1. PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Acquisition

2. Announcements Exam 2 moved to March 6 th (the Thursday before Spring Break). Some other due dates have shifted: Quiz 4, moved back a week (now Feb 28 th ) Hmwk 3, moved to (Feb 27 th ) Bonus videos (1 hr broken into 6 parts) : Why do we talk? The science of speech: part 1 (language acquisition recording 3 years of language in a household) Why do we talk? The science of speech: part 1 Part 2 (chimps & language, language & brain) Part 2 Part 3 (language & brain cont., infant speech perception) Part 3 Part 4 (language and autism, language innateness [Chomsky], wild children) Part 4 Part 5 (language in birds, language in our genes) Part 5 Part 6 (language and evolution, learning artificial languages) Part 6 http://www.routledge.com/cw/harley-9781848720893/s1/students/

3. Overview General patterns and observations Learning sounds Perception (e.g., categorical perception) Perception Production Learning words Meaning Proposed Strategies Fast mapping Whole object Mutual exclusivity Learning Syntax Learning Morphology Today’s focus

4. The language explosion is not just the result of simple semantic development; the child is not just adding more words to his/her vocabulary. Child is mastering basic syntactic and morphological processes. Language explosion continues

5. Syntax Mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes Language explosion continues

6. Syntax Mean length of utterance (MLU) in morphemes Take 100 utterances and count the number of morphemes per utterance Language explosion continues Daddy coming. Hi, car. Daddy car comed. Two car outside. It getting dark. Allgone outside. Bye-bye outside. # morphemes: 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, 2, 2 ‘-ing’ and ‘-ed’ separate morphemes ‘allgone’ treated as a single word MLU = morphemes/utterances = 20/7 = 2.86

7. Proto-syntax (??) Holophrases (around 1-1.5 years) Single-word utterances may be used to express more than the meaning usually attributed to that single word by adults Language explosion continues “dog” might refer to the dog is drinking water Typically idiosyncratic, but some conventional/common (e.g., indicate the existence of an object, request recurrence of object or event) Often combined with intonation or gesture Controversial claim: May reflect a developing sense of syntax, but not yet knowing how to use it (e.g., see Bloom, 1973)

8. Syntax Roger Brown (1973) proposed 5 stages Stage 1: Telegraphic speech (MLU ~ 1.75; around 24 months) Children begin to combine words into utterances Limited to a small set of semantic relations (e.g., nomination, recurrence, attribution, possession [see textbook table 4.5]) Debate: learning semantic relations or syntactic (position rules) “baby sleep” agent+action or Noun Verb Language explosion continues Children in telegraphic speech stage are said to leave out the ‘little words’ and inflections: e.g. Mummy shoe NOT Mummy’s shoe Two cat NOT two cats

9. More than two words Stages 2 through 5 Stage 2 (MLU ~2.25) begin to modulate meaning using word order (syntax) Modulations for number, time, aspect Gradual acquisition of grammatical morphemes (“-ing”, “-s” Later stages reflect generally more complex use of syntax (e.g., questions, negatives) Language explosion continues Syntax Roger Brown (1973) proposed 5 stages

10. General Theoretical Approaches Innateness accounts Universal grammar, Semantic bootstrapping Learned accounts Acquired from the linguistic input from the environment Acquiring Syntax Need to acquire (at least) two things: The syntactic categories of the words (nouns, verbs, etc.) How to order the words (or the syntactic categories)

11. Innateness account Chomsky proposed that we have an innate facility for language Universal grammar: the rules that describe the fundamental properties of all natural human languages Chomsky’s arguments The rules that underlie productive language use are highly abstract and largely “unobservable” We can understand and produce novel utterances (things that we’ve never heard or said before) Poverty of the stimulus: The gap between what language users know and what they have access to during learning is too broad Negative evidence: children rarely receive explicit feedback about incorrect grammatical utterances Acquiring Syntax

