Lecture 17 Word & Syn Flashcards
(17 cards)
Arbitrariness of sign (Saussure)
No inherent link between word forms and meanings (e.g., ‘rabbit’ vs. ‘gavagai’)
Problem of indeterminacy (Quine)
Words are underconstrained - ‘gavagai’ could mean rabbit, fur, hopping, etc.
Vocabulary spurt
Rapid word learning phase between 14-24 months after slow initial word acquisition
Fast mapping
Ability to learn word meanings after just 1-2 exposures (e.g., ‘koba’ for novel object)
Shape bias
Tendency to categorize nouns by shape (e.g., extend ‘dax’ to same-shaped objects)
Mutual exclusivity
Assumption that objects have only one label (soft bias; e.g., ‘greebo’ for unnamed object)
Social reasoning in word learning
Using speaker’s gaze/intent to determine word reference (Baldwin et al., 1996)
SVO word order
Subject-Verb-Object structure learned early (e.g., ‘I eat broccoli’) despite omitted words
Verbs as “heads”
Verbs determine sentence structure (e.g., ‘put’ requires subject+object+location)
Overgeneralization errors
Applying rules too broadly (e.g., ‘goed’ instead of ‘went’) shows rule-learning
U-shaped learning curve
Verb morphology: correct → overgeneralized → corrected (e.g., ‘went’ → ‘goed’ → ‘went’)
Irregular verbs
High-frequency verbs resist regularization (e.g., ‘went’ stays irregular)
Negative evidence
Explicit corrections are rare and often ignored by children
Statistical learning in syntax
Sensitivity to verb-argument patterns (e.g., ‘pilking data to screen’ vs. incorrect order)
CHILDES database
Corpus of child speech showing developmental patterns in 51 languages
Open vs. closed word classes
Open: nouns/verbs (easy to add); Closed: prepositions/conjunctions (hard to add)
Morphemes
Smallest meaning units (e.g., ‘un-‘, ‘-ing’, ‘comfort’) combined via morphological rules
