linguistic 1010 exam 3 discussion

Intuitively, there is some kind of connection between

cognition (including language) and the brain.

What’s interesting is that there appears to be a connection between particular cognitive functions and particular parts of the brain.

 Put differently, different cognitive processes seem to map to different brain areas.

• This is termed functional localization.

One line of evidence for functional localization is

 that damage to specific brain regions leads to corresponding deficits in cognitive function.

• Although controlled experimentation is not feasible, such evidence can be obtained from historical case studies

Phineas Gage

was involved in an accident where rod pierced his left frontal lobe.

• His personality dramatically changed (bad impulse control, rude, etc), while other areas of cognition unaffected (e.g. could drive, etc).

• This constitutes a case where a change in a specific part of brain correlates with a change in specific area of cognition.

Henry Molaison

Molaison’s hippocampus was removed to treat seizures.

• After, he displayed anterograde amnesia:

• Could not form new long-term memories.

• However, his short-term memory and ability to learn new skills was unaffected.

• This suggests that hippocampus plays an important role in specifically long-term memory formation.

takeaway about brain damage

Evidence from brain trauma indicates a systematic relationship between specific brain regions and components of cognition.

• Damage to a particular area of the brain leads to corresponding cognitive deficits (e.g., in personality or memory).

• This pattern suggests that distinct cognitive functions are associated with specific parts of the brain, hence supporting the view of functional localization.

plasticity

The brain has some ability to recover from injury within limits.

• It appears that one  region suffers trauma, other areas can take over the functions of that region to some extent.

• This resilient feature of the brain is referred to as

tuckute plasticity example

• Researchers examined an individual, EG, who was missing her left temporal lobe from birth. She had no problems with language and had even learned a foreign language.

• Researchers found that

• • the language activity normally found in the left temporal lobe moved to the right temporal lobe

• the language activity in the left frontal lobe (intact in EG) had moved to the right frontal lobe as well.

frontal lobe

decision making, planning

occipital lobe

vision

temporal lobe

auditory perception, memory, and emotion

parietal lobe

bodily sensation, sensory integration, and spatial orientation

 By looking at the cytoarchitecture (structure of the cells) in the brain, Brodmann identified 52 different areas of the brain.

• Some examples:

• Auditory processing: Brodmann Area 41,42

• Visual Processing: Broadman Area 17.

• Facial Recognition: Fusiform face area.

We mostly focused on evidence from lesion studies. There is also significant modern evidence for

localization

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

is an imaging technique that allows us to measure the location and density of a given element in the body.

structural MRI

measures the location and density of hydrogen to create an image of the anatomical structures inside the body. (static image)

functional MRI

is a special technique that allows us to look for (de)oxygenated hemoglobin and reveal which brain areas are active during a cognitive process. (dynamic image)

Assuming that language is a part of human cognition, we expect that language cognition can also be

located somewhere in the brain…

• This seems to be the case!

• What’s interesting, is that different parts of the mental grammar are localized in different areas of the brain.

• We can tell by looking at the symptoms of damage to each area.

phonology

Werniicke’s area

Syntax and morphology

Broca’s area

morphology and lexicon

temporal lobe

Broca’s aphasia

is a disorder due to damage to the Broca’s area in the frontal lobe.

• Key aspects:

• Non-fluent, broken speech. Often missing function words, correct inflection,

etc.

• Difficulty comprehending syntactically complex sentences, in particular sentences that are not the standard SVO order

• Baseline: The reporter interviewed the senator

• Object relative clauses: The senator who the reporter interviewed arrived late for a vote

What’s really interesting is that Broca’s aphasia really seems to affect something about

 syntactic comprehension.

• It isn’t only sentence length that causes trouble.

• Rather, it is something about the syntactic complexity of certain types of sentences.

• This makes sense if Broca’s aphasia damages the part of the brain associated with syntactic comprehension.

there is some experimental evidence that supports this idea that Broca’s aphasia affects syntactic comprehension.

 If this is the case, then we should see patients with Broca’s aphasia having trouble comprehending relatively simple sentences with non-canonical word order.

• Hypothesis: Patients with Broca’s aphasia should perform worse than non-affected people computing simple sentences with non-canonical word orders. .

In a series of experiments, Friedmann & Shapiro (2003) tested this hypothesis. ( Patients with Broca’s aphasia should perform worse than non-affected people computing simple sentences with non-canonical word orders)

They tested the patients’ comprehension of basic sentences with non-standard word order.

• F & S recruited native Hebrew speakers for their experiment since Hebrew allows for multiple word orders for simple sentences.