12. Innateness account Semantic bootstrapping – use meaning to help learn syntax e.g., Pinker (1984, 1989) Acquiring Syntax Child has innate knowledge of syntactic categories and linking rules: Nouns, and Verbs Thematic roles (Agents, Patients) Child learns the meanings of some content words “Doggie” “eat” “ball” Child constructs some semantic representations of simple sentences “Doggie eats the ball.” Child makes guesses about syntactic structure based on surface form and semantic meaning “Doggie” is N, subject “eats” is V, predicate “ball” is N, object

13. Some problems with this account (e.g., Bowerman, 1990; Gleitman, 1990) Do kids really enough utterances with identifiable agents and patients that can be mapped onto nouns and verbs (verbs are especially hard)? Many words appear as both nouns and verbs (e.g., “go for a walk” & “walk out the door”). Easier mappings aren’t always learned earliest (e.g., verbs like “fall” and “chase” have themes that map onto the sentence subject. This should be simpler than verbs like “have” and “got” in which the them maps onto the object) Acquiring Syntax Innateness account Semantic bootstrapping – use meaning to help learn syntax e.g., Pinker (1984, 1989)

14. Learned account “It is in the stimulus” accounts (e.g. Bates, 1979, Elman, 1993) (Statistical learning, Usage-based approaches) Speech to children is not impoverished (Snow, 1977) In all languages there are multiple potential cues indicating semantic/syntactic relations (e.g., word order, case marking) Similar words occur in similar linguistic contexts Acoustic information (e.g., prosody) may provide syntactic cues (phonological bootstrapping) Children do not need innate knowledge to learn grammar (evidence largely from successful computer models) Acquiring Syntax

15. Morphology Typically things like inflections and prepositions start around MLU of 2.5 (usually in 2 yr olds) Remember the Wug experiment (Berko-Gleason, 1958) Acquiring Morphology

16. Morphology Acquiring Morphology This person knows how to rick. She did the same thing yesterday. Yesterday she ________. Typically children say that she “ricked.”

17. Acquiring Morphology Age (yrs)MorphemeExample(s) 2Present progressiveI driving 2ArticlesA dog, the doctor 2PluralBalls 2Uncontractible CopulaHe is asleep, am, are 3Third person singularHe wants an apple 3Full progressiveBe + ing, I am singing 3Regular past tenseShe walked Morphology: order of acquisition

18. Acquiring Morphology Children sometimes make mistakes. My teacher holded the baby rabbits. Yes She holded the baby rabbits. Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbit? What did you say she did? No, she holded them loosely. Did you say held them tightly?

19. Acquiring Morphology This is ungrammatical in the adult language Shows that children are not simply imitating In this case, what they produce something that is not in their input. Children sometimes make mistakes. My teacher holded the baby rabbits.

20. Why do they make errors like these? In the case at hand, we have what is called overregularization The verb hold has an irregular past tense form, held Because this form is used, the regular past tense-- that with - ed-- is not found (*hold-ed) Acquiring Morphology Children sometimes make mistakes. My teacher holded the baby rabbits.

21. Acquiring Morphology Examples: Horton heared a Who I finded Renée The alligator goed kerplunk The case of verb past tense: Regular verb forms require no stored knowledge of the past tense form (wug test) Past tense is accomplished by applying a past tense rule (e.g., add -ed) to the verb stem With irregular verbs something must be memorized

22. Stages in the acquisition of irregular inflections Acquiring Morphology With regular verbs, the default form -ed is used With irregulars, lists associating the verb with a particular form of the past tense have to be memorized: Past tense is -t when attached to leave, keep, etc. Is -> was Dig -> dug Has -> had The case of verb past tense:

23. Acquiring Morphology Stages in the acquisition of irregular inflections time On the face of it, learning these morphological quirks follows a peculiar pattern: Early: correct irregular forms are used Middle: incorrect regular forms are used Late: correct forms are used again

24. Memory & Rules Why do we find this type of pattern? Memory and rules The use of overregularized forms starts at around the same that that the child is beginning to apply the default -ed rule successfully Early: All forms-- whether regular or irregular-- are memorized Middle: The regular rule is learned, and in some cases overapplied Late: Irregulars are used based on memory, regulars use the rule (the idea is that if the word can provide its own past tense from memory, then the past tense rule is blocked)

