From D.J.Messer at open.ac.uk Fri Oct 5 14:19:28 2007 From: D.J.Messer at open.ac.uk (D.J.Messer) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 15:19:28 +0100 Subject: FW: Research Fellow: Specific Language Impairment Message-ID: Dear colleagues, We would be grateful if you could circulate the information for this two-year postdoctoral Research Fellow position at London South Bank University. Many thanks, Lucy Henry Dr. Lucy Henry Reader in Psychology Department of Psychology London South Bank University 103 Borough Road London SE1 0AA henrylc at lsbu.ac.uk FACULTY OF ARTS & HUMAN SCIENCES RESEARCH FELLOW: SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT & EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING £30,478 - £35,808 PA - 2 YEAR FIXED TERM We seek a talented individual for a project investigating Executive Functioning abilities in young people with Specific Language Impairment. The project has been funded by an ESRC award. You will have a higher degree in a relevant subject and have experience of working with young people. For further informal discussion and clarification of the role please contact Dr Lucy Henry (henrylc at lsbu.ac.uk) or Professor David Messer (d.j.messer at open.ac.uk). For full details & application form, please visit www.lsbu.ac.uk/humanres or send a stamped addressed envelope to HR, LSBU, 103 Borough Road, London SE1 0AA. Please quote REF: X3064. Closing date: 26 October. An Equal Opportunities Employer. Start date: 1 January 2008 Further information about the project This research investigates executive functioning (EF) abilities in young people with specific language impairment (SLI). SLI is a common neurodevelopmental disorder marked by language delays that are out of line with the young person's other abilities. Executive functioning refers to the higher order cognitive skills required for novel tasks with no well-learned patterns of responding. Recent theoretical approaches have suggested that brain regions implicated in EF show abnormalities in young people with SLI. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide a thorough investigation of a broad range of their EF skills. In particular, the work will assess whether young people with SLI have weaknesses in EF over and above their language difficulties. Carefully chosen matched measures of EF will either involve tasks which are language based or do not involve language to test this hypothesis. Young people with SLI will be compared to typical peers of similar non-verbal intellectual ability and age on these two sets of EF measures, to determine whether they have difficulties with either or both sets of EF tasks. Further analyses will examine detailed predictions concerning the precise links between different aspects of EF skill and particular language weaknesses such as poor vocabulary and grammatical impairments. Main Activities and Responsibilities 1. To make final submissions for ethical approval. 2. To negotiate with schools to ensure efficient recruitment of appropriately matched samples of children with and without SLI. 3. To timetable the recruitment and testing of children for the research project. 4. To administer standardised and non-standardised language assessments, non-verbal ability and executive functioning tests (data collection). 5. To score and interpret these tests. 6. To manage data sets. 7. To have major responsibility for data analysis. 8. To be involved in the writing up of findings and provision of feedback to schools and relevant professionals. -- Copyright in this email and in any attachments belongs to London South Bank University. This email, and its attachments if any, may be confidential or legally privileged and is intended to be seen only by the person to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please note the following: (1) You should take immediate action to notify the sender and delete the original email and all copies from your computer systems; (2) You should not read copy or use the contents of the email nor disclose it or its existence to anyone else. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and should not be taken as those of London South Bank University, unless this is specifically stated. London South Bank University is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales. The following details apply to London South Bank University: Company number - 00986761; Registered office and trading address - 103 Borough Road London SE1 0AA; VAT number - 778 1116 17; Email address - lsbuinfo at lsbu.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de Sat Oct 6 07:56:19 2007 From: mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de (Mechthild Kiegelmann) Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 09:56:19 +0200 Subject: Literature on Baby Signing Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, there is growing popularity in the use of some Signs from a local sign language in hearing families with hearing babies. I am working on evaluating this so called "baby signing" from a developmental psychology perspective. If any of you could help me find relevant literature, I would appreciate this very much. I would be interested in text in English or other languages. Of course, I will post a collection of the references here. So far, for main references about baby signing I found these: Goodwyn , S. , Acredolo, L., & Brown, C. (2000). Impact of symbolic gesturing on early language development. /Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 81-103 / Johnston, J.C., Durieux-Smith, A. & Bloom, K. (2005). Teaching gestural signs to infants to advance child development: A review of the evidence. First Language, vol. 25(2), 235-251. Thompson, R. , McKerchar, P., & Dancho, K. (2004). The effects of delayed physical prompts and reinforcement on infant sign language acquisition. /Journal of applied behavior analysis/. 37, 379-383. Thank you in advance for your help. Mechthild Kiegelmann PD Mechthild Kiegelmann, Ed.D. University of Tübingen Educational and Developmental Psychology School of Education Münzgasse 22-30 D-72074 Tübingen Germany From luciavenezuela at hotmail.com Sun Oct 7 15:10:38 2007 From: luciavenezuela at hotmail.com (luciavenezuela at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 08:10:38 -0700 Subject: I've added you as a friend on StumbleUpon Message-ID: miluchi (luciavenezuela at hotmail.com) has invited you to StumbleUpon! You can see my other favorites here: http://miluchi.stumbleupon.com Thanks, miluchi --- StumbleUpon lets you discover great sites with a single click. Give it a try at: http://www.stumbleupon.com/join.php?friend=4045382&emailcode=mk5hzi4iymusqfoh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Mon Oct 8 00:08:29 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 20:08:29 -0400 Subject: symposium on syntactic complexity Message-ID: THE GENESIS OF SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM The 12th Biennial Rice University Symposium on Language, co-organized by Matt Shibatani (Rice University) and T. Givón (University of Oregon), will be held in the Farnsworth Pavilion of the Ley Student Center on March 27th-29th, 2008. The topic-"The genesis of syntactic complexity"-in part builds on the success of the 11th biennial symposium on complex verb constructions and explores the genesis and nature of syntactic complexity from an interdisciplinary perspective. Structural complexity may be defined broadly as the "chunking" of linear-sequential structure into hierarchic one (cf. Herbert A. Simon 1962 "The architecture of complexity"). The creation of such hierarchic structure is a common process language shares with motor control, vision, memory, and music. It is often associated with the move from attended to automated processing. Our symposium will focus on one particular type of syntactic complexity, that of clauses ('propositions') embedded inside other clauses-under a unified intonation contour. We examine two syntactic domains in which such embedding structures are generally found to cluster: (i) in the verb phrase (complex predicates, clause-union, verb complementation), and (ii) in the noun phrase (relative clauses and noun complementation). The symposium will concern itself primarily with the genesis of these complex structures, comparing the three main developmental trends of language: Diachrony, child language development, and evolution. For all three, we will explore the linguistic, cognitive, neurological and biological aspects of the genesis and development of complex syntax. The symposium is open to the public. Further information will be posted shortly in the webpage: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~eivs/sympo/ Contributors: 1. Diachronic development: B. Heine (Koeln) & T. Kouteva (Duesseldorf) A. Pawley (Canberra) O. Dahl (Stockholm) G. Deutscher (Leiden) M. Mithun (Santa Barbara) C. Bowern (Rice) M. Hilpert & C. Koops (Rice) M. Shibatani (Rice) T. Givón (Oregon) 2. Child development: H. Diessel (Jena) C. Rojas (UNAM) T. Givón (Oregon) 3. Cognitive and & neurological aspects: B. MacWhinney (CMU) D. Fernandez-Duque (Villanova) F. Pulvermuller (Cambridge) E. Pederson & M. Barker (Oregon) D. Tucker (Oregon) 4. Biology and evolution: D. Bickerton (Hawaii) N. Tublitz (Oregon) From Nanjo.Bogdanowicz at mpi.nl Mon Oct 8 12:08:46 2007 From: Nanjo.Bogdanowicz at mpi.nl (Nanjo Bogdanowicz) Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 14:08:46 +0200 Subject: two year post-doctoral position MPI for Psycholinguistics Message-ID: Two year post-doctoral position The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) is offering a two year post-doctoral position in the field of cognitive development/first language acquisition. The post is without teaching responsibilities and comes with considerable technical support and assistance for running experiments. The candidate would work within the Categories and Concepts Across Language and Culture project, which investigates variation and constraints in semantic categories across languages and the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic representations. A focal area for the project is the linguistic encoding of the senses across the world’s languages, and current work examines whether some sensory modalities are more readily expressed in language than others (e.g., is smell more codable than color)? The candidate would be expected to contribute to the project by conducting research on perceptual categorization in children and/or on acquisition of language for different sensory modalities. There are opportunities to collaborate with members of the Acquisition group and Language & Cognition group. A background in developmental psychology or first language acquisition is essential. Experience with cross-linguistic work/fieldwork would be welcome, but is not necessary. Applications should include: a curriculum vitae, including a full list of publications, the names of two referees who would be willing to write letters of recommendation, examples of published work and a cover letter describing research interests and how the candidate would contribute to the Categories project. Please send applications to Nanjo Bogdanowicz (Nanjo.Bogdanowicz at mpi.nl). For more information about the position, email Asifa Majid (Asifa.Majid at mpi.nl). Deadline for applications is 1st November 2007, with a view to an immediate start