Broca's aphasia: Friedmann and Shapiro (2003)

• In Hebrew, the default or canonical word order is S-V-O:

Ha-rofe     mecayer        et ha-xayal ha-ze

the-doctor draws       ACC the-soldier the-this

Subject.        V                         Object

Meaning: ‘The doctor draws this soldier.’

• But it is possible to move the object to the beginning of the sentence (O-S-V) with meaning unchanged:

et ha-xayal ha-z. e.              Ha-rofe                  mecayer

ACC-the-solider-the-this-the-doctor Draws

object subject V                                             

Takeaway: Hebrew makes a good test language because we can create simple sentences with non-canonical word orders.

The subjects were presented with one of the sentence orders had to match it to a picture of what they thought it meant. prediction was

Patients with aphasia should do worse matching sentences to pictures with the OSV or OVS word order.

For the canonical, SVO order, the patients performed about the same as the control group.

• But for the non-canonical OSV or OVS order, it was about at chance. take away was

These results suggest Broca’s aphasia patients have trouble computing syntactically complex constructions (even if the string is short).

It seems like Broca’s aphasia doesn’t just affect someone’s ability to comprehend sentences that are long.

• Rather it affects

 a person’s ability to compute certain syntactic structure.

• That’s why we see the patients having such trouble with the very simple sentences in the experiment.

Wernicke’s aphasia is a disorder associated with damage to the Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe.

key aspects

 Often produce sentences that are grammatical but meaningless. In short,

produce grammatical sentences that are essentially word salad.

• Comprehension is totally impaired---i.e. cannot understand what is said.

A leading theory is that what underlies Wernicke’s aphasia is an issue with phonological processing.

 On this theory, what is going on is that patients cannot map the

phonological form of words to their meaning.

• There’s some research indicating that patients cannot discriminate minimal

pairs [pat] vs. [bat].

• Thus patients cannot: (i) comprehend sentences; (ii) properly produce sentences.

Recall: Comprehending a word like ‘dog’ requires you to know that:

[dɑɡ]

CONCEPT: DOG

CATEGORY: NOUN

anomic aphasia

• is a disorder associated with lesions in the temporal lobe.

• Key Aspects:

• Struggle to find words for certain objects.

• Unlike Wernike’s aphasia, comprehension seems okay.

What’s interesting is that anomic aphasia patients often struggle with

naming objects of a particular class.

• E.g. more trouble finding words for animals than tools, or more trouble with tools than animals.

• The implication is that we may store different classes of lexical items in different parts of the brain.

We saw that different cognitive functions are located in different parts of the brain---i.e. functional localization.

• Importantly, different aspects of language cognition are localized in

different parts of the brain.

• Evidence for this comes from different types of aphasia, that seem to impact different parts of the language faculty.

• Broca’s aphasia → syntax

• Wenicke’s aphasia → phonology

• Anomia aphasia → word retrieval

what is the critical period?

is a stage in the development of an organism when it must receive the right kind of input to acquire a specific function.

• For language, there is a specific period which humans must acquire their first language.

• If they don’t during this period, they will not acquire full competence in any language.

critical period effects and how they are connected to brain plasticity

• Children’s (and young animals’) brains are thought to have high plasticity.

• That is, if a part of the brain is not used for its typical function, it is recruited

for another function.

• During the critical period, due to this heightened plasticity, the brain is especially sensitive to environmental inputs which affect its functional organization.

critical period effects are connected to

brain plasticity

binocular vision in kittens deals with

critical period effects

critical period effects: binocular vision in kitten experimental design

• Visual input controlled by covering one eye

• Deprivation age manipulated

critical period effects: binocular vision in kitten key findings

 Deprivation from 4 weeks to 4 months → Permanent loss of binocular vision

• Deprivation after 4 months → No lasting effect on vision

critical period effects: binocular vision in kitten conclusion

• Visual development in cats is constrained by a critical period

• Appropriate sensory input must occur within this window for normal development

critical period in humans: language

I’s tricky to study critical period effects in humans because we can’t do controlled experiments.

• But there are ways we can study it without doing controlled experiments by examining cases of

• Language deprivation

• Deaf children with hearing parents

• Second-language learners.

forbidden experiment

studies critical period effects/ language deprivation

 Deprive children from language input for different periods of time and test whether language can still be acquired afterwards

• Warning: do not do this at home, or anywhere else.

• Examples of the forbidden language deprivation experiments:

Psammetichos (7th c. BC); Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1194-1250); Charles IV

of France (1294-1328); James IV of Scotland (1473-1513); Akbar Khan (1542-

15)

Genie

A feral child who was isolated and without language input until age 13.

