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© 2010 by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
Language
Chapter 9Lecture Outline
Chapter 9: Language
Lecture OutlineOrganization of LanguagePhonology (音韻學)WordsSyntax (句法)Sentence ParsingBiological Roots of LanguageLanguage and Thought
Chapter 9: Language
Language Unique to humansPresent in all culturesEssential for knowledge and culture
Without it, cultural transmission of information and the acquisition of knowledge would be much more limited
The Organization of Language
Thoughts become sounds
Sounds become thoughts
HOW? Hierarchical organization
The Organization of Language
Sentence—sequences of words Word—smallest free form Morpheme(詞素)— smallest unit of
meaning Phoneme(音素)— smallest unit of
sound
The Organization of Language
Hierarchical, with each level composed of other sublevels
Phonology
Flow of air from lungs
Modulationof air by mouthand nose
Production of phonemes
Phonology
Voicing Whether vocal folds (聲帶) vibrate ([z], [d], [b], [v]) Or not ([s], [t], [p], [f])
Manner of production Whether air is fully stopped ([b], [p], [d], [t]) Or merely restricted ([z], [s], [v], [f])
Place of articulation Where in the mouth the air is restricted
Closing of lips ([b], [p]) Top teeth against bottom lip ([v], [f]) Tongue behind upper teeth ([d], [t], [z], [s])
Phonology
Many words have no clear boundaries yet speech segmentation is effortless
Speech segmentation is the process of “slicing” the speech stream into words and phonemes.
Phonology
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The sky is NOT falling!
Phonology
Coarticulation the blending of phonemes at word boundaries refers to how the production of each phoneme is slightly altered
depending on the preceding and following sounds. “My name is Dan Reisberg” “My name is Noam Chomsky”
S is slightly different
D and N are slightly different
Phonology
Perception of language is constructedUse prior knowledge to fill in missing
information
The state governors met with their respective legi*latures convening in the capital city.
Phonemic restoration effect
Phonology
Pollack and Picket (1964)Spliced out words from conversations
Easily identified in context Hard to do without context
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Phonology
Continuous variation of sounds
are filtered toproduce clear phonemes
Categorical perceptionOur categorization of phonemes shows abrupt boundaries, even when there is no corresponding abrupt change in the stimuli themselves.
Phonology
Sequences Only some are acceptable in a language.
For example, the sequence [tl] is not acceptable in English
Adjustments for certain phoneme sequences. For example, the [s] sound becomes a [z] in words
like “bags”
Words
For each word that a speaker knows, there are several kinds of informationPhonology—the sequence of phonemes that
make up the wordOrthography—how the word is spelled (if the
person is literate)Syntax—how to combine the word with other
wordsSemantics—what the word means
Words
The referent is the actual object, action, or event in the world that a word refers toConceptual information A large part of “knowing a word” is knowing
the relevant concept
Words
GenerativityOur morphological knowledge specifies how
to create variations of each word by adding appropriate morphemes
New words can be formed “Hardware,” “software” lead to “spyware” and
“malware”
Words can take on new meanings “I have been hacked by a hacker.”
Syntax
Generativity Infinite number of sentences by combining finite
set of words For practical purposes, there is an infinitely large
number of sentences that speakers can produce in their language
Words
Syntax tells us which verbs can take direct objects及物 vs 不及物動詞
Syntax
Acceptable sequences: “The boy hit the ball.”
Unacceptable ones: “The boy hit ball the.”
These rules also help us determine the relationships among the words in the sentence
Who is doing what to whom? “The boy chased the girl.”
Syntax
Jabberwocky Sentences can be
syntactically and morphologically correct even when meaningless
“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe...”
Syntax
Phrase structure rules
How the trees branch
noun phrase (NP) and verb phrase (VP)
Syntax
Descriptive rules, “To boldly go where no one has gone before.”
Prescriptive rules “To go boldly where no one has gone before.”
Syntax
Phrase structure
Nophrase structure
Easier Harder
Syntax
He wants to discuss sex with Jay Leno.
He wants to discuss sex with Jay Leno.
D-structure
2014 年外國人中文十級考試試題:請考生寫出以下兩句話的區別在哪裡?