date (although the starting date is negotiable). -- Nanjo Bogdanowicz Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics P.O.Box 310 Phone+31 (0)24 3521454 6500 AH Nijmegen Fax +31 (0)24 3521213 nanjo.bogdanowicz at mpi.nl From macw at cmu.edu Wed Oct 10 01:37:11 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 21:37:11 -0400 Subject: Janet bilingual corpus Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, I would like to announce the addition of a seventh bilingual child to the Chinese University Cantonese-English bilingual corpus developed by Virginia Yip, Stephen Matthews, and their colleagues. The transcripts for this seventh child -- Janet -- are linked to video and the transcription is in Cantonese and English with a %mor line. This is an auspicious day for this announcement, since it is 10/10 which is also a holiday in Taiwan. The web page for the CUHK project, which discusses their recent book and corpus, can be found at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/book/ bilingualchild/ and the data are available in CHILDES in the /Biling segment. Many thanks to Virginia, Stephen, and their colleagues for the addition of this new bilingual child. -- Brian MacWhinney From bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Wed Oct 10 09:37:27 2007 From: bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de (bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:37:27 GMT Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping Message-ID: Dear all, I have a question on the Syntactic Bootstrapping approach which I surely could clarify myself by checking the relevant literature, but for reasons of time, I thought I could ask you, in the hope some of you out there have the answer at hand and/or can indicate some references where I can find it. The question is: Is the supposition right that the Syntactic Bootstrapping hypothesis posits unlearned (innate) syntactic-semantic correlations and mappings (e.g., transitivity --> causality), just as Semantic Bootstrapping does, only the other way round (e.g., subject <-- agent)? Or is it the case that in Synt. Boot. these categories are learned? Or yet is it the case that this issue is viewed differently by proponents of Synt. Boot? Or ? Thank you very much in advance! Best Susanna ***************************************************************** Susanna Bartsch https://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/bartsch/ bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS) Centre for General Linguistics, Typology, and Universals Research Schuetzenstr. 18 10117 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 (0)30 20192562 Fax +49 (0)30 20192402 ***************************************************************** From cats22 at frontiernet.net Wed Oct 10 15:21:46 2007 From: cats22 at frontiernet.net (Doug Harris) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:21:46 -0400 Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping In-Reply-To: <20071010093727.23773.qmail@dmz01.zas.gwz-berlin.de> Message-ID: Speaking of _bootstrapping_, I heard an interesting variation of that (source) word the other day, I believe it was on NPR, while I was _so_ otherwise engaged I couldn't make a written note to myself on it: A man was talking about, I believe, how his town would struggle together after some disaster or other and "pull its bootstrings up" and work toward recovery, or whatever. I'm sorry I can't be more precise on the source. (the other) doug -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 5:37 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping Dear all, I have a question on the Syntactic Bootstrapping approach which I surely could clarify myself by checking the relevant literature, but for reasons of time, I thought I could ask you, in the hope some of you out there have the answer at hand and/or can indicate some references where I can find it. The question is: Is the supposition right that the Syntactic Bootstrapping hypothesis posits unlearned (innate) syntactic-semantic correlations and mappings (e.g., transitivity --> causality), just as Semantic Bootstrapping does, only the other way round (e.g., subject <-- agent)? Or is it the case that in Synt. Boot. these categories are learned? Or yet is it the case that this issue is viewed differently by proponents of Synt. Boot? Or.? Thank you very much in advance! Best Susanna ***************************************************************** Susanna Bartsch https://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/bartsch/ bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS) Centre for General Linguistics, Typology, and Universals Research Schuetzenstr. 18 10117 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 (0)30 20192562 Fax +49 (0)30 20192402 ***************************************************************** From boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de Wed Oct 10 19:17:10 2007 From: boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de (Marita =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6hning?=) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 21:17:10 +0200 Subject: European Masters in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL): Call for applications / scholarships Message-ID: European Masters Programme in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL): Call for applications for 2008/09 course and Erasmus Mundus scholarships - The programme: The Erasmus Mundus EMCL ('European Masters in Clinical Linguistics') course is a 15 month full-time interdisciplinary and transnational university programme at Masters level. It provides integrated training in theoretical and experimental neurosciences and psycholinguistics with clinical issues. The aim of the Masters Course is to train highly qualified advanced students who are excellently prepared for research work and PhD programmes in the above fields. The transnational consortium comprises four universities: Groningen (NL), Joensuu (FI), Milano-Bicocca (IT) and Potsdam (DE). The programme consists of three terms: the core courses offered in the first term aim at providing the students with general knowledge about the fields mentioned above. During the second and third term, the students attend specialised courses. For the second term, students may choose to move from their first host university to another one, while all students meet at the University of Potsdam during the third term. To finish the programme successfully, the student writes a Masters thesis and attends a summer school or conference. All courses are taught in English. - The Erasmus Mundus scholarship for non-EU students: The EMCL programme is part of the Erasmus Mundus initiative of the European Union, providing an Erasmus Mundus scholarship covering tuition fees (€ 7,500.-), living and travelling costs for non-EU students admitted to the programme (amounting to a total of € 29,000.-/scholarship). The EMCL-programme thus has a strong extra-European profile. - Information for applicants from EU countries: Students from EU-countries may not apply for the Erasmus Mundus scholarship, but pay a reduced tuition fee of 2,700.-. - Application information: Requirement for application is at least three years of higher education (BA, BSc or equivalent) with an emphasis on speech and language pathology, linguistics, biomedical sciences, psychology or special education. We invite high profile students worldwide to submit their applications for participation in the 2008/09 course (which starts in September 2008) until January 15, 2008 (application deadline). - Further information and contact: For more detailed information on Erasmus Mundus, the EMCL programme's aims, curriculum, admission criteria, scholarships, organisation, contact information etc., please visit our website at: www.emcl-mundus.com For further information, non-European applicants may contact Dr. Frank Burchert (burchert at ling.uni-potsdam.de ). European students send their requests about the programme to Dr. Roel Jonkers (r.jonkers at let.rug.nl ). From M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 11:07:23 2007 From: M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk (Matthew Saxton) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:07:23 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? Message-ID: Dear All, Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? I'm convinced that, at some point recently, a very interesting article on this issue flashed before my eyes, before disappearing forever, possibly into my 'filing' cabinet. There is, of course, a huge literature in which competence vs. performance is considered and, very often, taken for granted. I notice also that the pairing of these concepts is common currency in many other fields beyond psycholinguistics (e.g., cognitive therapy, animal ecology, engineering, medicine, and so on). Of course, the way the two terms are used probably differs from one field to another, but undoubtedly, competence is often pitted against performance in an uncontroversial manner. I am therefore very interested to find any discussion which challenges the competence-performance distinction. If anyone can help, I promise to sort out my filing cabinet..... Regards, Matthew Saxton. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 11:18:21 2007 From: Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk (Evan J Kidd) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:18:21 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C449@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Generator Microsoft Word 11 (filtered) Hi Matthew, You might check out: Seidenberg, M. S., & MacDonald, M. C. (1999). A probabilistic constraints approach to language acquisition and processing. Cognitive Science, 23, 569 - 588. The paper explicitly addresses the issue from a connectionist perspective. This is an interesting topic - could you post a summary? Best, Evan _________________________________ Dr Evan Kidd Lecturer in Psychology School of Psychological Sciences University of Manchester Oxford Road M13 9PL Manchester, UK Ph: +44 (0) 161 275 2578 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 8587 http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/108727 __________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Saxton Sent: 11 October 2007 12:07 To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? Dear All, Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? I' m convinced that, at some point recently, a very interesting article on this issue flashed before my eyes, before disappearing forever, possibly into my ' filing' cabinet. There is, of course, a huge literature in which competence vs. performance is considered and, very often, taken for granted. I notice also that the pairing of these concepts is common currency in many other fields beyond psycholinguistics (e.g., cognitive therapy, animal ecology, engineering, medicine, and so on). Of course, the way the two terms are used probably differs from one field to another, but undoubtedly, competence is often pitted against performance in an uncontroversial manner. I am therefore very interested to find any discussion which challenges the competence-performance distinction. If anyone can help, I promise to sort out my filing cabinet..... Regards, Matthew Saxton. