The Faculty of Language

1. The Faculty of Language Insights from Humans Insights from Animals

2. Questions • Why have only humans developed this ability to communicate vocally? • Reasons to communicate vocally. • Do other animals that communicate vocally have a Broca’s area? • Why do parrot’s sound more human than chimps?

3. The Evidence • All humans learn language • Only humans learn language • Human languages have common properties • Linguistic Universals • Humans learn languages the same way.

4. Communication v Structure • Do other species clearly communicate? • Yes! Examples Chimps, Birds, • The question is how do other species communicate? • Do they communicate the same way as humans? • Examine the system of communication.

5. A Semiotic approach: Chimps v. humans • Purpose: understanding ourselves • The representational level • phonemes v. gestures • The lexical level • The tactic level • A taxis, parataxis, syntax.

7. Humans Development of the Vocal Tract Cooing Babbling Phonological Development Chimps Vocal Tract more limited Cannot produce the range of human sounds. Gardner and Gardner developed Sign Lg. Representational Systems

9. Lexical Development

10. Tactic Stages stages • What are the tactic stages? • Ataxis, parataxis, syntax • Ataxis is the one word stage.

11. Humans Brenda: Car. Car. Car. Car. ( pronounced [ka]) Scollon: What? Brenda: Go. Go. Scollon: (Undecipherable.) Brenda: Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. Bus. (pronounced [baish]) Scollon: What? Oh, Bicycle? Is that what you said? Brenda: Not. ([na]) Scollon: No? Brenda: Not. Scollon: No. I got it wrong. Chimps Evidence of Washoe learning 130 Signs. What did Washoe Learn? Lexical Signs

12. Humans Brenda: Tapecorder. Use it. Use it. Scollon: Use it for what? Brenda: Corder talk. Brenda Talk. Let me use the taperecorder to talk into. Chimps Parataxis

13. Case Relationship • eat Nim action-agent • eat grape action-object • eat tickle two propositions • food Nim object-beneficiary • food there action place • Nim out agent-action • out shoe action-object • out pants action-object

14. Case Relations • These case relationships detected in chimps are very similar to the ones found in the child paratactic stage and in adult syntax. • So what?

17. Nim’s 16 word “sentence”

20. Syntactic Signs and Parts of Speech

21. There is very little evidence to support the chimp’s ability to produce a sentence. But there is good evidence to suggest that chimps can understand syntactic statements. Put the shoe in the cup. Put the cup in the shoe. Syntax v. Parataxis

23. All human languages learn language. Why? • Two Positions • The empiricist (Skinnerian) is the older view • The rationalist (Chomskian) View (since the 50s) • Basic Differences • Role of mind: active v passive • Intelligence for language: language specific v. general intelligence.

24. Context Generalization. • The principle of context generalization is that children learn the concept of grammatical category on the basis of the word’s position in the sentence. Thus in the first set of examples, children can conclude that the nouns: ball; house; car and doll, all belong to the same category. I see the ball. I see the house. I see the car. I see the doll. I see the _____

25. Criticism of Context Generalizaztion • John is easy to please. • John is eager to please. • It is easy to please John. • *It is eager to please John. • To please John is easy. • *To please John is eager.

26. Humans must have an intelligence for language. • Chomsky argued for language specific intelligence. • The acquisition of language at an early age. • Chomsky argued for Universal Grammar as a set of principles that were in some way accessible to the learner. • Explained several things: • Early age • Language Universals

27. Where do universals come from? • Innate ideas. • Physiological consequences (vocal tract). • . . .

28. The question of why are there discrete stages?Why to children (and chimps) pass through the same stages? • Skinner: Didn’t address the topic. • Chomsky: Ducked the issue • Piaget: Constructivist View.

29. There are many interesting questions that can be raised about the development of systems of underlying representations during the period of language acquisition. It is possible that this might be fairly slow. There is, for example, some evidence that children tend to hear much more phonetically than adults. There is no reason to jump to the conclusion that this is simply a matter of training and experience; it may very well have a maturational basis. Furthermore, much of the evidence relevant to the construction of the underlying systems of representation may not be available in the early stages of language acquisition. These are open questions, and it is pointless to speculate about them any further. They deserve careful empirical study not only because of the fundamental importance of the question of "psychological reality" of linguistic constructs, but also for practical reasons; for example, with respect to the problem of the teaching of reading. These further topics, however, lie beyond the scope of this book. Chomsky, The Sound Pattern of English, 1968:50

30. The Constructivism of Jean Piaget • Children construct their understanding of the world by adding axioms: • The principle of the permanence of an object. • The conservation of solids and liquids.

32. Can constructivism address the question of tactic stages? • The stage like development of children is analogous to the stages of tactic development. • This would mean that each stage involves the construction of a new axiom. • What axioms could be suggested with ataxis, parataxis and syntax?

33. Possible axioms • Ataxis • Principle of the sign (Saussure). • Parataxis: • The linkage of the two signs using a case like relationship. • Syntax: the development of Parts of Speech. • (There are others (e.g. the representational sign)

34. So how does this help us explain the universal sequencing and language universals? • Sequencing? • Universals?

35. So what? • Comparing humans and chimps can improve our understanding of the nature of human language. • These comparisons may get us to rethink overlooked questions (e.g.,what is syntax?). • They may ask us to look at things differently (e.g., the constructivist view)

36. Exam Questions Using the adjacent diagram as a guide, offer 5 insights that you have encountered in this class which help you better understand human language. Please number the points and restrict yourself to a single page. Make sure your name is on the paper.