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WEEK 2- BASIC SYNTAX Flashcards

1
Q

what is grammar?

A

grammar is simply the collection of principles defining how to put together a sentence

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2
Q

what are the two main ways in which grammar conveys the ‘who did what to whom’ sentence?

A
  1. markers on words (morphology) eg adding s to make it plural. 2. word order (syntax)
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3
Q

what does syntax mean

A

word order

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4
Q

what does english mainly use to convey who did what to whom?

A

mainly word order (syntax)

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5
Q

what does russian (for example) use to convey who did what to whom? and what does this mean?

A

morphology. so word order is very flexible

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6
Q

what are the two generativist approaches to how children learn grammar?

A

parameter setting and semantic bootstrapping

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7
Q

what are the constructivist approach to how children learn grammar?

A

children not born with abstract knowledge (Tomasello 2003)

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8
Q

what do generativists say is innate?

A

lexical categories eg verb/ noun though children must learn the word and knowledge of how lexical categories combine into phrases and how phrases combine into sentences. movement rules used for forming passives/questions and movement rules for inflection

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9
Q

what do generativists say children must learn?

A

the order of elements in phrases. not born knowing what order the verb and the noun phrase go in the verb phrase. but are born knowing a sentence contains a verb phrase an a noun phrase

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10
Q

why cant innate knowledge of elements in phrases be in universal grammar? (according to generativists)

A

because it is different for different languages

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11
Q

what does the parameter setting mean?

A

universal grammar contains a head- direction parameter (V is the ‘head’ of the verb phrase. this is then set by the child to head first or head final depending on what language they are using

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12
Q

what is the evidence for parameter setting approaches?

A

children learn language quickly and dont make many errors. english children virtually never put the verb after its object noun phrase and although they dont always supply a subject they do so more than italian children

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13
Q

what is wrong with the evidence for parameter setting?

A

matter of debate how quick is quickly when they say children learn language quickly.

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14
Q

what is the first problem with the parameter setting?

A

as well as the head- direction parameter children must set two other word order parameters. a) specifier- head parameter b) V2 (verb second) parameter

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15
Q

what is the specifier head parameter?

A

details are technical but it is basically whether the verb before or after the subject

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16
Q

what is the V2 parameter?

A

some language have a rule that the second element of the sentence must always be a verb so SV in english to VS in some other languages eg german has both of these

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17
Q

what did Gibson and Wexler 1994 says?

A

proved mathetically that a system that just guesses when faced with ambiguity will never arrive at the correct settings when there are three or more parameters. some parameters are not allowed to be set until a certain maturational point (problem: leaves children with no grammar to understand utterances)

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18
Q

what is the second parameter setting problem?

A

the bootstrapping problem- to set the head direction parameter the child has to be able to recognise which words in the sentence are the verb and the NP- but words don’t come with these labels

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19
Q

what did christophe et al 2003 say children use to set the head direction parameter?

A

children use phonological prominence

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20
Q

where did christophe et al 2003 say children who speak english (the VO setting) place prominence in the sentence?

A

place stress on the right of the phrase

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21
Q

where did christophe say turkish speaking (the OV setting) people place prominence in the sentence?

A

on the left of the phrase

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22
Q

what did christophe et al use to show that infants could tell the difference between the VO setting and the OV setting?

A

high amplitude (non-nutritive) sucking - they would suck more after a switch than a stick - but no evidence they use phonological prominence to actually set the parameter the correlation would have to be innate and true for all languages

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23
Q

what did Pinker 1984 propose as a direct response to the problems that arose from christophes findings of parameter settings?

A

semantic bootstrapping-

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24
Q

what does pinker 1984 say the linking/ bootstrapping problem is?

A

it is logically impossible for a child to use input sentences to learn that english uses Subject Verb Object without first knowing which is the subject object and verb- therefore they knowing the meaning of the words first
we are born with a list of categories to learn