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 13:09:14 2007 From: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk (r.n.campbell) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:09:14 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C449@M1.ioead> Message-ID: >Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. -- Dr Robin N Campbell Dept of Psychology University of Stirling STIRLING FK9 4LA Scotland, UK telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 13:23:31 2007 From: k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk (Katie Alcock) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:23:31 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If this happened, it would still not prevent undergraduates from thinking that Chomsky and Skinner are the only two people ever to have written anything about language acquisition. Katie Alcock Katie Alcock, DPhil Lecturer Department of Psychology University of Lancaster Fylde College Lancaster LA1 4YF Tel 01524 593833 Fax 01524 593744 Web http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/KatieAlcock.html From: "r.n.campbell" > Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Thu Oct 11 14:55:53 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:55:53 +0200 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Robin, Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's now a more relevant figure than before? Anat Ninio r.n.campbell wrote: >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > -- > > Dr Robin N Campbell > Dept of Psychology > University of Stirling > STIRLING FK9 4LA > Scotland, UK > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > -- > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > for messages of this kind. > From rnunez at uic.edu Thu Oct 11 15:36:34 2007 From: rnunez at uic.edu (Nunez-Cedeno, Rafael) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:36:34 -0500 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <470E3979.9090903@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: I believe Dr. Campbell's wish it just that: wishful thinking. Chomsky, despite his retirement, continues being as relevant today as he has always been. If you are a syntactician, you know what I mean. But then again, as Calderon de la Barca wrote "los sueños, sueños son" ('dreams are dreams'). Rafael Nunez-Cedeno On Thu, October 11, 2007 9:55 am, Anat Ninio wrote: > Hi Robin, > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > now a more relevant figure than before? > > Anat Ninio > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >> >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> -- >> >> Dr Robin N Campbell >> Dept of Psychology >> University of Stirling >> STIRLING FK9 4LA >> Scotland, UK >> >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> >> -- >> >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> for messages of this kind. >> > > > Rafael Nuñez-Cedeño, Professor Co-editor of Probus: International Journal of Latin and Romance Linguistics University of Illinois at Chicago Dept. of Spanish/FIP (MC 315) 601 S. Morgan Street Chicago, IL 60607 Tel: 312-996-0271 Fax: 312-413-1044 From macswan at asu.edu Thu Oct 11 16:23:08 2007 From: macswan at asu.edu (Jeff MacSwan) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:23:08 -0700 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <470E3979.9090903@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current linguistics literature. Jeff MacSwan -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM To: r.n.campbell Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? Hi Robin, Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's now a more relevant figure than before? Anat Ninio r.n.campbell wrote: >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > -- > > Dr Robin N Campbell > Dept of Psychology > University of Stirling > STIRLING FK9 4LA > Scotland, UK > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > -- > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > for messages of this kind. > From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Thu Oct 11 16:29:15 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:29:15 +0200 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <49BBB0F28D193647A264CCB9CC8E16991B6266@EX07.asurite.ad.asu.edu> Message-ID: Well, generativism hasn't been the same since Chomsky turned his theory into a sub-type of Dependency Grammar! My enthusiasm for highly-abstract syntax as a framework for developmental theory has always been very restricted, so it's good news that Chomsky doesn't work that way any more. Anat Ninio Jeff MacSwan wrote: > It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which > disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most > influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > > But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and > influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics > generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, > computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > > While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does > not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic > theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or > significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current > linguistics literature. > > Jeff MacSwan > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio > Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM > To: r.n.campbell > Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > > Hi Robin, > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > now a more relevant figure than before? > > Anat Ninio > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: > >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >>> >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> -- >> >> Dr Robin N Campbell >> Dept of Psychology >> University of Stirling >> STIRLING FK9 4LA >> Scotland, UK >> >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> >> -- >> >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> for messages of this kind. >> >> > > > > From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 11 18:47:45 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:47:45 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: I think it would be an interesting exercise if Robin (and other Anti-Chomskians) could give us a sense of how child language might have developed without Chomsky and why it would have benefited from his absence. Peter Gordon Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Anat Ninio Sent: Thu 10/11/2007 6:29 AM To: Jeff MacSwan Cc: Anat Ninio; r.n.campbell; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? Well, generativism hasn't been the same since Chomsky turned his theory into a sub-type of Dependency Grammar! My enthusiasm for highly-abstract syntax as a framework for developmental theory has always been very restricted, so it's good news that Chomsky doesn't work that way any more. Anat Ninio Jeff MacSwan wrote: > It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which > disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most > influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > > But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and > influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics > generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, > computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > > While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does > not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic > theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or > significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current > linguistics literature. > > Jeff MacSwan > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio > Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM > To: r.n.campbell > Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > > Hi Robin, > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > now a more relevant figure than before? > > Anat Ninio > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: > >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >>> >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> -- >> >> Dr Robin N Campbell >> Dept of Psychology >> University of Stirling >> STIRLING FK9 4LA >> Scotland, UK >> >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> >> -- >> >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> for messages of this kind. >> >> > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From slobin at berkeley.edu Thu Oct 11 19:00:44 2007 From: slobin at berkeley.edu (Dan I. Slobin) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:00:44 -0700 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <49BBB0F28D193647A264CCB9CC8E16991B6270@EX07.asurite.ad.asu .edu> Message-ID: I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their thinking still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my hero; he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful questions. And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current approach is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. Dan At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be >insensitive, not to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for >instance, that Halliday is not relevant today. The question is, >relevant to whom? While many linguists find relevance in Halliday's >work, others don't. The same can be said of Chomsky. I think it >would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is "not >relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes >functionalists and formalists alike. Right? > > >From: Dan I. Slobin [mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >To: Jeff MacSwan >Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? > >It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." >I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, >diachronic, >developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical >linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great >progress with little >or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of Chomsky, >for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris of >the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of >associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, >things look different depending on which camp you live in. > >Dan > >At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: > >It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which >disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most >influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > >But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, >computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > >While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does >not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic >theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >linguistics literature. > >Jeff MacSwan > >-----Original Message----- >From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >[ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio >Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >To: r.n.campbell >Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > >Hi Robin, > >Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's >now a more relevant figure than before? > >Anat Ninio > > > >r.n.campbell