Linguistics Flashcards
Define human language
“Language is the system of conventionally spoken, signed or written symbols by means of which human beings as members of social group and participants in its culture express themselves” -R.H. Robins
What are the defining properties of human language?
(DAD CRS)
1. Displacement 🐝
2. Arbitrariness 🐕🗣
3. Duality of patterning🦜:
4. Creativity/Productivity 🐕-
5. Reflexivity- 🇪🇬
6. Specialization/Intention- 🐶
What are the 6 main subfields of linguistics?
Phonetics- study of the physical aspects of speech sounds.
Phonology- Study about the psychological and cognitive aspects and processing of speech sounds. It’s basic component is phoneme.
Morphology- Study of structure of formation of words. Basic unit is morpheme.
Syntax - Study of creation of sentence structure and pattern. English SVO Japanese SOV
Semantics- Study of how meaning is expressed in language. Sentences can be syntactically correct but be semantically wrong as they can be without meaning. Ex by Chomsky - Colourless ideas sleep furiously.
Pragmatics - Study of meaning expressed in context of tone, manner, time, ambiguity etc.
What is Skinner’s approach of explaining language acquisition?
•Skinner 1957 book “Verbal Behaviour”
•took a behaviorist approach
•language learning is solely by reinforcement
• If infants produce correct words, sentences etcetera it is rewarded
What was the criticism of Skinner approach to understanding language acquisition?
Children do not care much about feedback
What was Noam Chomsky’s approach to explaining mechanism of language accusation?
• Strongly criticised Skinner’s book in 1959
• Stated language is too complex to be learned by reinforcement
• Stated role models like parents siblings etcetera often used in correct language
• Chomsky pointed that children do not need to learn grammar instead all children are born with an innate knowledge of an “universal grammar”, a knowledge of very fundamental rules of language that apply to all languages
What is McGurk effect?
When an Auditory component of one sound is overlayed with the visual component of another sound it leads to the perception of a 3rd sound this effect is known as McGurk effect.
It shows that speech perception is both affected by auditory and visual components.
What are the 3 major theories of speech recognition?
The 3 major theories of speech recognition are
Motor theory by Lieberman in ‘67
Cohort theory by Wilson and Tyler in ‘80 and
Trace model
What does the motor theory of speech perception state?
The Motor theory of speech perception states that a speech pattern is perceived when a listener hears a word and then their motor system recreates the word by reimagining how their own vocal cords would have produced it and then perceive it.
What are the Observations or experiments supporting the motor theory of speech perception?
- McGurk effect - explains the involvement in motor theory in perceiving the speech sound.
- Categorical perception - even if a computer simulation can smooth out the transition from /ba/ to /ta/ our perception cannot hear the transition. It either hears one or other. This is because with this theory we know our own vocal cord can only produce one or other and not in-between thus our brain or motor system cannot interpret in between sounds.
- Brain imaging - Shows activation of motor areas during speech perception.
What are the criticisms of motor theory of speech Perception?
- Speech Production is highly variable - A native speaker can hear a different accent and yet still understand the word even though his own Voicebox has never produced that sound before.
- Infants being good at speech perception but not at production- According to this theory we can only perceive those sounds which we can produce by our own however babies cannot produce much of the sounds that they hear from adults and yet perceive the same sounds.
What is the cohort theory of speech Perception?
Coherent theory explains how visual and/or auditory input of words is mapped onto a word existing in the listener’s lexicon.
What is the process of Cohort theory?
It States that speech perception starts at the 1st phoneme itself.
Ex - we hear someone say candle
1. We hear /kæ/ and activate all words starting with /kæ/, activating the “initial cohort” - candle candy can cattle
2. We hear /kæn/ - We remove all mismatches. Left with can candy candle
3. We hear /kænd/- We remove can…
4. Process goes on until we reach a “recognition point” where we identify the word correctly and match it with our existing word stock.
●The process is also effected bt context of words in the sentence
What is Phrase Structure Grammar?
Two understand how humans perceive/create sentences, Chomsky proposed the Phrase Structure Grammar model. It is often represented as an inverted tree with the Sentence (S) at top and having Noun Phrase (NP) and Verb Phrase (VP) branch from it which further keep on branching and helps us understand the Structure and thus meaning of the sentence.
What is parsing?
Parsing is the active process by which a listeners establishes meaning of a sentence that is heard.
