First Language Acquisition

1
First Language Acquisition other areas of
linguistics

• Language Universals (Meike Bauer )
• Language Pathology (Silvia Mincheva Meike
  Strohn)
• Speech errors (Eva Ortmann Lena Löbbert)
• Acquisition of Meaning (Vanessa Mosel Sabine
  Staiger)

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Language Universals
Language Universals

• A short introduction
• (Meike Bauer GS, LN)

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Language Universals

• Def. Language
• a system of communication by written or spoken
  words, which is used by the people of a
  particular country or area
• Def. Universal
• involving or understood by everyone in the world

Def. Language Universals Basic patterns or
principles that are shared by all languages
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Semantic universals

• Semantic categories that are shared by all
  cultures and referred to by all languages
• E.g. our notion of colour
• - black, white, red, green, blue, yellow, brown,
  purple,
• pink, orange and grey
• E.g. the case of pronouns
• - I, you, we
• - singular plural in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd

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Phonological universals

• E.g. universal rules which govern the
  distribution of vowels
• - languages with few vowels always have
• the same set of vowel types
• - it is always the same type of vowel that is
• added to the set
• - they may not always sound the same, but
• they are always created at the same location
  in
• our vocal apparatus

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Syntactic universals

• Two different sets of basic orders
• - SVO, VSO, SOV
• - VOS, OVS, OSV
• First set appears more often among the languages
  of the world
• Overwhelming tendency for the subject of a
  sentence to precede the direct object among the
  languages of the world

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Absolute universals

• Rules that appear without exception in the
  languages which have been studied so far
• - all languages have vowels
• - all languages have pronoun systems
  distinguishing at
• least three persons and two numbers
• Universal tendencies or relative universals are
  expressions that are used when there are minor
  exceptions to the rule

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Implicational universals

• Universals that hold only if a particular
  condition of the language structure is fulfilled
• - if a language has voiced stops, it has the
• corresponding voiceless stops
• - e.g. no language has b/d/g without p/t/k
• In opposite to implicational universals,
  nonimplicational universals can be stated without
  a condition

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Criticism on the term universals

• Hansjakob Seiler
• - empirical observation results in
  generalizations
• but will not give us the universals
• - universality cannot be reached by
• generalization alone
• - generalizations can be checked and,
• eventually, falsified
• - universals in our sense are not directly, but
• only indirectly, reflected in the observable
  data

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References

• Hawkins, John A. Explaining Language Universals.
  Oxford Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1988
• Langenscheidt-Longman. Dictionary of Contemporary
  English. Harlow Longman Group Ltd, 1995
• Seiler, Hansjakob. Language Universals Research
  A Synthesis. Tübingen Narr, 2000
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_universal
  (25th June)
• http//www.hku.hk/linguist/program/Typology2.html
  (25th June)
• http//www.uni-kassel.de/fb8/misc/lfb/html/text/2f
  rame.html (21st June)

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Language Pathology- Disorders of the Written
Language -

• Dyslexia (Silvia Mincheva, LN, HS)
• - Dysgraphia (Meike Strohn, GS, TN)

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DEFINITION OF DYSLEXIA

• Disorders of the reading system referring to
• Children who have particular difficulties
  learning to read
• These children when they become adults
• People who have already acquired reading and
  become brain-damaged - ALEXIA

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CHILDHOOD DYSLEXIA I

• Four-stage reading acquisition (Frith, 1985)
• Logographic Skills
• Alphabetic Skills
• Orthographic Skills
• Ability to read written language becomes entirely
  independent of spoken language

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CHILDHOOD DYSLEXIA II

• Two main categories of dyslexics
• Children having difficulties with identifying
  whole words Dyseidetics
• Children having difficulties with decoding the
  sounds associated with letters Disphonetics

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CHILDHOOD DYSLEXIA III

• Child dyslexics usually do not have history of
  neurological problems
• Children with recurrent ear infections in early
  childhood may develop dyslexia
• Common theory - there is an additional brain
  basis for the various forms of childhood dyslexia
• Higher proportion of left-handers among dyslexics
• Dyslexia has been developed markedly more often
  among boys than among girls

