transcript
- Slide 1
- Language, Mind, and Brain by Ewa Dabrowska Chapter 9: Syntactic
constructions, pt. 1
- Slide 2
- Is syntax like morphology? Q: What kinds of points is Dabrowska
going to make that parallel morphology?
- Slide 3
- Is syntax like morphology? Q: What kinds of points is Dabrowska
going to make that parallel morphology? A: the same mental
mechanism can account for both regular and irregular constructions
speakers extract patterns at varying degrees of abstraction
associative memory plays a prominent role
- Slide 4
- 1. Ties between lexical and grammatical knowledge Q: How can we
account for these facts? Very strong statistical correlation
between vocabulary size and grammatical complexity mastered by
young children; age was not statistically a predictor Equally
strong correlation between lexicon and grammar in impairment
- Slide 5
- 1. Ties between lexical and grammatical knowledge Q: How can we
account for these facts? Very strong statistical correlation
between vocabulary size and grammatical complexity mastered by
young children; age was not statistically a predictor Equally
strong correlation between lexicon and grammar in impairment A:
People use chunks form-meaning pairings that combine lexical items
and grammatical constructions
- Slide 6
- 2. Multi-word units in acquisition Q: What is premature
usage?
- Slide 7
- 2. Multi-word units in acquisition Q: What is premature usage?
A: Children often use chunks containing grammatical morphemes long
before they use the morphemes in novel utterances.
- Slide 8
- Q: What is a developmental U-curve?
- Slide 9
- A: Early limited correct usage of a form followed by absence or
incorrect usage, later followed by reliable use in a range of
situations. E.g. Whats this? (chunk!) > What this is? > What
is this?
- Slide 10
- 2.3 Inappropriate and ungrammatical usage Q: Is it true that
childrens errors result from faulty abstract rules?
- Slide 11
- 2.3 Inappropriate and ungrammatical usage Q: Is it true that
childrens errors result from faulty abstract rules? A: Not
necessarily. They can also arise from inappropriate combination of
chunks.
- Slide 12
- 2.4 Pronoun reversals Q: What is a pronoun reversal? What
theories are there about them and what does the author
suggest?
- Slide 13
- 2.4 Pronoun reversals Q: What is a pronoun reversal? What
theories are there about them and what does the author suggest? A:
Children use you to refer to themselves. It is theorized that they
dont understand deixis. But maybe they are just echoing what they
heard said to them!
- Slide 14
- 2.5 Filler syllables Q: What are filler syllables, and what do
they indicate?
- Slide 15
- 2.5 Filler syllables Q: What are filler syllables, and what do
they indicate? Filler syllables are underspecified unstressed
syllables (schwa &/or nasal). They indicate that children are
working with a phrase- level structure, not word- level, gradually
filling in larger patterns.
- Slide 16
- 2.6 Lexically based patterns Q: Tomasello is famous for the
verb-island hypothesis. Can you guess what it is?
- Slide 17
- 2.6 Lexically based patterns Q: Tomasello is famous for the
verb-island hypothesis. Can you guess what it is? A: A theory that
children dont form rules for constructions of verbs, but rather use
lexically specific chunks, like: X fall down, ride X, X gave Y
Z
- Slide 18
- Michael Tomasellos webpage:
http://email.eva.mpg.de/~tomas/index.html
- Slide 19
- 2.6 Lexically based patterns Q: How much of childrens speech
shows evidence of lexical patterning and when do children gain
competence to produce syntactic patterns with novel verbs?
- Slide 20
- 2.6 Lexically based patterns Q: How much of childrens speech
shows evidence of lexical patterning and when do children gain
competence to produce syntactic patterns with novel verbs? A: In
children up to 3yrs 60% is lexical formulas and 30% is frozen
phrases. Children dont succeed in reliably forming new transitive
constructions until age 8.
- Slide 21
- 2.7 Mosaic acquisition Q: What is Chomskys claim about
acquisition?
- Slide 22
- 2.7 Mosaic acquisition Q: What is Chomskys claim about
acquisition? A: That once a rule is learned, it is applied in all
contexts. But is this true? This is not corroborated by
research.
- Slide 23
- 2.7 Mosaic acquisition Q: What is mosaic acquisition?
- Slide 24
- 2.7 Mosaic acquisition Q: What is mosaic acquisition? A:
Piecemeal, gradual, probabilistic (not rule-governed), often
lexically-specific acquisition of grammatical features and the
range of their application.