Language Acquisition Julien Musolino Department of Psychology & Center for Cognitive Science,...
Transcript of Language Acquisition Julien Musolino Department of Psychology & Center for Cognitive Science,...
Language Acquisition
Julien MusolinoDepartment of Psychology & Center for Cognitive Science,
Rutgers University
The plan_______________________________________________________
Short break
Present for about an hour
Present for another hour
General goal_______________________________________________________
Give you a sense of the problems faced by a child who is acquiring his/her native language, as well as the problems faced by someone trying to explain how this can happen.
Approach_______________________________________________________
“To see the world in a grain of sand”
Focus on a single phenomenon and show that doing so in a systematic fashion can illuminate much broader issues
-- William Blake
My grain of sand_______________________________________________________
Developmental phenomenon
Research program that grew out of it
Musolino (1998)
General Outline_______________________________________________________
Part 1: background leading to developmental phenomenon
Part 2: exploring this developmental phenomenon and some of its implications
Outline_______________________________________________________
Part 1: background
General motivations
The preschool period
Experimental methodology
Linguistic phenomenon
Developmental phenomenon
Outline_______________________________________________________
Part 1: background
General motivations
The preschool period
Experimental methodology
Linguistic phenomenon
Developmental phenomenon
Why study language acquisition?_______________________________________________________
Universality
Species-specificity
Complexity
Why study language acquisition? _____________________________
It is a very remarkable fact that there are none … without even excepting idiots, that cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts; while on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same.
René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode
Why study language acquisition?_____________________________“When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the “human essence”, the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man.” Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind
A conversation with Eliza
Eliza: Hello, I am Eliza. How can I help you?
Julien: Could you tell me what a dog is?
Eliza: Oh, I tell you what a dog is.
A conversation with ElizaJulien: Yes, please.
Eliza: You are sure?
Eliza: You are sure?
Julien: Yes, I’m pretty sure.
Julien: I said Yes!!!
A conversation with Eliza
Eliza: Could you elaborate on that?
Julien: I just want you to tell me what a dog is.
Eliza: Do you wish to just want me?
Julien: Are you going to tell me or not?
A conversation with Eliza
Eliza: Would you prefer if I were not going to tell you or not?
Julien: You just don’t understand a damn thing I say, do you?
Eliza: Oh, I [ ]
“Language acquisition is one of the most important topics in cognitive science. Every theory of cognition has tried to explain it … It is not hard to see why. Possessing a language is the quintessentially human trait: all normal humans speak, no non-human animal does … Every time we speak, we are revealing something about the nature of language, so the facts of language structure are easy to come by – facts that hint at a system of extraordinary complexity. Nonetheless, learning a first language is something every normal child does successfully, in a matter of a few years and without the need for formal lessons”
_____________________________
-- Steven Pinker
Why study language acquisition?
Quantifiers_______________________________________________________
Some, all, two, many, every, no …
Give us the power to express generalizations about quantities of individuals.
Quantifiers_______________________________________________________
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”
Abraham Lincoln (attributed)
George W. Bush
Why Study Quantification?_______________________________________________________
Core property of natural language
Extremely complex phenomenon
Causes problems until late in development
Outline_______________________________________________________
Part 1: background
General motivations
The preschool period
Experimental methodology
Linguistic phenomenon
Developmental phenomenon
Why the preschool period?_____________________________
Because 4 and 5-year-olds are sophisticated enough linguistically to allow us to investigate complex linguistic questions
Yet, at the same time, preschoolers often differ from adults in systematic ways and these differences can be used to illuminate a broad range of issues of interest to linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists
Ulysses, 4;6_____________________________
Julien: “This Troll has magic powers. Do you know anybody else who has magic powers?”
Ulysses: “The only two people I know who have magic powers are God up there and the Power Rangers on the cartoon channel”
Ulysses, 4;6_____________________________
Julien: “Does your nose grow when you tell lies?”
Ulysses: “I never tell lies!”
Julien: “Well, that’s great Ulysses!!!”
Ulysses: “See, I just told you a lie and my nose didn’t grow!”
Sarah, 5;2_____________________________
Dr. M: “I am a Prince. If you marry me, you’ll become a Princess”
Sarah: “I don’t want to get married!”
Dr. M: “You don’t want to get married ever??!!”
Sarah: “I’ll get married so that I can have kids. Then I’ll get divorced!”
_________________________________________________________ Cause problems until late
Adults: YES 5-year-olds: NO
Is every dog on a mat?
