LING 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Noam Chomsky, Universal Grammar, Critical Period
Monday, October 16th, 2017
***Wednesday’s slides (i.e Oct. 18th) will be very helpful/useful for assignment #3, which is
due Friday.***
Language Acquisition and the Poverty of the Stimulus
A paradox
• Hundreds of adults with advanced degrees have spent the last half- century developing the
field of generative linguistics and have yet to work out a decisive grammar for a single
language.
• Every normal toddler acquires the grammar of (at least) one language effortlessly and in just
a few short years.
What do these toddlers learn?
• Rules that are necessary to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences
• Rules that allow them to know what is not possible in their language
Tacit linguistic knowledge
. (1) a. The judge chose a picture of John. b. Who did the judge choose a picture of?
. (2) a. A picture of John won first prize. b. *Who did a picture of win first prize?
• Certainly no one ever explicitly taught you that (2b) is not a grammatical
English sentence.
• It a’t e that ou ko it’s ugraatial eause ou hae’t heard it efore.
Tacit linguistic knowledge
• There are an infinite number of sentences
. (3) The cat jumped on the window before the paint was dry, so the now we have blue paw
prints all over the nice hardwood floors.
. (4) A Chihuahua has never won a game of shoots and ladders against a a dragon
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. (5) If ou sa artisaal aaroi ad heese oe ore tie, I sear I’ll alk out of this
restaurant before you can stop me.
.
Tacit linguistic knowledge
• No matter what language we speak (or sign) we have a vast amount of knowledge about that
language.
• We ere’t epliitl taught ost of this koledge.
• We are’t ee aare that e hae ost of this koledge.
• How did we come to have all of this knowledge?
The problem of language acquisition
• How is it possible that children acquire language so quickly and such an early age?
• Think about learning a new language as an adult • ... it’s hard
The problem of language acquisition
• Imagine some other difficult topic...
• A 5 year-old mastering multivariate calculus
• Yet almost with out exception 5 year-olds have mastered at least one language
• Domain specificity: language acquisition is autonomous from other cognitive processes (e.g.,
learning math). We have specific cognitive structures that allow us to acquire a
language/languages
Poverty of the Stimulus
The knowledge acquired in language acquisition far exceeds the amount of information that is
available in the environment
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Poverty of the Stimulus
The knowledge acquired in language acquisition far exceeds the
amount of information that is available in the environment
primary linguistic data (PLD)
Poverty of the Stimulus
1. An indefinite number of alternative sets of principles are consistent with the regularities
found in the linguistic data.
2. The correct set of priiples is’t eessaril sipler or ore atural.
3. The data that ould e eessar to test these differet priiples is’t eessaril aailale.
Poverty of the Stimulus
• The primary linguistic data that children receive during acquisition is limited
• Children only hear a finite set of sentences• Some of the data will be fragmented (noise,
getting cut off, etc) • Some of the data will be deviant (speech errors, false starts)
Poverty of the Stimulus
• The primary linguistic data that children receive during acquisition is limited
• Children only hear a finite set of sentences• Some of the data will be fragmented (noise,
getting cut off, etc) • Some of the data will be deviant (speech errors, false starts)
• But children still end up with a very complex language system • Not just reflective of input
they receive• Acquire rules that they have no direct evidence for
Poverty of the stimulus
• Eglish speakers hae ituitios aout the folloig setees, ut the do’t oe up all
that often in speech (especially child direct speech)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
***wednesday"s slides (i. e oct. 18th) will be very helpful/useful for assignment #3, which is due friday. Language acquisition and the poverty of the stimulus. What do these toddlers learn: rules that are necessary to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences, rules that allow them to know what is not possible in their language. The judge chose a picture of john. b. Who did the judge choose a picture of? (2) a. A picture of john won first prize. b. *who did a picture of win first prize: certainly no one ever explicitly taught you that (2b) is not a grammatical. English sentence: it (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t (cid:271)e that (cid:455)ou k(cid:374)o(cid:449) it"s u(cid:374)gra(cid:373)(cid:373)ati(cid:272)al (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause (cid:455)ou ha(cid:448)e(cid:374)"t heard it (cid:271)efore. The problem of language acquisition: how is it possible that children acquire language so quickly and such an early age, think about learning a new language as an adult it"s hard.