25. Memory & Rules Why do we find this type of pattern? Memory and rules Other accounts Maratsos (2000) – frequency explanation It is possible to predict which verbs will be subject to overregularization The more often an irregular form occurs in the input, the less likely the child is to use it as an overregularization This is evidence that some part of overregularization occurs because of memory failures Something about irregulars is unpredictable, hence has to be memorized

26. What kind of “teaching” do kids get? If language is learned (and not innate), how do kids do it? What kind of feedback do they get? Claim: Positive evidence is not sufficient for learning a language.Positive evidence is not sufficient for learning a language

27. What kind of “teaching” do kids get? Are the kids even aware of mistakes? The children are apparently aware of the fact that their forms are strange: Parent: Where’s Mommy? Child: Mommy goed to the store Parent: Mommy goed to the store? Child: NO! Daddy, I say it that way, not you

28. Positive and negative evidence Positive evidence: Kids hear grammatical sentences Negative evidence: information that a given sentence is ungrammatical Kids are not told which sentences are ungrammatical (no negative evidence) Let’s consider no negative evidence further… What kind of feedback is available for learning?

29. What kind of “teaching” do kids get? How much Positive Evidence is there? Estimated 5000 – 7000 utterances a day Between ¼ and 1/3 are questions Over 20% are not “full” adult sentences (typically Noun or prepositional phrases) Only about 15% have typical English SVO form Roughly 45% of all maternal utterances began with one of 17 words (e.g., “what”, “that”, “it”, “you”) Cameron-Faulkner, et al (2003) So what kids do hear may be somewhat limited.

30. Negative evidence Negative evidence could come in various conceivable forms. “The sentence Bill a cookie ate is not a sentence in English, Timmy. No sentence with SOV word order is.” Upon hearing Bill a cookie ate, an adult might Not understand Look pained Rephrase the ungrammatical sentence grammatically

31. Kids resist instruction… McNeill (1966) Child: Nobody don’t like me. Adult: No, say ‘nobody likes me.’ Child: Nobody don’t like me. [repeats eight times] Adult: No, now listen carefully; say ‘nobody likes me.’ Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.

32. Kids resist instruction… Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean Berko Gleason) Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? Child: Yes. Adult: What did you say she did? Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Adult: Did you say she held them tightly? Child: No, she holded them loosely. So there doesn’t seem to be a lot of explicit negative evidence, and what there is the kids often resist

33. Negative evidence via feedback? Do kids get “implicit” negative evidence? Do adults understand grammatical sentences and not understand ungrammatical ones? Do adults respond positively to grammatical sentences and negatively to ungrammatical ones?

34. Brown & Hanlon (1970): Case study of “Adam” - looked at things that were said to him by adults, and what he said to them Adults understood 42% of the grammatical sentences. Adults understood 47% of the ungrammatical ones. Adults expressed approval after 45% of the grammatical sentences. Adults expressed approval after 45% of the ungrammatical sentences. Suggests that there isn’t a lot of good negative evidence. Negative evidence via feedback?

35. In a way, it’s moot anyway… One of the striking things about child language is how few errors they actually make. For negative feedback to work, the kids have to make the errors (so that it can get the negative response). But they don’t make enough relevant kinds of errors to determine the complex grammar. Pinker, Marcus and others, conclude that much of this stuff must be innate. But this isn’t the only view. There is an ongoing debate about whether there are rules, or whether these patterns of behavior can be learned based on the language evidence that is available to the kids

36. Critical (sensitive) periods

37. Certain behavior is developed more quickly within a critical period than outside of it. This period is biologically determined. Examples: Imprinting in ducks (Lorenz, ; Hess, 1973) Ducklings will follow the first moving thing they see Only happens if they see something moving within the first few hours (after 32 hours it won’t happen) of hatching Binocular cells in humans Cells in visual system that respond only to input from both eyes. If these cells don’t get input from both eyes within first year of life, they don’t develop

38. Critical (sensitive) periods Some environmental input is necessary for normal development, but biology determines when the organism is responsive to that input. That “when” is the critical period Certain behavior is developed more quickly within a critical period than outside of it. This period is biologically determined.

