LIN 201

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LIN 201

• Fall 2007
• Lecture VII (7).
• Language Acquisition II

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• Those who havent taken Quiz 1 yet because of the
  holiday must take it before Thursday. Please
  make arrangements by email or in person.

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Reminders (1)

• Exam I next Monday, Sept. 24, in class. Read
  Course Information, Specifics, Sec. A, CR, p.
  5. Covers through last week.
• Bring your own pen/pencil.
• No erasures.
• Fill in the Test Form bubble.
• Review Session tomorrow, 200-320, in 104
  Physics Bldg. Be ready with questions.
• Review materials in the Course Reader, pp. 45-50.

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Reminders (2)

• Remember that attendance in Recitation counts
  toward your course grade (Course Information,
  Section D under Course Requirements).
• The material covered this week will not be on
  Exam I.

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Add to the Review Sheet

• For deep and surface structure
• Given a sentence, be able to identify its deep
  structure.
• Given a deep structure, be able to identify its
  corresponding Surface Structure(s).
• Be able to apply Aux Movement to show if a word
  is an Aux or not.

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Agenda

• 1. Playing the Language Game. (concl.)
• 2. The Innateness Hypothesis.
• 3. Early stages of acquisition.
• a. Perception and production.
• b. First words.

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Agenda

• 1. Videotape Playing the Language Game
  (concl.) Questions on pp. 57-58, Course Reader.

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More on innateness (review tape)

• Ev (1) Complexity of the system, speed of
  acquisition (including early complexity.
  Examples -- (a) 16-mo.-olds with word order, (b)
  Sammy (42 mos.) What do you think Cookie Monster
  eats?)
• Ev (2) The Whole Object Assumption.
• Ev (3) The Mutual Exclusivity Principle.

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Agenda

• 2. The Innateness Hypothesis.
• a. The logical problem of language acquisition.

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The logical problem of language acquisition (1)

• What accounts for the ease, rapidity, and
  uniformity of language acquisition in the face of
  impoverished data? (FR, p. 321)

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The logical problem of language acquisition

• Acquisition is easy, fast, and gives uniform
  results.
• The knowledge that is acquired is vastly
  underdetermined by linguistic experience the
  data to which the child is exposed is
  impoverished relative to the resulting system of
  knowledge ( impoverished experience poverty
  of the stimulus).

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Agenda

• 2. The Innateness Hypothesis.
• b. The innateness of specific principles of UG.

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Evidence for the innateness of specific
principles of UG

• 1. Structure dependency of rules.
• 2. The Coordinate Structure Constraint.
• 3. The Wh-Constraint.

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Evidence for the innateness of specific principles

• Assumption A given feature of linguistic
  knowledge is either (1) innate or (2) acquired on
  the basis of experience.
• Therefore, if an aspect of knowledge can be shown
  not to have been acquired on the basis of
  experience, then it must be innate.

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What clearly isnt innate

• The Lexicon of a language is clearly not innate.
  It must be acquired on the basis of experience.

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Acquisition by experience

• Example Overgeneralization.
• Stage 1. bring bringed
• play played
• Stage 2. bring brought
• play played

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• How does a child acquire the knowledge on the
  basis of experience that a particular form that
  should be grammatical (e.g., bringed) is
  ungrammatical in the adult language?

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One form of acquisition by experience

• 1. The child produces an utterance that is
  ungrammatical with respect to the mental grammars
  of the adults around him/her. E.g., Johnny
  bringed me a present.
• 2. The child is corrected by the adult Dont
  say bringed say brought.
• 3. The child replaces bringed with brought in
  his/her mental grammar.

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• Evidence that a specific principle of grammar is
  innate The Structure Dependency Principle.

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Structure dependency of rules (1)

• Statement
• Jill is going up the hill that Jack is climbing.
• Question
• Is Jill __ going up the hill that Jack is
  climbing?

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Structure dependency (2)

• Structure
• Jill is going up the hill that Jack is climbing.
• Two possible rules
• Not structure-dependent Move the first is.
• Structure-dependent Move the is in the main
  clause.

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Structure dependency (3)

• Statement
• Jill, who is my sister, is going up the hill.
• Non-structure-dependent rule
• Move the first is in the sentence.
• Is Jill, who __ my sister, is going up the
  hill?

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Structure dependency (3)

• Statement
• Jill, who is my sister, is going up the hill.
• Structure-dependent rule
• Move the is in the main clause.
• Is Jill, who is my sister, __ going up the hill?

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Structure dependency (4)

• The Principle of Structure Dependency All rules
  in languages refer to the structures of the
  sentences to which they apply, not just to the
  order of words.

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Structure dependency (5)

• Claim The Principle of Structure Dependency
  (PSD) is innate.
• Evidence Children never produce sentences that
  violate the PSD. So there is no opportunity to
  correct them for producing such sentences. Hence
  the PSD must be in childs the mind to begin with
  (included as part of Universal Grammar), and is
  therefore innate.

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Structure dependency (6)

• IMPORTANT The claim is not that the rule of
  Aux-Movement is innate (it isnt) only that its
  structure dependency is innate.

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The poverty of the stimulus

• Since evidence for the innateness of the
  Principle of Structure Dependency consists in the
  absence of an experience that might lead the
  child to knowledge of those principles, this
  evidence is said to be based on the poverty of
  the stimulus.

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• Poverty of the stimulus evidence that another
  specific principle of grammar is innate The
  Coordinate Structure Constraint.

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (1)

• What will he compare apples with?
• Deep he will compare apples with what
• Aux-mvt will he __ compare apples with what
• Wh-mvt what will he __ compare apples with __
• Surface what will he __ compare apples with __

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (2)

• What will he compare apples and?
• Deep he will compare apples and what
• Aux-mvt will he __ compare apples and what
• Wh-mvt what will he __ compare apples and __
• Surface what will he __ compare apples and __

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (3)

• The Coordinate Structure Constraint Nothing can
  be moved out of a structure containing and.

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The Coordinate Structure Constraint (4)

• Claim The Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC)
  is innate.
• Evidence Children never produce utterances that
  violate the CSC ,,, . Hence the CSC must be in
  the mind to begin with.

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Innateness of specific principles Summary

• Neither the Principle of Structure Dependency
  (PSD), nor the Coordinate Structure Constraint
  (CSC) could have been acquired on the basis of
  experience and therefore must be innate.

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Innateness review more evidence

• Ev (1) Complexity, speed.
• Ev (2) The Whole Object Assumption.
• Ev (3) The Mutual Exclusivity Principle.
• Ev (4) Innateness of specific principles (PSD
  and CSC).