child language wk 3

what is the theory of universal grammar?

• naom chompsky

• language is innate

• target is to acquire computational system and generative grammar in order to create ifinite number of sentences

computational system?

• basically our syntax

• lexicon → computational system (syntax) → output sentence

• allows us to creatively combine words

what is the innateness hypothesis?

1. speakers of language have rich knowledge

2. input isnt enough for children to explain children’s udnerstanding of language (poverty stimulus)

3. negative evidence unavailable

what is the poverty of stimulus?

input isnt enough for children to explain children’s udnerstanding of language

why does it take so long for children to ace language if innate?

1. cross linguistic variaton

2. input is still required to achieve target grammar

3. have to build lexicon first

what are fixed parameters of language?

• the basic foundation for a language e.g. form, meaning, pronouns, names

what are the open parameters of a language?

• variations in lanuage - e.g. SVO pattern

what does the medial -wh children often produce tell us about language?

• not gramamtical in english, but is in german

• shows us that children’s errors reveal properties that are possible in another language

• children have UG, but the input will shape which langauge the child comes to speak

in a constructivist pov, what is the target for usage based approach?

• understand construction (form) and function (meaning) pairings

what are the there constructions?

1. transitive

2. passive

3. locative

what is shared/joint attention?

refers to when children are able to recognise a third entitity near age 1

• allows children to break into langauge as mother is able to introduce new entities to child

dyadic → tryadic communication (unqiely human)

what was the apes and pointing experiment?

• tomessello

• apes and children were asked to find the container with food

• experiment gave cues by pointing

• children excelled, apes 50%

what are holophrases?

an early utterance stage where children will use one word to convey a whole meaning e.g. “up” for pick me up

at what age do children usually move from holophrases?

18m

what are the three types of multiple word constructions?

1. word combos (fully specified) - two words, both of equal meaning

2. pivot schemas - adding more x, no x,

3. item based (partially specified/abstraction stage) - using concrete phrases to make more abstract

   • e.g. child will hear “im x” frequently so they’ll add new adjectives “im hungry, im tired”

   • more generative than pivot schemas

what techniques do children use to measter language?

1. analogies - commonly used words after making it predicatbale for child

   • eat more, eat some, eat it

   • item based

2. distributional analysis - surrounding word environment

   • the + noun

   • recognising sentence patterns

3. categorisation - figuring out syntactic category of a form depends on the frequecy of a particular construction

1. token frequency - freq of particular lexical item in text

   • the number of “the”

2. type frequency - freq of different lexical items

• high type frequencies enourages abstraction

• e.g. the milk, the cow, the grass

• encourages child to identify common features and figure out what follows the is a noun

what are the two mechanisms children use to prevent errors?

1. entrentchement - the more frequently a token is heard, the more the child will use the entrenched construction than try something new and make an error

   • uses token freq

2. preemption - when an utterance is strongly entrenched, it will prevent a competing generalisation

   • e.g. an infrequent structure being used may sound an alarm for the child to use it in such manner, instead of a more common one (bc the adult would otherwise say the more common one)