Linguistics 2

What were some of the concerns that we raised regarding the studies with primates that we discussed in class?

There were concerns about the teachings methods/type of languages they attempted to teach the primates. They were always concern when data is not freely available and independently evaluated. They were concern about "Clevor Hans" effects that animals may be responding to subtle cues from researchers.

Even though humans and birds communicate very differently, there are some similarities in the acquisition of their communication systems. What are some of these similarities?

They had one similar properties by symbolic to songs use to courting mating and marking its territory.

What does it mean to say that human language is "species uniform"

This means that the way our language is similar in basic properties and acquisition profiles within the whole human species.

Briefly describe the Gua and Don experiment. Briefly describe the outcome of Gua and Don's language abilities.

This was 9 month old chimpanzee and 10 month old baby raised together -Chimpanzee learned to comprehend words faster at first then the baby surpassed him -the baby also learned how to comprehend complex sentences structure but the chimpanzee did not.

How did the researchers studying elephants, and those studying meerkats, investigate the elephant and meerkat communication systems, according to what you learned in Discussion Section?

To elephants, they used to burying seismic shakers to see if elephants can feel the vibrations in the ground to communicate in their feet. They create earthquakes with seismic shakers to shaking up perception to see how elephants communicate. They also used rigging of system of speakers and microphones to record the subject of the elephant who is Donna. That way the elephant rumble can travel through the seismic waves that traveled through ground. Those waves ripple across the surface like a stone of water. The researchers on meerkats used device to record and analyze each 25 different meerkats call to see how the meerkats would react. They would play the call to see how meerkats would react. One call meant a snake is coming, second call meant a eagle is coming and third call meant run for your life.

Is the initial sound in the English word "school" a voiceless alveolar fricative?

Yes because school (sku:l) has the s consonant which is voiceless alveolar fricative.

Has Bunny the dog acquired an arbitrary symbol system?

Yes bunny woule use AIC device augmentative and inter species communication to allows her to speak by pressing the button. She relies on her muscle memory to hit right button to speak.

Do any bird species show a critical period for acquiring the songs of their species?

Yes it was the white sparrow bird since they would leave their nest and they have to sing the song so they know that their parents otherwise it going to go to stranger bird nest.

What is one example of a color-based animal communication system that we discussed?

Yes the red sparrow bird has a red mark by stay away from me.

Do all linguists use our 3 properties to define language, or are there different lists of properties that have been proposed by different linguists?

Yes they use the 3 properties to see if species was able to communicate as a language but so far it has not been proved due to lack of rule governed and linguistics creavity.

Is the bee dance species-specific? Is the bee dance species-uniform?

Yes: The bee species that have it, can do it; species that don't have the dance can't learn it, even if exposed to it. No it isn't species-uniform because it does not have all properties of characterizes a language.

Is language acquisition subject to a critical period during which the child must be exposed to language in order to fully acquire it? Are there other species we discussed that appear to have a critical period for acquiring their communication system?

critical period seems to be after 13 year of age or until puberty Like Genie not exposed to language until after critical period, and never acquired the rules of language despite intensive training. the white crowned sparrow seems to have this critical period of acquisition in learning their songs.

Briefly describe the fiddler crab communication system. What can we conclude when we compare this communication system with human language?

-They will wave their big claws in the air to indicate that they are trying to look for a mate but we can conclude that this is not language because there is no creativity and no rule governance.

24. What are the three subfields of phonetics given in Yule's textbook?

-articulatory Phonetics: study of how speech sounds are produced -acoustic Phonetics: study of the physical properties of speech as sound waves -auditory Phonetics: the study of the perception of speech sounds by the ear, also called "perceptual phonetics"

What are the two types of vocalizations that birds produce? What kind of messages do they transmit? Can they create new messages by changing parts of their songs, similar to how we can create different sentences in human languages?

-bird calls: these are short sounds that birds make in certain situations -bird sounds usually are made for territorial purposes like mating or others stay away Important to note: Despite the potential variation in songs/potentially large inventory of songs: (i) The choice of one song vs. another does not seem to be a choice of sending different messages; they all mean the same thing (ii) A given song is not changed internally to send a new message; the song sends a fixed message Acquisition of bird songs Remember, those who support the "genetic hypothesis" regarding human language claim that human language is innate, but also requires input from the environment It is argued that this input must be encountered in a particular, biologically specified time window

What is one piece of evidence suggesting that bees represent distance by keeping track of how much their visual experience changes while traveling?

