Alternative approaches
to language acquisition
Language Acquisition
80640272
Yang Xiaolu
Readings for this week
*Goldberg, A. 2003. Constructions: a new theoretical approach to language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7(5):219-224.
Lieven, E., Pine, J., and Baldwin, G. 1997. Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language24:187-219.
*Tomasello, M. 2000. Do young children have adult syntactic competence? Cognition, 74, 209-253.
*Tomasello, M. and Brooks, P. J. 1998. Young children’s earliest transitive and intransitive constructions. Cognitive Linguistics9(4):379-395.
the Chomskyan view of language
acquisition
mentalism
the logical problem of language acquisition
universal grammar
modularity
Innateness
the debate between nativism vs. empiricism; generative linguistics vs. cognitive-functional linguistics
Common ground between generative
linguistics and cognitive functional linguistics (Goldberg 2003)
Language is a cognitive (mental) system: (as opposed to the behaviorist view of language) Structures are combined in a certain way to create novel utterances.
A non-trivial theory of language learning is needed.
Some basic concepts in the debate
core vs. periphery
modular vs. non-modular
domain-specificity vs. domain-generality
autonomy vs. interaction
rule-based learning vs. item-based/lexically-based learning/usage-based
-complexity
-productivity
“In other ways, constructionist approaches contrast sharply with the mainstream generative approach. The latter has held that the nature of language can best be revealed by studying formal structures independently of their semantic or discourse functions. Ever increasing layers of abstractness have characterized the formal representations. Meaning is claimed to derive from the mental dictionary of words, with functional differences between formal patterns being largely ignored. Semiregular patterns and unusual patterns are viewed as ‘peripheral,’with a narrow band of data seen as relevant to the ‘core’of language. Mainstream generative theory argues further that the complexity of core language cannot be learned inductively by general cognitive mechanisms and therefore learners must be hard-wired with principles that are specific to language (‘universal grammar’).”(Goldberg 2003:219)
Explaining language acquisition in terms of general cognitive principles
McNamara 1972 “Cognitive basis of language learning in infants”
Slobin1973 “Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar”
Tomasello2000 The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition
Language is interactive: language development is not simply a development of mental grammar internalized by the child, but is a product of complex interactions of linguistic, cognitive, perceptual systems with the environment.
Cognitive development precedes linguistic development. The child uses the cognitive ability s/he has developed (e.g. the ability to detect intentional behavior in others, the capacity for joint attention and reference, understanding of the structure of action in social interaction, understanding of the speech acts of others), as well as other cognitive principles and mechanisms, as guides to discovering the linguistic system of the target language.
Explaining language acquisition in terms of general cognitive principles: connectionism Elman, J. et al. 1996. Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development.
Elman, J. (2001). Connectionism and language acquisition. In M. Tomasello& E. Bates (Eds.), Essential Readings in Language Development. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Bates, E. Elman, J., Johnson, M., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D., & Plunkett, K. (1998). Innateness and emergentism. In W. Bechtel and G. Graham (Eds.) A Companion to Cognitive Science.Oxford: Basil Blackwood.
cf. 李平, 2002, 《当代语言学》2002年第3期
Language is not domain-specific and is processed by general mechanisms. Such mechanisms are connectionist networks that consist of numerous simple units.
Language is analyzed through continuous connectionist computation and is distributed across neural systems. Linguistic competence can be obtained without innate linguistic rules.
Language learning is not a process of deriving complex structures from more primitive or innate ones. Rather, new forms or structures emerge all the time in an unpredictable way in response to the linguistic input.
Figure 1: A neural network that reads letters and recognizes words. When a letter is detected, the corresponding letter node activates all words that contain it (lines with arrows). Since only one word can be present at a time, word nodes compete with inhibitory connections (lines with filled circles).
Accounting for early grammatical development: from two-word combinations to
multi-word combinations
Andrew’s Pivotal constructions
(Braine 1963)
airplane by siren by mail come mama come clock on there up on there milk in there light up there
other bread other milk other pants other part other piece other pocket other shoe boot off light off more car more cereal more fish more high more hot more juice more walk hi Calico hi mama no bed no down no fix no home no mama no more no pee see baby see train all broke
all buttoned
all clean
all done
all dry
all fix
all messy
all shut
all through
all wet
the pivot grammar
Braine (1963) The Ontogeny of English Phrase Structure: the First Phrase
two word classes at this stage: pivot and open
the pivotal class: never stands alone and always occurs either in first position and final position
a three-rule pivot grammar
1) P1 + O;
2) O + P2;
3) O + O (e.g ball table, mommy sock…)
The semantic relations approach
Brown (1973) A First Language: the Early Stages
Semantic relations
-recurrence (more)
-location (up there, in there)
-possession,
-agent-action
The child knows some things about the causal relations among agents, actions, and objects, and this knowledge might form the basis for structures like agent-action-object (and also for possessor-possessed, object-location, object-attribute, and so on)
Problems with the pivot grammar and the semantic relations approach
Fail to account for all early word combinations Fail to account for how young children get from
pivot grammar or semantically based categories to the more abstract syntactic categories of adults
the nativist view of early syntax
the Continuity Hypothesis
“In the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, the child’s grammatical rules should be drawn from the same basic rule types, and be composed of primitive symbols from the same class, as the grammatical rules attributed to adults in standard linguistic investigations.”(Pinker 1984:7)
“Children’s developing grammars can differ from the target, the adult grammar, only in ways in which adult grammars can differ from each other.”(Crain and Thornton 1998:31)
problems with the nativist view
Fails to deal with the problems of cross-linguistic variation and developmental change:
-how children could “link”an abstract and unchanging universal grammar to the structures of a particular language.
Fails to give a satisfactory account of why children’s early language looks very little like adult language.
the nativist view: why early child grammar different from adult grammar
Performance and pragmatic limitations
cf. Valian’s(1991) account of early null subjects
Maturation
-certain aspects of grammar ‘mature’
-time constraint
Lexicalism
-grammatical categories and rules attached to lexical entries
-interaction between grammar and lexicon
Tomasello(1992, 2000a, b, 2003)
The usage-based account
item-based learning
General cognitive processes involved in language learning
-intention reading and cultural learning
-analogy making and structure-mapping
-structure combining