• Despite efforts from doctors, psychologists, etc, she never was able to

attain adult-like language competence.

• At 17, she had the vocabulary of a 5-year old, and could combine words to

some degree but lacked grammatical competence.

• Her competence never improved.

Mama wash hair in sink [no tense morphology]

• Man motorcycle have [non-English word order]

Isabelle

A child who was kept in isolation (i.e. no language input) until age 6, when she escaped.

• At age 6 she had no language skills, but by age 9 she had a large vocabulary, grammatical competence, etc.

Gene vs Isabelle regarding language deprivation

 Genie:

• No language input until age 13; never attained adult-like competence.

• Isabelle:

• No language input until age 6; attained adult-like competence.

• Suggests that language has a critical period.

• By the time Genie got language input the critical period had closed.

• But when Isabelle got language input it was still open.

Critical period effects can also be observed with

deaf children of hearing parents.

• Late learners: difficulty with complex morphology and grammatically

complex signing.

Critical period effects: Second Language Acquisition

Johnson and Newport (1989) observe that children steadily decrease in the ability to learn English (during a particular period) as they age.

critical period summed up

 There is good evidence that language acquisition has a critical period.

• That is, a window where language input is required for typical language acquisition to occur.

• After a certain age that window closes, and typical language acquisition is impossible.

• Evidence includes a range of case studies and experiments that

compare language acquisition at certain ages.

• After a certain age, we see a rapid drop-off in ability to acquire language.

lingua franca

 use an existing language that is established as the language for

communication.

examples

 Medieval Europe: Latin

• Former colonies: French, English

• Or… create an entirely new communication system.

Sometimes groups of people who speak different languages need to find a way to communicate.

 Solutions:

• Lingua franca: use an existing language that is established as the language for

communication.

pidgins

emerge in contexts where a group of adults need an ad hoc communication system, which typically develops organically.

lack for properties of a full language

pidgins

 emerge in contexts where a group of adults need an ad hoc communication system, which typically develops organically.

• Lack of properties of a full language:

• No stable lexicon

• No consistent word order

• No clausal embedding

• No stable morphology (e.g. affixes or function words).

• No native speakers.

typically arise in cases like trading outposts, sailing, etc

what cases do pidgins arise

in cases like trading outposts, sailing, etc

pidgins are typically

 very unstable and have short lives.

creoles

 However, there are some circumstances where contact between different communities of speakers can lead to the development of full-blown, persisting languages.

 E.g. Haitian Creole, Jamaican Creole English, etc

• According to one theory, creoles develop from pidgins.

summary of pidgin and creole

• • Pidgins

no one’s mother tongue

• incomplete grammar

• used and created by adults

• Creole:

• having native speakers

• full-fledged grammar

• created by children

• derived from a pidgin language

creoles: etymology

• The English term creole comes from French créole, which is cognate with the Spanish term criollo and Portuguese crioulo, all descending from the verb criar ('to breed' or 'to raise'), all coming from Latin creare ('to produce, create’).

• The specific sense of the term was coined in the 16th and 17th century, during the great expansion in European maritime power and trade that led to the establishment of European colonies in other continents.

creole

A language that begins as a pidgin and eventually becomes the native language of a speech community.

• A stable natural language.

• A pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language.

creole basic concepts and its origin

• Suppose children grow up with their parents speaking pidgin with each other and to the children. What children do to a pidgin?

• They receive the pidgin as the language input.

Recall: language acquisition is guided by universal grammar + LAD

• The child’s LAD ‘fills in the blanks’ of the pidgin, i.e., they give it a complete grammar.

• A creole language is a mother tongue (of the children who created it and

following generations).

creole: basic concepts and its origin

 Pidgin >> First Language Acquisition >> Creole

• Creolization involves the linguistic expansion in the lexicon and grammar of existing pidgins, and an increase in the contexts of use.

Recall: Poverty of the Stimulus

• Children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language.

• Acquisition is possible even if the target language is a pidgin (which is not a complete language per se)

Crucially, unlike pidgins, creoles

display all the properties of full natural language:

 • Large vocabulary;

• Consistent grammatical rules, including word order.

• Allow for embedding sentences

• Much less variation between speakers.

We saw some examples of creoles in the lecture: Bislama, Hawaiian Creole English.

• A key feature of all of these languages is that they show the same complexity and rule-following as any other language:

Phonological rules;

• Morphological and syntactic rules.

• Another case study: Tok Pisin’s pronoun system.

Tok Pisin

 an English lexified Creole from Papua New Guinea; often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin

• It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in the country.

