Lecture 8 Flashcards
What is comprehension ?
refers to understanding what others say (sign or write)
What is production ?
refers to speaking, signing, or writing
What is generative ?
A system in which a finite set of words can be combined to generate an infinite number of sentences
What are phonemes ?
the smallest unit of recognizable sound
What are morphemes ?
the smallest units of meaning
What is syntax ?
refers to the permissive combinations of words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives)
What is pragmatics ?
refers to the understanind of how lanuage is typically used in a specific cultural context
What is species-specific behaviour ?
only humans acquire knowledge in the normal course of development
What is species-universal ?
language learning is achieved by typically developing children across the globe
What is infant-directed speech (IDS) ?
the distinctive mode of speech used when speaking to infants
What is prosody ?
the characteristic rhythmic and intonation patterns with which a language is spoken
What is categorical perception ?
the perception of phonemes as beloning to discrete categories
What is voice onset time (VOT)?
the length of time between air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating
What is experience-independent ?
infants can discrminate between speech sounds they have never heard before
What is word segmentation ?
discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech
What is babbling ?
repetitive consnant-vowel sequence (“bababa) or hand movements (sign language)
What is a vocabulary spurt ?
learning appears to accelerate
What is mutual exclusivity ?
children expect that a given entity will only have one name
What is the whole-object assumption ?
children expect a novel word to refer to a whole object rather than to a part, property, action, or other aspect of the object
What are pragmatic cues ?
aspects of the social context used for word learning
What is cross-situational word learning ?
determining word meanings by tracking correlations between labels and meanings acorss scenes and contexts
What is synaptic boostrapping ?
The strategy of using grammatical structure to infer the meaning of a new word
What is telegraphic speech ?
short utterances that leave out non-essential words
What is overregularization ?
speech errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular
What are collective monologues ?
conversation between children that involves a series of non sequiturs
What are narratives ?
story-like structured descriptions of past events
What is pragmatic development ?
allows children to understand how language is used to communicate
What is Universal Grammar ?
a hard-wired set of principles and rules that govern grammar in all languages
What is connectionism ?
a type of computational model that emphasizes the simultaneous activity of numerous interconnected processing units
