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Linguistic Knowledge - Introduction

Linguistic Knowledge - Introduction. 37-445-01 The acquisition of morphology and syntax Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem. What do children bring with them?.

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Linguistic Knowledge - Introduction

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  1. Linguistic Knowledge - Introduction 37-445-01 The acquisition of morphology and syntax Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem

  2. 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.

  3. The process of language acquisition: • Trial & error • Imitation & overregularization • Corrective feedback (negative evidence - parental input) • Expansion (parental input) • Motherese (parental input)

  4. 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

  5. Phases in language acquisition across languages with individual differences 1. Vocalizations: prespeech, precursors 0-12 2. Early/First words: one-word stage, holophrastic speech 12-18 3. Word-combinations: two-word stage, pivot grammar 18-24 4. Early grammar: morphology, telegraphic speech, simple sentence 24-36 5. Complex grammar: interclausal connectivity, phrase level expansions 36-48 6. Thematic structure: discourse organization, narrative, individual style 48-up No parallel in Piaget's general, domain-neutral cognitive stages

  6. Children’s utterances from 1 to 3. 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

  7. Steps in Development of Language Form and Language Use [Berman]: 1. Pregrammatical: a. Item-based knowledge, unanalyzed, rote-learning b. Initial alternations, formal modifications of familiar items 2. Structure-bound, Class-based: c. Interim schemata, non-normative transitional strategies d. 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

  8. 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).

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. The model Experience in L ------> Language Faculty --------> Grammar of L <sentence,meaning> <sentence, meaning> <sentence,*meaning> <*sentence, meaning>

  13. Topics for the course Lexicon & 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

  14. General issues in bilingualism and second language acquisition 37-445-01 The acquisition of morphology and syntax Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem

  15. 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)

  16. 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

  17. 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).

  18. Simultaneous bilingual (age 3;7( • *EFR: Do you want to read the Jungle Book? • *YAR: I can see Mowgli going. • *EFR: what can you see here? • *YAR: Bagheeratake him to the animals. • *EFR: really? who are these? • *YAR: the wolfim. • *EFR: and here? • *YAR: I can see Baloo and the Mowgli. • *EFR: what are they doing? • *YAR: they throwing nuts. • *EFR: they throwing nuts. • *EFR: and now? • *YAR: Mowgli going quickly and Bagheera’s sleeping. • *EFR: oh. • *YAR: now Baloowant to eat the monkeys. • *EFR: and now? • *YAR: here Mowgli with Shere Khan. • *EFR: what happened to Mowgli? • *YAR: and he is doing fire to Shere Khan. • *EFR: Shere Khan is scared. • *YAR: why? • *EFR: he is afraid of Mowgli. • *YAR: yeah, from the esh.

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

  20. L1 Russian, L2 Hebrew (Age 4;7) • Lital:Aniroca she taasi li meshulash. • Int1: Bevakasha. • Lital:Avalgam et ha-cevashelotaasi. • Int1:Kaxa? • Lital: Vegam pove gam po. Ribua. Kazedavar. ….. Kmoxalonze. • Int1:Naxon. • LitalAztavi li aniecayer lax mashu. • Int1: Ma at taasi? • Lital:Aniose im zecevakaxolicevayarok. • Int1: Boianiaazor lax. • Lital: Od lo asitnu et ha-ribua. • Int1: Azma ze? zeribua? • Lital: Avalzektanaribua. • Int1: Azeze at roca? • Lital: Gdolagdola

  21. 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 beginning Unitary-language systems hypothesis - The language systems are not differentiated right from the beginning - the child does not have resources to do it.

  22. 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

  23. 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.

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