Linguistic Knowledge - Introduction

37-445-01The acquisition of morphology and syntaxDr. Sharon Armon-Lotem

What do children bring with them?

• Behaviorist approach: child language, tabula rasa, environmental stimuli, general learning mechanism, communication, socialization, Skinner, Snow, Bruner.• Costructivist developmental approach: language

development, inborn capacity for acquiring knowledge, stages, transitions, reorganization of knowledge, Berman, Karmiloff-Smith, Piaget. • Nativist (Chomskian) approach: language acquisition,

universal grammar, language acquisition device, innate linguistic knowledge, modularity (Fodor), triggers, parameters, continuity, maturation, Pinker, Crain, Chomsky.

The process of language acquisition:

• Trial & error• Imitation & overregularization• Corrective feedback (negative evidence -

parental input)• Expansion (parental input) •Motherese (parental input)

Why innateness?

(1) Who did the coach want to shoot at the end of the game?(2) Which player did the coach wanna shoot at the end of the game? (3) When he left, the boy cried(4) The boy cried when he left

All speakers share the same linguistic knowledge

Phases in language acquisition across languages with individual differences

1. Vocalizations: prespeech, precursors 0-122. Early/First words:

one-word stage, holophrastic speech 12-183. Word-combinations:

two-word stage, pivot grammar 18-244. Early grammar: morphology,

telegraphic speech, simple sentence 24-365. Complex grammar: interclausal connectivity,

phrase level expansions 36-486. Thematic structure: discourse organization,

narrative, individual style 48-up

No parallel in Piaget's general, domain-neutral cognitive stages

Children’s utterances from 1 to 3.Age Situation English Hebrew 1;3 Holding an empty bottle

Reaching a cookie Pointing to a knob

Allgone More Ball

eyn od udu

1;8 Looking at an empty plate Holding a book Seeing Mommy in bed

Allgone lettuce More read Mommy sleep

en fefon od fefer ima shon

2;1 Wants to turn the light off Holding a toy car Wants to change pants

Andrew that off Where go car Pants change

lo oce or efo oto lax sayim xer

2;8 What he can ride in He not taking the walls down I want to open it

efo u yaxol lisoa aba lo caba ta kirim (a)ni (ro)ce ftox eze

3;5 Nobody given it to me We’re just hading a little chat, aren’t we? Me haden that when me was a baby

3;6 ve em a(ha)vu oto ve natnu lo neshikot ve samu oto lishon ecle(h)em

H. H. Clark & E. V. Clark (1977). Introduction to Psycholinguistics. Paul Fletcher (1985). A Child's Learning of English. London: Blackwell.R.A.Berman (1978). Early words: Why and how a child uses her first words

Steps in Development of Language Form and Language Use [Berman]:1. Pregrammatical:

a. Item-based knowledge, unanalyzed, rote-learningb. Initial alternations, formal modifications of familiar items

2. Structure-bound, Class-based:c. Interim schemata, non-normative transitional strategiesd. Grammaticization, rigidly normative rule-application

3. End-stage Usage:e. Rhetorical choice, rule-application constrained by lexical convention and discourse appropriateness, range of expressive options bound by: individual style, functional variation, and register distinctions

The nativist/generative model- Basic terminology (I)• Plato’s problem (the language acquisition paradox): How

can a child acquire such a complicated system based on so partial input in a relatively short time? • Poverty of the stimulus – The constraints are negative,

that is, the rule out structures rather then build them, but the input does not include this information (no negative evidence) • Universal grammar is the set of principles (with their

different values – the parameters) which constrain all languages. UG is innate and serves as the basis for language acquisition (Language Acquisition Device).

Basic terminology (II)• Parameters exert limits on the ways languages may

differ. A parameter is the set of possible values for one constraint (or phenomenon) crosslinguistically. Parameter-setting models propose that language acquisition is the process of identifying the values of the target language. Under one of its versions, the child is born with a default initial setting for each parameter. The child changes the value of the parameter one his/her grammar cannot account for the input. Triggers are the specific linguistic information which is necessary for advancing the process of language acquisition.

Basic terminology (III)

• Continuity is the assumption that language acquisition is gradual, and each phase crucially depends on the previous one, and includes it. The difference is in quantity, but not in quality. The no-continuity approach proposes that language development is a set of clearly distinct qualitatively different stages. • Maturation is the hypothesis that linguistic

principles, like other aspects of physical development of the body (e.g., the secondary sex characteristics), may lie dormant for years.

Basic terminology (IV)

• Competence and performance: While linguistic knowledge is innate, competence, and moreover, performance are partial or delayed due to a variety of factor extraneous to language (or syntax). Thus, competence and performance are evidence for the existing linguistic knowledge, but problems with or lack of competence and performance in not evidence for the lack of linguistic knowledge.