Not this one
Previous Accounts_________________________________________________________
Lack of conceptual knowledge (Inhelder & Piaget, 1964)
Lack of syntactic knowledge (Bucci, 1978; Roeper and deVilliers, 1991)
Lack of semantic knowledge (Philip 1995, Drozd & van Loosbroek, 1999)
Incomplete knowledge (Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2000)
Lack of pragmatic knowledge (Crain et al., 1996)
Why the preschool period?_____________________________
Preschoolers are linguistically sophisticated
However, they sometimes differ from adults in surprising and systematic ways
Outline_______________________________________________________
Part 1: background
Why study language acquisition
The preschool period
Experimental methodology
Linguistic phenomenon
Developmental phenomenon
Experimental methodology_______________________________________________________
Crain and Thornton, (1998)
How to design experiments on language acquisition
How to interpret the results of those experiments
Tools to make predictions (learnability principles)
Experimental methodology_______________________________________________________
Truth Value Judgment Task
Crain and Thornton, (1998)
Truth Value Judgment Task_______________________________________________________
(1) Short stories are acted out in front of child participants
(2) A puppet makes a statement about what happened in the story
(3) Participants tell the puppet whether he’s right or wrong (and explains why)
Outline_______________________________________________________
Part 1: background
General motivations
The preschool period
Experimental methodology
Linguistic phenomenon
Developmental phenomenon
The phenomenon_______________________________________________________
“There are extra copies of the handout on the chair here, in case everybody didn’t get one”
(Kenneth Wexler, UMD colloquium, October 16, 1998)
“All the birds don’t seem to be quite the same”
(Lila Gleitman, Psych 135 lecture, February 25, 1999)
“All semantic features are not going to be under direct syntactic control”
(Merrill Garrett, IRCS Colloquium, February 26, 1999)
The phenomenon_______________________________________________________
(1) Every N neg VP
a. ‘None’
b. ‘Not all’
Scope_______________________________________________________
(1) Every horse didn’t jump over the fence
Every horse (not jump) ‘none’
• Isomorphic interpretation
• Every horse is interpreted outside the scope of negation
Scope_______________________________________________________
(1) Every horse didn’t jump over the fence
(Not every horse) jumped ‘not all’
• Every horse is interpreted within the scope of negation
• Non-isomorphic interpretation
_______________________________________________________Scope
(1a) Bill didn’t V two interns
[not V two interns] ‘not > two’
Two interns [not V] ‘two > not’
(1b) Bill didn’t V two interns
_______________________________________________________Scope
(2a) Bill didn’t V any interns
(not V some interns) ‘not > some’
* Some interns [not V] ‘some > not’
(2b) Bill didn’t V any interns
_______________________________________________________Quantifier-negation interaction
(1) QP(subject) … neg …
QP > Neg (some)
QP > Neg & Neg > QP (every)
_______________________________________________________Quantifier-negation interaction
(2) Neg … QP (object)
QP > Neg (some)
QP > Neg & Neg > QP (two, many)
Neg > QP (every, any)
_______________________________________________________QP-Neg interaction and children
(2) Neg … QP (object)
Fundamental Problem_______________________________________________________
The tension created by the need to:
Generalize
“ … children cannot simply stick with the exact sentences they hear, because they must generalize to the infinite language of their community.”
Pinker (1989:6)
Fundamental Problem_______________________________________________________
And the risk of:
Overgeneralization
“ … if the child entertains a grammar generating a superset of the target language … no amount of positive evidence can strictly falsify the guess.”
Pinker (1989:7)
Overgeneralization_______________________________________________________
Target grammar
X
Hypothesized grammar
X is impossible (negative evidence)
Positive evidence
Child: My teacher holded the rabbits and we patted them.
Parent: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?
Child: Yes.
Parent: What did you say she did?
Child: She holded the rabbits and we patted them.
Parent: Did you say she held them tightly?
Child: She holded them loosely.
Child: Nobody don’t like me
Parent: No, say “nobody likes me”
Child: Nobody don’t like me
(eight repetitions of this dialogue)
Parent: No, now listen carefully; say “nobody likes me”
Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.
Parent: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.
Parent: Can you say “the other spoon”?
Child: Other … one …spoon.
Parent: Say “other”
Child: Other.
Parent: “Spoon.”
Child: Spoon.
Parent: “Other spoon”
Child: Other …spoon. Now give me other one spoon?
Cazden, 1972; Mc Neill, 1970; Braine, 1971
Fundamental Problem_______________________________________________________
Language is replete with ‘partial generalizations’
These provide a slippery basis for generalization
The case of ‘reverse scope’ readings
_______________________________________________________Quantifier-negation interaction
Unavailable
Depending on the nature of the quantifier and its syntactic position, non-isomorphic interpretations can be:
Required
Optional
Trouble
Trouble
Trouble
Research questions_______________________________________________________
How do people, including children, interpret such sentences?
What can we learn by studying the interpretive process?
How do children navigate the maze of interpretive options created by the interaction of quantifiers and negation?
Outline_______________________________________________________
Part 1: background
General motivation
The preschool period
Experimental methodology
Linguistic phenomenon
Developmental phenomenon
Results to be presented_______________________________________________________
I won’t discuss all the details (number of
subjects, age range, types of analyses) but …
These results have been published
These results have been replicated
The children are 4 and 5-year-olds
Experiment 1: condition 1_______________________________________________________
(1) Every N neg VP
a. ‘None’
b. ‘Not all’
Musolino, Crain and Thornton (2000) Linguistics
One of the stories_______________________________________________________
The end of the story “Every horse didn’t jump over the fence, am I right?”
