Language Acquisition Julien Musolino Department of Psychology & Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University

The plan _______________________________________________________  Short break  Present for about an hour   Present for another hour

General goal _______________________________________________________  Give you a sense of the problems faced by a child who is acquiring his/her native language, as well as the problems faced by someone trying to explain how this can happen.

Approach _______________________________________________________ “To see the world in a grain of sand” Focus on a single phenomenon and show that doing so in a systematic fashion can illuminate much broader issues -- William Blake

My grain of sand _______________________________________________________ Developmental phenomenon Research program that grew out of it Musolino (1998)

General Outline _______________________________________________________ Part 1: background leading to developmental phenomenon Part 2: exploring this developmental phenomenon and some of its implications

Outline _______________________________________________________ Part 1: background  General motivations  The preschool period  Experimental methodology  Linguistic phenomenon  Developmental phenomenon

Outline _______________________________________________________ Part 1: background  General motivations  The preschool period  Experimental methodology  Linguistic phenomenon  Developmental phenomenon

Why study language acquisition? _______________________________________________________  Universality  Species-specificity  Complexity

Why study language acquisition? _____________________________ It is a very remarkable fact that there are none … without even excepting idiots, that cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts; while on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same. René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode

Why study language acquisition? _____________________________ “When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the “human essence”, the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man.” Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind

A species-specific trait _____________________________ Close to 99% of our genes in common

They certainly look like us … _____________________________

Kasparov vs. Deep Blue Computers beat minds at chess …

A conversation with Eliza Eliza: Hello, I am Eliza. How can I help you? Julien: Could you tell me what a dog is? Eliza: Oh, I tell you what a dog is.

A conversation with Eliza Julien: Yes, please. Eliza: You are sure? Julien: Yes, I’m pretty sure. Julien: I said Yes!!!

A conversation with Eliza Eliza: Could you elaborate on that? Julien: I just want you to tell me what a dog is. Eliza: Do you wish to just want me? Julien: Are you going to tell me or not?

A conversation with Eliza Eliza: Would you prefer if I were not going to tell you or not? Julien: You just don’t understand a damn thing I say, do you? Eliza: Oh, I [ ]

“Language acquisition is one of the most important topics in cognitive science. Every theory of cognition has tried to explain it … It is not hard to see why. Possessing a language is the quintessentially human trait: all normal humans speak, no non- human animal does … Every time we speak, we are revealing something about the nature of language, so the facts of language structure are easy to come by – facts that hint at a system of extraordinary complexity. Nonetheless, learning a first language is something every normal child does successfully, in a matter of a few years and without the need for formal lessons” _____________________________ -- Steven Pinker Why study language acquisition?

Quantifiers _______________________________________________________ Some, all, two, many, every, no …  Give us the power to express generalizations about quantities of individuals.

Quantifiers _______________________________________________________ “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.” Abraham Lincoln (attributed) George W. Bush

Why Study Quantification? _______________________________________________________  Core property of natural language  Extremely complex phenomenon  Causes problems until late in development

Outline _______________________________________________________ Part 1: background  General motivations  The preschool period  Experimental methodology  Linguistic phenomenon  Developmental phenomenon

4-5 year-olds

Why the preschool period? _____________________________  Because 4 and 5-year-olds are sophisticated enough linguistically to allow us to investigate complex linguistic questions  Yet, at the same time, preschoolers often differ from adults in systematic ways and these differences can be used to illuminate a broad range of issues of interest to linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists

Ulysses, 4;6 _____________________________ Julien: “This Troll has magic powers. Do you know anybody else who has magic powers?” Ulysses: “The only two people I know who have magic powers are God up there and the Power Rangers on the cartoon channel”

Ulysses, 4;6 _____________________________ Julien: “Does your nose grow when you tell lies?” Ulysses: “I never tell lies!” Julien: “Well, that’s great Ulysses!!!” Ulysses: “See, I just told you a lie and my nose didn’t grow!”

Sarah, 5;2 _____________________________ Dr. M: “I am a Prince. If you marry me, you’ll become a Princess” Sarah: “I don’t want to get married!” Dr. M: “You don’t want to get married ever??!!” Sarah: “I’ll get married so that I can have kids. Then I’ll get divorced!”

