L25 - Nativist approaches to language development

Question 1

How is our knowledge of syntax subtle and complex?

Answer 1

• Jackendoff (2002)
• Word order is very important for understanding the meaning
• What are the rules that we build sentences with - how do we know what is grammatical and what is not?

Question 2

Where does knowledge of language come from?

Answer 2

• Noam Chomsky: Reinforcement learning (proposed by behaviourists) and sensorimotor learning mechanisms (as proposed by Piaget) cannot explain the acquisition of human language
• Nativists are about domain specific modules - is there one specific for syntax that means we can apply the rule. It is in our brains from the start - unlike constructivists propose
• Human language is too computationally complex
  
  • Language is composed of abstract syntactic rules that can generate an infinite number of novel sentences that don’t even have to make sense
• Key computation of syntax = Recursion
  
  • Recursion = Sentences that can be embedded within sentences
  • Chomsky argued that you can’t get that from Skinner’s or Piaget’s “general learning mechanisms”. Thus language must have special innate properties
    
    • Only human language show recursion (among primates - some bird song has recursion) but suggests that it is innate
• At some level level - clearly in our genetic endowment is the ability to learn language and all its complexities
  
  • True of everything we learn and do

Question 3

What are the specific features of universal grammar?

Answer 3

• Structured representations with abstract syntactic categories
• E.g. Sentences are composed of noun phrases and verb phrases , and noun phrases are compose of verbs and noun phrases
• Rules operate over phrases

Question 4

What is a phrase?

Answer 4

• Group of words that form a functional/structural unit
  
  • e.g. noun phrase can consist of a determiner and a noun - such as the dog and you can add modifiers such as “the dog by the house”
  • Those modifiers can have phrases within them
    
    • e.g. by the house, is a prepositional phrase that as another phrase “the house” within it
  • Phrases are hierarchically organised

Question 5

What are syntax trees?

Answer 5

Not just a linear string of rules, we have a genetically encoded structure that tells to understand the sentences

Question 6

How can you tell what is in a phrase?

Answer 6

• Through pronominal reference (a phrase that functions as a pronoun)
  
  • e.g. it is red
  • “it” can take the place of the entire noun phrase regardless of how much stuff is embedded in it - can’t take less than all of it - e.g. the it is red is bad

Question 7

What is innate language and what is learned?

Answer 7

• Children must learn the order of elements in phrases
  
  • For example, UG states VP = V + NP but not the order
  • This can’t be in UG as it’s different for different languages
• English: VP = V then NP (kicked the ball)
• Turkish: VP = NP then V (the ball kicked)
• The knowledge/learning is syntax specific, similar to core knowledge modules from before

Question 8

What is a case example that demonstrates structural dependence in question formation?

Answer 8

• Mathematical type learning process
• Structural dependence of in question formation = “a parade case of innate constraint” - Stephen Crain
• When infant learning how to ask a question?
  
  • The boy is crazy
  • The boy who is smoking is crazy
    
    • These two is’s have different places in the word order but the same structural position
    • Rules of syntax operate over abstract syntactic structure
    • Children know innatley and thus never make mistakes such as “ is the boy who smoking is crazy?”
      
      • No errors of this type found! so it’s true
        
        • Crain & Nakayama, 1987
          
          • In both naturalistic data or in an elicited production study
          • Conclusion = Structure dependence is an innate schematism

Question 9

How does evidence from Nicaraguan sign language show sensitive periods?

Answer 9

• Video showed if deaf children are not exposed to language before 7, there will be difficulties in learning and if not before puberty - no chance of true native fluency
• Suggests genetically driven biological maturation constraints
• Before sensitive period ends, children generate language beyond what they could have possibly been in the input
• Language is componential and compositional

Question 10

How fast did NSL develop compositional structure?

Answer 10

• Language splits meaning up into component parts so they can recombined to generate more kinds of meanings
  
  • “The ball rolled down the hill”
• The rolling (manner of motion) and the down (path of motion), are happening simultaneously but expressed separately in language
• Allows for either to be highlighted or modified or recombined independently
• In, NSL
  
  • 1st cohort show componential structure somewhat (invented the language)
  • 2nd cohort show full systematic linguistic structure
    
    • All children exposed by 6 years of age to NSL - First cohort invented it
  • Compared cohorts of NSL to Spanish speakers
    
    • Spanish speakers do not come up with individual expressions for “rolling” and “down” = show simultaneous expression
    • NSL = Have componential expression

Question 11

What are early abstraction accounts?

Answer 11

• Many psychologists have abandoned theorizing that much of the rich specific structure (e.g. that VP = V + NP) is part of a language specific genetic endowment
• But they do posit innate constraints that interpret their language input abstractly and have biases to link syntax and semantics
• At a minimum children interpret language in terms of abstract classes, not on a word-by-word basis
• Specifically - abstract notions of agents and patients, and general notions of how they are linked to nouns constrains language learning from the start
  
  • Each semantic roles needs a noun and each noun needs a semantic role
• English has systematic mappings between syntax and semantics
• Generally, agents are expressed before the verb and patients afterwards
  
  • The boy broke the vase
  • I threw the ball
  • etc.
• Children can learn the abstract word order rules from their innate links from event roles to nouns

Question 12

What evidence is there from verb learning about early abstraction accounts?

Answer 12

• Innate links between roles and nouns → Learn word order rules
• Links between roles and nouns combined with word order rule knowledge → Use these cues to learn novel verbs
• Will test this account with how children can use word order rules alone to learn verbs
• Gertner, Fisher and Eisengart (2006) - Abstract knowledge in 2 year olds
  
  • “the frog is gorping the bear”
  • Gertner et al. both scenes show events with two participants - only general knowledge can guide children
  • Must have some sort of links between abstract syntax and abstract semantics and they can use this to learn words