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65 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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universal |
pattern that occurs naturally across languages, potentially for all of them |
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what would happen if language was fully innate |
everyone would speak same language |
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what would happen if language was fully dependent on environment |
languages would differ much more from each other |
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diversity of language |
languages differ in their phonology, morphology and syntax |
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unity of language |
all languages share some properties (universals) |
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principle |
linguistic unique universal. something that is true of all languages and ONLY of languages. full universals. (are innate) |
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hidden universal |
refer to design and structure of mental grammar. based on theory |
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overt universal |
observable properties. reflections of hidden universals. theory-independent |
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absolute universal |
true in all cases (ie. all languages have nouns) |
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implicational universal |
if a language has property X it will ALSO have property Y (or it wont have property Y) (ie. if a language has a superlative it also has a comparative) |
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disjunctive universal |
also called parameters or half-universals. CHOICES that languages have. (languages can have either property A OR property B) |
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metapatterns |
human languages display many properties that occur generally in natural world |
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head-complement parameter |
heads precede their complements (head-initial) or follow their complements (head-final) |
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parameter |
state that indicates a CHOICE between possible properties of language. when hidden universals turn out to have "exceptions". half universals (are innate but depend on nature input) |
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baldwin effect |
natural selection will favor those who due to genetic mutations, learn and use language the BEST |
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unmarked parameter |
the choice that is MORE COMMON in a language |
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marked parameter |
choice that is LESS COMMON in a language |
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realism view on universals |
they exist. they reflect the phenomena we observe. a lot of language is innately fixed. |
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nominalism view on universals |
do NOT exist. simply names for observed similarities |
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statistical learning |
empiricist theory. central question: which language acquisition can be achieved with a single learning mechanism |
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poverty of the stimulus |
how do we end up knowing so much on the basis of such little exposure to language. also called plato's problem |
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properties of the input: |
imcompleteness, limitedness, diversity, errors, lack of negative evidence, lack of instruction |
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properties of the input: incompleteness |
children are not exposed to complicated sentences |
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properties of the input: limitedness |
children don't hear all sentences ever made |
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properties of the input: diversity |
different kids experience different things/data |
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properties of the input: errors |
children hear errors/bad sentences |
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properties of the input: lack of negative evidence |
parents correct for truth not grammar |
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properties of the input: lack of instruction |
children are not explicitly taught |
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motherese (and what it is associated with) |
babyish way parents talk to kids. associated w lack of negative evidence (correct for truth not grammar) |
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subset principles |
suggests children choose the narrowest initial hypothesis |
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process of language acquisition: universality |
all children when exposed to a language will acquire the mental grammar for that language. all human societies have language |
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process of language acquisition: flexibility |
any child can acquire any language |
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process of language acquisition: rapidity |
even tho language is much more complex than other skills, language acquisition proceeds amazingly fast |
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process of language acquisition: uniformity of result |
all kids belonging to a speech community come up with the same mental grammar |
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process of language acquisition: uniformity of stages |
all children go thru similar stages in their grammatical growth |
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stages of acquisition |
reflexive sounds -> cooing -> vocal play -> babbling -> first words (holophrastic stage) --> two words (telegraphic) --> grammar explosion |
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holophrastic stage |
using single words |
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telegraphic stage |
two-word stage |
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how do we determine what stage of acquisition a child is in |
by the mean length of their utterances |
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categorical perception (what is, who discovered) |
distinguishing phonetic categories of voice (ba/pa). peter elimas found 2 week old infants can do |
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what is critical period and who came up with the idea |
a period during which exposure to input must be present in order to develop certain skill. Eric lenneberg |
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what is lennebergs argument |
young people who suffer brain damage will recover language. older people won't be able to |
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experiments of nature |
unfortunate things that happen by accident and reveal properties of language. experiments that cant be conducted for ethical reason. also called forbidden experiments |
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forbidden experiment |
deprive children from language for different periods of time and see if they can still learn language after |
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plasticity |
ability of brain to recover from brain damage. very high thru age 5 |
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is length of exposure a critical factor in second language acquisition |
no. a child exposure for 3 years will be more fluent than an adult exposed for 30 |
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critical period hypothesis |
if theres a critical period for language (until puberty) then learning after that will be hard because the innate LAD has SHUTDOWN and learning language is dependent on other cognitive functions (memorization, determination, etc) |
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exercise hypothesis |
1 interpretation of critical period hypothesis. aka weak form. late learning is possible for people who have learned a language earlier in life |
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maturational state hypothesis |
1 interpretation of critical period hypothesis. aka strong form. EXERCISE is IRRELEVANT, language learning declines with age |
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proto-language hypotheis (what is it and who made it) |
derek bickerton. said universal grammar is preceded by a more elementary innate grammar device called proto-language |
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properties of proto-language |
words for "concrete" concepts, word combination, no recursion, use of gesture, use of melody |
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creolization |
children turning a pidgin into a creole |
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the splitting model |
idea for where language comes from. hunter-gather life style. tribes split up and languages change. results in different languages stemming from a common source |
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language families (what are they and how are they made) |
all share a common ancestor language. made when the splitting model happens a bunch of times |
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merging model |
idea for where language comes from. new languages arise when different languages MIX. original languages remain along with new one |
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proto-x |
a reconstructed ancestor of languages (ie. proto-germanic) |
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code switching |
when a speak switches between different languages in 1 conversation |
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lingua franca |
standard language used for communicating between speakers of different native languages |
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pidgin |
simplified, primitive way of communication between groups of adults who do not have common language. no one's mother tongue |
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creole |
full fledged language created by children who learned a pidgin language as their native language |
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iconic |
symbol (or sign) is related to its meaning |
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arbitrary |
symbol (or sign) is NOT related to its meaning |
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duality of patterning |
taking meaningless parts (ie. phonemes) to form meaningful units (ie. words) |
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modality |
channel which is used to convey language |
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home sign |
develop if there is no sign language input |
