PSYC 213 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Active And Passive Transformation, Opponent Process, Cooperative Principle
28 May 2018
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Chapter 9: Language
Structure of Language
• 7000 languages in the world, many of which are at risk of becoming extinct
• Recursion: capacity of any one component (phrase, sentence) to contain any number of similar
components
o Very important characteristic of human language
o Can make sentences with an infinite number of other sentences embedded in it
Building Blocks of Language
• Psycholinguistics: branch of cognitive psychology dealing with how we comprehend, produce,
acquire & interpret (in the mind) language
• Language hierarchically organized
o Elements combined using certain rules
• Phoneme: smallest unit of language
o Are combined to form morphemes
o i.e. letters (sounds)
• Morpheme: smallest unit of language that carries meaning
o i.e. words
o Not all morphemes are words; a phoneme like "s" can become a morpheme that carries
meaning; i.e. dog --> dogs plural
• Number of phonemes varies; 44 (24 consonants & 20 vowel) in English vs. 24 in Spanish
• Newborn has capacity to learn all languages / all phonemes
o Lose ability within 1 year as focus on language spoken around them
• Combine phonemes & morphemes into sentences according to sets of rules
o Syntax: rules that govern how words and sentences are structured
• i.e. order of subject and verb
o Semantics: meaning of words and sentences
Early Work on Language
• Relationship between experience and words used to describe it
• Tree diagram: description of process that proceeds from one level at which a number of
relationships are simultaneously present, to other levels at which those relationships are
serially ordered
o Used by Wundt to describe the relationship between different parts of our overall
experience of a situation
o Can move from experience to a sentence, and from sentence to experience
Transformational Grammar
• Chomsky: language is recursive --set of possible sentences is infinite
• Language: open-ended verbal communication that consists of all possible sentences
• Speech: those sentences that are actually spoken
o Only a small subset of language
• Set of rules (grammar) that is capable of producing all possible sentences in the language;
infinite number
o A sentence does not need to be meaningful to be grammatically correct
o Distinction between semantics and syntax
• Chomsky argued that no finite state grammar could generate all the sentences in a language
o Too simple to underlie complexity of natural languages (i.e. sentences embedded in
other sentences)
o Operate only at one level, from left to right
• Proposed alternative --top-down process using phrase structure rules & grammatical
transformations
o Phrase structure rules: rules describing the way symbols can be rewritten as other
symbols
• Operate on single symbols (i.e. sentence (S) --> noun phrase (NP) + verb phrase
(VP))
o Grammatical transformations: operate on entire strings, to convert them into new strings
• i.e. passive transformation Boswell admired Johnson --> Johnson was admired by
Boswell
• NP1 + V + NP2 --> NP2 + to be + V + by + NP1
• Example of optional transformation, not necessary to make sentence
grammatical
• Kernel sentences are those produced without optional transformations (easier to
understand since require fewer transformations)
o Able to generate infinite amount of sentences
• Derivation of sentence presented using tree diagram
o Each stage in process yields a different string
o Final word sequence = terminal string
Competence & Performance
• Competence vs. performance: we may have an internalized system of rules that constitute
basic linguistic competence, but this competence may not always be reflected in our actual use
of the language (performance)
• Competence: basis on which person is able to understand & use the language
o Understand system of rules linking sounds to meaning
• Linguistic performance: person's actual use of language
o Determined by basic linguistic competence, but also by cognitive factors such as
memory and age
o Performance is thus not always a good index of competence
Deep & Surface Structures
• Chomsky believes that linguistic competence has largely innate internal structure
o Universal grammar (i.e. universal syntax, allowing transform meaning into words)
• Deep & surface structure: sequence of words that make up a sentence constitute a surface
structure that is derived from an underlying deep structure
o Meaning = deep structure
o Words = surface structure
• Ambiguity in language illustrates why need to distinguish between deep & surface structures
o Same surface structure can be derived from different deep structures
o Sentences can have multiple meanings
o When understand a sentence, transform surface into deep structure
• When produce a sentence, transform a deep into surface structure
Innateness Hypothesis
• Innateness hypothesis: hypothesis that children innately possess a language acquisition
device that comes equipped with principles of universal grammar
o Chomsky
• "Poverty of the stimulus" argument: argument that the linguistic environment to which a child is
exposed is not good enough to enable language on its own
o Linguistic performance of adult is too incomplete and full of errors
o Supports innateness hypothesis
• Small children will often come up with words that have never heard from adults
• Also learn first language much more rapidly than seem possible if started from nothing
• Language acquisition device (LAD): device possessed by children; contains general principles
that apply to any natural language
o Universal language
o i.e. fact that language contains noun phrases, and verb phrases arranged in particular
ways
o Theory of language used by children to discover the structure of the language spoken by
their community
• Skinner believed that children learn language by getting informative feedback
o Alternative to innateness hypothesis
o Get approval and disapproval
• Study observing interaction between mothers & children
o Found that mothers allowed ungrammatical sentences and respond to them in the same
way as grammatical utterances
• Approval comes based on whether statement is true, not about grammatical quality
o No evidence for Skinner's approach
Minimalism
• Minimalism: belief that linguistic competence has only those characteristics that are absolutely
necessary
o Current version of Chomsky's theory
o Criticized because not driven by empirical findings
• Parameter-setting hypothesis: language acquisition involves the setting of various parameters
contained within a universal grammar (i.e. position of verb in relation to object)
o A parameter is a universal aspect of language that can take on one of a small set of
possible values
o Universal grammar contains several switches which can be set to turn various possible
parameters on & off
o One array of choice leads to Hungarian, and another to Spanish
Document Summary
Innateness hypothesis: hypothesis that children innately possess a language acquisition device that comes equipped with principles of universal grammar: chomsky. Adult reformulations of child errors: parental reformulations: adult reformulations of children"s speech, negative --inform children that they have a mistake, positive --provide example of correct speech, often followed by repetition, reformulations become less frequent as child gets older. Impact of teacher"s speech: syntactic development: development of the ability to organize words into grammatical sentences. Innate process believed to play a lesser role in language acquisition that previously thought: linguistic environment of child much richer than originally believed, more and more think that language acquisition is dependent on learning. Communication & comprehension: given-new contract: tacit agreement whereby the speaker agrees to connect new information to what the listener already knows, makes comprehension easier, code model of communication: model of communication based on information-processing theory. Inferential process does not need to be conscious --intuitive and subconscious comprehension.
