week 10 Flashcards
(17 cards)
What are the 2 things that Make Human Language Unique
Displacement & Creativity
Displacement
We can talk about past, future, or imaginary things.
Creativity
Infinite sentence possibilities from limited rules & words.
Nim Chimpsky Study (Herb Terrace)
Trained a chimp (Nim) to challenge the idea that language is innate.
Findings:
Nim learned hundreds of signs.
BUT his communication was symbolic only—he didn’t use grammar or structured sentences.
This suggested that apes can learn words, but not the complex grammar that defines human language.
pinkers view on language evolution
language evolved through natural selection because it gave humans a survival advantage.
chomskys view on language evolution
Language is innate (built into the brain), and it likely appeared suddenly to help with thinking, not mainly for communication.
Social Grooming Hypothesis (Dunbar)
Language evolved to help maintain social bonds.
Social Contract Hypothesis (Deacon)
Language evolved to maintain pair bonds in a mating context
Object Bias:
When a kid hears a new word while looking at something, they assume it means the whole object, not just a part, color, or texture.
Example:
You point to a toy and say “truck.”
The kid assumes “truck” means the entire toy, not just the wheels or the color blue.
Taxonomic Assumption:
Assume words refer to basic level categories
Example:
If you show a kid a poodle and say “this is a dog,”
they’ll also call a golden retriever or bulldog a dog, too — because they think the word “dog” means the whole category, not just that one animal.
Fast Mapping:
Kids can learn the meaning of a word after hearing it just once.
Example:
You point to a strange animal and say “That’s a lemur.”
The kid remembers the word “lemur” and knows what it means next time — even after hearing it only once.
Mutual Exclusivity:
Kids assume that each object has only one label — so a new word must mean something new.
Example:
If a kid already knows the word “cup”, and you show them a cup with a handle and say “handle,”
they’ll guess “handle” means the new part — not the whole cup — because they already have a word for that.
Lexical Contrast:
Kids use words they already know to figure out what new words mean.
Example:
If a kid knows the word “big,” and then hears someone say “huge,”
they figure out “huge” must mean something like big, but maybe even bigger.
Chomsky’s View on grammar
Language is too complex to be learned just through experience.
Children learn it quickly and with few errors, suggesting innate knowledge (not just associative learning).
specific language impairment
a communication disorder where a child’s language development is slower than expected, despite having no hearing loss, cognitive deficits, or other obvious causes
Inflectional Morphology:
Trouble with word modifications (e.g., mouse → mice)
Derivational Morphology:
Struggles with forming new words (e.g., microwave → microwaveable)