wrote: > >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > > -- > > > > Dr Robin N Campbell > > Dept of Psychology > > University of Stirling > > STIRLING FK9 4LA > > Scotland, UK > > > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > > > -- > > > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > > for messages of this kind. > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics > >Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From slobin at berkeley.edu Thu Oct 11 19:10:51 2007 From: slobin at berkeley.edu (Dan I. Slobin) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:10:51 -0700 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: I can't imagine this exercise, Peter. Chomsky was critically important in posing some of the most important, and still current questions: How does the child arrive at a grammar with limited information about grammar provided in the input? Is their an innately specified device for this task? What are the differences between knowledge and skill? How can we formally represent the underlying structures of language? Is grammar autonomous? Are there language universals, and are they biologically based? Etc. etc. My disappointment over the years was with the narrowness of the answers, the rigidity and psychological implausibility of the various formalisms, and an ideological disregard of what the child can learn from the speech+situation world in which it lives and grows--that is, disregard of the roles of semantics and pragmatics and their cognitive, biological bases, as well as disregard of the roles of frequency, memory, and processing as necessary components of a model of language acquisition. In fact, when I invited Chomsky to contribute a chapter on language development to my early volume, The Ontogenesis of Grammar (1971), he replied--and this was in 1966--that he had no idea about how or why language development occurred. He said it was a puzzle that acquisition was not instantaneous, and he had nothing to say about development. (All of this led me to write a paper, way back in 1988, "Confessions of a wayward Chomskyan.") Yes, I reiterate, I am still driven by the questions that he posed a half-century ago--though not by his current position. Dan At 11:47 AM 10/11/2007, Gordon, Peter wrote: >I think it would be an interesting exercise if Robin (and other >Anti-Chomskians) could give us a sense of how child language might >have developed without Chomsky and why it would have benefited from >his absence. > >Peter Gordon > > >Peter Gordon, Associate Professor >525 W 120th St. Box 180 >Biobehavioral Sciences Department >Teachers College, Columbia University >New York, NY 10027 >Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 >FAX: (212) 678-8233 >Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 > >---------- >From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Anat Ninio >Sent: Thu 10/11/2007 6:29 AM >To: Jeff MacSwan >Cc: Anat Ninio; r.n.campbell; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > >Well, generativism hasn't been the same since Chomsky turned his theory >into a sub-type of Dependency Grammar! My enthusiasm for highly-abstract >syntax as a framework for developmental theory has always been very >restricted, so it's good news that Chomsky doesn't work that way any more. > >Anat Ninio > >Jeff MacSwan wrote: > > It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which > > disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most > > influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > > > > But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and > > influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics > > generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, > > computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > > > > While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does > > not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic > > theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or > > significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current > > linguistics literature. > > > > Jeff MacSwan > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > > > [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] > On Behalf Of Anat Ninio > > Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM > > To: r.n.campbell > > Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > > Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > > > > Hi Robin, > > > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > > now a more relevant figure than before? > > > > Anat Ninio > > > > > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: > > > >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > >>> > >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > >> -- > >> > >> Dr Robin N Campbell > >> Dept of Psychology > >> University of Stirling > >> STIRLING FK9 4LA > >> Scotland, UK > >> > >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > >> Website: > http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > >> > >> -- > >> > >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > >> for messages of this kind. > >> > >> > > > > > > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 19:12:48 2007 From: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk (Robin Campbell) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:12:48 +0100 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: When some new approach to a subject comes along, it deserves a bit of slack. Let's see where it goes. Chomsky didn't get much to begin with. In ill-natured debates James Sledd avoided outright libel by remarking only that 'The academic garden was full of real toads with imaginary jewels in their heads', while Charles Hockett gently pointed out that MIT Ph.D theses would be 'as worthless as horoscopes'. But Chomsky's ideas soon got plenty slack: linguistics departments filled up with followers who swept out the infidels, and psychology departments drank thirstily from the new well, and forced their students to do likewise. But after some time has passed it's important to take stock, and the right question to ask is 'Where are the good outcomes?'. Have the sick been healed? Are children better educated? Are there benefits to art or literature? Has the brass head spoken? Well, it's 50 years now since the publication of Syntactic Structures. Where are the good outcomes? For the study of language acquisition, for example? Is it time for the S.S. Generative Enterprise to boldly go into the nearest convenient black hole? I suspect it may be. Robin -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. From lmb32 at columbia.edu Thu Oct 11 21:24:07 2007 From: lmb32 at columbia.edu (Lois Bloom) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:24:07 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: As someone who, like Dan, cut my teeth on the Chomsky doctrine in the 1960s, my own work evolved subsequently in a different direction altogether in frustrated response to the persistent isolation of language within the GTG framework. It's worth pointing out, in response to Katie's comment about undergraduates "thinking that Chomsky and Skinner are the only two people ever to have written anything about language acquisition" that, indeed, neither Chomsky nor Skinner actually studied real live children acquiring a real live language. In a letter to me (dated November 2, 1987 regarding discussion at a BU conference), Noam referred to "many of the people [there] well-known in child language acquisition studies (about which I know next to nothing)." The MIT enterprise is about acquisition in only the most abstract, theoretical sense admitting neither the rest of cognition nor a child's social and emotional life. One might well wonder why, in the world according to MIT, these things were, at best, ignored or, at worst, denigrated. Perhaps fitting them into the theory is just too hard. Lois Bloom ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan I. Slobin To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 3:00 PM Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their thinking still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my hero; he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful questions. And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current approach is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. Dan At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be insensitive, not to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that Halliday is not relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many linguists find relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of Chomsky. I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes functionalists and formalists alike. Right? From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM To: Jeff MacSwan Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, diachronic, developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great progress with little or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of Chomsky, for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris of the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, things look different depending on which camp you live in. Dan At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current linguistics literature. Jeff MacSwan -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM To: r.n.campbell Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? Hi Robin, Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's now a more relevant figure than before? Anat Ninio r.n.campbell wrote: >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > -- > > Dr Robin N Campbell > Dept of Psychology > University of Stirling > STIRLING FK9 4LA > Scotland, UK > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > -- > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > for messages of this kind. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Thu Oct 11 22:25:59 2007 From: bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de (bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:25:59 GMT Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping (fwd) Message-ID: Dear all, Many many thanks to the people having replied to my query, their messages were extremely helpful. I'll post a summary to the list in the next days. In this context, the following text was added as a P.S. in a reply to my query. I wonder what you people think of that. I for my part am sort of flabbergasted. PS -- Though I've been a writer and editor for many years, my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage costume jewelry -- for themselves or, better, for resale there -- I would be very appreciative if you would put us in touch with each other. Best Susanna ***************************************************************** Susanna Bartsch https://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/bartsch/ bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS) Centre for General Linguistics, Typology, and Universals Research Schuetzenstr. 