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Psych399 > 13 - Language Diversity > Flashcards

13 - Language Diversity Flashcards

1
Q

what does the fact that all humans can learn any language if they are exposed to it in childhood indicate?

A

that the basic cognitive machinery is the same for all humans

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2
Q

when does Pagel suggest linguistic diversity peaked?

A

10,000 years ago, when we hadn’t yet developed agriculture

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3
Q

how many languages did Pagel estimate have been spoken since humans emerged?

A

up to half a million

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4
Q

what are the 5 examples of how different languages can be

A
  1. Large distinction between number of distinct phonemes
  2. distinction in how many morphemes can be stuck into a single word
  3. what kind of information is meant to be integrated in to the linguistic code (contextual vs not)?
  4. different category words
  5. fixed vs malleable word order
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5
Q

what is a language typologist?

A

study the ways in which languages vary with the aim of describing and explaining cross linguistic variation

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6
Q

what are Greenberg’s ‘Linguistic Universals’?

A

45 generalizations about universal features he discovered after analyzing 30 languages

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7
Q

What is mean by the term ‘implicational universals’?

what is the example used in the text?

A

In Greenberg’s linguistic universals, certain things only occur if other things occur as well.
‘If a language has gender categories in the noun, then it has gender categories in the pronoun’

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8
Q

Were Greenberg’s linguistic universals ‘exceptionless’?

Has this conclusion been strengthened or weakened by moderate linguistics?

A

No, very few were found to be this way,

Strengthened, as are outlier languages have been found to lack certain elements that were thought to be universal

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9
Q

what are the examples in the text of language outliers that fail to demonstrate previously assumed to be necessary characteristics? (2)

A
  1. Piraha lacks recursion

2. ABSL lacks duality of patterning

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10
Q

what are the two methods of explaining why certain linguistic rules tend to not occur or occur very rarely?

A
  1. human brain imposes certain biases and limitations on the way language should be structured
  2. cognitive factors predispose us to select for certain things that make it easier on our minds to learn/express language
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11
Q

What is Greenberg’s first linguistic universal

A

In declarative sentences with normal subj/obj, the dominant order is nearly always subject then object

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12
Q

what is Greenberg’s 14th linguistic universal

A

In conditional statements, the the ‘if’ clause precedes the antecedent.

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13
Q

what is Greenberg’s 17th linguistic universal (VSO)

A

Languages with dominant order VSO (verb, sub, ob) have the adjective after the noun.

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14
Q

what is Greenberg’s 18th linguistic universal (adjectives)

A

when the descriptive adjective precedes the noun, the demonstrative and the numeral often do as well

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15
Q

what is Greenberg’s 19th linguistic universal

A

when the general rule is that the descriptive adjective follows the noun, some adjectives often precede, but when adjectives precede, there are no exceptions

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16
Q

what is Greenberg’s 31st linguistic universal (gender)

A

if either the sub of obj of a noun agrees with the verb in gender, then the adjective always agrees with the noun in gender

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17
Q

what is Greenberg’s 36th linguistic universal (number/gender)

A

if a language has a gender category, it always has a number category

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18
Q

what is Greenberg’s 37th linguistic universal (gender categories)

A

A language never has more gender categories in nonsingular numbers than in the singular

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19
Q

what is Greenberg’s 38th linguistic universal (case system, allomorphs)

A

when there is a case system, the only case which ever has only zero allomorphs is the one which includes among its meanings that of the subject of the intransitive verb

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20
Q

what is Greenberg’s 42nd linguistic universal

A

all languages have pronoun categories involving at least 3 persons and 2 numbers

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21
Q

what are two explanations that argue against cognitive meaning in linguistic universals.
- give some detail about the second

A
  1. recurring patterns could reflect hisotircal events
  2. similarities could arise because speakers of 2 languages came into contact a lot and influenced each other - this is why a lot of languages share elements like words and even syntax and phonology
22
Q

What did Dryer discover about Greenberg’s universals after studying how many languages?

A

he studied 625, found that some did not hold while others did very well

23
Q

what are Type A and Type B languages, and who characterized them?

A

loosely coined from the book, but following Dryer’s reexamination of Greenberg’s universals
Type A - if the verb comes before the direct object in a sentence, then we have prepositions which occur before the noun.
Type B - if the verb comes after its object, then they tend to use postpositions, which occur after the associated noun.