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ALEXIA I

• People who have already acquired reading and
  become brain-damaged which has affected their
  reading abilities
• Sometimes reading problems are secondary to other
  sorts of language problems
• Pure alexics- reading problem is the only
  language problem that is seen

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ALEXIA II - Traditional classification system

• Letter by letter reading- patients cannot
  recognize words or higher units but can recognize
  individual letters
• Input problem-problems with written but not
  auditory input of letter strings. Ability to read
  small parts of words but not whole words.
• Literal alexia patients unable to read letters
  but relatively able to read whole words
• Grammatical functors and nonsense words more
  poorly read than substantives

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ALEXIA III - New classification system

• Surface alexia patients are able to decode
  words phonologically but unable to recognize
  whole words
• Deep alexia patients are unable to decode words
  phonologically but perform some sort of
  whole-word or gestalt reading of words

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Language Pathology- Disorders of the Written
Language -

• - Dysgraphia (Meike Strohn, GS, TN)

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Introduction

• Definition of the Term
• Example
• Reasons for Dysgraphia
• Different Kinds of Dysgraphia
• Remedial Treatment
• Conclusion
• References

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Definition of the Term

• DysgraphiaA disorder characterized by writing
  disabilities, irrespective of level of education,
  after damage to the brain. Due to varying
  degrees, it is difficult to determine, when it is
  pathological. The equivalent to dyslexia in
  writing.

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Example

• First draft of a creative story as typed by a
  12-year-old student
• the way I descride a bumby ride is like wothgan
  mowtsarts mowsek. eshe bumby rowd is like a song.
  Eshe bumb is the a note eche uncon at the sam
  time ste is. that was the mewstere to mowts
  mowsuk it was vare metereus and unperdekdable. So
  the next time you drive down a bumby theak of
  mowtsart.

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Reasons for Dysgraphia

• may be caused by the same triggers as dyslexia,
  but not necessarily
• visual processing weakness
• impaired graphic motor capacity

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Reasons for Dysgraphia

• Aphasia (acquired language disorder)? focal
  brain damage? mostly left hemisphere? e.g.
  because of an accident, tumor or stroke

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Reasons for Dysgraphia

• Alzheimers disease (shrinkage of the brain, a
  sort of dementia)
• symptoms- anomia- spelling errors - irregular
  or non-words- inappropriate repetition-
  illegibility
• 1) lexical, 2) phonological 3) grapho-motor
  impairments

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Different Kinds of Dysgraphia

• Surface dysgraphic problems- incorrect
  phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence? patients can
  no longer sound out words they have to spell

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Different Kinds of Dysgraphia

• Deep dysgraphic problems- lexico-semantic
  disturbances ? instead of the correct word, a
  semantically related one is usede.g. scissors
  ?? stapler

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Remedial Treatment

• for motor disorders to help control writing
  movements
• for impaired memory or other neurological
  problems
• teaching to write more slowly
• usage of computers to avoid the problems of
  handwriting

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Conclusion

• reading and writing require all the skills of
  oral languagethose of decoding and encoding
  orthographic information
• that is why there are so many vulnerable spots
  and a number of different reasons for reading and
  writing impairments (dyslexia and dysgraphia).

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References

• Crystal, David. A Dictionary of Linguistics and
  Phonetics. Oxford Blackwell, 1997
• Crystal, David. Introduction to language
  pathology. London Arnold, 1980
• Crystal, David. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the
  English language. Cambridge Cambridge University
  Press, 1996
• Grodzinsky, Yosef and Lewis P. Shapiro David
  Swinney (ed.) Language and the brain.
  Representation and processing. London Academic
  Press, 2000
• Hickey, Raymond. Linguistics Surveyor. 2005
• Strazny, Philipp. Encyclopedia of Linguistics.
  New York u.a. Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005
• http//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd
  RetrievedbPubMedlist_uids8107977doptAbstract
  
• http//www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/dysgraphia/dysg
  raphia.htm
• http//www.as.wvu.edu/scidis/dysgraphia.html
• http//www.margaretkay.com/Dysgraphia.htm

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Speech Errors

• A general introduction into the topic speech
  errors
• Eva Ortmann LN (Grundstudium)

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Speech Errors

• The first linguistic analysis was published in
  1895 in
• Vienna by Meringer and Meyer.
• 6 years later Freud published the classic
  psychological
• treatment of speech errors.
• it is important to mention these two because
  they had a
• deep influence on following researches although
  their
• attitudes towards speech errors were different.