-if they fly over choppy water than they report longer distances of food source than when they fly over smooth water even though the food sources are the same distances away.

What 3 properties regarding food sources can the bee dancecommunicate? How is each feature of the food source represented in the dance? What can we conclude when we compare this communication system with human language?

-they can communicate the food source distance, quality and direction. -distance is indicated by either a round dance (5 or less meters), sickle dance (5-20 meters), and tail-wagging dance (20 or more meters) -quality is indicated by the amount of wags and intensity of wags -direction is indicated by round dance (no direction), sickle dance and tail-wagging (angle of dance in respect to the sun) -the conclusion are this is not language because it is not creative or rule-governed.

Based on the videos we watched during Discussion section, what types of signals do dolphins use to communicate with each other? What types of messages can they convey?

-they use clicks, whistles, screams, and chirps, in order to communicate with each other, and to find prey -they use tail slap to communicate their attention of one another usually in a threatening situation -jaw clapping is used in threatening situations as well -breaching is used to tell other dolphins the direction and location of where they are swimming to

Briefly describe the epaulet-showing communication system of red-winged blackbirds. How does it work? What is communicated? What can we conclude when we compare this communication system with human language?

-this animal shows it's red epaulets to show others to stay away and get off it's territory. We can conclude that this is not language because it is not creative and it is no rule governed.

According to our discussion of elephants in Discussion section, what is elephant rumbling? Do elephants use any other means of communication?

-this is when there is a low vocalization that travels through the air and ground and is used to talk to other from miles away. -an advantage would be that it is so low frequency that only these animals can usually hear and feel these messages, so it's like a private communication system.

For what reasons (or what functional purposes) do animals communicate?

-to attract a male -to tell someone to get off their territory -to indicate where food is and the quality of the food -to indicate danger -to indicate social calls/play -to indicate where the herd is going

23. Why do linguists need the IPA (instead of relying on spelling

1. The number of sounds spoken in the English language and languages around the world is much greater than the number of letters in the English alphabet. 2. The symbols used is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) applies to languages all over the world. Obviously, linguist are about more languages just English. 3. The standardized phonetic alphabet of IPA correspond one sound to one symbol which allows linguists to translate many different languages accurately.

Washoe was a chimpanzee who was taught ASL by molding. She once saw a swan at a lake and signed WATER BIRD. a. Is this unambiguous evidence that Washoe had linguistic creativity? b. What are some of the concerns associated with the Washoestudy?

A. The Washoe study reported that Washoe sentence structure and ability to answer questions was greater than the typical three year old. For example, Washoe was able to sign a duck as a water bird. Washoe often combined the signs into meaningless sequences, and we don't know how rarely impressive "successful" examples occurred (e.g. signing "cookie rock" for a stale sweet roll.) How often do language-like utterances occur? We must be careful with methodology and biased observations. B.The trainers did not know sign language fluently so the lack of grammar could be because of that -researchers had problems with coding the multi-signs strings so there is o conclusive evidence regarding that.

The following questions are about the chimpanzee NimChimpsky, who was the subject of a study by Herbert Terrace: a. Did Herbert Terrace initially expect that Nim would be able to learn human language? b. Was Nim able to learn any signs? Did Nim show evidence of having acquired a rule-governed language system with linguistic creativity, on par with human language? c. What did Terrace conclude from the research with Nim?

A. Yes, they were optimistic that this chimp would be able to acquire language B. Nim was taught by molding of ASL from trainers who were not fluent themselves in ASL. C. There was no evidence of rule governance The admitted that he chimp would just copy what his trainers signed and also admitted the chimp could not use language.

What did we learn about the innateness and species-specificity of the bee dance communication system?