18 10117 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 (0)30 20192562 Fax +49 (0)30 20192402 ***************************************************************** From macw at cmu.edu Thu Oct 11 23:06:59 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:06:59 +0800 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Peter, Fair question. Personally, I have found Chomsky's ideas sometimes right on and sometimes wildly implausible. I think that, in the final analysis, the field would have benefitted more if the ideas had been presented as just that -- as ideas, rather than as established scientific fact. Transformations, the cycle, rule- ordering, feeding, bleeding, the grammar gene, the sudden evolution of language, speech is special, the centrality of recursion, minimalism, mapping interfaces, principles and parameters, poverty of stimulus, modularity, early full competence, and the like. These are all fascinating ideas. But so are competition, cue validity, constructions, entrenchment, transfer, thematic structure, dependency relations, coevolution, sensorimotor bases, gesture-speech linkages, linguistic relativity, thinking for speaking, dynamic systems, learning to learn, resonance, and neural plasticity. What troubles me is that the first set of ideas was presented as a single take-it- or-leave-it package and contrasted with the second package, which was often dismissed as something that had "already been shown to be implausible." My personal assessment of the developments of the last 50 years is that, the single-package approach largely outlived its usefulness by about 1980. By then, it was clear that the pieces of the overall package were not logically or empirically co-dependent. If we had been able to "get over" this barrier, I think we would now have made quicker progress on (1) linking L1 and L2 theory, (2) grounding acquisitional theory on data, including video recordings, of real interactions, (3) made more headway on understanding real-time processing of language by normal children and children with disabilities, (4) developed a more solid quantitative methodological base for ongoing work, and (5) been able to field full working simulations of the acquisition of language. In this regard, science is really often just a trade-off of time and manpower. If we, as a field, had devoted less energy to attempts to characterize systems for parameter setting, I think we would have made more progress on these five fundamental fronts, building a firmer basis for ongoing work. In my mind, Chomsky's most important contribution is his initial one -- the emphasis on generativity. If our models of language learning are good at all, they should be able to model and depict the actual course of language development. In 1980, it was basically impossible to do this, because we did not have the relevant corpora. My own focus has been on solving this problem through the construction of CHILDES. Now, I believe, we are in a position to get back to the central task. We should be able to show how, using data available in real interactions with real children with real video and audio, children succeed in learning language. I don't think that the issue here is about Chomsky's presence or absence. Some of his questions are good and cannot be forgotten. But it is time to move on. -- Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 2:47 AM, Gordon, Peter wrote: > I think it would be an interesting exercise if Robin (and other > Anti-Chomskians) could give us a sense of how child language might > have developed without Chomsky and why it would have benefited from > his absence. > > Peter Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aananda at stanford.edu Fri Oct 12 01:45:34 2007 From: aananda at stanford.edu (Bruno Estigarribia) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:45:34 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <41e87b220710111734l7de2b72dmd7176c187a848a0b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I welcome Tom's approach: let's discuss concrete claims. However, I must disagree because I don't think we have the same sense of "explanation" in mind. For instance, if explaining the oddity of "what did who eat" depends on defining an otherwise unmotivated notion of "superiority", then I don't know what "explanation" means any longer. (In fact, (1) I---together with other colleagues at Stanford---have done work showing that superiority is best explained by processing biases: the data are gradient, D-linked explanations a la Pesetsky are unmotivated and empirically wrong, and "superiority" does not exist as soon as more than two wh-words are involved; (2) Chomsky himself has lately "decided" that superiority is not really a core grammar phenomenon but something to do with focus---take that for what it's worth) Many of us linguists feel that generative syntax (in the Chomskyan sense, not in the broader sense that includes LFG and HPSG) only works at the shallowest levels of data, helped along by such dubious and unfounded distinctions as competence/performance and core/periphery, and the unrestrained use of speaker/researcher intuitions. So, I would very much love for Tom to tell us what the explanations he has in mind are so that we can discuss them openly here. Cheers, Bruno Estigarribia > Dear All, > Well I guess I feel inclined to exhibit the opposite challenge to those > who disparage Chomsky's influence and current work on the acquisition > of grammar. > First it seems like there should be some facts under discussion. > There is simply no non-grammatical approach that explains > when and where grammars are productive, or non-productive, in > the crucial cases. Who can explain why German children allow: > what did who eat > but English children balk at it, and allow only > who ate what > who can explain the pairing restriction on this expression---which > disordered children fail to exhibit, without grammar? > Who can explain why children allow > Near Bill, he put a hat {Bill = he] > and then learn not to. There is no crucial data I know---only > a shift at an abstract level explainable in terms of deep structure. > Who can explain why children get a diference between > whose hat is he lifting > and > who lifted his hat? > One can throw in psychological terms, but if one does not recreate > grammar, it is pretty much impossible without grammar. These are some > of the results of grammaticdally based work. > > Here's the challenge. Of course, language involves social and > emotional factors. Who would not love to know how they are connected? > The question is whether we have the tools to do anything more than > describe connections. Descriptive connecxtions generally understate > human ability--- like 19th century grammarians who acknowledged "patterns" > but could not see the force behind creative generative power. > In my new book "The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language > Illuminates Humanism" I make the opposite claim: social and > cognitive approaches will not esplain the essence of children---the > basis for their sense of dignity---if it cannot incorporate clear, > algorithmic concepts of creativity---as captured by recursion-- > in sentences, adjectives, and possessives---and a projection of > structures that allow instant mechancial behavior. Our eyes dart > around the room with an individual program that is creative and > personal and fast. > Until we have really rich generative models of other parts > of the mind---the interfaces with grammar will be pedestrian > and not really revealing, nor in my opinion respectful, of > children. It is a big challenge----I cannot meet it, but I think > it is why a larger model of language that captures crucial > properties beyond grammar, has not emerged. > How does one integrate emotions into sentences? How do > you get your personality into your throat? Why does personality > affect voice tones but not color perception? How do we > generate unique emotions in unique situations just like we > generate unique sentences? The answers will come from rich > generative claims about the mind everywhere. They will not > come from very general statements about "interaction". > > This is the view articulated in my book. I welcome discussion > of this view and the ideas expressed there. > > > Tom Roeper > > > > > On 10/11/07, Dan I. Slobin wrote: > >> I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, >> linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their >> thinking >> still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my >> case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my hero; >> he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful questions. >> And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades >> ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current approach >> is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. >> >> Dan >> >> >> At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >> >> I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be insensitive, not >> to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that Halliday is not >> relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many linguists find >> relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of Chomsky. >> I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is >> "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes >> functionalists and formalists alike. Right? >> >> >> >> From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >> To: Jeff MacSwan >> Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." >> I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, >> diachronic, >> developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical >> linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great progress with >> little >> or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of >> Chomsky, >> for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris of >> the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of >> associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, >> things look different depending on which camp you live in. >> >> Dan >> >> At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: >> >> It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which >> disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most >> influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." >> >> But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >> influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >> generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, >> computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. >> >> While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does >> not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic >> theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >> significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >> linguistics literature. >> >> Jeff MacSwan >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat >> Ninio >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >> To: r.n.campbell >> Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> Hi Robin, >> >> Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's >> now a more relevant figure than before? >> >> Anat Ninio >> >> >> >> r.n.campbell wrote: >> >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >> > >> > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> > -- >> > >> > Dr Robin N Campbell >> > Dept of Psychology >> > University of Stirling >> > STIRLING FK9 4LA >> > Scotland, UK >> > >> > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> > Website: >> http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> > >> > -- >> > >> > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> > for