1. The Psychology of Language: Part II Psychology 337

2. Dr. Werker –Kenny 2404 –Office hours, Mondays 3:30 – 5:00 –Email: jwerker@psych.ubc.cajwerker@psych.ubc.ca Whitney Weikum –Kenny 1003 –Office hours, Wednesdays 2-3 (or by apptmt) –Email: whitney@psych.ubc.ca

3. Goals of the Course To develop a fuller understanding of the foundations of language in evolution, biology, and infancy From this, to understand more fully just what language is and what makes it so remarkable To advance in critical thinking and analysis skills, and to be able to show that both in classroom discussions and in exams

4. How we’ll achieve those goals Readings Lectures Questions from class Class Discussions Class creation of study questions Exams as a sub-set of those –Midterm exam February 12

5. Topics Language Evolution Brain and Language Prelinguistic Development The Transition to Word Learning Bilingualism Sign Language Acquisition Literacy Development

6. Course Outline Schedule of lectures and readings Exams and assignments Office hours T.A. The first few weeks….

7. What is Language? Language is one of our most complex cognitive functions Allows us to plan, recall the past, and prepare for the future The basis for human relationships, commerce, and our civilization Involves all the cognitive processes studied in any course on cognition, but perhaps in unique ways

8. Language Uses a finite number of symbols (words) Uses a finite number of rules for combining these symbols (syntax) With these, we can produce an infinite number of sentences Language is productive; we have a generative grammar

9. Some basic divisions Phonology and Phonetics Morphology Syntax Semantics Pragmatics

10. Phonology & Phonetics Phonology – the sound system of the language The rules for how sounds combine Phonemes –the smallest unit to distinguish meaning –typically described via features –Perceived categorically: discrete categories Phonetic –a more complete description of the sounds of language –Featural: acoustic, auditory, or articulatory –Likely more graded

11. Why is articulation so important? How sounds are made How sounds are perceived

12. The Vocal Tract as a set of Resonating Cavities

13. Anatomical structures bounding vocal tract: Some fixed, some moveable Anatomical Structures

14. Source-Filter Theory of Speech Production Source of energy – build up of air Set in motion by vibration of vocal cords The shape of the vocal tract, the filter, determines the quality of the sounds Vowels described in terms of height, front- backness, and roundedness Consonants in terms of voicing, manner, and place of articulation

15. Speech Perception Speech may be perceived in terms of the mode(s) of articulation Auditory models have it recovered from the acoustic signal

16. Morphology The study of the meaningful units in language and how they combine Words can be decomposed into smaller units –Fisherman, walked, laughing What is a morpheme? –The smallest unit of language that has a meaning Dog, tiny, chair –Or a grammatical function (e.g. specifies relations between words) On, with, and

17. Syntax Rules for how words can be combined Think of syntax as a skeletal frame – slots for words Generating acceptable vs. unacceptable word orders is incredibly complex Classic Chomsky: we have a set of rules which generates grammar. This is special to humans & part of our endowment. Competence (or internalized, I-language) vs. performance (E-language) Need transformations from deep to surface structure (Chomsky’s recent minimalist program differs from this substantially).

18. Semantics The study of meaning – of words and of sentences Many different approaches to meaning Talk about word meaning being stored in a “lexicon”, a mental dictionary But along with the meaning is stored the syntactic category, the sound, and perhaps even written appearance

19. Pragmatics The social rules for language use Turn taking Motherese New vs. old information What to talk about and when

20. Any theory of evolution needs to account for all of these Some argue that all of these are part and parcel of language and propose theories of language evolution to account for all Others separate the “Faculty of language in a Narrow” (FLN) vs. the “Faculty of language in a Broad” (BLN) sense. The proposed theories of language evolution need to account for FLN, and account for BLN more broadly

21. FLN vs. FLB Did it evolve specifically for language, or is it used more generally and by non-humans? All put syntax in FLN (but not all parts) Most aspect of morphology in Some put phonetics & phonology in FLN –Many put production in –And perception out (but some disagree) Only a few put semantics in –But some put some semantic constraints in Very few put pragmatics in –But some do consider “theory of mind” in

22. When did language evolve? Standard story is that it probably evolved over 400,000 years ago Recent thinking puts it within past 120,000 years Central to this debate is just what IS core to language. FLN? Likely more recent FLB? Certainly started a long time ago.

23. Where did human language come from? Continuity Theorists –Human language from animal communication Discontinuity Theorists –Punctuated evolution – specific genetic mutation Combination Theorists –Some specifically evolved traits, some exapted –(Comes from Gould & Lewontin – a structure that evolved for another reason being used for a new function: spandrels in cathedrals)

24. Why all the attention on the vocal tract? Liberman – the descent of the larynx –Once thought this was unique to humans –And allowed for speech. But, not unique. The possibility for rapid, coarticulated, and embedded speech Essential for that “Duality of Patterning Recent evidence re FOX:P2 gene

25. “Disappearing dichotomies” raised by Aitchison Nature/nurture Continuity/Discontinuity Punctuated (Pop)/Gradual Evolution (Slow Haul) Single/Multiple appearance of language Instruction/Selection

26. Next Classes…. Tuesday, January 13 Dr. Laura Sabourin Thursday, January 15 Me for a short time, –Then Whitney and Laura –Questions from you required Tuesday, January 20, Whitney Weikum Thursday, January 22, I’m back, and we will as a class generate test questions from Evolution & Language & the Brain –Questions from you required