© 2010 by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Language

Chapter 9Lecture Outline

Chapter 9: Language

Lecture OutlineOrganization of LanguagePhonology （音韻學）WordsSyntax （句法）Sentence ParsingBiological Roots of LanguageLanguage and Thought

Chapter 9: Language

Language Unique to humansPresent in all culturesEssential for knowledge and culture

Without it, cultural transmission of information and the acquisition of knowledge would be much more limited

The Organization of Language

Thoughts become sounds

Sounds become thoughts

HOW? Hierarchical organization

The Organization of Language

Sentence—sequences of words Word—smallest free form Morpheme（詞素）— smallest unit of

meaning Phoneme（音素）— smallest unit of

sound

The Organization of Language

Hierarchical, with each level composed of other sublevels

Phonology

Flow of air from lungs

Modulationof air by mouthand nose

Production of phonemes

Phonology

Voicing Whether vocal folds （聲帶） vibrate ([z], [d], [b], [v]) Or not ([s], [t], [p], [f])

Manner of production Whether air is fully stopped ([b], [p], [d], [t]) Or merely restricted ([z], [s], [v], [f])

Place of articulation Where in the mouth the air is restricted

Closing of lips ([b], [p]) Top teeth against bottom lip ([v], [f]) Tongue behind upper teeth ([d], [t], [z], [s])

Phonology

Many words have no clear boundaries yet speech segmentation is effortless

Speech segmentation is the process of “slicing” the speech stream into words and phonemes.

Phonology

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The sky is NOT falling!

Phonology

Coarticulation the blending of phonemes at word boundaries refers to how the production of each phoneme is slightly altered

depending on the preceding and following sounds. “My name is Dan Reisberg” “My name is Noam Chomsky”

S is slightly different

D and N are slightly different

Phonology

Perception of language is constructedUse prior knowledge to fill in missing

information

The state governors met with their respective legi*latures convening in the capital city.

Phonemic restoration effect

Phonology

Pollack and Picket (1964)Spliced out words from conversations

Easily identified in context Hard to do without context

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Phonology

Continuous variation of sounds

are filtered toproduce clear phonemes

Categorical perceptionOur categorization of phonemes shows abrupt boundaries, even when there is no corresponding abrupt change in the stimuli themselves.

Phonology

Sequences Only some are acceptable in a language.

For example, the sequence [tl] is not acceptable in English

Adjustments for certain phoneme sequences. For example, the [s] sound becomes a [z] in words

like “bags”

Words

For each word that a speaker knows, there are several kinds of informationPhonology—the sequence of phonemes that

make up the wordOrthography—how the word is spelled (if the

person is literate)Syntax—how to combine the word with other

wordsSemantics—what the word means

Words

The referent is the actual object, action, or event in the world that a word refers toConceptual information A large part of “knowing a word” is knowing

the relevant concept

Words

GenerativityOur morphological knowledge specifies how

to create variations of each word by adding appropriate morphemes

New words can be formed “Hardware,” “software” lead to “spyware” and

“malware”

Words can take on new meanings “I have been hacked by a hacker.”

Syntax

Generativity Infinite number of sentences by combining finite

set of words For practical purposes, there is an infinitely large

number of sentences that speakers can produce in their language

Words

Syntax tells us which verbs can take direct objects及物 vs 不及物動詞

Syntax

Acceptable sequences: “The boy hit the ball.”

Unacceptable ones: “The boy hit ball the.”

These rules also help us determine the relationships among the words in the sentence

Who is doing what to whom? “The boy chased the girl.”

Syntax

Jabberwocky Sentences can be

syntactically and morphologically correct even when meaningless

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe...”

Syntax

Phrase structure rules

How the trees branch

noun phrase (NP) and verb phrase (VP)

Syntax

Descriptive rules, “To boldly go where no one has gone before.”

Prescriptive rules “To go boldly where no one has gone before.”

Syntax

Phrase structure

Nophrase structure

Easier Harder

Syntax

He wants to discuss sex with Jay Leno.

He wants to discuss sex with Jay Leno.

D-structure

2014 年外國人中文十級考試試題：請考生寫出以下兩句話的區別在哪裡？

1. 冬天：能穿多少穿多少；夏天：能穿多少穿多少。

2. 剩女產生的原因有兩個，一是誰都看不上，二是誰都看不上。

3. 地鐵裡聽到一個女孩，大概是給男朋友打電話：「我已經到西直門了，你快出來往地鐵站走。如果你到了，我還沒到，你就等著吧；如果我到了，你還沒到，你就等著吧。」

© 2010 by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.

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4. 單身的原因：原來是喜歡一個人，現在是喜歡一個人。

5. 兩種人容易被甩：一種不知道什麼叫做愛，一種不知道什麼叫做愛。

6. 想和某個人在一起的兩種原因：一種是喜歡上人家，另一種是喜歡上人家。

7. 女孩約的男孩遲到了有兩個原因： 1. 睡過了。 2. 睡過了。

© 2010 by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.

