Lecture 19 - Week 12 Tuesday- Language (Reading/Structure)

Phonemes - What are phonemes?

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another (e.g., the "b" in bat vs. the "p" in pat). English uses approximately 42 different phonemes.

Cross-Linguistic Phonemes - Why is the variation in phonemes across languages important?

It highlights that language is not just a direct mapping of sounds; different languages utilize different sets of phonemes. Sounds that are distinct in one language (like the two "p" sounds in Hindi) may be treated as the same phoneme in another (like English), making it difficult for non-native speakers to perceive the difference.

Phoneme Perception Problem - What is the cognitive problem related to phonemes?

The problem is Lack of Invariance. Phonemes are not produced the same way every time; they vary based on the speaker’s accent, speed, and Coarticulation (how the phoneme sounds depends on the phonemes surrounding it). Our brain must somehow map these messy, variable acoustic signals onto stable mental categories.

Competence - What is competence?

Competence = people’s knowledge of grammar. It is the ideal way that someone should talk.

Performance - What is performance?

Performance = the way people actually talk. This includes "noise" like stutters, pauses, and grammatical slips that occur in real-time communication.

Overextension - What is overextension?

Overextension is a common error where children use a limited vocabulary to refer to a broad range of objects because they lack the specific word. Ex. A child calling every man on the street "dada."

Overregularization - What is overregularization?

Overregularization is an error where children apply standard linguistic rules to "exception" words. Ex. Saying "foots" instead of "feet" or "goed" instead of "went."

Syllabic vs. Phonetic Alphabets - What are the definitions of syllabic and phonetic alphabets?

Syllabic Alphabets use symbols that represent entire syllables (consonant + vowel), such as Japanese Hiragana. Phonetic Alphabets use symbols (letters) to represent individual speech sounds (phonemes), like the Latin alphabet used in English.

Graphemes - What are graphemes and what are some examples?

Graphemes are the smallest units of a writing system (the written equivalent of a phoneme). In English, a grapheme can be a single letter (s) or a combination of letters (sh, ough) that represent one sound.

Phoneme Matching Problems - What are the two problems related to phoneme matching?

Coarticulation: We don't say one sound at a time; we prepare for the next sound while saying the current one, causing sounds to "overlap." 2. Speaker Variability: Differences in pitch, accent, and physical anatomy mean no two people produce the "same" phoneme identically.

Mental Representation of Words - What are the 3 components to the mental representation of words?

Phonology (Sound), 2. Orthography (Spelling/Visual), and 3. Semantics (Meaning). To fully "know" a word, all three connections must be strong in the mental lexicon.

Tip of the Tongue (TOT) - What is the TOT phenomenon and which connection is broken?

TOT occurs when you have access to the Semantics (you know the meaning) and the Orthography (you might know the first letter), but the connection to the Phonology (the actual sound/pronunciation) is temporarily broken or inaccessible.

Structured Representations - What are structured representations and why are they useful?

They are mental frameworks (like tree diagrams) that show how parts of a sentence relate to each other. They are helpful for Syntax because they allow us to understand how the order and grouping of words create specific meanings, moving beyond just a string of individual words.

Grammar - What is grammar?

Grammar is a set of rules that allows for the legal combination of smaller units (words/phrases) into larger units (sentences). It is the "engine" that allows for infinite creativity in language.

Evolution of Grammar Views - What is the incorrect view of grammar that psychologists used to have?

Psychologists originally thought grammar was learned through simple Association or Word Chains, where you just learn that Word A is likely to be followed by Word B based on past experience.

Purpose of Grammar - What is the purpose of grammar?

Its primary purpose is to provide a system that maps Sound/Structure to Meaning. It allows us to communicate complex, novel ideas that the listener has never heard before but can still perfectly understand.

Word Chains - What are word chains?

A model suggesting we learn language by predicting the next word based on the frequency of word pairs we've heard before (e.g., after "The," the word "boy" is statistically likely).

Issues with Word Chains - What are the issues with word chains and dependencies?

Word chains cannot account for Long-Distance Dependencies, where a word early in a sentence must "agree" with a word much later (e.g., "The boy… is" vs "The boys… are"). You can't just "split them up" because the relationship between the words remains even if you insert an infinite number of words in between.

Phrase Structure Grammar - What is phrase structure grammar?

It specifies a limited number of sentence parts (Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases) and a limited number of ways they can be combined. Think of it like Legos: you have fixed parts and fixed ways they fit together to create a limitless number of structures.

Recursion - What does recursive mean and why is it a good thing?

Recursive means a rule can be applied to its own output (e.g., a sentence can contain another sentence: "I think [that you know [that I'm hungry]]"). This is "good" because it allows for infinite productivity—we can create and understand an infinite number of sentences from a finite set of rules.

Common Ground - What is common ground?

The shared knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions between speakers in a conversation. Successful communication requires constantly updating this "mental map" of what both parties understand.

Social Context - What is social context?

The extra-linguistic factors (who is speaking, where they are, the social hierarchy) that influence how we interpret language. It tells us when a literal statement like "It's cold in here" is actually a request to close a window.

Conversational Norms: Quantity - What is the norm of Quantity?

Quantity: You should say as much as is needed to be informative, and nothing more. Violation Example: In a recommendation letter, a teacher only writes "this student is punctual." Because the teacher didn't provide the "expected" quantity of praise, the listener infers the teacher actually dislikes the student.

Conversational Norms: Quality - What is the norm of Quality?

Quality: You should tell the truth and not say things for which you lack evidence. Violation Example: After a terrible presentation, saying "That was the best presentation ever!" Everyone knows it’s a lie, so the violation signals sarcasm to make the point that the presentation was actually subpar.

Conversational Norms: Relevance - What is the norm of Relevance?

Relevance: Your contribution should be pertinent to the topic of the conversation. Violation Example: Someone asks "How was the toast at the wedding?" and you respond "His wife is so pretty." By being irrelevant, you signal that the toast was so bad you'd rather change the subject entirely.

Language Properties - What are the 5 properties of language?

Language is defined by being communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative, and dynamic.

Spelling Rules - What are spelling rules?

Spelling rules are the specific rules used for combining letters into words within a written language.

Text Definition - What is a text?

A text is a group of related sentences that form a paragraph, or a group of related paragraphs.

Grammar Structures - What is the difference between the deep and surface structure of grammar?

According to Chomsky’s phrase-structure grammar, deep structure represents the underlying meaning (e.g., the concept of someone buying clothes), while surface structure is the actual spoken or written organization of the words (e.g., "I bought clothes" vs. "Clothes were bought by me").

Universal Grammar - What is Chomsky’s claim about universal grammar and why is it not correct?

Chomsky claimed language is supported by a universal grammar (a special module in the brain), but current consensus suggests this is incorrect and that language is not supported by a specialized brain module.

Why Language is Special - What are the 3 reasons why language is special?

Language is considered special because humans are primed to learn it through simple exposure as children, it is unique to humans, and it appears that people of different languages think differently due to how language affects cognitive processes.

Whorf Hypothesis - What is the Whorf hypothesis?

The Whorf hypothesis suggests that language influences thought; the "strong" version argues certain thoughts are impossible without the right language, while the "weak" version suggests language simply makes certain thoughts easier to entertain.