24
Q

what are the 3 possible explanations for the universality of Type A and Type B languages?
who argued for 3?

A
  1. evidence for UBG, constraints on word order that arise as A or B
  2. reflect a general preference to keep order order stable
  3. Dunn - dont reveal anything about the nature of languages, just their historical development
25
Q

What was Dunn’s evidence for his claim that word order universals dont reflect anything inherent about the nature of language? what would we expect if this weren’t the case?

A

Built a statistical model to take into account linguistic lineage, and found that Type A vs Type B are strongly correlated with geography and tend to cluster in languages that are related.
we would expect them to be somewhat randomly distributed across the geography and related languages

26
Q

what does Dunn’s statistical model of language lineage suggest?

A

that common ancestry or contact is the reason why there is such a close connection between verb object order

27
Q

what is a more appropriate way of trying to uncover if certain linguistic constraints are universal?

A

by studying if certain patterns are easier for people to learn, produce or comprehend than others, and seeing if those patterns are found in languages a lot

28
Q

what are some strategies to test learnability of certain linguistic patterns? what are their associated limitations? (2)

A
  1. study language development in languages that have different universals (or outliers) to see if one is easier to pick up
    - problem: can only study universals which have clear cut exceptions
    - problem: in some languages where they mostly abide by the rule but sometimes break it, its hard to study how learnable it is because they have less experience with it.
  2. invent an artificial language with the structures you’re studying and test t see which is easier to learn
29
Q

what are the three examples given that show selectivity in learning syntax patterns in artificial languages?
what do these findings suggest?

A
  1. people learned to use statistical patterns to segment words from sentences pretty fast
  2. kids learned syntactic categories from statistical input and showed sensitivity to stat variation in deciding whether to generalize certain patterns
  3. language learners dont always faithful reproduce the statistical patterns they get, and are more eager to make some generalizations than others
    - a possible locus of where we might find learning biases, where people will go against statistical rules to generalize things that are more ‘innate’
30
Q

what did Culbertson and colleagues find about generalizations from pattern statistics in artificial languages?
which of Greenbergs universals does this refer to?

A

people resisted generalizing language patterns that are rare in real languages, and tend to favour those in which adjective noun/ numerical - noun are in the same order
- his 18th

31
Q

what are the three possible explanations for Culberstons findings?

A
  1. nativist - the favouring of certain patterns reflect innate genetic preferences
  2. cognitivist - the favouring of patterns reflect their sympathy with our general cognitive capacities
  3. learning biases are closely tied to communicative expression of language, and so awe expect that conceptual categories that share similar function (adjective, numerical) would appear in a similar order
32
Q

How could we test if pattern preferences are domain general?

A

create non-linguistic analoges to artifical Langauges and see if certain patterns are preferred even there

33
Q

what is an example of a study that attempted to test whether pattern preference is domain general?

A
  • Hupp, wanted to test why languages mark inflectional information with suffixes rather prefixes (happened rather than edhappen or sums)
34
Q

explain hupp’s experimental procedure

what is its main limitation

A
  1. gave a random 2 syllable word and offered a choice between two 3 syllable words there the new syllable is either a prefix or suffix
    - people prefer prefix
  2. generalized to non-linguistic by doing the same procudure in musical and visual tasks,
    results were echoed
    therefore, domain general, shit goes at the end
    - only English people
35
Q

what’re the four main possible types of knowledge that can be acquired from artificial language learning procedures in terms of pattern preference?

A
  1. how learning biases apply pressures to shape language into more friendly patterns
  2. how subtle changes to initial biases might change the shape of a language thats transmitted generationally
  3. whether children and adults have similar preferences - if not, maybe this is why adults suck at learning language
  4. address the question of whether learning biases are truly universal.
36
Q

what are two main problems with artificial language studies/

A

dont always mirror exactly what goes soon in the real world

  1. dont embed structures into rich communication systems, so were missing that factor which may have a big effect on biases
  2. deliver a very concentrated does of patterns in a short period of time which isn’t how it works in the real world
37
Q

describe the Hudson-Kam and Newport study on the differences between child and adult language learning
- what does this bear influence on?

