Language Part 3 Flashcards
Two issues of why learning language is hard
Arbitrariness of signs
> A word does not depict the corresponding item
Indeterminacy of reference
> The meaning of a word is theoretically bounded under the social setting
Characteristics of a vocabulary growth spurt and what ability leads to a vocabulary growth spurt
> Happens in between 14-24 months
Some grow exponentially, whilst some grow gradually
The understanding curve is similar to the said curve
> Ability to fast-map with only 1-2 labelings
This ability will not disappear in adulthood
What are the three biases to learning words
Shape bias:
> The tendency of infants learning and categorising a word by its shape
> Studies show that children have a larger vocab size when they learn to group words by their shape, than material and control group
1. know a ball is a ball, a bottle is a bottle
2. understand that all balls have the same shape, and all bottles have the same shape
3. Group these items (count nouns) by their shape
4. Group new items according to shape
Mutual Exclusivity:
> Understand an object doesn’t have more than a name
> Soft bias: overridden in the future as they know an object has more than one name
Social reasoning:
> Infants learn better when adults teach the word while looking at the object
Higher level of social reasoning:
> Children at 3-4 years old can identify which adult is more reliable and learn new information from him/her
Two classes of words and language is …..
Open class:
> adjectives, verbs, nouns (easier for L2 learners + defining the content + produced earlier)
> Pronouns, prepositions (harder for L2 learners + defining the grammar + produced later)
> Language is compositional, as the location of the words can alter the meaning of the sentence
Explain verb and arguments
> verbs are the most vital part in a sentence as it defines the argument of the sentence
The order of the verb can change
However, we change the order of the verb not via mimicking
When given an unknown verb, sometimes we know the order can be changed, but sometimes not (shows that we are not doing it by default)
Logical Problem of language acquisition
Three possible logical problem explanations
> Negative feedback (does not appear often)
Subtle feedback and correction (does not entirely solving the issue)
Implicit negative feedback (do not generalise if the structure does not occur) (supported by results showing that overgeneralisation errors happen to infrequent verbs)
Explain morphological rules and morphemes
morphemes: the smallest units that conveys a meaning of the word (e.g., dis, ir, s)
Name the three past tense types and the reason behind
regular, irregular, psychologically real
> based on evolutionary