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Speech Errors

• What do we mean by speech errors?
• Example
• T She is marked with a big scarlet A.
• A She is marked with a big scarlet R eh A.
• Explication the prespoken scarlet triggered red
  which because it begins with the letter R
  competed in this situation with the intended A.
• (? substitution)

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Speech Errors

• Which words are likely to be substituted by
  others?
• in general, semantically or phonologically
  similar items increase the
• possibility of speech errors
• the example of the scarlet A showed that errors
  where there is no
• obvious phonological similarity do also occur
• researches show that there are often
  substitutions in which the error
• and the target word are in an antonymous
  relation, or they are co-
• hyponyms
• co-hyponyms? red instead of black
• antonyms ? late instead of early

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Speech Errors

• Analysis of spontaneously produced errors show
  that
• 60 of the words result in non words
• example it is said Can I morrow your dotes?
  instead of
• Can I borrow your notes?
• 40 of the words result in actual words
• example it is said Did you forget to dock
  the lore?
• instead of Did you forget to lock the door?

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Speech Errors

• There are also some linguists who are concerned
  with the correction of speech errors.
• Noteboom Lavers
• ? Laver thinks that there are so few errors made
  by us because of an active internal motoring of
  covert errors.

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Speech Errors

• Conclusion
• ? speech errors is a very complex field of
  research
• ? speech errors occur to all people
• ? there is no linguistic unit that seems to be
  immune
• ? the number of speech errors also depends on the
  emotional situation of the subject
• (nervousness and anxiety trigger speech errors)
• ? words are more likely to be substituted by
  words that are phonologically or/ and
  semantically similar to the target word

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Speech Errors

• Slips of the tongue in normal and pathological
  speech

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1. Introduction

• In 1901 Siegmund Freud suggested that slips of
  the tongue might tell us something about the
  probable laws of the formation of speech
• Spoonerisms are analysed by linguists who want to
  learn about the organization of language in the
  brain
• In literature there are many references to
  pathological speech pointing out the similarities
  between normal and pathological speech errors

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• Study by Ewa Söderpalm Talo comparing errors in
  normal speech and pathological speech errors in
  aphasia
• Definition slip of the tongue a deviation from
  what the speaker had in mind to say
• Adults with a damage of the brain can have
  articulatory disturbances of various kinds

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• 2. Sampling
• Many linguists pointed out that there are
  various kinds of difficulties in collecting
  speech errors
• - they occur in spontaneous speech, are seldom
  recorded
• - many errors are not noticed
• In Ewa Söderpalm Talos study the corpus of
  normal errors consists of about 200 slips of the
  tongue of adults.
• There are about 100 examples of pathological
  speech errors which were collected in therapy
  sessions in conversation with aphasic patients.
  Most of them had suffered cerebral vascular
  accidents causing aphasia.

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3. Classification

• The phonological errors were analysed by a
  classification system
• 1. Syntagmatic errors
• a) Metathesis of Phoneme (morpheme, word)
• e.g. kontamination ? kontanimation
• Kanada vann ? Vanada kann
• b) Anticipation
• e.g. insiktslöshet ? insliktlöshet
• e.g. brittiske biträdande ministern ? bittiske
  biträdande

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• c) Dublication
• e.g. det tror jag är hiskeligt viktigt ?
  hiskeligt visk
• Paradigmatic Errors - Substitution of phoneme
  (morpheme, word)
• e.g. nu ljuger jag ? nu ljuter jag
• Metathesis errors are very rare among the
  pathological errors
• The example of a paradigmatic error represents
  the most common type of error in the pathological
  corpus