Results_______________________________________________________
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
5-year-olds Adults
Children’s justifications_______________________________________________________
“Every horse didn’t jump over the fence, am I right?”
Child:”You’re wrong because these two horses jumped over the fence!”
Experiment 1: condition 2_______________________________________________________
(2) The Smurf didn’t buy every orange
b. ‘Not all’
(1) Every horse didn’t jump over the fence
a. ‘None’
b. ‘Not all’
Musolino, Crain and Thornton (2000) Linguistics
One of the stories_______________________________________________________
“The Smurf didn’t buy every orange, am I right?”
The end of the story
Results (children)_______________________________________________________
0
0.2
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Subject condition Object condition
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f Y
ES
res
po
nse
s
Experiment 2_______________________________________________________
(2) The Smurf didn’t catch two birds
Lidz and Musolino (2002) Cognition
a. Not (caught 2)
b. 2 (not caught)
Isomorphic Condition_______________________________________________________
2 (not caught) = FALSE
Not (caught 2) = TRUE
Non-Isomorphic Condition_______________________________________________________
2 (not caught) = TRUE
Not (caught 2) = FALSE
NP didn't V two N: adult data
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WtNf WfNt
Pro
port
ion
of Y
ES
res
pons
esResults: Adults_______________________________________________________
IsomorphicNon-Isomorphic
Results: 4-year-olds_______________________________________________________
NP didn't V two N: child data
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WtNf WfNt
Pro
po
rtio
n o
f Y
ES
re
sp
on
se
s
IsomorphicNon-Isomorphic
Children’s justifications (non-iso)_______________________________________________________
“The Smurf didn’t catch two birds, am I right?”
Child:”You’re wrong, she did catch two!”
Children’s justifications (iso)_______________________________________________________
“The Smurf didn’t catch two birds, am I right?”
Child:” You’re right! She only caught one”
Sentence Type Children Adults
Every horse didn’t jump over the fence
The Smurf didn’t buy every orange
The Smurf didn’t catch two birds
Every > not
In sum
not > Every
not > Every not > Every
not > 2not > 22 > not
_______________________________________________________
The observation of Isomorphism_______________________________________________________
“Young children, unlike adults, have a strong tendency to interpret sentences containing quantified NPs and negation on the basis of the surface syntactic position of these elements”
Musolino, Crain and Thornton (2000) Linguistics
Results have been replicated_______________________________________________________
Noveck et al. (2007) Journal of SemanticsMusolino & Lidz (2006) Linguistics
The same quantifier/negation combinations
Different quantifier/negation combinations
Musolino & Lidz (2003) Language Acquisition
Lidz & Musolino (2002) Cognition
Different languages
Han, Lidz & Musolino (2007) Linguistic Inquiry
Lidz & Musolino (2002) Cognition
The structural question _______________________________________________________
What underlies isomorphism?
Linear order ?
C-command ?
IP
SUBJECT I’
English (SVO)_______________________________________________________
INeg
VERB OBJECT
VP
Subj > Neg
Neg > Obj
Scope ambiguity in Kannada
naanu eraDu pustaka ood-al-illa
I-nom two books read-inf-neg
‘I didn't read two books.’
a. Not (read 2)b. 2 (not read)
S O V
IP
SUBJECT I’
Kannada (SOV)_______________________________________________________
INeg
OBJECT VERB
VP
Predictions for Kannada
To the extent that Kannada children display a preference for one of the two readings:
_______________________________________________________
C-command: same results as English
Linear order: opposite results from English
Results: Adults
'NP two Ns Ved not: adults"
0.87 0.85
0
0.2
0.4
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Wide-true / Narrow-false Wide-false / Narrow-true
Pro
port
ion
of 'Y
es' r
espo
nses
2 (not caught) not (caught 2)
Results: English vs. Kannada
English KannadaNP didn't V two N: child data
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
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WtNf WfNt
Prop
ortio
n of
YES
resp
onse
s
2 (not) Not (2)0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
2 (not) not (2)2 (not) Not (2)
Conclusions _______________________________________________________
They differ in ways that are constrained by fundamental linguistic principles (i.e. c-command).
Children systematically differ from adults.
Children’s ‘errors’ tell us about the kinds of linguistic representations that they entertain.
The observation of Isomorphism_______________________________________________________
“Young children, unlike adults, have a strong tendency to interpret sentences containing quantified NPs and negation on the basis of the surface c-command relations that hold between these elements”
Lidz and Musolino (2002) Cognition
The observation of Isomorphism_______________________________________________________
Form (Syntax)
Meaning (Semantics)
Isomorphic mapping
For preschoolers overt syntactic scope determines semantic scope (in the case of QP-Neg)