words and syntax

saussure

randomness of sign - form of word tells very little about its meaning

quine - problem of indetermincy of reference

meaning of a word is not uniquely determined by evidence - multiple interpretations fit same observation

vocabulary spurt

rapid increase in child’s rate of word learning between 14-24 months

fast mapping

learns correct referent of a word after only 1-2 labellings

shape bias

children prefer to categorise most nouns by shape - emerges over course of 2nd year

• maybe due to statistical associations

• learned rather than innate

mutual exclusivity

children 18 months assume items don’t have more than 1 label

• soft bias as many items do have multiple

reliable vs unreliable actor

3-4 year old watches 2 videos 1. reliable by correctly labelling objects 2. unreliable incorrectly labels items. Also both includes new item kid’s never seen (name it different things). after kid’s asked to name object

• children only learn from reliable

open class language

easy to add new members, carry much of content, produced earlier and easier for L2 learners

• adjective

• noun

• verb

closed class language

hard to add new members, carry much of grammer, produced later and ahrder for L2 leanrers

• preposition

• conjunction

english word order

• primary SVO (subject-verb-order)

• secondary/passive OVS(object-verb-subject)

how is language compositional

meaning of a phrase is not just a mixture of the meaning of its words - meaning due to structure

what is the head of the sentence

verbs - they govern sentence structure = learning grammar is largely learning verbs

entrenchment hypothesis

frequent exposure to a verb in certain sentence structures leads children to infer that verb is unlikely or ungrammatical in other structures

morphemes

smallest unit that convey meaning