYearning without
  learning is buying tabloid newspapers with
  headlines announcing Newborn baby talks of
  heaven.
• - Chet Raymo Skeptics and Believer 199860

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Why is this implausible?

• Baby Born Talking - Describes Heaven
• Incredible proof of reincarnation
• Life in heaven is grand, a baby told an astounded
  obstetrical team seconds after birth. Tiny Naomi
  Montefusco literally came into the world singing
  the praises of Gods firmament. The miracle so
  shocked the delivery room team, one nurse ran
  screaming down the hall. heaven is a beautiful
  place, so warm and so serene, Naomi said. Why
  did you bring me here? Among the witnesses was
  mother Theresa Montefusco, 18, who delivered the
  child under local anestheticI distinctly heard
  her describe heaven as a place where no one has
  to work, eat, worry about clothing, or do
  anything but sing Gods praises. I tried to get
  off the delivery table to kneel down and pray,
  but the nurses wouldnt let. Sun 5/25/1985 cited
  in Steve Pinker 1994262.

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Some simple facts

• Though various creatures have communication
  systems, only humans have Language.
• There are approximately 6,000 languages in the
  world.
• Any normal child growing up in any language
  environment will eventually master the local
  language(s).

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More Simple Facts

• Many exceptional children, i.e. blind, deaf,
  cognitively deficient, neurologically impaired,
  etc. may exhibit essentially normal language
  development. (spoken or signed)
• Masterful competence in Language is achieved
  without explicit instruction.

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The Perception of Speech Sounds Coarticulation

• Coarticulation early movement of articulators
  in anticipation of coming sounds

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(No Transcript)
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Identifying sameness despite differences

• The acoustic properties of individual sounds are
  affected by the neighborhood in which they occur.
• Sometimes there are little differences between
  different sounds and big differences between the
  the same sound in different contexts

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What we dont know we know(from Pinker, Word and
Rules 1998)

• Consider when we use irregular, not regular
  forms
• Prefixing overate/overeated, overshot/overshoot
  ed, preshrank/pre-shrinked.
• Compounding workmen/workmans,
  superwomen/superwomans, stepchildren/stepchilds,
  strawmen/mans, snowmen/snowmans

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More regulars to consider

• The Toronto Maple Leafs/Leaves (a hockey team
  named after Canadas national symbol, The Maple
  Leaf).
• Renault Elfs/Elves (cars).
• Michael Keaton starred in both Batmans/Batmen
  (movie titles).
• Were having Julia Child and her husband over for
  dinner. You know, the Childs/Children are really
  great cooks.

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But, some words only display regular marking -s
-ed

• All my daughters friends are low-lifes
  (low-lives).
• Im sick of dealing with all the Mickey Mouses in
  this administration (Mickey Mice).
• Boggs has singled, tripled, and flied out (flown
  out) in the game so far.

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What else dont we know we know? Causatives

• Black Black-en
• Red Redd-en
• White Whit-en
• Green ?
• Dark ?
• Light ?
• Highlight ?
• Grue ?
• Drick ?
• Quiet Quieten (Guardian Unlimited 9/26/05

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A Paradox

• Normal adults have great difficulty achieving
  moderate competence, let alone fluency, in a
  second Language, despite
• Greater cognitive sophistication than infants or
  older children
• Explicit instruction in classrooms

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Language in normal humans irrepressible

• Language creation situations
• Nicaragua sign language of deaf
• Bedouin sign language

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Enculturated creatures not irrepressible, but

• Kanzi (pygmy/bonobo chimp)

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Lexigrams
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English Comprehension Child vs. Chimp(Savage-
Rumbaugh et. al. 1993)

• Task Compare language development in a normal
  child (Alia 20) and normal bonobo (Kanzi 80),
  based on responses to 660 spoken instructions.
• Kanzi Exposed to spoken English and lexigrams
  from 60 mo. exhibited speech comprehension at
  20 and spontaneous use of lexigrams at 25.
• Alia Exposed to spoken English from birth and
  lexigrams from 3 mo. comprehension of 32 spoken
  words at 13 mo. and spontaneous use of lexigrams
  at 11 mo.

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Some Results(Savage- Rumbaugh 199871)

• Rarely did either Kanzi or Alia make mistakes
  that indicated a lack of understanding of the
  basic grammatical structure of the sentences.Both
  them readily differentiated between requests to
  retrieve objects from locations (Go to location X
  and get object Y) and requests to take objects to
  locations (Take object X to location Y). They
  also understood the difference between sentences
  that required them to move through space in
  addition to acting on objects and sentences that
  required them to act on objects without moving
  about.

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Interpretation(Savage- Rumbaugh et. al. 1993)

• under relatively similar rearing conditions
  and virtually identical testing conditions, they
  could comprehend both the semantics and the
  syntax of quite unusual English sentences.
• So, bonobos appear to perform some extraordinary
• language feats - well enough to even be
  mistaken for a young human child, for a short
  time.
• But, bonbobos reach a threshold early on, while
  the child keeps developing.

