LIN 1310 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Universal Grammar, Waggle Dance, The Repository
20 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
LIN1310
Lecture 3
Universal Grammar:
● Whatever accounts for
the difference between
linguistic and nonlinguistic
creatures, let’s give it a
name: Universal
Grammar (UG for short).
● UG provides an abstract
template for languages:
we can acquire certain
kinds of rule systems
(those we call English,
Basque, etc.) but not
others.
● At the same time, it permits limited variation within the boundaries set by the template:
English, Basque, etc. all look somewhat different.
An idealized model of language acquisition:
● UG → Experience → Language
● Why ‘Universal’?
○ Because it allows us to acquire any natural language.
● Why ‘Grammar’?
○ Because it defines the kinds of rule systems (Grammars) we can acquire:
English, French, Basque, etc. but not bee dance or birdsong
Grammatical Competence:
● A Grammar is the mental representation of our knowledge of language.
● This knowledge constitutes a speaker’s competence.
● How the speaker chooses to use her language is a different matter—that of
performance.
● Our knowledge of language is extremely rich but unconscious (tacit), and for the most
part was never explicitly taught to us.
● When we acquire a language, we acquire:
○ a large but finite number of words: the atoms of language
○ a procedure to combine these atoms into infinitely many meaningful messages
○ our knowledge, our competence.
● But can we access competence without looking at performance? How can we access
our unconscious knowledge?
Some things you tacitly know: words
● What does book or house mean?
○ (1) This book is heavy. And this book is available everywhere. That book is really
hard to understand.
LIN1310
Lecture 3
○ (2) John painted the house brown. Now the house needs to be redecorated. In
fact, the house is a mess. Mary is near the house.
● While a writer writes and a teacher teaches… … that doesn’t mean that a beaver
*beaves or a hammer *hamms.
● The word unlockable is ambiguous: an unlockable door can be a door that can be
unlocked or one that cannot be locked.
● Even if I catch multiple bugs and hug multiple cars, I’m still a bug catcher (not a *bugs
catcher) and a car hugger (not a *car hugger).
● You know that him refers to different people:
○ (3) Homer expected to surprise him.
○ (4) I wonder who Homer expected to surprise him.
○ (5) I wonder who Homer expected to surprise.
● Even perfectly meaningless ideas cannot be expressed in just any way:
○ (6) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
○ (7) *Furiously ideas green sleep colorless.
● You know who will be leaving in each of the following:
○ (8) Mary convinced John to leave.
○ (9) Mary promised John to leave.
● You know who’s being praised in each of the following :
○ (10) The teacher praised himself.
○ (11) The brother of the teacher praised himself.
● You know that the following has two (not more) meanings:
○ (12) The senator called the businessman from Texas.
How did we learn the principles that underlie these judgments?
● Surely they were not taught to us directly or explicitly.
● They are not found in any English grammar textbook; they have never even been
noticed, except by a few people, and indeed, they are still not known with absolute
certainty even by specialists.
● Yet every normally developing English-speaking child masters them at an early age with
no special effort.
● Because children come to the task of language acquisition with a rich conceptual
apparatus already in place that makes it possible for them to draw correct and far
reaching conclusions on the basis of very little evidence.
● Human language learning involves a very powerful cognitive system that allows learners
to infer their grammar from the insufficient data they are presented with in day-to-day
speech.
Back to Universal Grammar:
● UG must be general enough to allow us to acquire any human language.
○ UG provides an abstract template for languages: we can acquire certain kinds of
rule systems (English, for example) but not others.
● It must allow for differences between languages.
Document Summary
Whatever accounts for the difference between linguistic and nonlinguistic creatures, let"s give it a name: universal. Ug provides an abstract template for languages: we can acquire certain kinds of rule systems (those we call english, At the same time, it permits limited variation within the boundaries set by the template: Because it allows us to acquire any natural language. Because it defines the kinds of rule systems (grammars) we can acquire: English, french, basque, etc. but not bee dance or birdsong. A grammar is the mental representation of our knowledge of language. How the speaker chooses to use her language is a different matter that of performance. Our knowledge of language is extremely rich but unconscious (tacit), and for the most part was never explicitly taught to us. When we acquire a language, we acquire: A large but finite number of words: the atoms of language. A procedure to combine these atoms into infinitely many meaningful messages.