Acquisition of the "bee dance": it seems to be innate Those species of bees that do it, do it. Those species that don't, will not learn it even if exposed to bees that do. Bees are virtually perfect at it the very first time they try (largely innate with extremely little effect of environment)

What 3 properties do we use to characterize human language

Arbitrary symbol system Systematic, rule governed "Linguistic creativity"

What 4 properties do we use to describe vowels? Which property is used only for certain sounds in our class?

Articulated by changes in shape of oral cavity, including: How high/low the tongue is in the mouth How forward or backward the tongue is in the mouth Whether the lips are rounded Tense vs. Lax (only for 4 vowels) We are only doing Height, Front/Back Rounding/Unrounding.

What property or properties of human language did we find unambiguous evidence for, in the cases of Chaser and Bunny (the two dogs we discussed)?

Chaser knows over 1000 words for different toys, understands different combinations of commands and objects and understands categories. Two word sentences of the same syntax and along with using fast mapping by understanding of the cognitive process or words also known as the process of elimination. By in receptive way by using English verbal labels for objects. Receptive is just say to coser get big frog and he get its but that doesn't mean chaser can produce the phrase big frogs. Bunny is impressive at word learning use of "buttons" or keys and they are using these words in a productive way, rather than just receptive way. The buttons give the dogs a way to produce these words instead to wait for yo to say it. They appear words to indicate abstract constructs (morning or before) rather than just concrete nouns. So far our investigation of animal communication has involved seeking animal communication systems that may have the properties we've ascribed to human language That is one major route of investigation in animal communication research.

4. What kind of experiment did researchers conduct to test the fiddler crabs interpret claw waving? (it involve robots).

Create robotic male fiddler crabs and control the claw waves to see if a real female fiddler crab responds as expected to mate.

In addition to the direction to a food source, what are two other kinds of information that the bee dance encodes?

Distance Direction and Quality.

For birds with multiple songs, do their different songs send different messages

For birds there are birds songs and bird calls. The birds call are noise for short noise moment and bird sounds are when coming to their territory.

Kanzi was a bonobo who was taught to comprehend spoken English and use a Yerkish keyboard for production. Did we see any unambiguous evidence that Kanzi knew the structure-based rules of English?

He was taught with Lexigrams which are arbitrary symbols on buttons on a keyboard. We saw that the gorilla has evidence of having an arbitrary symbolic system. Inconclusive evidence if creativity or rule-governance is being used because ambiguous data and learned sequences.

10. What linguistic abilities did Alex the Parrot show? Did we see unambiguous evidence that Alex has acquired a symbolic system that is rule-based and allows Alex to convey a potentially infinite number and range of messages?

Impressive ability to learn labels for things Impressive cognitive abilities (e.g., counting) No evidence that Alex knows any systematic rules for combining words into larger structures

How do bees communicate the direction of a food source in the bee dance?

It is angle of the dance movements

12. What's it called when a sign is taught by manipulating the animal's hand into the proper shape?

Molding

What was good about the way Neil deGrasse Tyson tested Chaser's knowledge of the names of the stuffed animals (as regards "Clever Hans" effects)?

One result may be the "Clever Hans" effect where we give unconscious cues to the animals to give a certain response -These animals may also learn from operant conditioning as to what certain actions received certain responses -the animals do not actually understand what they are saying

Place of face 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9

Place of Face 1.Alveolar ridge 2.nasal cavity 3.palate 4.velum 5.uvula 6.pharynx 7.larynx 8.vocal folds 9.tongue

What are the three features used to describe consonants?

Place of articulation Manner of articulation Voicing

In what ways do we see parallels between birdsong acquisition and human language acquisition?

Some very interesting parallels with human language acquisition: Some innately-specified aspects Some interaction with environment / "learning" Some evidence for "critical period" But still, the systems themselves (bird song vs. human language) appear fundamentally different

We discussed some vowel sounds that are created by moving from one position to another (e.g., the vowel in the English word "buy"); what is the name for that kind of vowel?

The 'ai' as in 'buy' is diphthong.

According to our discussion of meerkats in Discussion section, what is the main overarching purpose of different meerkat calls?

The main purpose of these calls is to warn each other of specific predators around them.

What phonetic feature(s) do the final sounds in the following words share: cart, park, tap?

The manner of articulation (kat, pak, taep) (t,k,p are from stop nasal so it is manner of articulation.)