PPT Noes, Test 4 - L1 Aquisition

Question 1

principles and parameters model:
principle
about lexical categories

Answer 1

all languages have subjects, verbs, objects

Question 2

principles and parameters model:
parameters
3 parameters of lexical categories?

Answer 2

1. are SVO marked by inflectional case-marking OR by word order?
2. if word order is important, which order is used?
3. can the subject be dropped in some cases?

Question 3

principles and parameters model:
principle
about questions…

Answer 3

all languages have a way to ask who, what, when, where, why questions

Question 4

principles and parameters model:
parameters
2 possibilities of ways to structure questions

Answer 4

1. the wh-word at the beginning of the question

2. the wh-word at the end of the question

Question 5

principles and parameters model:
principle
about negation

Answer 5

all languages have a way to negate a statement

Question 6

principles and parameters model:
parameters
2 ways to do negation

Answer 6

1. negative concord - all SOV are marked in negative statement
2. english - only one negation marker

Question 7

language acquisition stages:

4 days - 2 months

Answer 7

children can distinguish between their native language and other languages

Question 8

language acquisition stages:

2 months

Answer 8

children learn rhythms of language spoken around mother, begin to “coo” vowel sounds

Question 9

language acquisition stages:

3.5 months

Answer 9

children pay more attention to their mother’s voices than they do other noises

Question 10

language acquisition stages:

4 months

Answer 10

children prefer speech to other noises

Question 11

language acquisition stages:

5 months

Answer 11

children associate mouth movements with specific sounds

Question 12

language acquisition stages:

7-8 months

Answer 12

children stop paying attention to the sounds that are not relevant to their language (/p/ and /ph/ distinction lost)

Question 13

language acquisition stages:

1 year

Answer 13

• children make sounds of their language, first words
• holophrastic stage: one-word constructions (nouns)
• can produce 10 words, understand 50-200
• issues of gesture/language

Question 14

language acquisition stages:

1.5 years

Answer 14

• children begin to name all objects around them
• fast mapping
• two word phase
• once child learns a construction, does not produce unacceptable usages
• inflectional endings not or rarely used

Question 15

language acquisition stages:

2 years

Answer 15

• children learn 2 words a day
• by 2.5 yr. child has sorted out complicated deictic expressions like ‘you’ and ‘I’, these are troublesome since they shift

Question 16

language acquisition stages:

3 years

Answer 16

child brain twice as active as adult brain

Question 17

language acquisition stages:

4 years

Answer 17

child has mastered most of basic concepts of English grammar

Question 18

language acquisition stages:

6 years

Answer 18

child know around 14,000 words

Question 19

theories of L1 acquisition:

name the 3 theories of L1 acquisition

Answer 19

• Reinforcement hypothesis (behaviorism)
• Imitation hypothesis
• Interactionist hypothesis (cognitive and UG)

Question 20

theories of L1 acquisition:
reinforcement (behaviorism)
principle & 3 problems

Answer 20

principle - children learn language through positive reinforcement
problems - children say things that are not rewarded or corrected
- poverty of the stimulus, not enough coming from the environment, we know rules that we are not explicitly taught
- correction does not work

Question 21

theories of L1 acquisition:
imitation
principle & 2 supports

Answer 21

principle - children learn language by imitating those around them
support - children learn the language variety of their environment
- imitation is how children acquire the sound inventory, lexicon, and communicative competence

Question 22

theories of L1 acquisition:
imitation
problems 1-3 of 6

Answer 22

problems - imitation does not explain enough, like how does a child acquire the full complexity of language

• children DON’T say some things they HAVE learned
• children DO say things they have NEVER heard

Question 23

theories of L1 acquisition:
imitation
problems 4-6 of 6

Answer 23

problems - children around the world follow similar stages in acquisition of language

• children generalize, they can produce an infinite number of new sentences (creativity), meaning they learn rules that are not explicitly taught (poverty of stimulus)
• children overgeneralize (say tree for broccoli)

Question 24

theories of L1 acquisition:
interactionist
principle & 3 supports

Answer 24

principle - children use their innate abilities to extract the rules of their native language from the environment
support - there are some mistakes that children never make across the board (using word order that does not appear in any language)
- children say things they have never heard while sorting out a rule
- poverty of stimulus, some kind of internal COGNITIVE structure must explain it

Question 25

critical age hypothesis:

what are critical ages

Answer 25

learn language with fluency: < puberty
2nd language acquisition native like: 3-7
2nd language acquisition gradual decline: 8-puberty
native fluency acquisition disappears: > puberty

Question 26

critical age hypothesis:

4 supports

Answer 26

• brain plasticity
• wild children
• evidence from second language acquisition research
• evidence from the development of creoles

Question 27

define pidgin

Answer 27

highly simplified communicative systems that arise when adult speakers who share no common language need to communicate with each other - associated with trade communities and plantation situations

Question 28

4 features of pidgin

Answer 28

• mostly nouns
• few function words
• limited morphology
• not a native language for any speaker

Question 29

define creole

Answer 29

a full-fledged language that develops from a creole

Question 30

3 characteristics of creole

Answer 30

• if faced with pidgin, children will create a creole
• a creole is based on a primary language that supplies most of the vocabulary (the lexifier)
• grammatical rules are developed from combination of the contact languages and some new rules