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A View From a Primate Researcher(Sue
Savage-Rumbaugh 1996 Discover Magazine)

• Now I understand in ways that I cannot fully
  describe that language isnt a matter of learning
  little building blocks like words and stringing
  them together in some kind of hierarchical
  structure and then going out and kind of throwing
  these out to the rest of the world so that ideas
  jump from my mind to yours. Language is a matter
  of me learning to coordinate my behavior with all
  of the other individuals in the world around me
  and that much of this initial coordination is
  through glances, through patternings of behavior
  together, through joint understandings of how the
  world works, and joint constructions of how were
  going to operate in this world together.

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A View From a Developmental Psychologist(Annette
Karmiloff-Smith 199263)

• Child Whats that?
• Mother A typewriter.
• Child No, youre a typewriter, thats a
  typewrite. (Yara, 4.0)
• Thus, even if the chimpanzee were to have an
  innately specified linguistic base, I speculate
  that it would still never go as far as the human
  child. It would never wonder why typewriter
  isnt used to refer to people. It would simply
  repeat the linguistic labels that it was given.
  But children doi not simply reach efficient
  usage they subsequently develop explicit
  representations which allow them to reflect on
  the component parts of words to progressively
  build linguistic theories.
• a crucial difference shows up when we look at
  what happens beyond successful mastery.
  Chimpanzees do not go beyond behavioral mastery.
  Karmiloff-Smith 1995.

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Ignorance v. Mystery Complexity of Language

• for a few domains, like puddings, one can
  assume a sample anywhere is as good as a sample
  elsewhere. But, in complex systems, this is not
  true. For example, it is a general fact that the
  human body is 86 water. But from this it would
  turn out to be foolish to make inferences such as
  the body is 86 water water is chemically
  simple so, the body is basically chemically
  simple. Such inferences and strategies are, of
  course, obviously wrong when one knows the
  falsifying counter-information in advance. But
  when one has very little knowledge of the domain,
  they are commonly recruited. - M. Maratsos
  1999192
• If language is a complex system, then it is an
  incoherent question to ask How do children
  learn language?

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The Main Subsystems

• Sound
• Phonological system (what is contained in
  language particular sound systems, I.e., sounds,
  how they combine)
• Lexicon Grammar
• Morphological system (how words are formed)
• Syntactic system (how words combine into phrases
  and sentences )
• Semantic system (meanings of words and larger
  expressions)
• Communication
• Pragmatic system (how language is used in
  different contexts)
• Discourse system (connecting utterances/sentences
  into a coherent narratives)

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What linguists tell us about Language

• Language def A complex system made up of
  independent, but interacting, subsystems (or
  modules or components) coordinated with one
  another, creating the appearance of a single,
  unified entity.
• These structures in these independent subsystems
  need not neatly and straightforwardly correspond
  with one another, I.e., the subsystems can
  display mismatches.

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Mismatch 1 Phonology vs. Morphology
Phonological (Sound) Structure
Morphological (Word) Structure
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Mismatches between Morphology and Phonology

• The most well-motivated representation of the
  internal structure of words from the perspective
  of the meaningful pieces from which they are
  composed differs from the best representation of
  the same word from the perspective of the
  organization of the sounds it consists of.

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Mismatch 2Syntax vs. Phonology
Syntactic (Word combination) Structure
Prosodic (Sentence melody) Structure
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Mismatches between Syntax vs. Phonology

• The best motivated representation of sentences as
  composed of phrases differs from the best
  representation of these phrases from the
  perspective of the organization of how they are
  grouped into units of sound.

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The Main Subsystems Developmental Milestones
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The Central Mystery

• How do children acquire the subsystems that make
  up Language?
• How do children acquire the sound system, word
  shape system, word combination system, word
  meaning (and sentence meaning) system -- and come
  to coordinate all of these systems together?

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Necessary Questions

• What is Language? In what ways are all natural
  languages alike? What ways are they different?
  What distinguishes natural languages from animal
  communication systems and artificial languages
  and even programming languages? How can we
  characterize the adults knowledge of his/her
  native language(s)?
• This is the domain of LINGUISTS.

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More Necessary Questions

• What is learning? How do children develop
  mastery in non-linguistic domains such as facial
  recognition or object recognition or concept
  formation? What is the time course of learning
  and are there correlations between learning in
  different domains? What are the mechanisms or
  processes that facilitate or impede learning?
• This is the domain of DEVELOPMENTAL or COGNITIVE
  PSYCHOLOGISTS.

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Resulting Interdisciplinary Questions

• What is language learning? How do children
  develop mastery of their native language(s)? Do
  they rely on the same operations as in
  non-linguistic skills? What are the biological
  bases and the actual learning patterns of the
  language development process? How does learning
  in normal and special populations differ and how
  is it similar to language learning and learning
  in other cognitive and social domains? What is
  the relation between the adults knowledge and
  the childs knowledge, I.e., what is the relation
  between the infant startstate and the adult
  endstate?
• This is the domain of Developmental
  PSYCHOLINGUISTS.

