Language, Mind, and Brainby Ewa Dabrowska

Chapter 9: Syntactic constructions, pt. 1

Is syntax like morphology?

• Q: What kinds of points is Dabrowska going to make that parallel morphology?

Is syntax like morphology?

• Q: What kinds of points is Dabrowska going to make that parallel morphology?

• A: – the same mental mechanism can account for

both regular and irregular constructions– speakers extract patterns at varying degrees

of abstraction– associative memory plays a prominent role

1. Ties between lexical and grammatical knowledge

• Q: How can we account for these facts?– Very strong statistical correlation between

vocabulary size and grammatical complexity mastered by young children; age was not statistically a predictor

– Equally strong correlation between lexicon and grammar in impairment

1. Ties between lexical and grammatical knowledge

• Q: How can we account for these facts?– Very strong statistical correlation between

vocabulary size and grammatical complexity mastered by young children; age was not statistically a predictor

– Equally strong correlation between lexicon and grammar in impairment

• A: People use “chunks” – form-meaning pairings that combine lexical items and grammatical constructions

2. Multi-word units in acquisition

• Q: What is “premature usage”?

2. Multi-word units in acquisition

• Q: What is “premature usage”?

• A: Children often use chunks containing grammatical morphemes long before they use the morphemes in novel utterances.

Q: What is a “developmental U-curve”?

Q: What is a “developmental U-curve”?

• A: Early limited correct usage of a form followed by absence or incorrect usage, later followed by reliable use in a range of situations. E.g. What’s this? (chunk!) > What this is? > What is this?

2.3 Inappropriate and ungrammatical usage

• Q: Is it true that children’s errors result from faulty abstract rules?

2.3 Inappropriate and ungrammatical usage

• Q: Is it true that children’s errors result from faulty abstract rules?

• A: Not necessarily. They can also arise from inappropriate combination of chunks.

2.4 Pronoun reversals

• Q: What is a “pronoun reversal”? What theories are there about them and what does the author suggest?

2.4 Pronoun reversals• Q: What is a “pronoun reversal”? What theories are there

about them and what does the author suggest?• A: Children use “you” to refer to themselves. It is

theorized that they don’t understand deixis. But maybe they are just echoing what they heard said to them!

2.5 Filler syllables

• Q: What are filler syllables, and what do they indicate?

2.5 Filler syllables• Q: What are filler

syllables, and what do they indicate?

• Filler syllables are underspecified unstressed syllables (schwa &/or nasal). They indicate that children are working with a phrase-level structure, not word-level, gradually filling in larger patterns.

2.6 Lexically based patterns

• Q: Tomasello is famous for the “verb-island hypothesis”. Can you guess what it is?

2.6 Lexically based patterns• Q: Tomasello is famous for the “verb-island hypothesis”.

Can you guess what it is?• A: A theory that children don’t form rules for

constructions of verbs, but rather use lexically specific chunks, like: X fall down, ride X, X gave Y Z

• Michael Tomasello’s webpage:• http://email.eva.mpg.de/~tomas/index.html

2.6 Lexically based patterns

• Q: How much of children’s speech shows evidence of lexical patterning and when do children gain competence to produce syntactic patterns with novel verbs?

2.6 Lexically based patterns

• Q: How much of children’s speech shows evidence of lexical patterning and when do children gain competence to produce syntactic patterns with novel verbs?

• A: In children up to 3yrs 60% is lexical formulas and 30% is frozen phrases. Children don’t succeed in reliably forming new transitive constructions until age 8.

2.7 “Mosaic” acquisition

• Q: What is Chomsky’s claim about acquisition?

2.7 “Mosaic” acquisition

• Q: What is Chomsky’s claim about acquisition?

• A: That once a rule is learned, it is applied in all contexts. But is this true? This is not corroborated by research.

2.7 “Mosaic” acquisition

• Q: What is “mosaic” acquisition?

2.7 “Mosaic” acquisition

• Q: What is “mosaic” acquisition?

• A: Piecemeal, gradual, probabilistic (not rule-governed), often lexically-specific acquisition of grammatical features and the range of their application.