_________________________________________________________ Cause problems until late Adults: YES5-year-olds: NO Is every dog on a mat? Not this one

Previous Accounts _________________________________________________________  Lack of conceptual knowledge (Inhelder & Piaget, 1964)  Lack of syntactic knowledge (Bucci, 1978; Roeper and deVilliers, 1991)  Lack of semantic knowledge (Philip 1995, Drozd & van Loosbroek, 1999)  Incomplete knowledge (Musolino, Crain and Thornton, 2000)  Lack of pragmatic knowledge (Crain et al., 1996)

Why the preschool period? _____________________________  Preschoolers are linguistically sophisticated  However, they sometimes differ from adults in surprising and systematic ways

Outline _______________________________________________________ Part 1: background  Why study language acquisition  The preschool period  Experimental methodology  Linguistic phenomenon  Developmental phenomenon

Experimental methodology _______________________________________________________ Crain and Thornton, (1998)  How to design experiments on language acquisition  How to interpret the results of those experiments  Tools to make predictions (learnability principles)

Experimental methodology _______________________________________________________ Truth Value Judgment Task Crain and Thornton, (1998)

Truth Value Judgment Task _______________________________________________________ (1) Short stories are acted out in front of child participants (2) A puppet makes a statement about what happened in the story (3) Participants tell the puppet whether he’s right or wrong (and explains why)

Outline _______________________________________________________ Part 1: background  General motivations  The preschool period  Experimental methodology  Linguistic phenomenon  Developmental phenomenon

noteverybody Buying candy …

Reading magazines …

Reading the newspaper …

Reading Time magazine …

And Newsweek …

The phenomenon _______________________________________________________ “There are extra copies of the handout on the chair here, in case everybody didn’t get one” (Kenneth Wexler, UMD colloquium, October 16, 1998) “All the birds don’t seem to be quite the same” (Lila Gleitman, Psych 135 lecture, February 25, 1999) “All semantic features are not going to be under direct syntactic control” (Merrill Garrett, IRCS Colloquium, February 26, 1999)

The phenomenon _______________________________________________________ (1)Every N neg VP a.‘None’ b.‘Not all’

Scope _______________________________________________________ (2 X 3) + 5 = 11 2 X (3 + 5) = 16

Scope _______________________________________________________ (1)Every horse didn’t jump over the fence Every horse (not jump) ‘none’ Isomorphic interpretation Every horse is interpreted outside the scope of negation

Scope _______________________________________________________ (1)Every horse didn’t jump over the fence (Not every horse) jumped ‘not all’ Every horse is interpreted within the scope of negation Non-isomorphic interpretation

The President didn’t V two interns

_______________________________________________________ Scope (1a) Bill didn’t V two interns  [not V two interns] ‘not > two’  Two interns [not V]‘two > not’ (1b) Bill didn’t V two interns

_______________________________________________________ Scope (2a) Bill didn’t V any interns  (not V some interns)‘not > some’  * Some interns [not V]‘some > not’ (2b) Bill didn’t V any interns

_______________________________________________________ Quantifier-negation interaction (1) QP (subject) … neg …  QP > Neg (some)  QP > Neg & Neg > QP (every)

_______________________________________________________ Quantifier-negation interaction (2) Neg … QP (object)  QP > Neg (some)  QP > Neg & Neg > QP (two, many)  Neg > QP (every, any)

_______________________________________________________ QP-Neg interaction and children (2) Neg … QP (object)

Fundamental Problem _______________________________________________________ The tension created by the need to:  Generalize “ … children cannot simply stick with the exact sentences they hear, because they must generalize to the infinite language of their community.” Pinker (1989:6)

Fundamental Problem _______________________________________________________ And the risk of:  Overgeneralization “ … if the child entertains a grammar generating a superset of the target language … no amount of positive evidence can strictly falsify the guess.” Pinker (1989:7)

Overgeneralization _______________________________________________________ Target grammar X Hypothesized grammar X is impossible (negative evidence) Positive evidence

Child: My teacher holded the rabbits and we patted them. Parent: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? Child: Yes. Parent: What did you say she did? Child: She holded the rabbits and we patted them. Parent: Did you say she held them tightly? Child: She holded them loosely.

Child: Nobody don’t like me Parent: No, say “nobody likes me” Child: Nobody don’t like me (eight repetitions of this dialogue) Parent: No, now listen carefully; say “nobody likes me” Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me.

Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy. Parent: You mean, you want the other spoon. Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, Daddy. Parent: Can you say “the other spoon”? Child: Other … one …spoon. Parent: Say “other” Child: Other.

Parent: “Spoon.” Child: Spoon. Parent: “Other spoon” Child: Other …spoon. Now give me other one spoon? Cazden, 1972; Mc Neill, 1970; Braine, 1971

Fundamental Problem _______________________________________________________  Language is replete with ‘partial generalizations’  These provide a slippery basis for generalization  The case of ‘reverse scope’ readings

_______________________________________________________ Quantifier-negation interaction  Unavailable  Depending on the nature of the quantifier and its syntactic position, non-isomorphic interpretations can be:  Required  Optional Trouble

Research questions _______________________________________________________  How do people, including children, interpret such sentences?  What can we learn by studying the interpretive process?  How do children navigate the maze of interpretive options created by the interaction of quantifiers and negation?

