Chapter 4: How Language Works

Chapter 4: How Language Works Prof. Julia Nee Comparative Linguistics Spring 2014, LaSalle University Based on The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker

Quiz!

Quiz, Part 2 • Form two words using the rules below. Explain the meaning of the words. • Forma dos palabrasocupandolasregulasabajo. Explica el significado de cadapalabra. Nstem Stem Nstem Vstem  Stem Vstem tak: Stem; means “blue-green color” -nis: Nstem; means “quality of X”; attach me to a stem -ir: Vstem; means “to make X”; attach me to a stem

Connecting Sound to Meaning • Step One: Sound is arbitrarily assigned a meaning. • Learned in childhood (or later in life as L2) • Memorized; no connection between sound and meaning • Step Two: Grammatical structure relates elements (generative grammar) • Discrete combinatorial system • Infinite possibilities in combination

Connecting Sound to Meaning • Each individual has: • Lexicon: mental dictionary of word roots and affixes with particular meanings • Grammar: set of rules for combining the elements from the lexicon • We can create and understand a near-infinite number of sentences • 100000000000000000000 sentences!

Grammar and Cognition • Grammar and understanding are not the same • Some sentences which are not grammatical are understandable: • Is raining. • The child seems sleeping. • Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. Please try your Nice Chinese food with Chopsticks: the traditional and typical of Chinese glorious history and cultural

Grammar and Cognition • Some sentences which are not understandable are grammatical: • Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. • Clear that the sentence is grammatical: • What slept? • How? • What kind of ideas were they?

Word-chain Devices • Lists of words or phrases and a set of directions from moving from list to list • Based on the frequency of how likely a word is to follow another word happy boy girl dog ice cream hot dogs candy The A One eats

Problems with Word-chain Devices • A sentence of English is not the same as a string of words chained together based on transition probabilities • Probability of “Colorless green” = zero, but it’s still grammatical • Things that are probable may not be grammatical: House to ask for is to earn out living by working towards a goal for his team in old New-York was a wonderful place wasn’t it even…

Problems with Word-chain Devices • People don’t learn language by learning what words to put in order • Learn what categories to put in order: • Strapless black dress • Adjective adjective noun • Colorless green idea • Sentences are build with an overarching plan, not based word-by-word

Problems with Word-chain Devices • Either the girl eats ice cream, or the girl eats candy. • If the girl eats ice cream, then the boy eats ice cream.

Problems with Word-chain devices • Does our solution seem redundant? • It gets worse… • What if we embed the sentence: • If either the girl eats ice cream or the girl eats candy, then the boy eats hot dogs. • We have to “remember” the “if”! • Long distance dependencies cannot be handled by word-chain devices

Problems with Word-chain Devices • Long distance dependencies are perfectly natural • “Daddy, what did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of up for?” • Read to • Read out of • Bring up • What for

Syntactic Trees • Words are grouped into phrases (branches) • Phrases build up a larger tree • NP  (det) A* N •  = “consists of” • () = “optional” • * = “as many as you want” • “A noun phrase consists of an optional determiner, followed by any number of adjectives, followed by a noun.”

Syntactic Trees • Rules create trees: • S  NP VP • VP  V NP NP det A N the happy boy

Mental Dictionary • Tells us which words belong to which category • N  boy, girl, dog, cat, ice cream, candy… • V  eats, likes, bites… • A  happy, lucky, tall… • det  a, the, one

Draw a sentence diagram! • S  NP VP • VP  V NP • NP  (det) A* N • N  boy, girl, dog, cat, ice cream, candy • V  eats, likes, bites • A  happy, lucky, tall • det  a, an, the, one

Why is the tree structure better? • Once a kind of phrase is defined, it doesn’t have to be defined again • Eliminates the redundancy of the word-chain system • We can use the same type of phrase in different parts of the sentence: • [The happy boy] eats ice cream. • I like [the happy boy]. • I gave [the happy boy] ice cream.

Why is the tree structure better? • The whole sentence has an overarching plan! • S  either S or S • S  if S then S • Things within phrases are related closely to each other

Constituency • Branches of a tree are composed of words that are bound together • They are known as constituents • Can be isolated through constituency tests

Constituency Tests • Fronting/Topicalization: • He sneaks into people’s houses at night for fun. • For fun, he sneaks into people’s houses at night _____. • At night, he sneaks into people’s houses ______ for fun. • *Into he sneaks____ people’s houses at night for fun. • Clefting: • The girls should have taken a taxi. • It was the girls who _______ should have taken a taxi. • It was a taxi that the girls should have taken _____. • *It was should have the girls _________ taken a taxi.

Constituency Tests • Substitution: • If you can substitute a string of words with a single word. • If you can substitute this with that… • If you can do so… • Question formation: • He sneaks into people’s houses at night. • When does he sneak into people’s houses _______? • Who __ sneaks into people’s houses?

Constituency Tests • Deletion: • Yesterday I met a friend who likes dogs for lunch. • Yesterday I met a friend ____________ for lunch. • ________ I met a friend who likes dogs for lunch. • *Yesterday I met __________________________. • *Yesterday _ met a friend who likes dogs for lunch.