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Alternatively put

• The most fundamental question in the study of
  the human language faculty is its place in the
  natural world what kind of biological system it
  is, and how it relates to other systems in our
  species and others.
• A second question is what parts of a persons
  language ability (learned or built-in) are
  specific to language and what parts belong to
  more general abilities.
• - Jackendoff Pinker 2005

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• The third question is which aspects of the
  language capacity are uniquely human and which
  are shared with other groups of animals, either
  homologously, by inheritance from a common
  ancestor, or analogously, by adaptation to a
  common functionAs with the first two questions,
  answers will seldom be dichotomous. They will
  often specify mixtures of shared and unique
  attributes, reflecting the evolutionary process
  in which an ancestral primate design was
  retained, modified, augmented or lost in the
  human lineage. 20053

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The answer

• Nobody knows...but we have gotten increasingly
  interested in
• The types of methods used to explore key areas of
  language,
• The types of models proposed by researchers,
• The types of questions that need to be asked to
  ultimately arrive at satisfying and compelling
  answers.

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Some Consequences of Answers

• Help us to understand the nature of the human
  mind.
• Help us to understand the relation between human
  behavior in relation to the behaviors of
  non-human primates and other creatures Whats
  our place in the biological world?
• Help to understand the role of language in human
  culture
• Help to address issues in special populations,
  I.e., deaf, neurogenetic disorders, etc.

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Major Issues

• Its mostly Nature
  
• Nativism (Plato 4th BC Kant 18th c.)
• Chomsky (1957, and more recent formulations)
• Rapid and effortless acquisition
• No explicit instruction
• Poverty of stimulus

• Its mostly Nurture
• Empiricism (Locke 17th c.)
• Behaviorism (Skinner 20th c.)
• Gradual (and effortful?) acquisition
• External stimulus leading to appropriate
  responses.
• Sufficiently reach stimulus

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Major Issues

• Its a balance between Nature Nurture contra
  Chomsky, its the Nature of Nature that is the
  question
• Interactionism (Braine 1994)/Social
  Interactionism (Snow 1989), Constructivism
  (Piaget 1926) Emergentism, Neuroconstructivism
  (MacWhinney 1999, Elman et. al. 1996,
  Karmiloff-Smith1995 )
• There are no innately given language specific (
  domain specific) capacities, but rather there are
  innately given language relevant ( domain
  general) capacities which conspire over time to
  produce language.

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(Dis)Continuous Knowledge (Aitchison1976127)
Constructivist language specific structures and
categories of adult endstate are possibly
radically different from those infant startstate.
Chomskyan language specific structures and
categories of adult endstate are refined versions
whats at the infant startstate.
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Noun Coordination and Questions (Doctor
Doolittles Dilemma Stephen Anderson 2004224)(

• 3) Pat is majoring in Linguistics and
  Philosophy.
• 3) What is Pat majoring in Ø and Philosophy?
• 3) What is Pat majoring in Ø
• 4) Pat is majoring in Linguistics along with
  Philosophy.
• 4) What is Pat majoring in Ø along with
  Philosophy?

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Sentence Coordination and Questions SA 2004224)

• Fred bought too many expensive presents and the
  bank cut off his charge card.
• 1) What did Fred buy Ø and the bank cut off his
  charge card?
• 2) Fred bought too many expensive presents, so
  the bank cut off his charge card.
• 2) What did Fred buy Ø,so that the bank cut
  off his charge card?

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Observation

• Declarative sentences with very similar meanings,
  I.e., 1 versus 2 and 3 versus 4, behave very
  differently when you try to form questions.
• Since you cannot form a question about only one
  conjunct in a coordinated phrase, but you can
  form a question from a single element when its
  not in a coordinate phrase, the difference in
  behavior isnt likely to be sensitive to meaning.
  Instead, its possible that there are some
  structure based restrictions.

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Empirical research and an interpretation

• Several decades of investigation support the
  claim that
• they restrictions like the coordinate structure
  constraint) are true of all languagesThis kind
  of knowledge could not plausibly have been
  acquired on the basis of experience. Therefore
  it seems likely that these aspects of syntactic
  organization are as much a part of the
  biologically determined human language faculty as
  the structure of the vervet monkey calls is
  specific to animals of that species. SA 2004229

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A (proposed) universal property of grammar

• Coordinate Structure Constraint
• A single conjunct in a coordinate structure
  cannot be questioned alone.
• XP
• XP1 and XP2

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Bevers Syllogism Representational Innateness

• To be proven Language is innate.
• 1. The essence of Language has property Pi
  (Coordinate Structure Constraint).
• 2. Pi cannot be learned by any (known)
  (conceivable) theory of learning.
• 3. Therefore, Pi is innate.
• 4. Therefore, the essence of Language is innate
  (and caused thereby).

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Bevers Syllogism Developmental

• To be proven Language is learned.
• 1. The essence of Language has property Pi
  (Coordinate Structure Constraint).
• 2. Pi cannot be transmitted by any (known)
  (conceivable) genetic mechanism.
• 3. Therefore, Pi is learned.
• 4. Therefore, the essence of Language is learned
  (and caused by how it is learned).