PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Language Acquisition:

Learning words

12 Months Uses one or more words with meaning

(this may be a fragment of a word) Understands simple instructions,

especially if vocal or physical cues are given

Practices inflection Is aware of the social value of speech

Typical language development

18 Months Has vocabulary of approximately 5-20

words Vocabulary made up chiefly of nouns Some echolalia (repeating a word or

phrase over and over) Is able to follow simple commands

Typical language development

24 Months Can name a number of objects common to his

surroundings Is able to use at least two prepositions Combines words into a short sentence Vocabulary of approximately 150-300 words Volume and pitch of voice not yet well-controlled

Typical language development

36 Months Use pronouns I, you, me correctly Is using some plurals and past tenses Knows at least three prepositions Handles three word sentences easily Has in the neighborhood of 900-1000 words About 90% of what child says should be

intelligible Verbs begin to predominate

Typical language development

Language Sponges Lots of individual differences But there is also a consistent pattern

Language Sponges

About 3,000 new words per year, especially in the primary grades

As many as 8 new words per day Production typically lags behind comprehension

Learning words

12 ms first words

2 yrs 200 words

3 yrs 1,000 words

6 yrs 15,000 words

Vocabulary growth Methods used to study this

Observational data (60s to present) Diary studies

Parents record their kids language development Taped language samples (Roger Brown)

Small numbers of children (Eve, Adam, Sarah) Went to home every month made tape recordings Extensive study needed

Hard to kids to “say all the words you know” or “say a question”

Early phonological production isn’t like adult production, often need to take great care deciding what the child meant

Large database CHILDES Many kids, many languages, including children with language

difficulties

Early speech production

Of course he said “arf.” What else did you expect

his first word to be?

Early speech production

Developed in systematic ways Sometimes simplifications of adult speech Or relate to sounds of the objects

Demonstrate Creative, not simply imitation Learned importance of consistency of names

First words Around 10-15 months (lots of individual differences) Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of

phonologically consistent forms Idiomorphs - personalized words

Early speech production

Typically context bound (relevant to the immediate environment)

Important people Objects that move Objects that can be acted upon Familiar actions Nouns before verbs

Charlie’s words

First words Around 10-15 months (lots of individual differences) Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of

phonologically consistent forms Idiomorphs - personalized words

Semantic Development 1-general names

dog 2- specific names

mommy 3-action words 4-modifiers

red 5-personal/social

yes, no, please 6-functional

what

Later words

Then: Children come to use words in more adult-like ways

Words start to be used in wider range of contexts Children use wider range of word types:

referential words (ball, doggie, chair) proper names (Mummy, Spot) actions (open, wash, tickle) properties, states, qualities (more, gone, up, on, dirty) social-pragmatic words (no, please) few ‘frozen’ phrases (all gone, what’s that)

Early speech production Transition to speech

This is your fis?Your fis?Oh, your fish.

No. … my fis.No. My fis!Yes, my fis.

Early speech production

This is your fis? Transition to speech

No, … my fis.

Your fis. No, my fis.

Oh, your fish. Yes, my fis.

Can’t hear the difference? Rejects adult saying fis

Can’t produce the correct sounds?

Sometimes, but evidence suggests not always the case

More general process of simplification

“frees up” resources for concentrating on other aspects of language learning

Early speech production

Early words Common Phonological processes

Reduction Delete sounds from words

Coalescence Combine different syllables into one syllable

Assimilation Change one sound into a similar sound within the

word Reduplication

One syllable from a multi-syllabic word is repeated

Transition to speech

Learning word meanings

Fast mapping Using the context to guess the meaning of a word

Learning words

Please give me the chromium tray. Not the blue one, the chromium one.

All got the olive tray Several weeks later still had some of the meaning

Learning word meanings

Extension Finding the appropriate limits of the meaning of

words Underextension

applying a word too narrowly Overextension

applying a word too broadly

Learning words

Extensions of meaning

“tee”

Extensions of meaning

“tee”1:9,11

Extensions of meaning

“tee”1:9,111:10,18

Extensions of meaning

“tee”

“googie”

1:9,111:10,18

1:11,1

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”

Extensions of meaning

1:9,111:10,18

“tee”

1:11,1

1:11,2“googie”

1:11,24

1:11,25 “tee/hosh”1:11,26 “hosh”1:11,27 “pushi”2:0,10 “moo-ka” “hosh”2:0,20

“biggie googie”

One-word-per-referent If a new word comes in for a referent that is already

named, replace it Exception to that was “horse,” but it only lasted a day

here

Strategies for learning

Things to notice

Over and under Extension can occur at the same time

Strategies for learning

Things to notice

Things to notice

Strategies for learning

Child tries different things, if a word doesn’t work then try something else

e.g., hosh didn’t for for the large dog, switched to biggie doggie

Learning word meanings Learning words

Learning the meanings of words Quine’s problem Whole object Mutual exclusivity

Indeterminacy: Frog

Frog

Frog?Green?Ugly?

Jumping?

Quine’s gavagai problem The problem of reference:

a word may refer to a number of referents (real world objects)

a single object or event has many objects, parts and features that can be referred to

FrogFrog?

Green?Ugly?

Jumping?

Constraints on Word Learning Markman (1989)

Perhaps children are biased to entertain certain hypotheses about word meanings over others

These first guesses save them from logical ambiguity, and keep them logical confusion, and get them started out on the right track

Object-scope (whole object) constraint words refer to whole objects rather than to parts of

objects

Taxonomic constraint words refer to categories of similar objects

Mutual exclusivity constraint each object has one label & different words refer to

separate, non-overlapping categories of objects

Strategies for learning

The language explosion is not just the result of simple semantic development; the child is not just adding more words to his/her vocabulary.

Child is mastering basic syntactic and morphological rules.

Language explosion continues