Test for Constituency • If it passes a test, it’s a constituent! • If it doesn’t pass, we don’t know  • The girl named Sally ate a cold ice cream cone for dinner yesterday afternoon. • Mivecinoviejocomiótres tortillas para el desayuno el miércolespasado.

Parts of Speech • What is a noun? Verb? Adjective? • “A noun is a word that does noun-y things.” • the destruction of a city (action) • the way to San Jose (path) • whiteness of the sky (quality) • three miles to Oaxaca (distance) • three hours to get to Puebla (time) • She is a fool (category) • A meeting (event)

Why are parts of speech useful? • Divide words into parts of speech to feed into rules • Rules describe the phrases and sentences that can be created from different word categories (parts of speech) • Parts of speech are abstract mental concepts!

Anatomy of Phrases • Head • Role-Players • Modifiers

Heads of Phrases • Head gives its properties to the phrase • NP: “The cat in the hat” = type of cat • VP: “flying to Rio before the police catch him” = type of flying • What the entire phrase is “about” is what it’s head word is about

Role-Players in Phrases • Role-Players have a meaningful organization in a sentence • The girl gave the ice cream to the boy.

Role Players in Phrases • Head + role-players = subphrase • Nbar • Vbar • Governor of California

Role-Players in VP • Verbs require certain role-players. • Ex: ‘give’ requires someone who gives, a thing that is given, and a person who it is given to.

Modifiers in Phrases • Modifiers add additional, but non-essential information • Man from Illinois A: I’m a man. B: Where are you from? A: Nowhere. B: That’s odd. *You aren’t a man, then. A: I’m the governor. B: What do you govern? A: Nothing. B: That’s odd. *You aren’t a governor, then.

Modifiers in Phrases • Modifiers attach within the phrase, but not within the subphrase. • “Governor of California from Illinois”

Modifiers vs. Role-Players • Role-players are required and modifiers are optional • Role-players stay close to the head, within the subphrase • Modifiers can move further out, within the phrase

Modifiers vs. Role-Players • The senator from New York from Massachusetts.

Ambiguity • Sometimes, there are two or more possible constituents. • “Tonight’s program will discuss stress, exercise, nutrition, and sex with Ryan Seacrest.” • [discuss stress, exercise, nutrition, and sex] with Ryan Seacrest • Discuss stress, exercise, nutrition, and [sex with Ryan Seacrest]

NP and VP • Have similar structure! • “The guitarists destroy the hotel room.” • “The guitarists’ destruction of the hotel room.”

Quiz  • Draw a word-chain device that accounts for the following: • The short red-headed man eats bananas. • The tall blonde girl eats bananas. • The short boy eats bananas. • The blonde woman eats bananas. • *The red-headed short girl eats bananas. • Write the syntactic tree generation rules that account for the structure on the board.

X-Bar Theory • XP  (SPEC) Xbar YP* • “A phrase consists of an optional subject, followed by an X-bar, followed by any number of modifiers.” • Xbar  X ZP* • “An X-bar consists of a head word, followed by any number of role-players.”

How do we explain ambiguity? Diagram multiple interpretations of each sentence, in teams: • The tourist saw the man with the binoculars. • The mouse saw the cat on the mat with the hat. • The dog chased the cat and the rabbit with the mouse. • The man ate the rice in the cabinet with a knife. • The mouse with the cheese in the box saw the dog with the telescope. • The cat eating food in a bowl scared the mouse in the kitchen.

English vs. Japanese • Kenji sushi ate. • Kenji to • Kenji than taller • Kenji eat did? • Kenji ate sushi. • To Kenji. • Taller than Kenji. • Did Kenji eat?

Cross-Linguistic X-bar Theory • Xbar {ZP*, X} • “An X-bar is composed of a head X and any number of role-players, in either order.” • Specify for language • English: “head-first” • Japanese: “head-last” • Principles and Parameters Theory (Chomsky): general, unordered rules are universal and innate; children learn the parameters

The Sentence • What makes a sentence different from a phrase? • Wearing a yellow shirt • The teacher named Julia • The teacher named Julia is wearing a yellow shirt. • What’s the most important part of the sentence? • The INFLECTION!

Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure • I gave Timmy the present. • Timmy was given the present. • *Gave Timmy the present. • Deep structure: all of the role-players are where we expect them to be. • Surface structure: role-players shift to fill holes in the structure

Question Formation • Question formation in English: • The unicorn is standing in the garden. • Is the unicorn standing in the garden? • More complex: • The unicorn who is eating grass is standing in the garden. • *Is the unicorn who ___ eating grass is standing in the garden? • Is the unicorn who is eating grass ___ standing in the garden?

Question Formation • Gives us the same underlying structure cross-linguistically! • Do you eat chocolate? • Comes tú chocolate?

Second Partial Project • Choose two Indo-European languages • Diagram three sentences and show how they have the same underlying structure. • One declarative statement. • One yes/no question. • One content question. • Explain the rules for creating a sentence. • Explain transformational rules.

Second Partial Project • Introduction: • What languages are you investigating? • How are they related? • Analysis: • What rules are you proposing? Why? • What structures are you proposing? Why? • What are other possible alternatives? Why DIDN’T you choose them? • Conclusion: • How does this analysis add to our general knowledge of language structure? • Why is your proposal important?

Chapter 4: How Language Works