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25
what does Pinker 1984 say syntactic categories are
abstract and cannot be observed in the real world- but semantic categories are visible to the child
26
what is an agent?
person who does an action
27
what is a patient
person that has the thing done to them
28
what is Pinker's 1984 proposal?
the child needs: 1) a list of universal syntactic categories - Subject Verb Object 2) a list of universal semantic categories- Agent, Action, Patient 3) a set of linking rules that connect the two
29
what is the problem with Pinker's linking proposal?
these linking rules are all very well for sentences like 'the man kicked the ball' but what about sentences where the subject is not the agent, the verb is not an action and the Object is not a patient e/g the situation justified the measures
30
what does Pinker say the child does to fix this linking problem?
once the child has understood an SVO sentence of this type she can abstract rules and understand more complex sentences such as the situation justified the measures
31
what are the problems of Pinker's theory?
1. some utterances violate the linking rules for example what is the action word is not a verb but a noun e.g. you will get a spanking off me - the you will is a patient so they risk setting up an OVS rule for English
32
what is Pinker's solution to the linking problem?
parents or children somehow filter out non- basic sentences i.e. all those that do not have an agent as a subject etc however later he concedes this implausible and proposes probabilistic learning. but does this leave children without grammar in the mean time?
33
what is the 2nd problem for Pinker?
some languages violate the linking rules entirely (Dyirbal)
34
what is the problem with generativist theory?
children learn rules that apply to variables such as nouns and verbs and not to lexical items (words) so if the child can say kick-s she must have learned the rule the present tense is the verb+s which it isn't - child can sometimes use -s with some v verbs and not other which suggests children may not learn the types of general rules assumed by generativist accounts
35
what is the conversing argument that constructivists say about the problem with the generativist proposal that children are born with the subject verb object rule?
early knowledge of word order may be in the form of lexically specific schemas
36
who are the main people that believe in the constructivist approach?
Tomasello 2003, pine and Lieven 1993, pine lieven and Rowland 1998, Ambridge and Lieven 2015 etc etc
37
what is the constructivist approach to children's grammar acquisition?
children and adults don't have any knowledge of X- bar theory- language is a structured inventory of constructions- children start out with constructions which become increasingly more abstract
38
what is the constructivist view that Tomasello 2003 proposes?
1) cultural learning- learn concrete utterances paired with their meaning 2) Schematization- break utterances into component parts and generalise across them to form partially productive, lexically specific schema 3) analogy- analogise across these schema/ utterances to form abstract constructions
39
What did Tomasello argue for?
Verb islands- children learn patterns around particular verbs i.e. verb is the frame everything else is the slot
40
what did Pine and Lieven and colleagues find islands based around
noun/ pronouns, morphological markers, negated model chunks
41
what is the basis of schematization?
children form schema (slot and frame patterns) 'on the basis of hearing repeated instances of highly similar utterances'- they get overplayed in memory
42
what is the variable slot in these schema?
functional not formal- tamales argues the slot is based around a function- a category of things i can do to an object
43
what have many schematisation experiments shown?
that young children operate with these small scale lexically specific constructions NOT a) adult like abstract constructions SVO or b) generativist style parameters e.g english is head first
44
what is an novel verb study used to test schematisation?- Tomasello and Brooks 1998
teach children a made up word in one construction and see if they will use it in another- if they do this is evidence they have a verb general rule - subject object verb - said the sock is taming then tried to get the child to use this is a transitive construction
45
what were the results of the Tomasello and brooks 1998 novel verb study?
most two and a half year olds not able to use a verb in a subject verb object construction with a new verb but can use it if they've heard it before
46
what happens when children learn a novel noun?- Tomasello and olguin 1993
they readily use it in new constructions (so it is not just 'shyness') - suggests they have small scale schemas such as I want X i see X NOT abstract constructions such as subject verb object
47
what do weird word order studies demonstrate?
that young children do not have verb general knowledge of word order but have constructions for particular verbs (verb islands) - they either use the weird word order or correct it to the subject verb object order - goes agains the verb island hypothesis
48
what is the problem with act out tasks?
perhaps the tasks are just too hard
49
what are act out tasks
children are trained on a novel action then asked e.g. make cookie monster keefe big bird - 6/10 children before 3 kids don't understand the subject verb object pattern yet
50
why are act out tasks quite hard for children
they have to remember the novel action and remember the sentence whilst picking up the relevant toys and making a plan to perform an action i.e. lots can go wrong
51
what happens in preferential looking tasks? gerstner fisher and eisengart 2006
children aged 2- 2 and 3 months look significantly longer than chance at the matching screen e.g. they look longer at the frog is glorping the teddy when the frog is doing something to the teddy rather than the other way round
52
what is the controversy with preferential looking tasks?
children only seem to succeed if they complete a pre training session with familiar verbs- maybe they use these to set up a strategy i.e. the one who is mentioned first is the agent and then they use with the novel verbs
53
what is the argument against children learning the agent as a strategy in preferential looking tasks?
the argument is a little far fetched- one would have to argue that children fail to learn an agent- first cue from all of the 1000's of sentences they hear in every day life but then learn such a strategy on the basis of a single training trial
54
what is the conclusion on preferential looking tasks?
even young two year olds seem to know something about english word order that is verb general (i.e. applies to all verbs) they don't just have verb islands but this doesn't mean they have a generativist subject verb object rule they mist just have an agent first strategy
55
from all these experiments what do constructivists therefore believe about grammar acqusition
young children do not have knowledge that is abstract and general they do not know that english word order is subject verb object the knowledge they do have is concrete and specific- applies to individual words or 'lexical chunks'
56
what has the evidence from preferential looking studies and pointing studies caused?
most researchers now accept some kind of general knowledge of subject verb object order from 2 or younger
57
what is the problem with the finding of the different ages found in all these studies?
the issue isn't the age at which children have this knowledge its HOW they got it. did they a) have innate knowledge of X- bar theory and set parameters b) acquire it by generalizing over input sentences- generativists say if they have the knowledge really young then that is evidence that they were born with this knowledge. constructivists argue if they don't have it till they are old then that is evidence that they are learning it- 2 years is a long time to learn this from the input they are receiving- age alone is not going to give us the answer to this
58
what have studies shown about how children form these schema?
on the basis of hearing repeated instances of highly similar utterances- studies show frequency is important although there hasn't been many studies that look into how kids will learn them
59
what are the quickest types of sentences children learn?
action sentences- these inputs are very frequent
60
what did Cameron Faulker et al 2003 find about when mums use nouns?
children whose mums says THEREs a NOUN more often than THATS A NOUN show the same pattern in their sentences (and vice versa)
61
what is communicative function?
little research but children more keen to learn phrases that can be used to talk about themselves and get them things they want - the want slot and frame pattern is very useful so they learn it very quickly
62
how do children analogize from small scale concrete specific phrases like 'I'm x-ing it' to adult like constructions like subject verb object when they don't have anything in common
they have similar relational structure so children can do feature mapping

PSYCH337 (5 decks)

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