messages of this kind. >> > >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> >> > > > From fwouk at comcast.net Fri Oct 12 04:49:22 2007 From: fwouk at comcast.net (Fay Wouk) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:49:22 +1300 Subject: IPSyn question Message-ID: Could someone with experience using Scarbourough's Index of Productive Syntax answer a question for me? The V6 level is Auxiliary be, do have in VP. Would utterances which have contracted is ('s) as their verb be acceptable here? I note that they can only be second exemplars for V4, so I'm wondering if they can also only be second exemplars for V6. Further, would it make any difference if the child had already been credited with 2 points at V4, for having produced 's as a second exemplar, and 'm as first exemplar? thanks, Fay Dr. Fay Wouk Senior Lecturer in Linguistics Dept. of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics University of Auckland From M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk Fri Oct 12 07:09:08 2007 From: M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk (Matthew Saxton) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:09:08 +0100 Subject: Antiques Roadshow Message-ID: >From an InfoCHILDES correspondent of Susanna Bartsch: "my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage costume jewelry ...... I would be very appreciative if you would put us in touch with each other." I wonder, is this somehow connected with the discussion of Chomsky? On which subject, I've been adding lots to my stock of learning on the academic culture and history of child language research this past couple of days. In general, I find the discussion about Chomsky's putative obsolescence quite depressing. Internecine struggles that have lasted for decades (including, for example, book-length treatments of the "Language War") are depressing. But more depressing is the relative lack of empirical maturity in the field of child language. In this, I agree with what Brian MacWhinney has to say (and, of course, applaud the efforts of CHILDES as a step in the right direction). Many studies on child language still have sample sizes that look derisory compared with other branches of the human sciences (mea culpa maxima). It is an easy matter to demonstrate that language is fundamental to the human experience. It is also relatively straightforward to demonstrate that research on language development is vitally important. To pluck just two examples from the air: (1) at least 7% of children have serious difficulty with first language acquisition (Tomblin et al., 1997); and (2) 2nd language learning is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And so on. Why, therefore, are politicians and businesses not throwing huge amounts of money at us to do both basic and applied research on language acquisition? I think there is a connection between the culture of open warfare and relative lack of funding. We betray ourselves to the wider world as members of an academic discipline that is unhealthily polarised, relatively immature in its empirical base and academically peripheral (not quite linguistics, not quite psychology, not quite....). And this is the case several decades after Chomsky (and Roger Brown) got people interested. But how did we get on to this? Oh yes: Robin Campbell diverted us from my original question about the competence-performance distinction. On which, I've had some very helpful and interesting replies and will, of course, post a summary. Now, how does one get into the antiques business...........? Regards, Matthew. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hauser at eva.mpg.de Fri Oct 12 07:29:53 2007 From: hauser at eva.mpg.de (Gerlind Hauser) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:29:53 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a mailing list of the people interested in this topic. Thanks and have a nice day! Gerlind From Bhuvana.Narasimhan at mpi.nl Fri Oct 12 10:39:55 2007 From: Bhuvana.Narasimhan at mpi.nl (Bhuvana Narasimhan) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:39:55 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <470F2271.5010706@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: Dear Gerlind (and Info-CHILDES), Creating a mailing list of people interested in developmental pragmatics (and semantics) is indeed a good way to promote an exchange of ideas. Fyi, we have recently initiated a new project on "Information structure in language acquisition" at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics which examines how children and adults learn correspondences between discourse-pragmatic notions (topic-comment, given-new) and linguistic devices such as intonation, word order or discourse particles in different languages. More information can be found on our website (http://www.mpi.nl/research/projects/informationstructure/). Best wishes, Christine Dimroth, Bhuvana Narasimhan On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:29 AM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central task: > So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It seems > that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and I > thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we could > better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > From c_kurumada at hotmail.com Fri Oct 12 13:49:42 2007 From: c_kurumada at hotmail.com (kurumada chigusa) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:49:42 +0900 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <07f726973ebdcd2ceeb52b55761a53ef@mpi.nl> Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES I am a student in Japan looking for a grad school to do my Ph.D. I have been working on the acquisition of the Japanese topic particle from a discourse/pragmatic perspective. Since, as Gerlind mentioned, it is not easy to find people doing developmental pragmatics as their main research topic, I would appreciate it very much if any of you could give me tips or pointers for where (which grad school?) I might find people to share such ideas and interests with. Thank you. Chigusa KURUMADA c_kurumada at hotmail.com Department of Language and Information Sciences, University of Tokyo > CC: INFO-CHILDES at mail.talkbank.org> From: Bhuvana.Narasimhan at mpi.nl> Subject: Re: Who's doing developmental pragmatics?> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:39:55 +0200> To: hauser at eva.mpg.de> > Dear Gerlind (and Info-CHILDES),> > Creating a mailing list of people interested in developmental > pragmatics (and semantics) is indeed> a good way to promote an exchange of ideas.> > Fyi, we have recently initiated a new project on "Information structure > in language acquisition" at the> Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics which examines how children > and adults learn> correspondences between discourse-pragmatic notions (topic-comment, > given-new) and linguistic> devices such as intonation, word order or discourse particles in > different languages. More information> can be found on our website > (http://www.mpi.nl/research/projects/informationstructure/).> > Best wishes,> Christine Dimroth, Bhuvana Narasimhan> > > On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:29 AM, Gerlind Hauser wrote:> > > Dear Info-CHILDES,> _________________________________________________________________ マイクロソフトの最新次世代ブラウザIE7にMSN版ならではの便利な機能をプラス http://promotion.msn.co.jp/ie7/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mfleck at cs.uiuc.edu Fri Oct 12 14:52:05 2007 From: mfleck at cs.uiuc.edu (Margaret Fleck) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:52:05 -0500 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <470ED1BE.3080507@stanford.edu> Message-ID: It is worth bearing in mind that Chomsky was in at the very start of the development of formal grammar technology, essential to creating both compilers for computer languages, formal models for linguistics, and algorithms for computational linguistics. He is still cited in the undergraduate computer science curriculum for that reason. He was also a key figure in pushing everyone to develop models that were well-enough formalized that they could be tested, first by hand and eventually using computers. Even if you don't like his specific models, and you think his later work is unhelpfully detached from reality, you have to give him credit for these earlier contributions. Margaret From mcf636 at hotmail.com Fri Oct 12 15:46:39 2007 From: mcf636 at hotmail.com (Madalena Cruz-Ferreira) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:46:39 +0000 Subject: Monolingual insights about language [was: Chomsky: Obsolete?] In-Reply-To: <470F8A15.2040509@cs.uiuc.edu> Message-ID: Chomskyan insights about language are monolingual, aren't they? That leaves out a lot of language and a lot of children. Or perhaps I got the whole thing wrong? Madalena ________________________ Madalena Cruz-Ferreiramcf636 at hotmail.com ________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Get your free suite of Windows Live services! http://www.get.live.com/wl/all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crojas at servidor.unam.mx Fri Oct 12 17:27:21 2007 From: crojas at servidor.unam.mx (Cecilia Rojas) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:27:21 -0500 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <07f726973ebdcd2ceeb52b55761a53ef@mpi.nl> Message-ID: Dear all, I'm currently working on Spanish early verb inflection, but what I'm looking for in every topic I visit, is a pragmatic account of the processes considered to be grammatically oriented -at least in early years- before the leveling of a grammar is in place. This holds for relative constructions as holds for lexical development, or early constrast in verb inflection Cecilia Rojas Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Cd. Universitaria, DF 04510 Fax 5255 56652903Mensaje citado por: Bhuvana Narasimhan : > Dear Gerlind (and Info-CHILDES), > > Creating a mailing list of people interested in developmental > pragmatics (and semantics) is indeed > a good way to promote an exchange of ideas. > > Fyi, we have recently initiated a new project on "Information structure > > in language acquisition" at the > Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics which examines how children > and adults learn > correspondences between discourse-pragmatic notions (topic-comment, > given-new) and linguistic > devices such as intonation, word order or discourse particles in > different languages. More information > can be found on our website > (http://www.mpi.nl/research/projects/informationstructure/). > > Best wishes, > Christine Dimroth, Bhuvana Narasimhan > > > On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:29 AM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > > > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central task: > > So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It seems > > that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and I > > thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we could > > better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > > > Gerlind > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------- www.correo.unam.mx UNAMonos Comunicándonos From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 12 21:19:55 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:19:55 +0800 Subject: IPSyn question In-Reply-To: <98C76EDD-C0A4-4DBE-A886-3D25C1A09792@comcast.net> Message-ID: Fay, I haven't done much PSyn coding myself, but I was closely involved with Kenji Sagae's computerized formulation of IPSyn. In the process of building his automatic IPSyn, Kenji received coded IPSyn's from three people who we took as the "gold standard." I would not want to divulge in public which of the three coders ended up with the score closest to that of the program, but perhaps I can say that, in the end, the program and the humans were all getting close to 95% accuracy. Now, the nice thing about the program is that Kenji could actually check his code to see how it is programmed for this. This is not to say that the program is "right" but at least one can look at the code and see what it does all the time. Once these fine details of IPSyn coding get resolved in the community, they can then be locked in to the program. