lesson 9 language Flashcards
in english there is a rule for adjectives
opinion size age shape color origin material purpose noun
how does language work
humans evolved another strategy of decoding sounds we have agreed have the same meaning
other animals’ communication system
bee waggle dance as location for food
bird and whale songs
ants dancing with pheromones
animal forms of communication
limited repotoire for limited services like location and threat
language
a system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules
of grammar and that convey meaning
idea needs to be encoded in words then made into sounds and listener goes backwards
semantics
ideas to words
syntax
rules about order and shape of words
phonology
encoding of words into sounds
word
arbitrary vocalization or hand gesture that refers to mental concept
-if i say apple you can visualize what i mean
human semantics are arbitrary
different languages connect different concepts to different sounds/words (manzana, pomme)
-asl vs bsl
how do we learn words
average hs grad knows 45-60k words
learn 6.5 words a day, very fast intake as kids
reference problem
an unfamiliar word can refer to many concepts, how does a language figure out which one
how do children tend to solve reference problems
reasoning the speaker’s mental states
social referencing
who is the speaker paying attention to? what are they looking at because that has a cue toward what they’re talking about
novelty matching
why is the speaker using this new word instead of the one we already have?
intentionality
does the speech seem to match what the speaker is trying to convey?
the parsing problem
identify word boundaries, like where there are breaks or pauses
how we solve parsing problem
motherese- singsongy voice we use with kids: speak slowly, enunciate clearly, and use simpler sentences than they do when speaking with adults
-changing nature of acoustic signal and making it easier for kids to learn how words sound and end by elongating words and adding breaks and pauses
solving parsing problem (older)
the statistics of the speech stream- kids use big data approach to figure out which words exist in their language
phonology
motor cortex wilder penfield
ton of cortex in mouth/lips/face
1) taking a breath
2) voicing by moving vocal cords
3) resonance (mouth shape)
4) articulation (how words are pronounced)
experiment with phonology
newborns can figure out the difference between two english sounds, b and d
babies can hear the difference in two hindi sounds but once thy grow to a certain age they cant hear the difference because it’s not maintained
categorical perception
the phenomenon in which a continuous acoustic dimension, such as voice-onset time, is perceived as having distinct categories with sharp discontinuities at certain points
when items that range along a continuum are perceived as being either more or less similar to each other
Take for example the /l/ and /r/ sounds of the English language. While native English speakers easily distinguish these two sounds, Japanese speakers are generally unable to hear the difference. The English words ‘lag’ and ‘rag’ would sound the same to them
analogy: take continuous stream of audio and impose boundaries where it makes sense
syntax aphasia
broca’s
individuals with damage to this
area, which results in Broca’s aphasia, understand language relatively well, but they have increasing comprehension difficulty as grammatical structures get more complex. Their real struggle, though, is with speech
production. Typically, they speak in short, staccato phrases that consist mostly of content morphemes (e.g., cat, dog). Function morphemes (e.g., and, but) are usually missing, and grammatical structure is impaired. A person with Broca’s aphasia might say something like “Ah, Monday, uh, Casey park. Two, uh, friends, and, uh, 30 minutes
semantics aphasia
wernicke’s
They can produce
grammatical speech, but it tends to be meaningless, and they have considerable difficulty comprehending language. A person suffering from Wernicke’s aphasia might say something like “Feel very well. In other words, I used to be able to work cigarettes. I don’t know how. Things I couldn’t hear from are here