PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Language Acquisition

Announcements On-line Blackboard quiz for chapter 4 is now up.

You may take it 5 times, top score counts I am pushing Exam 2 back a day. We will have the

exam on Feb. 28. Language development section includes information

from Chapter 3, pages 72-87 Homework #2 due Feb. 21st

Nice video series (6 parts) on language acquisition Another nice clip about an experiment on infant language perception

Language Sponges Learning words

General patterns and observations Sounds Meaning

Proposed Strategies/constraints

Learning Syntax Learning Morphology

Language Sponges

About 3,000 new words per year, especially in the primary grades

As many as 8 new words per day Production typically lags behind comprehension

Learning words

12 ms first words

2 yrs 200 words

3 yrs 1,000 words

6 yrs 15,000 words

Early word learning

First words (Around 10-15 months) Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of

phonologically consistent forms 1 word stage typically lasts around 10 months Have learned first 50 words by 15 – 24 months Typically focused on the “here and now”

Early word learning

First words (Around 10-15 months) Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of

phonologically consistent forms

Early word learning

Developed in systematic ways Not simply imitation, rather are creative Learned importance of consistency of names

First words (Around 10-15 months) Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of

phonologically consistent forms Idiomorphs - personalized words

“Adult words” - Typically context bound (relevant to the immediate environment)

Important people, objects that move, objects that can be acted upon, familiar actions

Nouns typically appear before verbs

Early speech production Transition to speech

This is your fis?Your fis?Oh, your fish.

No. … my fis.No. My fis!Yes, my fis.

Early speech production

This is your fis? Transition to speech

No, … my fis.

Your fis. No, my fis.

Oh, your fish. Yes, my fis.

Can’t hear the difference? Rejects adult saying ‘fis’

Can’t produce the correct sounds?

Sometimes, but evidence suggests not always the case

More general process of simplification

“frees up” resources for concentrating on other aspects of language learning

Early speech production

Common Phonological processes Reduction

Delete sounds from words (“da” for dog) Coalescence

Combine different syllables into one syllable (“paf” for pacifier)

Assimilation Change one sound into a similar sound within the

word (“fweet” for sweet) Reduplication

One syllable from a multi-syllabic word is repeated (“baba” for bottle)

Transition to speech individual diffs, but some regularities

Indeterminacy: Frog

FrogFrog?

Green?Jumping?

Ugly?

Indeterminacy: Frog

Frog

????

Quine’s gavagai problem The problem of reference:

A word may refer to a number of referents (real world objects)

A single object or event has many objects, parts and features that can be referred to

FrogFrog?

Green?Ugly?

Jumping?

Extensions of meaning

Extension Finding the appropriate limits of the meaning of words Overextension

Applying a word too broadly Mostly based on perceptual features (but other features too:

sound, movement, size, texture extension) Very common in early word learning (Rescorla, 1980 1/3

of first 75 words) Underextension

Applying a word too narrowly e.g., “round” only for their ball

Applying the words to referents

Extensions of meaning

“tee”

Extensions of meaning

“tee”1:9,11

Extensions of meaning

“tee”1:9,111:10,18

Extensions of meaning

“tee”

“googie”

1:9,111:10,18

1:11,1

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”2:0,20

“biggie googie”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”2:0,20

“biggie googie”

One-word-per-referent heuristic If a new word comes in for a referent that is already named, replace it Exception to that was “horse,” but it only lasted a day here

Strategies for learning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”2:0,20

“biggie googie”

Expansion and contraction can occur at the same time

Strategies for learning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”2:0,20

“biggie googie”

Child tries different things, if a word doesn’t work then they try something else

e.g., hosh didn’t for for the large dog, switched to biggie doggie

Learning word meanings

Fast mapping (Carey & Bartlett, 1978) Using the context to guess the meaning of a word

Learning words

“Please give me the chromium tray. Not the blue one, the chromium one.”

All got the olive tray Several weeks later still had some of the meaning

Only took one trial to establish the mappingvideo

Constraints on Word Learning

Perhaps children are biased to entertain certain hypotheses about word meanings over others

These first guesses save them from logical ambiguity Get them started out on the right track

Mutual exclusivity constraint Object-scope (whole object) constraint Taxonomic constraint

Learning words Cognitive Constraints (Markman, 1989)

Kids choose the corkscrew it is a less well known object for which they don’t yet

have a label.

‘Show me a dax’:

Mutual exclusivity constraint (Markam and Watchel 1988)

Each object has one label & different words refer to separate, non-overlapping categories of objects

An object can have only one label

Strategies for learning

Object-scope (whole object) constraint Words refer to whole objects rather than to parts of

objects

Strategies for learning

Dog

Taxonomic constraint Words refer to categories of

similar objects Taxonomies (categories)

rather than thematically related obejcts

Strategies for learning

‘See this? Can you find another one?’

No Word condition

Theme response

Taxonomyresponse

‘Show me another lux’

‘Here is a lux’

Word condition

Theme response

Taxonomyresponse

Shape versus function

Strategies for learning

Landau, Smith, & Jones, (1998)

Category members often share shape and function. Do kids use both pieces of information?

‘Is this a rif/dax?’

‘Here is a dax’

No Function

Name Q condition

Same shape

Same function

‘Is this a rif/dax?’

‘Here is a dax’

Function

Name Q condition

Same shape

Same function

‘Can you mop-up water with tihis?’

‘Here is a dax. A

Dax can mop-up water’

Function

Function Q condition

Same shape

Same function

Shape versus function

Strategies for learning

Landau, Smith, & Jones, (1998)

Category members often share shape and function. Do kids use both pieces of information?

For kids, shape seems to be more important than function for learning names. Adults focus more on function.

Problem with constraints

Most of the constraints proposed apply only to object names.

What about verbs? (Nelson 1988) There have been cases where children have been

observed violating these constraints Using for example the word ‘car’ only to refer to ‘cars moving

on the street from a certain location’ (Bloom 1973) The mutual exclusivity constraint would prevent

children from learning subordinate and superordinate information (animal < dog < poodle)

The language explosion is not just the result of simple semantic development; the child is not just adding more words to his/her vocabulary.

Child is mastering basic syntactic and morphological processes.

Language explosion continues