Language Acquisition
The acquisition of language is
doubtless the greatest linguistic feat
any one of us is ever required to
perform. Leonard Bloomfield
Theories of language acquisition
• B. F. Skinner--Verbal Behavior, published in
1957
• Founder of behaviorist psychology
• Children learn language through imitation,
reinforcement and analogy
• Noam Chomsky—Review of Verbal
Behavior (1959)
• Language—a complex cognitive system
• Focus on the people’s mind—its ability to
produce language
Do children learn though imitation?
Children learn language by listening to the
adult speech around them and reproducing
what they hear.
Arguments for this explanation:
1. Learn many things by imitating.
2. Learn the language of our home and
environment, vocabulary and accent.
• Arguments against imitation:
1. Comprehension precedes production.
• David: [asks to ride the] mewy-go-wound
• 2nd child: David wants to go on the mewy-gowound.
• David: you didn't say it wight.
•
(Clark and Clark 1977, p. 385)
•
2. Mistakes are predictable and consistent
• Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we
patted them.
• Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby
rabbits?
• Child: yes.
• Adult: What did you say she did?
• Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted
them.
• Adult: Did you say she held them tightly?
• Child: No, she holded them loosely.
• These forms are not found in adult speech.
• hitted, goed, tooths
• Do children learn language through
reinforcement?
• Children learn through positive and
negative reinforcement
• Correction of ‘bad grammar’ and reward for
‘good grammar’
Child: Nobody don't like me.
Mother: No, say 'Nobody likes me.'
Child: Nobody don't like me.
[Eight repetitions of this dialog, then:]
Mother: No, now listen carefully. Say,
'Nobody likes me.'
Child: Oh! Nobody don't likes me.
• Children do not know understand their mistakes
and corrections
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy.
Father: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy.
Father: Can you say “the other spoon”?
Child: Other … one … spoon.
Father: say … other
Child: Other.
Father: Spoon.
Do children learn language though Analogy?
Children put words together to form phrases
and sentences by analogy.
Use the sentences they hear as samples
• Do children learn language through
structured input?
Children learn language because adults speak
to them in simplified language
Motherese
Baby talk
Characteristics of caregiver talk (motherese):
a. exaggerated intonation
b. slow speech/careful pronunciation
c. simple sentences
d. proper nouns instead of pronouns
e. questions and imperatives
f. repetitions
Are you hungry? or Is baby hungry?
Problems:
• In many cultures, adults do not speak
special register
• In many cultures, adults do not speak to
babies
Do children actively construct grammar?
Children make the rules of grammar based on the
speech they hear around them.
I have rided a horse.
I have feeded a horse.
foot
foots feets feetses
feet
Noam Chomsky:
We are designed to walk. … That we are
taught to walk is impossible. And pretty
much the same is true of language. Nobody
is taught language. In fact you can’t prevent
the child from learning it.
Human Language Series 2
Children language learning has four characteristics:
1. All children all over the world learn language
2. Children in all speech communities learn language
similarly:
a. babbling: about 6 months
b. First words: about 1 year
c. First grammatical morphemes: about 2
years
d. Basic mastery: about 4 years
e. Continues learning, especially vocabulary
•
3. Children learn language without any formal
instruction
The innateness of language:
Children are equipped with an innate template
or blueprint for language
The poverty of stimulus:
Children are exposed to impoverished data
However, they are able to construct a complex
grammar of their language
Abstract principles/operating strategies not
identified in the input
Structure dependent rules:
The cat who is playing is limping a lot.
*Is the cat who playing is limping a lot?
Is the cat who is playing limping a lot?
Jack went up the hill.
Who went up the hill?
Jack and Jill went up the hill.
Who went up the hill?
Jack and who went up the hill?
*Who did Jack and go up the hill?
Stages in the learning of language (English)
•
• Phonological development:
•
• Babbling: begin at about six months of age
• Early babbling independent of language of
exposure
• Deaf children babble with their hands
• Children practice the phones
•
Developmental order:
• Vowels before consonants
• Stops before other consonants
• Labials before other consonants
Typical consonants acquired by age two by
English-speaking child:
• /p, b, m, t, d, n, k, g, f, s, w/
• By age four:
• /p, b, m, t, d, n, k, g, ŋ , f, v, s, z, s, c, j, w,
j, r, l/
•
•
•
•
•
•
Syllable simplification:
Stop
[tap]
Small [ma]
Desk
[d k]
Try
[taj]
Bump [b p]
Substitution:
• Sing
[t ]
• Sea
[t ]
• Thing
[t ]
• This
[d t]
• Shoes
[tud]
• Look
[wuk]
• Rock
[w k]
• Silly
[siwi]
• Morphological Development:
• Early stages: words of single roots
•
No affixes
• The development of affixes
1. Case by case learning: man/men bag/bags
2. Overuse of general rule: man/mans bag/bags
3. Mastery of exceptions: man/men bag/bags
• Acquisition order for English bound morphemes
and functional words (based on the pioneering
Harvard research of three children between the
ages of 20 and 36 months):
• 1. –ing
• 2. plural –s
• 3. possessive –s
• 4. the, a
• 5. past tense –ed
• 6. third person singular –s
• 7. auxiliary be
(page 547)
• Note: The articles the and a are the most frequent
words in adult speech.
• What does this tell about the imitation theory of
language learning?
A clear relation between form and meaning
Few or no exceptions: singular nouns –s for plural
Past tense on verbs-- irregular
Allomorphic variation: -ing no variation
-ed, -s and –s’ allomorphic variation
clear meaning: -s plural marker has a clear meaning while –
s third person has no such clear meaning.
• The WUG test: nonsense words-provide
plural or past forms
• Page 557
• Syntactic Development:
•
• The One-word stage: (between ages 12
and 18 months)
•
• Dada
“I see daddy”—called holophrastic
stage
• Cookie “I want a cookie”
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The two-word stage:
Two-word mini sentences:
Hi mommy
Byebye boat
It ball
Dirty sock
Jane sock
• The telegraphic stage: longer and complex
structures
• Doll like milk
•
• Car make noise.
•
• He good boy
•
• I good girl.
• Later development:
Yes/No questions and Wh-questions:
• Intonation:
• I ride train?
• I can go?
• See hole?
• Can I can go?
• Can I go?
• Did you did come home?
• Did you come home?
WH-questions
• Where that?
• Why you smiling?
•
• Where I can go?
• Why you are smiling?
• Where I should sleep?
•
• Where can I can go?
• Where can I go?
• Semantic development:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Overgeneralization/overextension
Ball—for everything round
Daddy—for all male
Narrowing:
Dog—pet dog
• Tendencies:
• Morphemes--at the end of the utterance than
anywhere else.
•
• A clear relation between form and meaning
•
• Few or no exceptions: singular nouns –s for plural
•
• Past tense on verbs-- irregular
•

Computationally modelling the morphophonology of

APIX 磯 LB3000 PARTS LIST