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4. Conclusions

• All kinds of errors occur in the normal and in
  the pathological corpus, but there is a
  difference in quantity
• Syntagmatic errors are more common in normal
  speech, whereas paradigmatic errors prevail in
  the pathological corpus
• 60 of the errors in pathological speech are
  paradigmatic substitution errors, less than 20
  are paradigmatic in normal speech
• The occurrence of errors in aphasic speech is
  bigger than in normal speech, but there seem to
  be less types of errors

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• Normal speakers are often aware of their
  mistakes, they correct them or indicate by
  pausing that they noticed it
• Aphasic speakers seldom correct their mistakes
  because they do not notice them
• During language rehabilitation the awareness of
  errors increases, so it could be used as an
  indicator for therapeutic progress
• Quelle Fromkin, Victoria A. Errors in
  Linguistic Performance Slips of the Tongue, Ear,
  Pen and Hand, 1980, Academic Press

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Acquisition of Meaning
Acquisition of Meaning
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Part I Sabine Staiger1. Lexical Development2.
Bootstrapping3. Under Overextensions4.Comprehe
nsion Production Gap5. Vocabulary Burst6.
Fast-Mapping7. Semantic Contrast
Acquisition of Meaning
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Acquisition of Meaning

• Lexical development
• Which string of sounds corresponds to which
  meaning?!
• Learning the semantics of words
• Spoken word certain attributes /
  characteristic properties
• No fully viable theories of word-learning, but a
  few principles
• which are thought to guide the childs
  word-learning process

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Acquisition of Meaning

• Principle of Reference
• Words refer to objects, actions, states, and
  attributes in the environment
• Whole Object Principle
• Word refers to the whole object not just part of
  it
• Principle of Categorical Scope
• Word extended to other members of the same
  category rather than
• to items thematically related to it
• Principle of Lexical Contrast/
• Mutual Exclusivity Assumption
• Children assume that each object has ONLY one
  label

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Acquisition of Meaning Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping

• From to lift oneself up by ones bootstraps
• Computers simple system activates a complicated
  system
• Use combination of semantics syntactic
  knowledge to learn new words
• Divide words into grammatical subclasses very
  early (common vs. proper nouns)
• will get children started on their way to
  acquiring parts of speech
• (which can later be supplemented by other
  linguistic information)

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Acquisition of Meaning Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping

• Vocabulary production
• End of the first year first words
• 15 month producing 10 words
• Vocabulary of around 50 combine words
• 6 years 10,000- 14,000 words

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Acquisition of Meaning Under Overextensions
(I)
Under Overextensions (I)

• Under extensions
• Mapping of a word onto a very narrow, situation
  specific referent
• eg. shoe only refers to a specific pair of
  shoes
• dog only refers to the family dog
• Principle of Reference not fully matured but
• Whole Object Principle is already in place!

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Acquisition of Meaning Under Overextensions
(II)
Under Overextensions (II)

• Overextensions
• to generalize the meaning of words
• eg. apple other round this as well
• daddy refers to all men
• shape/ color/ function/ material/ sound as well
• Principle of Categorial Scope
• Children have very limited vocabularies simply
  do not know
• the words they need at that moment

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Acquisition of Meaning Comprehension
Production Gap
Comprehension Production Gap

• State in which the child already comprehend words
  but
• they can not produce them on demand
• Show a C-P gap in knowledge of vocabulary for a
  long time
• (adults 2nd Language Acquisition)
• Even a child (12-14 month) who hasnt produced
  any word,
• comprehend many words even before they speak
  for the first time
• IN SHORT Children know more than they say!

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Acquisition of Meaning Vocabulary Burst
Vocabulary Burst

• Sudden, large increase in vocabulary
• Takes place after an initial production of about
  50 words
• - most of them are nouns
• - also referred to as the naming explosion
• - related to word retrieval abilities
• First-born children are more likely to show this
  burst than
• the following children of the same family!