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Syntax

Linguistic universals Rules that apply to all languagesSubject-verb-object “Sally ate the apple.”Preferred order for 98% of the languages

Syntax

Linguistic universals Innate knowledge of these universals may

prepare children for learning language rapidlyOthers suggest that grammar learning is

constrained by many factors

Sentence Parsing

ParseProcess of assigning words to a phrase

structure

Sentence Parsing

Garden-path sentences “The secretary applauded for his efforts was

soon promoted.” “Fat people eat accumulates.” “The horse raced past the barn fell.”

Sentence Parsing

Garden-path sentences “Because he ran the second mile went quickly.”

First interpretation

Something wrongReinterpretation

Sentence Parsing

Minimal attachment—simplest phrase structure

One phrase

Because he ran the second mile he was able to finish quickly.

Because he ran the second mile went quickly.

Two phrases

Sentence Parsing

The detectives examined by the reporter revealed the truth about the robbery

The evidence examined by the reporter revealed the truth about the robbery

Background knowledge plays a part

Sentence Parsing

Extralinguistic context “Put the apple on the towel into the box.”

Sentence Parsing

Prosody （音韻學） refers to the patterns of pauses and pitch changes that characterize speech production. It is used to:Emphasize elements of a sentenceHighlight the sentence’s intended structureSignal the difference between a question and

an assertion

Sentence Parsing

Pragmatics. “What happened to the

roast beef?” “Well, the dog sure

does look happy.”

He must have eaten it

The Biological Roots of Language

Motor planning

Language Comprehension

nonfluent aphasia

fluent aphasia

The Biological Roots of Language

Children learn language even with no exposureMay have some biological mechanisms for

that

The Biological Roots of Language

Specific language impairment Normal intelligence Normal muscle movement Difficulty learning and using language May be evidence of specialized mechanism for

language learning

The Biological Roots of Language

Overregularization errors “Yesterday, I thinked.”

The Biological Roots of Language

Learning of information present in the environment is also critical to language acquisition

Children as young as 8 months are sensitive to the statistical regularities in the language that they hear, as shown in studies employing nonsense syllable streams

The Biological Roots of Language

Semantic bootstrapping refers to using semantic knowledge to make inferences about the syntactic structure of a language

Language and Thought

Linguistic relativity is the hypothesis that people who speak different languages think differently

Benjamin Whorf’s original argument was that Hopi speakers and English speakers think differently about time

Language and Thought

A language’s color categories may affect how its speakers perceive and remember color

Language and Thought

The spatial terminology of a language—for instance whether absolute or relative terms are used—may affect how its speakers perceive and remember spatial information

Language and Thought

One possibility for such results is that the language you speak determines the concepts and categories that you use, and as a result, shapes what you can think about

A more flexible possibility is that language influences what we pay attention to, and this shapes experience, which influences how we think

Chapter 9 Questions

The hierarchy of linguistic units, from largest to smallest, is

a)phrases, words, morphemes, phonemes.

b)phonemes, phrases, words, morphemes.

c)morphemes, phonemes, phrases, words.

d)phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases.

Which of the following is a function morpheme?

a) ing

b) -les

c) wish

d) noun phrase

Which of the following claims is TRUE?a) Reliance on prototypes is likely to emerge

gradually as a participant’s experience with a category grows.

b) People are likely to rely strongly on prototypes early in their exposure to a particular category.

c) People only rely on prototypes when they have time to make a decision.

d) With exposure to many instances of a particular category, it becomes easier to remember each particular instance, and this contributes to the emergence of a prototype.

Which of the following is TRUE of speech segmentation?

a) It is made harder by the fact that more than half of the speech we hear consists of the 50 most common words in English.

b) Speech recognition programs can understand a lot of speech from one person and very limited speech from many people.

c) When words are in context, they are far more difficult to identify.

d) It is made harder by the process of coarticulation, where each phoneme overlaps with the ones before and after it.

Categorical perception cannot explain

a) why it is more difficult to detect variations within a single category than differences between two phonemic categories.

b) why we sometimes confuse phonemes when in a noisy environment.

c) how we identify spaces between words in a continuous speech stream.

d) why certain phoneme combinations are difficult for English speakers to pronounce.

The fact that new words in English do not typically start with start with sound combinations like “tl” or “ks” demonstrates

a) the generativity of English.

b) the role of phrase-boundaries in English.

c) the phonological rules of English.

d) the biological basis of English.

Which sentence is the hardest to read?

a) The witness examined by the lawyer was nervous.

b) The witness examined by the lawyer was nervous.

c) both a and b

d) neither a nor b