39. Critical period for language It assumes that language acquisition must occur before the end of the critical period Estimates range from 5 years up to onset of puberty Lenneberg (1967) proposed that there is a critical period for human language

40. Evidence for critical period for language Feral Children Children raised in the wild or with reduced exposure to human language What is the effect of this lack of exposure on language acquisition? Two classic cases Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron Genie

41. VictorVictor, The Wild Boy of Aveyron Found in 1800 near the outskirts of Aveyron, France Estimated to be about 7-years-old Considered by some to be the first documented case of autism Neither spoke or responded to speech Taken to and studied by Dr. Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, and educator of deaf-mute and retarded children Never learned to speak and his receptive language ability was limited to a few simple commands. Described by Itard as “an almost normal boy who could not speak”

42. Genie Found in Arcadia, California in 1970, was not exposed to human language until age 13.5. Raised in isolation a situation of extreme abuse Genie could barely walk and could not talk when found Dr. Susan Curtiss made great efforts to teach her language, and she did learn how to talk, but her grammar never fully developed. Only capable of producing telegraphic utterances (e.g. Mike paint or Applesauce buy store) Used few closed-class morphemes and function words Speech sounded like that of a 2-year-old

43. Genie By age of 17 (after 4 years of extensive training) Vocabulary of a 5 year old Poor syntax (telegraphic speech mostly) Examples Mama wash hair in sink At school scratch face I want Curtiss play piano Like go ride yellow school bus Father take piece wood. Hit. Cry.

44. What Do These Cases Tell Us? Suggestive of the position that there is a critical period for first language learning (in particular for syntax and phonological development) If child is not exposed to language during early childhood (prior to the age of 6 or 7), then the ability to learn syntax will be impaired while other abilities are less strongly affected Not uncontroversial: Victor and Genie and children like them were deprived in many ways other than not being exposed to language Genie stopped talking after age 30 and was institutionalized shortly afterward (Rymer, 1993)

45. What Do These Cases Tell Us? Suggestive of the position that there is a critical period for first language learning (in particular for syntax and phonological development) Why? Nativist explanation (see pg 79 of text) Maturational explanation: “less is more”

46. Second language learning Learning a new language What if we already know one language, but want to learn another? Adults learning another language typically have a persistent foreign accent – perhaps a critical period for phonology (Flege & Hillenbrand, 1984) Adults typically do better initially at learning a new language compared to kids, but kids typically do better over the long term (Krashen, Long, & Scarcella, 1982)

47. Second language learning Johnson and Newport (1989) Native Chinese/Korean speakers moving to US Task: Listen to sentences and judge whether grammatically correct Test score Age of arrival 217 R = -.87 Test score Age of arrival 1740 R = -.16

48. Second language learning Johnson and Newport (1989) Native Chinese/Korean speakers moving to US Task: Listen to sentences and judge whether grammatically correct Concluded that around the age of 16 something happens Different factors operate on language acquisition before and after the age of 16 Birdsong and Molis (2001) Replicated the Johnson and Newport study in Spanish/English speakers. Did not find a discontinuity around the age of 16

49. Effects of the Critical Period Learning a language: Under 7 years: perfect command of the language possible Ages 8- c.15: Perfect command less possible progressively Age 15-: Imperfect command possible But these claims are far from universally accepted

50. Bilinguals & Polyglots Many people speak more than one language Tucker (1999) - multilinguals outnumber monolinguals Tucker (1999) What is the impact of knowing/using more than one language? Factors affecting second language acquisition? What does the lexicon look like? Interesting effects in bilinguals Interference Code switching Cognitive advantages

51. Second language acquisition Contexts of childhood bilingualism Simultaneous Both languages are acquired at the same time Vocabulary growth of bilinguals is similar to that of monolinguals Some aspects of acquisition may be slowed, but by age of 4 typically caught up Doesn’t seem to matter whether languages are “related” or not (e.g., English - French versus English Japanese) Can achieve “fluency” in both languages Sequential acquisition The second language is learned after a first language When the second language (L2) is acquired is important Early versus late learning (e.g., see the Johnson and Newport study)