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Acquisition of Meaning Fast-Mapping
Fast-Mapping

• how rapid accurate the process of word-learning
  takes place
• 9-12 words a day
• Mostly takes place without explicit instruction
• ? Definition of words change over time

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Acquisition of Meaning Semantic Contrast
Semantic Contrast

• Different words have different meaning
• Principle of Mutual Exclusivity
• Hierarchy of concepts are used to interpret new
  words
• Ellen Markman (1994)
• - how children assign meanings to words by
  introducing
• the word biff to different groups of
  preschoolers
• Assists children in their task of learning
  thousands
• of words in a short time!

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Acquisition of Meaning
Vanessa Mosel Matr. Nr. ES0221173400 Hauptstudiu
m, TN
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Acquisition of Meaning

• Content
• Semantic/Thematic Roles and Relations
• Interpretation of Pronouns
• Presupposition Understanding the Common Ground
• Childrens knowledge of the Count/Mass
  Distinction and Telicity
• Conclusion

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Acquisition of Meaning

• I. Semantic/Thematic Roles and Relations
• The one-word speech of children expresses the
  basic set of thematic roles
• a) object milk said when reaching for milk
• b) action go spoken when Daddy was going out
  the door
• c) instrument knife spoken when mother cutting
  meat

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Acquisition of Meaning

• I. Semantic/Thematic Roles and Relations
• First word combinations can also express the
  basic set of thematic relations
• a) action/object Bite finger
• b) object/location Car garage
• c) action/location Sit bed

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Acquisition of Meaning

• II. Interpretation of Pronouns
• Ernie hit him. Ernie
• Ernie hit him.
• Adults know (Principle P) that Ernie could not
  also be him
• Principle P gt pragmatic principle
• Children will point to a picture in which Ernie
  is hitting himself

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Acquisition of Meaning

• II. Interpretation of Pronouns
• Explanation
• Is it the case that children do not have the
  Principle P as part of their linguistic
  competence?
• The interpretation of pronouns have to do with
  their knowledge of pragmatics, how to use
  language effectively in context, and not with
  their knowledge of grammar
• Some aspects of syntax are available very early,
  while certain aspects of pragmatic knowledge
  develop later

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Acquisition of Meaning

• III. Presupposition Understanding the Common
  Ground
• 1. Factive/ non factive verbs
• factive verbs such as know, remember gt carry
  presupposition
• Non-factive verbs such as think, guess gt do
  not carry presupposition
• Example a) Romeo knew that Juliet was dead
• b) Romeo thought Juliet was dead

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Acquisition of Meaning

• III. Presupposition Understanding the Common
  Ground
• 2. definite/ indefinite determiner
• A definite determiner presuppose the existence
  of the object, existence is known by speaker
  and hearer
• An indefinite determiner is used when the
  speaker does not wish to refer to a specific
  character, or wants to introduce a character
  first

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Acquisition of Meaning
III. Presupposition Understanding the Common
Ground 3. Experimental studies (a versus the)
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Acquisition of Meaning

• IV. Childrens knowledge of the Count/Mass
  Distinction and Telicity
• 1. Mass nouns (atelic event consume ale)
• if we take some water and add more water to it,
  it is still water, need a measure to quantize
  them (e.g. a glass of water)
• 2. Count nouns (telic events consume a beer)
• Inherently quantized, have an endpoint which
  delimits them

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Acquisition of Meaning

• IV. Childrens knowledge of the Count/Mass
  Distinction and Telicity
• Example a) John consumed ale for an hour
• b) John consumed a beer for an hour
• Telicity is compositionally determined, which
  means that it is dependent on linguistic
  structure and grammatical principles

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Acquisition of Meaning

• IV. Childrens knowledge of the Count/Mass
  Distinction and Telicity
• In English
• Children use past tense -ed on verbs describing
  telic events
• Adults show the opposite tendency, they use -ed
  more often with atelic verbs
• How can we explain this?
• The aspect-before-tense hypothesis

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Acquisition of Meaning
V. Conclusion Thus even though all children
must learn every word of their target language,
certain aspects of linguistics may not have to be
learned and are good candidates to be part of
unlearned properties of the human
mind Statement from
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