• Despite the name, Tok Pisin is in fact a creole language (not a pidgin language).

creole complexity: pronoun system

 -  Pronoun system in English

Person Subject Object

1st sg.      I.        me

2nd sg    you    you

3rd sg.   Masc.   he him

3rd sg     fem      she her

3rd sg  neute.     r it it

1st pl     we.          us

2nd pl    you.        you

3rd pl    they.     them

Example: 1st plural pronouns in Tok Pisin

house POSS we

‘house belonging to us (not including you)’

b. haus bilong yumi

house POSS we

‘house belonging to us (including you)’

pronoun system in tok Pisin

Pronoun system in Tok Pisin

Person     Singular.             Dual (2)          Trial (3)                     Plural (3+)

1st (exclusive) mi           mitupela             mitripela                        mipela

1st (inclusive) —       yumitupel.              yumitripela                      yumi

2nd yu                      yutupela.              yutripela                              yupela

3rd em                     tupela                        tripela                                ol

Note: Tok Pisin does not have a subject vs. object pronoun distinction in the way English does.

sign languages are

 full natural languages. They have a different modality (how a language is produced and perceived) from spoken languages.

• Visual-manual vs. auditory-vocal

Sign languages are full-blown human languages with

all the relevant grammatical properties and the same use as communicative systems.

– Sign languages and spoken languages make use of completely different production and perception ‘channels.’

– Despite that, both types of languages are completely

parallel in

– (a) grammatical structure

– (b) acquisition stages

– (c) brain regions that are used

Sign languages are not signed versions of the spoken language(s) used in that community.

– ASL and BSL are not mutually intelligible.

– Mutual intelligibility: whether monolingual speakers/singers of two varieties can understand each other – a criterion many linguists use to divide between dialects and languages.

– Signed Exact English (SEE) and ASL are different:

 Most signs in sign languages are NOT iconic, i.e., you can’t tell the meaning of the signs just by looking at them. Therefore,

 sign languages are not all the same.

minimal pairs

– differ in only one sound:

casa – gasa [voiceless] – [voiced]

sell – tell [fricative] – [plosive]

moon – noon [bilabial] – [alveolar]

parameters of signs

The parameters of signs:

– handshape

– palm orientation

– location

– movement/motion

– non-manual markers

– Changing one of these features also results in minimal pairs.

– In this sense, features of signs are more like phonemes in spoken languages.

minimal pairs example

Features in sign languages are like phonemes in that are they are meaningless on their own. But changing them in signs/words do change the meaning.

– Location: APPLE vs. ONION

– Handshape: COLOR vs. WRONG; LIKE vs. WHITE (begin with the same handshape but end with different ones)

– Palm orientation: CHILD vs. THING

– Motion: PHYSICS vs. TOUGH (difficult)

– Non-manual markers: LATE vs. NOT YET

processes in ASL

 In a spoken language, how you produce a sound in an actual word might be different from the underlying phoneme:

– Reduction: /juː ænd miː/ ‘you and me’ → /juː ən miː/ ’you ‘n me’ in fast speech.

– Assimilation: sounds that are adjacent become similar. /ðɪs ʃuː/ ‘this shoe’ → /ðɪʃ ʃuː/ ‘thish-shoe’

– In ASL, similar phonological processes also exist:

– Weak hand freeze (SENTENCE)

– Weak hand drop (CHOOSE)

– Assimilation: WIFE = GIRL+MARRY, handshape of GIRL assimilates to MARRY in WIFE

– MOTHER-FATHER DEAF

 Just like speakers, signers also have different accents

depending on various social factors.

– Question: what do you think different accents for sign languages can look like given what we know about the phonetics & phonology?

– Variations on the sign DEAF

– Dictionary vs. casual forms of KNOW (also a kind of reduction)

Morphology in sign languages can be simultaneous (through changing one or a few of the features).

– COLOR vs. COLORFUL

– Repetition used for nominalization: FLY (v.) vs. AIRPLANE

– Examples of productive affixation/compounding in ASL

– TEACHER = TEACH + PERSON (agent suffix)

– LAWYER = LAW + PERSON

– DRIVER = DRIVE + PERSON

birth of a new language

Deaf kids born to hearing parents in Nicaragua did not have a community or a school before 1970s.

– They typically use home signs to communicate at home.

– Home signs are not full sign languages with natural language properties. Rather, they are a system of gestures.

– Gestures ≠ sign language

– When a deaf school was first created, attempts to teach deaf kids to lip read spoken Spanish and signed version of Spanish both failed.

– But through their organic interactions, the younger children (Cohort 2) took all the home signs used by older children (~Pidgin) and converted them into a full sign language (~Creole).

birth of a new language continued

 The children who arrived earlier (Cohort 1) & older children were never able fully grasp the full sign language created by Cohort 2. Why it that?

