week 12- language

naming

we assign names to objects and ideas- referential communication

displacement

we can talk about things other than the present moment

productivity

we generate sentences rather than repeat them- the meanings of sentences are bigger than the words, order is also important

language is specific to humans- 7 factors

• non humans can’t learn human language

• language is universal among all humans

• we can create new languages

• babies can perceive speech and language without being taught

• the human brain is specialised for language processing

• laniggae is not just related to intellegence- Williams syndrome

• human vocal apparatus is designed to make speech sounds

language

a collection of symbols and rules which allow us to create sentences, e.g. grammar

heriachy of language

• phonology

• morphology

• syntax

• semantics

• pragmatics

phonological rules- base level

describing the sounds structure of a language

e.g. sequence of phonemes which are basic units of sound

phonemes

individual sounds

morphological rules

describes how words can be formed by combining morphemes

e.g. adding er to a verb

syntactic rules

specifies ,how words are put together to form phrases and sentences

e.g. phrase structure

semantic rules

specify meanings of individuals and combination of morphemes

these explain properties of the word meanings

lexical ambiguity

words with multiple meanings

pragmatic rules

specifies the social interactions regarding language

e.g. use of manners and phrasing when we do know the person

first step of understanding speech language

the perception of the sequence of phonemes and how they are organised

ambiguity in phoneme perception- obvious sources

e.g. external noises, different speaking rates

variability in acoustic signal changes in regard to what it is combined with

ambiguity in phoneme perception- non-obvious source

co-articulation- what is after the phoneme changes the context

context conditioned variation in phonemes

result of co-articulation/parallel transmission of adjacent phonemes

segmentation problem

Patterns of sound and silence do not regularly mark word boundaries

we need to segment speech stream into individual words in order to process

overcoming variability

• early experience

• categorical perception of phonemes

• top-down influences

categorical perception

we perceive speech sounds as distinct categories- the delay between release of lips and voicing

top-down processing in speech reception

we have a tendency to fill in gaps/ uncertainty with expectations

phoneme restoration effect- we expect to hear something by taking context into account

mental lexicon

the mental dictionary of words and their meanings

factors effecting the lexicon-

• word frequency

• context effects

understanding words

• lexical entry- the word

• definition

• syntactic role- verb

• thematic requirements-

word frequency

high frequency words read faster

context effects

its easier to access words that fit the meaning of the sentence

morpheme

smallest unit of language that has meaning

lexical ambiguity

multiple meanings of a word may active simultaneously

parsing in sentence processing

the processing of figuring out how words should be grouped together to determine the phase structure of sentence

syntax

the rules for ordering sentences

parsing

determining sentence structure to understand meaning

parsing ambiguity

challenges come with long sentences which have more meanings

parsing strategies- heuristics

incremental strategy-

word - order strategy

minimal attatchment

late-closure principle

word-order strategy

Assume a subject-verb-object (active voice) construction, unless there is explicit evidence to the contrary

incermental strategy

building structure as you go along

minimal attatchment

build the simplest structure

late-closure principle

attach new material to the structure being processed

garden path sentences

sentences that mislead interpretation

visual context effects

visual surroundings can reduce ambiguity

multiple referent context

can be ambiguous or ambiguous depending on how many meanings

parsing and heuristics

we use different kinds of information- top down