Prof. Greg Francis 7/16/081Language basicsIIE 366: DevelopmentalPsychologyGreg FrancisLecture 20Symbols and grammar Symbols words are arbitrary the sound “dog” has nothing to do with dogs compare driving on parkway to parking ondriveway, blueberries and cranberries,hamburger… Grammar the order of words matters Dog bites man. vs. Man bites dog.Grammar You not only understand language, you sensewhen a sentence is ungrammatical Please try your Nice Chinese Food with Chopsticks: thetraditional and typical of Chinese glorious history andcultual. Is raining. The child seems sleeping. Sally poured the glass with water. It’s a flying finches, they are. Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?Sometimes youstill understandwhat was meant!Phrases Every sentence is built out of phrasesThe happy boy eats candy.The first three words form a unitcalled a noun phrase (NP)The happy boyWhat identifies a noun phrase?This is not the same analysis you didin grammar school!Phrases All noun phrases obey certain rules rewrite rules NP -- noun phrase det -- determinant: “the”, “a”, “an” A -- adjective N -- noun ( ) -- optional * -- as many as you wantNP-->(det)A*Nthe happy boythe boyJohnthe tall slender womanPhrase tree It helps to describe rules as phrase trees Specifies both what can be used in thephrase and where it must be usedNPdet A Nthe happy boyProf. Greg Francis 7/16/082Sockets In a phrase tree, a phrase is like acomponent that snaps into the right place any appropriate phrase works! (even nonsensephrases)NPA A NcolorlessgreenideaSVPVNPNice creameatsdettheWords Even if all languages have similarrules for combining phrases, they usedifferent words Words are symbols that are arbitraryin many respects“dog” is nothing like a dogis it rote memorization?» partly, but it is also more than thatMorphology The rules of word formation In many respects English has a verylimited morphology nouns have two forms verbs have four formsduckducksquackquacksquackedquackingMorphology Other languages have many morevariations Italian and Spanish have 50 forms of each verb classical Greek has 350 forms of each verb Turkish has 2 million forms of each verb some languages build entire sentences aroundone complex verb There are rules for these formsMorphology On the other hand, English morphologyallows one to easily create new wordsfrom old words add suffixes and prefixesteachteachableunteachableteacherteachablenessSuffixes English has lots of these derivational suffixes-able-age-al-ate-ed-en-ify-ion-ish-ize-an-ant-ance-ary-er-ful-hood-ic-ism-ist-ity-ive-ness-ory-ous-yYou probably donot consciously know what some of these mean, but your language system does.Examples of morphemesProf. Greg Francis 7/16/083Rules So what are the rules? One looks to be easy to pluralize a noun, add -sNNstem Ninflectiondog-sNNstem Ninflectionwug-sRules The creation of compound nouns also followsa simple ruleNstemNstem NstemtoothbrushNstemNstem NstemdogbiteExceptions You can probably think of lots of exceptions tothese types of rules many words seem to follow arbitrary rules electricity --> not the state of being electric intoxicate --> nothing to do with toxic substances pluralization» mouse, mice teach, taught» leaf, leaves buy, bought» man, men fly, flewExceptions These exceptions generally come from otherlanguages (with appropriate rules) English adopts the words but not the rules These exceptions tend to be very common words drink-drank sink-sank throw-threw ring-rang sit-sat blow-blew All derive from a proto-Indo-European languagethat formed past tense by replacing one vowelwith anotherUnderstanding You can learn quite a bit about a sentence’smeaning by knowing the phrase tree structureof the sentence indicates some aspects of meaningThe green idea eats the girl’s candy. We know the sentence is about an idea ratherthan the girl we also know the idea is doing the eatingParsing Parsing is something like building aphrase tree in reverse Let’s parse through a simple sentenceword by word The dog likes ice cream.SNPdet NVPthedog likesV NPNice creamProf. Greg Francis 7/16/084Ambiguity Time flies like an arrow. (1) Time proceeds as quickly as an arrow proceeds. (2) Measure the speed of flies in the same way thatyou measure the speed of an arrow. (3) Measure the speed of flies in the same way that anarrow measures the speed of flies. (4) Measure the speed of flies that resemble an arrow. (5) Flies of a particular kind, time-flies, are fond of anarrow.Ambiguity Or consider the following (grammatically valid)sentence Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalobuffalo buffalo. Here’s a hint to make it understandable inprincipleChicago horses (that) Milwaukee cowsintimidate (also) intimidate Cincinnatipigs.Significance These types of results suggest that wordsand grammar are not enough to insurecommunication In a certain sense a speaker and listenermust already be agreeing about a topicbefore anything can be communicated Thus, we can understand the followingdiscourse Woman: I’m leaving you. Man: Who is he?Schemas / scripts Cognitive devices describe stereotypical properties of a situation e.g., restaurant scene involves table, waiter, drinks, tips,… Fill-in the missing information that is critical forunderstanding language (and events in general) explains why it is difficult to communicate across cultures,even with a common language Schemas provide the context to remove the almostconstant ambiguities of languageSpeech Lungs pushair out tomake asound otherorgansshapesoundExample Note where your tongue is as you say bet butt beet bat The position of the tongue shapes the vocaltract and makes different sounds! this is true for all vowelsProf. Greg Francis 7/16/085Example Note what your lips do as you say boot book The lips add additional frequencies to makedifferent sounds Thus, you can hear someone smile across atelephone! Vowels are all distinguished by the shape ofthe vocal tractConsonants Consonants are more complicated different type of control of air flow (1) Voicing: vibration of vocal cords /b/, /d/, /m/, /w/, /v/ (voiced) /p/, /t/, /f/ (not voiced, or unvoiced) (2) Place of