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 12:49 PM, Fay Wouk wrote: > Could someone with experience using Scarbourough's Index of > Productive Syntax answer a question for me? > > The V6 level is Auxiliary be, do have in VP. Would utterances > which have contracted is ('s) as their verb be acceptable here? I > note that they can only be second exemplars for V4, so I'm > wondering if they can also only be second exemplars for V6. > Further, would it make any difference if the child had already been > credited with 2 points at V4, for having produced 's as a second > exemplar, and 'm as first exemplar? > > thanks, > Fay > > Dr. Fay Wouk > Senior Lecturer in Linguistics > Dept. of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics > University of Auckland > > From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 12 21:28:12 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:28:12 +0800 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <470F2271.5010706@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call it chiprag at googlegroups.com. We recently moved info- chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine too. Failing that, I could give it a try. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > > From susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz Sat Oct 13 00:36:27 2007 From: susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz (Susan Foster-Cohen) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:36:27 +1300 Subject: generative grammar and acquisition Message-ID: P.S. to my recent e-mail. I have also recently read Tom Roeper's new book, and he does indeed poses many extremely important challenges to us as a child language community. I recommend it wholeheartedly in the context of our discussion, and particularly urge researchers to test out the little experimental paradigms that he presents throughout the book. Cheers, Susan From mfriend at sunstroke.sdsu.edu Sat Oct 13 00:33:10 2007 From: mfriend at sunstroke.sdsu.edu (Margaret Friend) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:33:10 -0700 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! Maggie Friend At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon Deák wrote: >I'd be interested in participating in the group. >Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be >extremely easy to set up--no moderator needed. >-Gedeon > >On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney <macw at cmu.edu> wrote: >Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, > > How about a new mailing list at > googlegroups.com? We could call >it >chiprag at googlegroups.com. >We recently moved info- >chibolts at mail.talkbank.org >to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, >my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would >be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior >figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, >an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine >too. Failing that, I could give it a try. > >--Brian MacWhinney > >On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > > > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > > > Gerlind > > > > > > > > > > > >-- > >Gedeon O. Deák, Ph.D. >Department of Cognitive Science >9500 Gilman Dr. >Univ. CA, San Diego >La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 >http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab > >ph (858) 822-3352 >fax (858) 534-1128 Margaret Friend, Ph.D. Child Language and Emotion Lab Department of Psychology and SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders San Diego State University 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 San Diego, CA 92120 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz Sat Oct 13 00:34:21 2007 From: susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz (Susan Foster-Cohen) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:34:21 +1300 Subject: generative grammar and acquisition Message-ID: Dear all: I have just been reading Ray Jackendoff's excellent essay "Reintegrating Generative Grammar" which forms chapter 2 of his new book "Language, consciousness, culture: Essays on mental structure". May I recommend it to you all in the context of the current discussion. While there is not a vast amount in it directly on acquisition it is extremely articulate about the relationship between generative linguistics and psycholinguistics and, now, neurolinguistics/cognitive science. It is a gracious acknowledgement of the importance of Chomsky's work while at the same time articulating why so many in cognitive science and acquisition have been/are so frustrated. As always with Ray's work, it is thoughtful, articulate, a pleasure to read, and accessible. I am anticipating that the rest of the book is going to be equally relevant to our concerns. Cheers, Susan Foster-Cohen -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Matthew Saxton Sent: Fri 10/12/2007 8:09 PM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: [SPAM: 3.000] Antiques Roadshow >From an InfoCHILDES correspondent of Susanna Bartsch: "my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage costume jewelry ...... I would be very appreciative if you would put us in touch with each other." I wonder, is this somehow connected with the discussion of Chomsky? On which subject, I've been adding lots to my stock of learning on the academic culture and history of child language research this past couple of days. In general, I find the discussion about Chomsky's putative obsolescence quite depressing. Internecine struggles that have lasted for decades (including, for example, book-length treatments of the "Language War") are depressing. But more depressing is the relative lack of empirical maturity in the field of child language. In this, I agree with what Brian MacWhinney has to say (and, of course, applaud the efforts of CHILDES as a step in the right direction). Many studies on child language still have sample sizes that look derisory compared with other branches of the human sciences (mea culpa maxima). It is an easy matter to demonstrate that language is fundamental to the human experience. It is also relatively straightforward to demonstrate that research on language development is vitally important. To pluck just two examples from the air: (1) at least 7% of children have serious difficulty with first language acquisition (Tomblin et al., 1997); and (2) 2nd language learning is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And so on. Why, therefore, are politicians and businesses not throwing huge amounts of money at us to do both basic and applied research on language acquisition? I think there is a connection between the culture of open warfare and relative lack of funding. We betray ourselves to the wider world as members of an academic discipline that is unhealthily polarised, relatively immature in its empirical base and academically peripheral (not quite linguistics, not quite psychology, not quite....). And this is the case several decades after Chomsky (and Roger Brown) got people interested. But how did we get on to this? Oh yes: Robin Campbell diverted us from my original question about the competence-performance distinction. On which, I've had some very helpful and interesting replies and will, of course, post a summary. Now, how does one get into the antiques business...........? Regards, Matthew. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk From sakas at hunter.cuny.edu Sat Oct 13 02:48:17 2007 From: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu (William Gregory Sakas) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:48:17 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: Hi Everyone, IMHO Tom is right on this one. Chomsky moved linguistics into a field of inquiry similar to those of (for want of a better term) natural science To say Chomsky is obsolete, is basically to say that that move was wrong (NB we've been discussing Chomsky 'big-picture' here, not, say Minimalist Program or even autonomy of syntax). The 'facts', the linguistic data, should to be explained by a comprehensive theory that explains all -- not 70 percent, 80 percent or 90 percent. A theory posed in a generative (formal) framework is the right way to go about this. Though as Tom points out, it is a big big task. Short that, we let linguistics fall into studying day-to-day language as art ... insightful, well-thought-out, meaningful interpretation ... probably an approach some of us would advocate. But, unlike art, there are quantifiable 'wrongs' in human language (again as Tom points out). To me, as a scientist, this means that there must be a theory out there that can make fully accurate predictions about the rights-and-wrongs of human utterances (or at least 'Turing-accurate' predictions). Of course Chomsky is/has been wrong on many counts, as he himself often admits, but to say he's obsolete is to say that Galileo is the same when Galileo (re)invented a method of scientific investigation that's still the fundamental basis for scientific inquiry today. Best all, -- Wm William Gregory Sakas, Ph.D. Computer Science and Linguistics Hunter College and the Graduate Center City University of New York (CUNY) Email: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu Voice: 1 212 772.5211 Fax: 1 212 772.5219 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Roeper" To: "Dan I. Slobin" Cc: Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 8:34 PM Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > Dear All, > Well I guess I feel inclined to exhibit the opposite challenge to > those > who disparage Chomsky's influence and current work on the acquisition > of grammar. > First it seems like there should be some facts under discussion. > There is simply no non-grammatical approach that explains > when and where grammars are productive, or non-productive, in > the crucial cases. Who can explain why German children allow: > what did who eat > but English children balk at it, and allow only > who ate what > who can explain the pairing restriction on this expression---which > disordered children fail to exhibit, without grammar? > Who can explain why children allow > Near Bill, he put a hat {Bill = he] > and then learn not to. There is no crucial data I know---only > a shift at an abstract level explainable in terms of deep structure. > Who