Stages & Theories in first language acquisition

1. Stages & Theories in first language acquisition 922

2. Deb Roy's project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZatrvNDOiE 02:25-06:02

3. Children’s utterances from 1 to 3. H. H. Clark & E. V. Clark (1977). Introduction to Psycholinguistics. Paul Fletcher (1985). A Child's Learning of English. London: Blackwell. R.A.Berman (1978). Early words: Why and how a child uses her first words

4. Developments Observed in Descriptive Studies of Language Production. 1. Vocalizations: prespeech, precursors 0-12 2. Early/First words: one-word stage, holophrastic speech 12-18 3. Word-combinations: two-word stage, pivot grammar 18-24 4. Early grammar: morphology, telegraphic speech, simple sentence 24-36 5. Complex grammar: interclausal connectivity, phrase level expansions 36-48 6. Thematic structure: discourse organization, narrative, individual style 48-up

5. Different disciplines in language acquisition • Behaviorist approach: child language, tabula rasa, environmental stimuli, general learning mechanism, communication, socialization, Skinner, Snow, Bruner. • Costructivist developmental approach: language development, inborn capacity for acquiring knowledge, stages, transitions, reorganization of knowledge, Berman, Karmiloff-Smith, Piaget. • Nativist (Chomskian) approach: language acquisition, universal grammar, language acquisition device, innate linguistic knowledge, modularity (Fodor), triggers, parameters, continuity, maturation, Pinker, Crain, Chomsky.

6. Karmiloff-Smith's Phases of Linguistic and Cognitive Development Karmiloff-Smith, A. 1986. From meta-processes to conscious access: Evidence from children's metalinguistic and repair data. Cognition 23: 95-147. 1. Procedural Phase: Data-driven, bottom-up behavioral output, motivated by adaptation to environment (e.g. adultlike linguistic forms) 2. Metaprocedural Phase: Output driven by top-down processes, organization-oriented rather than success-driven. 3. Conceptual Phase: Integrative interaction between data-driven bottom-up and top-down control processes, both external stimuli and internal representations guide behavior.

7. Steps in Development of Language Form and Language Use [Berman]: 1. Pregrammatical: a. Item-based knowledge, unanalyzed, rote-learning b. Initial alternations, formal modifications of familiar items 2. Structure-bound, Class-based: c. Interim schemata, non-normative transitional strategies d. Grammaticization, rigidly normative rule-application 3. End-stage Usage: e. Rhetorical choice, rule-application constrained by lexical convention and discourse appropriateness, range of expressive options bound by: individual style, functional variation, and register distinctions

8. The nativist/generative model Crain, S. 1991. Language Acquisition in the Absence of Experience. Behavioral and brain Sciences 14, 597-602, 605-606, 611. Wanna Contraction (5) a. Who do you want to help b. Who do you wanna help (6) a. Who do you want to help you b. *Who do you wanna help you

9. The nativist/generative model Crain, S. 1991. Language Acquisition in the Absence of Experience. Behavioral and brain Sciences 14, 597-602, 605-606, 611. Wanna Contraction (5) a. Who do you want to help _ b. Who do you wanna help (6) a. Who do you want _ to help you b. *Who do you wanna help you

10. Basic terminology (I) • Plato’s problem (the language acquisition paradox): How can a child acquire such a complicated system based on so partial input in a relatively short time? • Poverty of the stimulus – The constraints are negative, that is, the rule out structures rather then build them, but the input does not include this information (no negative evidence) • Universal grammar is the set of principles (with their different values – the parameters) which constrain all languages. UG is innate and serves as the basis for language acquisition (Language Acquisition Device).

11. Basic terminology (II) • Parameters exert limits on the ways languages may differ.A parameter is the set of possible values for one constraint (or phenomenon) crosslinguistically. Parameter-setting models propose that language acquisition is the process of identifying the values of the target language. Under one of its versions, the child is born with a default initial setting for each parameter. The child changes the value of the parameter one his/her grammar cannot account for the input. Triggers are the specific linguistic information which is necessary for advancing the process of language acquisition.

12. Basic terminology (III) • Continuity is the assumption that language acquisition is gradual, and each phase crucially depends on the previous one, and includes it. The difference is in quantity, but not in quality. The no-continuity approach proposes that language development is a set of clearly distinct qualitatively different stages. • Maturation is the hypothesis that linguistic principles, like other aspects of physical development of the body (e.g., the secondary sex characteristics), may lie dormant for years.

13. Basic terminology (IV) • Competence and performance: While linguistic knowledge is innate, competence, and moreover, performance are partial or delayed due to a variety of factor extraneous to language (or syntax). Thus, competence and performance are evidence for the existing linguistic knowledge, but problems with or lack of competence and performance in not evidence for the lack of linguistic knowledge.

14. First 50 Words of 3 American Children - in Order of Acquisition From: Stoel-Gammon, C. & J. Cooper, 1984. Patterns of early lexical and phonological development. Journal Child Language 11: 247-272, Table 4

15. Pragmatic principles in acquiring the mental lexicon Clark, E.V. & R.A. Berman. (1984). Structure and use in the acquisition of word-formation. Language 60, 542-590. • Conventionality –For each meaning, there is a conventional expected word or form that speakers use. • Contrast – Different words or forms mark different meanings >> one form-one meaning (beef/cattle) • >>> Homonymy assumption – Two different meanings shouldn’t be carried by the same word. This doesn’t hold for mature adults. • >>>Words contrast in meaning - even synonyms are used by the same speaker on different registers/different occasions • >>>Established words have priority – word search is conducted. If it fails – circumlocution or innovations are used. • >>>Innovative words fill lexical gaps – lexical innovations must contrast in meaning with lexical items

16. Pragmatic principles and acquisition • The fis phenomenon • Unfamiliar words fill gaps (superordinates and subordinates) • Coinages fill gaps

17. Other Determining factors • Transparency of meaning – words that are based on known roots and affixes Sky-car, baby-bottle, to flag, to cello, to dust, brighty, brusher, hider • Simplicity of form - preference for simpler forms for new words Car-smoke < wagon-puller, soref < sarfan

18. How are verbs acquired? Many verb meanings are compatible with most events

19. Lexical reconciliation (Grimshaw 1994) • Fundamental claim: There is a principled relation between the syntax and the semantics of a verb. • “The range of syntactic configurations associated with a verb is highly predictable from its semantics, once parametric syntactic variation is taken into account.”  • Mapping of lexical semantic representation onto syntactic representation: • Lexical semantics of a predicate > argument structure • Argument structure + parametric properties of phrase structure > s-structure