Contrastive Language Analysis HC9008

LAI Siu Yin / LI Xiaoying

Lexical Categories & The Nature of GrammarClear definitions and delineations in lexical categories exist

Lexical Categories & The Nature of GrammarClear definitions and delineations in lexical categories existCategories have one essential feature each, providing grammatical features

Lexical Categories & The Nature of GrammarClear definitions and delineations in lexical categories existCategories have one essential feature each, providing grammatical featuresDefinitions of categories mainly syntactic (though intertwined with morphology and sematics)

Lexical Categories & The Nature of GrammarClear definitions and delineations in lexical categories existCategories have one essential feature each, providing grammatical featuresDefinitions of categories mainly syntactic (though intertwined with morphology and sematics)All natural human languages have the same three lexical categories and core grammatical behaviour

Proof-By-Example - Languages ObservedChichewaMohawkEdoWarlpiriTzeltalSpanishMayaliNahuatlKannadaGreekTukang BesiVataHebrewQuechua

Language AcquisitionInnate within the human mind - Rationalist Theory

Research on infant cognition supports this - reasoning patterns appropriate to these conceptual categories occurs universally

Studies indicate that infants all over the world acquire the same initial words

Language Acquisition

Innate conceptual knowledge before grammatical knowledge

Languages vary greatly in terms of which notions are represented by which lexical category

Language Acquisition

Physical ObjectDynamic EventPhysical Property

Universal grammar

Part of the knowledge that resides in the human mind of a person who knows a language.

Universal Grammar

If we characterize the knowledge that a person has when he or she knows a possible human language, we find that some things recur in every case (Italian, Arabic, Russian, etc.)

In Chomsky's words

Universal grammar is:

the system of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements or properties of all human languages.

Chomsky and Universal GrammarChomsky argues that

universal grammar is not learned by mimicry or lessons or examples and correction, but is instead innate in the mind of every human being, a part of our genetic endowment.

People who know a language know universal grammar.

Implications of Universal GrammarThese types of evidence lead linguists to

conclude that the principles of universal grammar have certain associated parameters which can be fixed one way or another.

When a potential speaker knows universal grammar and sets all the associated parameters in particular ways, he or she knows the grammar of a particular language.

Question

Are some languages just more universal than others? Or more specifically, give themselves more readily to L2 development in the individual based on syntactic universality.

As Chomsky puts it….."We may think of the language faculty as a complex and

intricate network of some sort associated with a switch box consisting of an array of switches that can be in one of two positions. Unless the switches are set one way or another, the system does not function. When they are set in one of the permissible ways, then the system functions in accordance with its nature, but differently, depending on how the switches are set. The fixed network is the system of principles of universal grammar; the switches are the parameters... When these switches are set, [a person] has command of a particular language and knows the facts of that language: that a particular expression has a particular meaning, and so on. Each permissible array of switch settings determines a particular language."

Language Constitutes

The universal grammar that we all know, the parameters that we each set for our own particular language, and the lexicon that we each learn for our own particular language

QuestionLanguage skills are acquired non-uniformly across different people. How does knowledge of universal grammar and cognition allow us to optimize language acquisition in infants? Would the resulting effectiveness/ ineffectiveness be a proof/disproof of universal grammar?

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Lexical Categories - Verbs, Nouns & AdjectivesBaker, Mark C. (2003)

Research QuestionsArguments Development

MethodologyAnalysis Claims

Conclusions FindingsArguments QuestionsDisagreements Further Study