Outline _______________________________________________________ Part 1: background  General motivation  The preschool period  Experimental methodology  Linguistic phenomenon  Developmental phenomenon

Results to be presented _______________________________________________________  I won’t discuss all the details (number of subjects, age range, types of analyses) but …  These results have been published  These results have been replicated  The children are 4 and 5-year-olds

Experiment 1: condition 1 _______________________________________________________ (1)Every N neg VP a.‘None’ b.‘Not all’ Musolino, Crain and Thornton (2000) Linguistics

One of the stories _______________________________________________________

One of the stories _______________________________________________________

One of the stories _______________________________________________________

One of the stories _______________________________________________________

One of the stories _______________________________________________________

One of the stories _______________________________________________________

One of the stories _______________________________________________________ The end of the story “Every horse didn’t jump over the fence, am I right?”

Results _______________________________________________________

Children’s justifications _______________________________________________________ “Every horse didn’t jump over the fence, am I right?” Child:”You’re wrong because these two horses jumped over the fence!”

Every N didn’t VP Isomorphic Non-isomorphic Adults Children (none)(not all)

Experiment 1: condition 2 _______________________________________________________ (2)The Smurf didn’t buy every orange b.‘Not all’ (1)Every horse didn’t jump over the fence a.‘None’ b.‘Not all’ Musolino, Crain and Thornton (2000) Linguistics

One of the stories _______________________________________________________ “The Smurf didn’t buy every orange, am I right?” The end of the story

Results (children) _______________________________________________________

Experiment 2 _______________________________________________________ (2) The Smurf didn’t catch two birds Lidz and Musolino (2002) Cognition a. Not (caught 2) b. 2 (not caught)

Isomorphic Condition _______________________________________________________ 2 (not caught) = FALSE Not (caught 2) = TRUE

Non-Isomorphic Condition _______________________________________________________ 2 (not caught) = TRUE Not (caught 2) = FALSE

Results: Adults _______________________________________________________ IsomorphicNon-Isomorphic

Results: 4-year-olds _______________________________________________________ IsomorphicNon-Isomorphic

Children’s justifications (non-iso) _______________________________________________________ “The Smurf didn’t catch two birds, am I right?” Child:”You’re wrong, she did catch two!”

Children’s justifications (iso) _______________________________________________________ “The Smurf didn’t catch two birds, am I right?” Child:” You’re right! She only caught one”

Sentence TypeChildrenAdults Every horse didn’t jump over the fence The Smurf didn’t buy every orange The Smurf didn’t catch two birds Every > not In sum not > Every not > 2 2 > not _______________________________________________________

The observation of Isomorphism _______________________________________________________ “Young children, unlike adults, have a strong tendency to interpret sentences containing quantified NPs and negation on the basis of the surface syntactic position of these elements” Musolino, Crain and Thornton (2000) Linguistics

Results have been replicated _______________________________________________________  Noveck et al. (2007) Journal of Semantics  Musolino & Lidz (2006) Linguistics  The same quantifier/negation combinations  Different quantifier/negation combinations  Musolino & Lidz (2003) Language Acquisition  Lidz & Musolino (2002) Cognition  Different languages  Han, Lidz & Musolino (2007) Linguistic Inquiry  Lidz & Musolino (2002) Cognition

Questions  Developmental question  Causal question  Structural question

Questions  Developmental question  Causal question  Structural question

The structural question _______________________________________________________  What underlies isomorphism?  Linear order ?  C-command ?

IP SUBJECT I’ English (SVO) _______________________________________________________ I Neg VERB OBJECT VP Subj > Neg Neg > Obj

Kannada  Approximately 40 million speakers in Karnataka, south-western India.

Scope ambiguity in Kannada naanu eraDu pustaka ood-al-illa I-nom two books read-inf-neg ‘I didn't read two books.’ a. Not (read 2) b. 2 (not read) SOV

IP SUBJECT I’ Kannada (SOV) _______________________________________________________ I Neg OBJECT VERB VP

Predictions for Kannada  To the extent that Kannada children display a preference for one of the two readings: _______________________________________________________  C-command: same results as English  Linear order: opposite results from English

Results: Adults 2 (not caught) not (caught 2)

Results: English vs. Kannada EnglishKannada 2 (not)Not (2)2 (not)Not (2)

Conclusions _______________________________________________________  They differ in ways that are constrained by fundamental linguistic principles (i.e. c-command).  Children systematically differ from adults.  Children’s ‘errors’ tell us about the kinds of linguistic representations that they entertain.

Controls  Reverse linear order  Complexity  Prosody  Attentional focus  Indefinites

The observation of Isomorphism _______________________________________________________ “Young children, unlike adults, have a strong tendency to interpret sentences containing quantified NPs and negation on the basis of the surface c-command relations that hold between these elements” Lidz and Musolino (2002) Cognition

The observation of Isomorphism _______________________________________________________ Form (Syntax) Meaning (Semantics) Isomorphic mapping  For preschoolers overt syntactic scope determines semantic scope (in the case of QP-Neg)

Part 2  Why should this be?  What can we learn from systematically addressing this question?