52. Second language acquisition Frequency of usage of both languages How often and in what contexts do you use the two languages “Use it or lose it” - language attrition Mode of acquisition Native bilingualism - growing up in a two language environment Immersion - schooling provided in a non-native language Submersion - one learner surrounded by non-native speakers Language dominance effects Relative fluency of L1 and L2 may impact processing

53. How do we represent linguistic information in a bilingual lexicon? Probably depends on many of the factors just discussed Let’s look at some models and research focusing on the situation where L1 is dominant relative to L2 Bilingual Representations

54. Models of the bilingual lexicons L1=First Language L2=Second Language Potter et al (1984): Separate Stores Models – separate lexicons for each language L1L2 CONCEPTS Word Association Model L1L2 CONCEPTS Concept Mediation Model

55. Models of the bilingual lexicons L1=First Language L2=Second Language Paivio, Clark, & Lambert (1988): Common Stores Models – words from both languages in same store L1 & L2 CONCEPTS

56. Revised Hierarchical Model L1 L2 concepts lexical links conceptual links conceptual links Kroll & Stewart (1994) Proposed that the fluency of L2 needs to be considered in the processing model The results are mixed, supporting more complex models May be different in different bilinguals depending on things like age of acquisition, relative proficiency, etc.

57. Interesting effects in bilinguals Interference Code switching Cognitive advantages

58. Interference Does knowing two languages lead to interference? When found, interference is at multiple levels Phonological - least amount of interference Lexical - mixing words from different languages Initially, appear to use a one word per thing strategy But as they realize there that they’re speaking two language, then they’ll use words from both languages simultaneously Syntactic Until year two, may use only one syntactic system which is common to both languages Then a brief period with two sets of lexical items, but still a common syntax Finally, two lexicons and two sets of syntax Interesting effects in bilinguals

59. Determine who or what is the one performing the action. The waitress pushes the cowboys. The telephones pushes the cowboys. Kisses the table the apple. The baskets the teacher kicks. As a native speaker of English we can use many cues: Word order Animacy Verb agreement Not all languages use the same cues to the same extent e.g., German doesn’t rely as much on word order, but relies more on agreement processes

60. Interesting effects in bilinguals Determine who or what is the one performing the action. The waitress pushes the cowboys. The telephones pushes the cowboys. Kisses the table the apple. The baskets the teacher kicks. Kilborn (1989, 1994) Found that bilinguals (English as second language) typically carry over the dominant processing strategies from their native languages. This interacts with their level of fluency in the second language

61. Code switching When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language “I want a motorcycle VERDE” Switching is systematic, not random

62. When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language “I want a motorcycle VERDE” Code switching The Spanish adjective “verde” follows a grammatical rule that is observed by most bilingual speakers that code-switch “I want a VERDE motorcycle” Would be incorrect because language switching can occur only if the adjective is placed according to the rules of the language of the adjective In this case, the adjective is in Spanish; therefore, the adjective must follow the Spanish grammatical rule that states that the noun must precede the adjective

63. When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language “I want a motorcycle VERDE” Code switching Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and comprehend sentences containing code-switched words May be due to a “mental switch mechanism” that determines which of the bilingual’s two mental dictionaries are “on” or “off” during language comprehension. This mental switch is responsible for selecting the appropriate mental dictionary to be employed during the comprehension of a sentence. E.g., if reading an English, a Spanish code-switched word is encountered, the mental switch must disable the English linguistic system, and enable the Spanish linguistic system.

64. When bilinguals substitute a word or phrase from one language with a phrase or word from another language “I want a motorcycle VERDE” Code switching Generally, bilinguals take longer to read and comprehend sentences containing code-switched words This time difference depends on similarity of the languages Chinese-English bilinguals take longer to recognize English code- switched words in Chinese sentences only if the English words contain initial consonant-consonant (e.g., flight) clusters, simply because the Chinese language lacks this phonotactic structure. Another current view suggests that language dominance (i.e., which language is used more frequently) plays an important role in code-switching

65. Some evidence suggest that being bilingual can have an impact on cognition outside of language Bialystok and colleagues Bilinguals are very proficient at switching between languages Bilinguals also have to be good at suppressing the contextually inappropriate language Cognitive advantages