The model

Experience in L ------> Language Faculty --------> Grammar of L <sentence,meaning> <sentence, meaning>

<sentence,*meaning><*sentence, meaning>

Topics for the courseLexicon & morphology• Verb and argument structure• Verb morphology – inflectional and derivational• Noun morphology – inflectional and derivational Early syntactic acquisitions • The acquisition of phrase structure• The acquisition of the nominal phrase• The acquisition of Tense and Agreement in Hebrew• Root infinitives Late syntactic acquisitions• The acquisition of the binding conditions and the subset principle• The acquisition of Wh-movement

General issues in bilingualism and second language acquisition

37-445-01The acquisition of morphology and syntaxDr. Sharon Armon-Lotem

Who is bilingual?

• A bilingual knows two languages• A bilingual speaks two

languages• A bilingual is native or near-

native in two languages• Functional Bilingualism

(Kohnert 2008)

How does one become bilingual?

• Immigrants • Indigenous minorities• Bidialectal populations• Privileged populations (e.g. Anglophones in

Canadian French immersion programs, Israelis who have returned from extended stays in North America)• By parental choice

Is it a homogeneous group?• Age of acquisition• Birth order and family size• Order of L1/L2 acquisition (simultaneous/ sequential)• Acquisition context (e.g. one parent for each language/L1 at

home and L2 at school).

Simultaneous bilingual (age 3;7(1. *EFR: Do you want to read the Jungle Book?2. *YAR: I can see Mowgli going.3. *EFR: what can you see here?4. *YAR: Bagheera take him to the animals.5. *EFR: really? who are these?6. *YAR: the wolfim.7. *EFR: and here?8. *YAR: I can see Baloo and the Mowgli.9. *EFR: what are they doing?10.*YAR: they throwing nuts.11.*EFR: they throwing nuts.12.*EFR: and now?13.*YAR: Mowgli going quickly and Bagheera’s sleeping.14.*EFR: oh.15.*YAR: now Baloo want to eat the monkeys.16.*EFR: and now?17.*YAR: here Mowgli with Shere Khan.18.*EFR: what happened to Mowgli?19.*YAR: and he is doing fire to Shere Khan.20.*EFR: Shere Khan is scared.21.*YAR: why?22.*EFR: he is afraid of Mowgli.23.*YAR: yeah, from the esh.

L1 Hebrew, L2 English (age 5;1, LoE 6 mos)1. INV: do you want to tell me what happened yesterday at school?2. GAL: yeh.3. INV: what happened?4. GAL: we are do a project.5. INV: you did a project, yes.6. GAL: and we we play with play-doe in Miss Pam.7. INV: oh, you played with play-doe?8. GAL: yes.9. GAL: and Miss Lilach come back.10.INV: ah, Miss Lilach came back?11.GAL: yeh.12.GAL: and ...13.INV: did she play with you?14.GAL: no.15.INV: did she tell you a story?16.GAL: no.17.INV: what did she do?18.GAL: they, they show a picture of his baby and give us stickers.19.com: <1,2> she <7> her

L1 Russian, L2 Hebrew (Age 4;7)

1. Lital: Ani roca she taasi li meshulash.2. Int 1: Bevakasha.3. Lital: Aval gam et ha-ceva shelo taasi.4. Int 1: Kaxa?5. Lital: Ve gam po ve gam po. Ribua. Kaze davar. ….. Kmo xalon ze.6. Int 1: Naxon.7. Lital Az tavi li ani ecayer lax mashu.8. Int 1: Ma at taasi?9. Lital: Ani ose im ze ceva kaxol i ceva yarok.10.Int 1: Boi ani aazor lax.11.Lital : Od lo asitnu et ha-ribua.12.Int 1: Az ma ze? ze ribua?13.Lital: Aval ze ktana ribua.14.Int 1: Az eze at roca?15.Lital: Gdola gdola

Two systems or one? “Under what conditions are the two languages of a bilingual child differentiated?” (e.g. Genesee, 2001; Muller & Hulk, 2000). Differentiated-language system hypothesis -The language systems are differentiated right from the beginningUnitary-language systems hypothesis - The language systems are not differentiated right from the beginning - the child does not have resources to do it.

Volterra and Taeschner (1977) - three stages

Diary studies of simultaneous bilinguals (one parent - one language)• Words from both languages are included without differentiation

- Children mixed words from both languages- A word in one language almost never had a corresponding word with the same meaning in the other language

• The two lexicons are differentiated but not the syntax (~ 2)- Two different words pertaining to the two languages

describe the same event or object - The pragmatic context influenced the choice of words

• There are two linguistic codes distinguished in lexicon and in syntax (~3)

- Both languages are used correctly at the lexical and the syntactic levels

Lindholm and Padilla (1977) • Language samples (2;10 and 6;2) - one experimenter/one

language • Two separate linguistic systems from an early age. Mixing (2%

of utterances) mostly occurs at the lexical level - substitutions of nouns. Mixing is due to lexical gaps or familiarity

Genesee (1989) - “bilingual children’s mixed utterances are modeled on mixed input produced by others” (p. 169).

Lanza (1992) - Longitudinal study - there is a great impact of language input, the context of the conversation, and parental strategies toward child language mixing, dominance. Mixing per se is not enough in order to determine that the child does not differentiate his two languages

Quay (1995) - Longitudinal study - by 1;10 - 0ver 50 pairs.