LanguageWhat defines language? What properties does language have?

How does language allow for communicative power?

Why does language exist? What does it gain us?

When does language develop?

Reference: The girl hit the boy. He cried.

Productivity and expressiveness of natural language.

Paraphrase: The dog chased the cat.The cat was chased by the dog.

Recursion: Widely considered to be the most important aspect of human language enables unlimited extension of a language

Embedding: The boy who the girl hit cried.

Basic Language Properties

Example Phrase Structure Diagrams

“John and Tom were in a fight. He hit him and he bled.”

Language is full of ambiguity!Why do languages tolerate this?

Example: Figurative language, such as metaphors“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” “The vodka is good but the meat is rotten”

How can we handle ambiguity? (Lexical, syntactic, perceptual. . .) “Time flies like an arrow”Groucho Marx: "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana”

Resolving ambiguity

Social agreement, context, intention Grice (1975): Maxims of Conversation ImplicatureWhat do people assume about their conversational partners?

1. Quality: Tell the truth! (Avoid falsehoods *and* statements for which you have no evidence)2. Quantity: Include what is necessary to express information, and nothing extraneous.

**e.g. tautologies 3. Relevance: Utterances will be related to the topic at hand

4. Manner: Avoid ambiguity, use common ground (Clark)

“Could you open the door?”

Application to irony, humor

1. Arbitrariness: Communication systems of many social species like dogs and wolves fail this one. But the call system of some monkeys satisfy this (chatter-snake, chirp-leopard, kraup-eagle)

2. Displacement: The call system fails this criterion as it is only used in the presence of predators.

Is Language Unique to Humans?What are the features that define a language?

1. The angle between vertical and the straight waggling run of the dance = the angle between the sun and the flight direction from hive to the food source.

2. Distance between nest and target encoded in the duration of the straight runs. The farther away the target, the longer the straight runs, with a rate of increase of about 75 milliseconds per 100 meters.

What about the Language of the Bees?

3. Discreteness. The language of the bees fails the criterion of having discrete symbols.

4. Combinatorial syntax: Discreteness is critical to enable the combinatorial power of natural language that is critical to its expressiveness.

More Properties of Human Language

1. Vocal apparatus not capable of human speech, so oral production is out.

2. Efforts with sign language have been more successful.

3. Most recent research uses a token system (item-based). Most successful subject has been Kanzi, a bonobo.

4. Kanji was shown equivalent to a 2 year old in heard and generated speech.

5. Is Kanji’s success like our success in imitating bird song? Is meaning beingpreserved?

6. Do we have a language instinct?

Can We Teach Apes to Talk?

Why do we use language?

Directed attentione.g., warning systems: “look over there!”

Social groupingsPromote collaboration, collective survival behaviors

CultureMutual reference, common ground, expression of social ties

1. Language is unique to humans.

2. Successful language use depends on specific brain structures.

3. Is language genetically coded in humans?

4. Is language learning different than the learning of anything else? (Biologically, behaviorally, etc.)

Chomsky: Language Acquisition Device

Is Language Innate?

How do children progress from non-verbal to competent speakers?

1. Categorical perception of speech sounds (~10-12 mo) -- Japanese infants and r/l

2. Babbling: 6 months3. One word stage: ~1 year4. Two word stage: ~2 years (vocab is about 50 words)5. Multiword utterances; gradually increase in complexity

Statistical learningMotherese! (now child-directed speech)

Child Language Development

1. Inflectional overgeneralizations (man,mans,men; sing, singed, sang). Can generalize the rule to new examples (past tense of wug, spling).

2. Children learn on the order of ~9 words /day10,000-16,000 words by age 6 (Markman; Carey, 1978)

3. Put in > 10,000 hours exposed to their language by age 5.

Compare to the expert performance benchmark

What about second language learners?

Features of Language Acquisition

1. Children get little or no direct instruction.2. Children get little feedback and don’t listen to what

they get -- so why do they ever correct their errors?3. Children hear many ungrammatical structures not

identified as such -- how do they come to learn these are wrong?

4. In some cultures adults don’t speak to children.5. Children will make up a language if they are not given

one -- deaf children of hearing parents.

The Issue of the Nature of Feedback(Poverty of Stimulus)

Child: Nobody don’t like me.Mother: No, say “Nobody likes me.”Child: Nobody don’t like me.Mother: No, say “Nobody likes me.”Child: Nobody don’t like me.[dialogue repeated eight times]Mother: Now listen carefully, say “Nobody likes me.”Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likeS me.

Pidgins & Creoles

Nicaraguan Sign Language

“Wild Children” / Abuse

Panglish vs. English

“Natural Experiments”

1. Claim is that there is a critical period (2-11) during which language acquisition is easier.

2. Recovering from aphasia due to brain injury.3. Actually older children learn faster initially but

reach lower asymptotes of achievement.

A Critical Period for Language Acquisition?

Adult Processing of Syntactic Anomaly as a Function of Age of Acquisition

Jill entrusted the recipe friends before she disappeared.

1. Can you learn to be an expert at any complex skill if you take it up as an adult? (Golf, ballet, . . .)

2. Why is expertise less likely as we age?

3. Can this same explanation apply to language as well?

4. What parts of language can’t be learned just from the input provided to a baby from the environment?

Emergentism