PSY315H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Generative Grammar, Language Model, Noam Chomsky
Document Summary
Mental processes are implicit (not available for conscious evaluation) Develop ways to study acquisition processes using indirect methods. Inventory of speech sounds (vowels, consonants), and rules for combination (know implicitly sv not possible in english phonotactics. Pragmatic competence (how to use language in communicative contexts) Someone explicitly teaches you rules and strategies? (no) Imitation? (rote learning of utterances produced by adults) Children produce similar errors (overgeneralization of -ed), errors which adults do not make. If they were able to imitate, we would expect the child to be able to complete tasks which they are unable to do. (no) Induction (learn the underlying system through exposure in a number of examples) Making inferences on what will come next. We are exposed to samples of language by our environment. Induction often yields many possibilities solutions for a given problem. The puzzle for language acquisition: there are many possible solutions that language learners never seem to consider.