A
  • kids will generalize patterns that occur less (60% of the time) while adults will replicate the inconsistency with fairly solid statistical preservation
  • whether an influx of adult second language learners can influence a language
38
Q

Describe the conclusions of the Hudson-Kam and Newport follow up study
what does this mean for artificial language studies?

A
  • they could force adult learners to generalize statistically inconsistent patterns in the case of more complexx systems or more difficult learning procedures
  • brings up the question of how generalizable their findings are
39
Q

what findings offer some positivity concerning the ability of artificial language learning to map onto real language learning?

A

there are strong associations between the ability to learn artificial languages and the ability to use/learn a natural one

40
Q

what did MacDonald argue about the importance of ease of production in languages?

A

production pressures play a massive role in cross linguistic tendencies, for instance, the fact that we never place an object before a subject

41
Q

what are the mentioned factors that could influence the accessibility of a linguistic unit? (3)

A
  1. shorter phrases are more common than longer ones at the start of a sentence
  2. words can be made more accessible through priming of a related word or previous mentioning
  3. characters or objects in visual scenes are made Moore salient through the use of flashing with markers, which resulted in speakers talking about them first
42
Q

what does Bock suggest about the ease of using animate concepts
what did their studies find

A

easier to retrieve from memory than inanimate ones, which might explain why it goes subj obj
people tend to like to place animate shit att the start, even using passive voice to do so

43
Q

what is the possible mechanism that underlies the influence of productive ability on language change
consider this in reference to Bock’s studies on animate concepts

A
  1. large variability of word ordering (Sub Verb ob, s o v, v s o, etc)
  2. choose those that are easiest to produce (sub first always)
  3. new learners hear these more often and produce them more often
  4. continue until SVO is fixed
44
Q

do specific genetic capacities for language in certain individuals or cultures result in certain linguistic features being favoured? who advocated for this view? which genes do they implicate ? (2)

A

hpotentially, as in the case of tone languages, Dediu and Ladd argued that it was the result of the distribution of genes APSM and microencephalin in certain cultures.

45
Q

how could we study the effects of gene distribution on language constraints?

A

artificial language, maybe, by testing if learning biases vary across geographic populations in a systematic way related to the structural properties of the langurs spoken in that region

46
Q

what are some problems with interpreting ambiguous statements (3)

A
  1. identical words w different meanings can’t always be grasped in sentence
  2. garden path effect (I hear you are living) read literally as I can hear you leaving
  3. egocentric heuristics when limited cognitive reserve - dont abide by interpreting the speakers perspective
47
Q

what is a possible reason for the general lack of disastrous instances of ambiguity in language?

A

-languages develop to not allow people to produce sentences that are genuinely ambiguous, only a little bit so which can be easily fixed along the line

48
Q

what do languages with flexible word orders make use f to disambiguate between noun phrases playing the role of subject or object?

A

Case makers, which are morphemes that indicate the grammatical function of a noun phrase (the man bites the dog in German can be either Der Mann Besit den Hund or Den Hund beist Der Mann, with Der and den existing as case markers)

49
Q

what is differential case marking, and when is it used?

A

Using case markers very specifically in certain languages.
- tends to be used ONLY when there is the possibility of gross misinterpretation, specifically in a particular language when using exclusively animate nouns, bc inanimate stuff doesn’t act

50
Q

describe the procedure and conclusion of Roberts and Fedzechikina’s study on the cultural influence on language efficiency

A
  • two dialects of artificial alien languages, both w rigid word order but one with useless case markers
  • diff groups were told to think differently of the different alien types
  • those who were primed to think of the aliens with irrelevant case markers as ‘good’ would drop the case markers much slower over generational repetitions than in cases where they were seen as neutral or bad
    conclusion - cultural pressures effect how we alter languages for efficiency
51
Q

what did Fedzechinika’s study on differential case marking show?

A

that even in cases where case markers were learned as used universally, even in inanimate noun contexts, learners would drop them in favour of a differential case marking system.

52
Q

How do we explain the tendency to alter languages to produce communicative efficient?

A
  1. hard wired to prioritize it
  2. good at noticing possible gross misinterpretations and adding things selectively to avoid them, which then becomes the norm

Psych399 (2 decks)

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