1. 冬天:能穿多少穿多少;夏天:能穿多少穿多少。
2. 剩女產生的原因有兩個,一是誰都看不上,二是誰都看不上。
3. 地鐵裡聽到一個女孩,大概是給男朋友打電話:「我已經到西直門了,你快出來往地鐵站走。如果你到了,我還沒到,你就等著吧;如果我到了,你還沒到,你就等著吧。」
© 2010 by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
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4. 單身的原因:原來是喜歡一個人,現在是喜歡一個人。
5. 兩種人容易被甩:一種不知道什麼叫做愛,一種不知道什麼叫做愛。
6. 想和某個人在一起的兩種原因:一種是喜歡上人家,另一種是喜歡上人家。
7. 女孩約的男孩遲到了有兩個原因: 1. 睡過了。 2. 睡過了。
© 2010 by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
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Syntax
Linguistic universals Rules that apply to all languagesSubject-verb-object “Sally ate the apple.”Preferred order for 98% of the languages
Syntax
Linguistic universals Innate knowledge of these universals may
prepare children for learning language rapidlyOthers suggest that grammar learning is
constrained by many factors
Sentence Parsing
ParseProcess of assigning words to a phrase
structure
Sentence Parsing
Garden-path sentences “The secretary applauded for his efforts was
soon promoted.” “Fat people eat accumulates.” “The horse raced past the barn fell.”
Sentence Parsing
Garden-path sentences “Because he ran the second mile went quickly.”
First interpretation
Something wrongReinterpretation
Sentence Parsing
Minimal attachment—simplest phrase structure
One phrase
Because he ran the second mile he was able to finish quickly.
Because he ran the second mile went quickly.
Two phrases
Sentence Parsing
The detectives examined by the reporter revealed the truth about the robbery
The evidence examined by the reporter revealed the truth about the robbery
Background knowledge plays a part
Sentence Parsing
Extralinguistic context “Put the apple on the towel into the box.”
Sentence Parsing
Prosody (音韻學) refers to the patterns of pauses and pitch changes that characterize speech production. It is used to:Emphasize elements of a sentenceHighlight the sentence’s intended structureSignal the difference between a question and
an assertion
Sentence Parsing
Pragmatics. “What happened to the
roast beef?” “Well, the dog sure
does look happy.”
He must have eaten it
The Biological Roots of Language
Motor planning
Language Comprehension
nonfluent aphasia
fluent aphasia
The Biological Roots of Language
Children learn language even with no exposureMay have some biological mechanisms for
that
The Biological Roots of Language
Specific language impairment Normal intelligence Normal muscle movement Difficulty learning and using language May be evidence of specialized mechanism for
language learning
The Biological Roots of Language
Overregularization errors “Yesterday, I thinked.”
The Biological Roots of Language
Learning of information present in the environment is also critical to language acquisition
Children as young as 8 months are sensitive to the statistical regularities in the language that they hear, as shown in studies employing nonsense syllable streams
The Biological Roots of Language
Semantic bootstrapping refers to using semantic knowledge to make inferences about the syntactic structure of a language
Language and Thought
Linguistic relativity is the hypothesis that people who speak different languages think differently
Benjamin Whorf’s original argument was that Hopi speakers and English speakers think differently about time
Language and Thought
A language’s color categories may affect how its speakers perceive and remember color
Language and Thought
The spatial terminology of a language—for instance whether absolute or relative terms are used—may affect how its speakers perceive and remember spatial information
Language and Thought
One possibility for such results is that the language you speak determines the concepts and categories that you use, and as a result, shapes what you can think about
A more flexible possibility is that language influences what we pay attention to, and this shapes experience, which influences how we think
Chapter 9 Questions
The hierarchy of linguistic units, from largest to smallest, is
a)phrases, words, morphemes, phonemes.
b)phonemes, phrases, words, morphemes.
c)morphemes, phonemes, phrases, words.
d)phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases.
Which of the following is a function morpheme?
a) ing
b) -les
c) wish
d) noun phrase
Which of the following claims is TRUE?a) Reliance on prototypes is likely to emerge
gradually as a participant’s experience with a category grows.
b) People are likely to rely strongly on prototypes early in their exposure to a particular category.
c) People only rely on prototypes when they have time to make a decision.
d) With exposure to many instances of a particular category, it becomes easier to remember each particular instance, and this contributes to the emergence of a prototype.
Which of the following is TRUE of speech segmentation?
a) It is made harder by the fact that more than half of the speech we hear consists of the 50 most common words in English.
b) Speech recognition programs can understand a lot of speech from one person and very limited speech from many people.
c) When words are in context, they are far more difficult to identify.
d) It is made harder by the process of coarticulation, where each phoneme overlaps with the ones before and after it.
Categorical perception cannot explain
a) why it is more difficult to detect variations within a single category than differences between two phonemic categories.
b) why we sometimes confuse phonemes when in a noisy environment.
c) how we identify spaces between words in a continuous speech stream.
d) why certain phoneme combinations are difficult for English speakers to pronounce.
The fact that new words in English do not typically start with start with sound combinations like “tl” or “ks” demonstrates
a) the generativity of English.
b) the role of phrase-boundaries in English.
c) the phonological rules of English.
d) the biological basis of English.
Which sentence is the hardest to read?
a) The witness examined by the lawyer was nervous.
b) The witness examined by the lawyer was nervous.
c) both a and b
d) neither a nor b