Generativist Theory
What are other drawbacks (not faults) of generativist?
1. Because generativists believe that the LAD is unique to only language, we get cheated in studying language - we cannot apply what we learn to other cognitive mechanisms 2. There is a pattern to call things innate principles of language learning rather than trying to explain what you find in terms of other aspects of learning Ex. "Innate Shape bias" rather than just saying there is an appeal to what is distinctive about an object
What is part 1 of the poverty stimulus argument?
1. We can't learn the patterns of language based on positive evidence alone, we need negative too -Does not consider the number of errors people are talking about -Why don't children reproduce the errors we make?
What is part 2 poverty stimulus argument?
2. Children are only ever presented with positive evidence Ex: You can't say "Don the house the in is" All typical children master their native language, therefore, it must be innate
Examples of recursion:
AB to A B --> AABB or {A[A(AB)B]B} it is infinite
What is the Poverty of the Stimulus argument?
Assertion that natural language grammar is unlearnable given the relatively limited data available to children learning a language, and therefore that this knowledge is supplemented with some sort of innate linguistic capacity. "The stimulus to which we are imposed is impoverished"
Why generativism?
Behaviorism could not explain how we come up with novel utterances
What is Universal Grammar?
Contains all of the universal properties of all languages of the world -all the possible rules of language is in your brain when you are born
Is this the same or different from the behaviorist approach?
Different Language is much more than just verbal behavior
There are nearly a(n) infinite/finite number of grammatical utterances
Infinite
What is a Language Acquisition Device?
Innate device that is a language learning mechanism that helps you learn language
What do generativist say about behaviorism? Why?
It is not enough WE come up with novel utterances "pink and orange llamas run through the T at UT football games" <-- no one has ever said that (assuming)
Recall the pink elephant idea, do any of the facts above mean that generativists are wrong about the basic tenets of how language is learned?
Just because you cannot find something, does not mean it is not there UG is unfalsifiable meaning that we cannot prove it or disprove it (we cannot completely understand the brain right now)
What are problems with the Generativist Approach? (1.)
Linguists have failed to find and document universal characteristics of language -What is UG, what are the rules? No one knows
What is deep structure?
Linkage rules to get to the surface structure Ex. The dog bit the cat
Can the LAD help you learn anything else?
NO, just language. no math or piano or anything, just language
Are there grammatical limits on recursion?
No
Can behaviorism explain recursion?
No
What name to associate with Generativist?
Noam Chomsky
What is recursion?
The application of a rule or pattern to a pattern such that you get that pattern within that patter (woah)
What is the surface structure of the previous sentence?
The cat was bit by the dog
What are problems with the Generativist Approach? (4.)
Turns out that there are other aspects of language that helps us learn Ex. Social context, statistical learning, child directed speech -some things help with non language learning in a non language learning setting
What are problems with the Generativist Approach? (3.)
Turns out we can learn language on positive evidence alone (just a lot of it) -Computer modeling -Pre-emption: children will learn to produce what they have heard before rather than producing what the might have them produce Ex. Walk and walked; they might want to say Runned for run, but see that people say ran and will learn to say ran because thats what everyone does
What is the theory?
We can "generate" language, we can say new things, combine the units of language to generate language- language is modular
What are problems with the Generativist Approach? (2.)
We cannot find any characteristics of language that are uniquely human -European starling is able to recognize recursion in song
What does it mean that language is modular?
We have a set of rules in our brain. These rules are a part of language. We use these parts/rules to generate language
Do generativist believe that Universal Grammar uniquely human?
Yes
Is universal grammar innate?
Yes -you have to recognize which rule is in your language -you don't have to learn the rules (Ex: articles come before adjectives which come before nouns) -We may not have to learn rules, but we still have to learn words and language