– Some differences between Nicaraguan Sign Language and the system used by Cohort 1 & 2:

– Cohort 1’s gestures are iconic & combine Path and Manner – space used mostly to refer to location.

– Cohort 2’s signs are primarily non-iconic & separate Path from Manner – space being used systematically to refer to arguments & for verb agreement.

difference among the cohorts

Cohort 2 & Cohort 3’s sign languages had significantly more inflection/verb agreement.

– In some spoken languages, information about ‘who does what to whom’ can be encoded on the verb.

– Swahili subject & object agreement on verbs:

Ni-li-mw-ona m-toto wako

1SG.Subj-pst-1OM-see 1-child 1your

‘I saw your child.’

– Many sign languages (including ASL) use space & direction to encode this type of information

cohort 1

gestures are iconic & combine Path and Manner – space used mostly to refer to location.

cohort 2

signs are primarily non-iconic & separate Path from Manner – space being used systematically to refer to arguments & for verb agreement.

cohort 2 and 3

sign languages had significantly more inflection/verb agreement.

conclusion of animal communication

 Animal communication systems differ from human languages profoundly.

• Animal communication systems, even though quite impressive, are strictly based on information exchange, have limited signs that cannot be used with different meanings, and are only relevant to the immediate context.

• All involve info exchange of some kind.

 Baby cry: “I am hungry”, “I am in pain”, “I am in danger”...

• Facial expressions: (happy/sad/worried/mad)

• Non-linguistic sounds: Laugh, gasp, scream, sigh …

• Gestures: thumb, claps, high five.

communication

 Does communication between humans require language (conveyed through words/phrases/sentences), necessarily?

• Can you think of examples of communicative signs that do not involve language?

is language always informative

• What does -s communicate in (1) below?

(1) John thinks too much.

• What about there in (2)? Compare it with (3).

(2) There is a cat on the mat.

(3) A cat is on the mat.

• Also:

(4) It is raining.

(5) The girls do not cook

is language always communication friendly

• Lexical ambiguity:

bank, bat, bar, metal, fan…

He is a funny man! (weird/amusing)

• Structural ambiguity:

(1) John saw Mary without glasses.

(2) Sad music festival

• Also:

A picture of John

(John took the picture, John is in the picture, John has the picture)

communication and language

 Therefore, even though language is surely used for communication, communication cannot be its defining property, as language does not always communicate either efficiently or at all. In addition, human communication does not necessarily rely on language.

• Language, whatever it is, cannot be reduced to a communication system.

• Now, we cannot say the same about the ‘language’ of animals, which solely serves the purpose of communication.

signs of the honey bees

Sign of honeybees

• Sign: round dance -- Information: food is nearby

• Sign: waggle dance --Information: food is far away + directions

• One sign -- One meaning

bird calls

 Pattern of sounds A*B*C*D*

A*: likelihood of attack

D*: likelihood of retreat.

I am here! I have food

! I am here! There are predators!

bird songs

• longer, involve more notes, and exhibit more complex patterns

• Related to territory-marking, mate-attracting

• They are mostly innate; yet for the songs of some birds, exposure is required during the critical period I am here!

I’m looking for a partner!

Vervet monkeys

• Evidence suggests that vervet monkey calls are innate.

• Use of the calls is subject to fine-tuning from the environment:

• An infant vervet monkey may give the eagle call for a butterfly, eventually learns which flying organisms are a big enough threat to warrant a call.

• Vervet monkeys are capable of providing false information to elicit behavior beneficial to the individual/their group in a conspecific.

• But again, there is no sign of recursion (because there is no compositionality anyway).

there is different calls for

eagle

leopard

snake

vervet monkey slides

(1) You’re a vervet monkey, and you hear a conspecific utter the following call. What do you do?

1) You’re a vervet monkey, and you hear a conspecifics utter the following call. What do you do?

• You should look up! Because means there’s an eagle around.

2) You’re a vervet monkey, and you hear a conspecific utter the following call. What do you do?

(2) You’re a a vervet monkey, and you hear a conspecifics utter the

following call. What do you do?

• You should look at the ground! Because means there’s a snake around.

(3) You’re a vervet monkey, and you hear a conspecific utter the following call. What do you do?

Apes

• Able to learn a lexicon of 100-250 symbols and combine them meaningfully

Kanzi

 recognized a large vocabulary of English words.

• showed a remarkable ability to communicate with the keyboard.

No consistent word order

Limited to the here and now

No recursion

Nim Chimpsky

• Learned approximately 125 signs

• was able to combine signs meaningfully