can explain why children get a diference between > whose hat is he lifting > and > who lifted his hat? > One can throw in psychological terms, but if one does not recreate > grammar, it is pretty much impossible without grammar. These are some > of the results of grammaticdally based work. > > Here's the challenge. Of course, language involves social and > emotional factors. Who would not love to know how they are connected? > The question is whether we have the tools to do anything more than > describe connections. Descriptive connecxtions generally understate > human ability--- like 19th century grammarians who acknowledged "patterns" > but could not see the force behind creative generative power. > In my new book "The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language > Illuminates Humanism" I make the opposite claim: social and > cognitive approaches will not esplain the essence of children---the > basis for their sense of dignity---if it cannot incorporate clear, > algorithmic concepts of creativity---as captured by recursion-- > in sentences, adjectives, and possessives---and a projection of > structures that allow instant mechancial behavior. Our eyes dart > around the room with an individual program that is creative and > personal and fast. > Until we have really rich generative models of other parts > of the mind---the interfaces with grammar will be pedestrian > and not really revealing, nor in my opinion respectful, of > children. It is a big challenge----I cannot meet it, but I think > it is why a larger model of language that captures crucial > properties beyond grammar, has not emerged. > How does one integrate emotions into sentences? How do > you get your personality into your throat? Why does personality > affect voice tones but not color perception? How do we > generate unique emotions in unique situations just like we > generate unique sentences? The answers will come from rich > generative claims about the mind everywhere. They will not > come from very general statements about "interaction". > > This is the view articulated in my book. I welcome discussion > of this view and the ideas expressed there. > > > Tom Roeper > > > > > On 10/11/07, Dan I. Slobin wrote: >> >> I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, >> linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their >> thinking >> still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my >> case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my >> hero; >> he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful >> questions. >> And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades >> ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current >> approach >> is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. >> >> Dan >> >> >> At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >> >> I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be insensitive, >> not >> to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that Halliday is >> not >> relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many linguists >> find >> relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of >> Chomsky. >> I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is >> "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes >> functionalists and formalists alike. Right? >> >> >> >> From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >> To: Jeff MacSwan >> Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." >> I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, >> diachronic, >> developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical >> linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great progress >> with >> little >> or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of >> Chomsky, >> for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris >> of >> the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of >> associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, >> things look different depending on which camp you live in. >> >> Dan >> >> At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: >> >> It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which >> disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most >> influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." >> >> But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >> influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >> generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, >> computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. >> >> While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does >> not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic >> theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >> significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >> linguistics literature. >> >> Jeff MacSwan >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat >> Ninio >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >> To: r.n.campbell >> Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> Hi Robin, >> >> Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's >> now a more relevant figure than before? >> >> Anat Ninio >> >> >> >> r.n.campbell wrote: >> >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >> > >> > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> > -- >> > >> > Dr Robin N Campbell >> > Dept of Psychology >> > University of Stirling >> > STIRLING FK9 4LA >> > Scotland, UK >> > >> > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> > Website: >> http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> > >> > -- >> > >> > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> > for messages of this kind. >> > >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> > > > -- > Tom Roeper > Dept of Lingiustics > UMass South College > Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA > 413 256 0390 > > From mariehojholt at stofanet.dk Sat Oct 13 06:29:06 2007 From: mariehojholt at stofanet.dk (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Marie_H=F8jholt?=) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:29:06 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: I would also like to be included! Are anyone taking on the actual establishing of the forum? Best Marie Hoejholt Grad. student Linguistics, Aarhus, Denmark ----- Original Message ----- From: Margaret Friend To: "Gedeon Deák" ; Brian MacWhinney Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 2:33 AM Subject: Re: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! Maggie Friend At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon Deák wrote: I'd be interested in participating in the group. Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set up--no moderator needed. -Gedeon On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call it chiprag at googlegroups.com . We recently moved info- chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine too. Failing that, I could give it a try. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > > -- Gedeon O. Deák, Ph.D. Department of Cognitive Science 9500 Gilman Dr. Univ. CA, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab ph (858) 822-3352 fax (858) 534-1128 Margaret Friend, Ph.D. Child Language and Emotion Lab Department of Psychology and SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders San Diego State University 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 San Diego, CA 92120 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From P.Hendriks at rug.nl Sat Oct 13 08:01:05 2007 From: P.Hendriks at rug.nl (P.Hendriks) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:01:05 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: Dear Gerlind and info-childes, I would also be interested in a mailing list on developmental pragmatics. At the University of Groningen, we recently initiated a project on developmental semantics and pragmatics, studying asymmetries between children's production and their comprehension of several aspects of semantics/pragmatics. We also intend to look at children and adolescents with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. More information about our project is available on our project website (http://www.let.rug.nl/~hendriks/vici.htm). Also, adding to the discussion on Chomsky and generative grammar, I agree with William Gregory Sakas that we should distinguish between Chomsky's 'big picture' of linguistics as a natural science and Chomsky's particular ideas about syntax. Currently, several alternatives are being developed to Chomsky's particular view on syntax which still adhere to Chomsky's big picture, for example Optimality-Theoretic models of language acquisition. These models depart from Chomsky's particular view of autonomous syntax (by also taking into account meaning and context), while still being formal and generative and yielding testable predictions with respect to language acquisition. Best wishes, --Petra Hendriks From mskcusb at mscc.huji.ac.il Sat Oct 13 14:12:57 2007 From: mskcusb at mscc.huji.ac.il (Shoshana Blum-Kulka) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:12:57 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: Dear Gerlind, Great idea, I'd love to join the group. We have two projects going on developmental pragmatics-in the first we have followed two cohorts of Israeli children for three years (combining ethnography with semi-structured interviews) initially looking at the development of extended genres, like explanations and narratives, and more recently at various discourse phenomena in natural peer talk, like speech representation, pretend play and literate language and the emergence of sociable conversation. Part of this work is cross-cultural, examining the spread of all genres in the natural peer talk of young Israeli and American children (with Catherine Snow and Rebecca Sutherland) (a list of publications from this project can be provided later on). The second project focuses on the development of pragmatic competence in Hebrew as as a seond language by young (preschool and kindergarten) immigrant children in Israel; this too is a longitudinal study, currently its third year, combining linguistic ethnography, semi-structured interviews and standard tests. best, Shoshana Blum-Kulka Professor Emerita Shoshana Blum-Kulka Department of Communication and School of Education Hebrew University Jerusalem, 91905 Israel From: Margaret Friend To: "Gedeon Deák" ; Brian MacWhinney Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 2:33 AM Subject: Re: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! Maggie Friend At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon Deák wrote: I'd be interested in participating in the group. Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set up--no moderator needed. -Gedeon On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call it chiprag at googlegroups.com . We recently moved info- chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine too. Failing that, I could give it a try. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > > -- Gedeon O. Deák, Ph.D. Department of Cognitive Science 9500 Gilman Dr. Univ. CA, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab ph (858) 822-3352 fax (858) 534-1128 Margaret Friend, Ph.D. Child Language and Emotion Lab Department of Psychology and SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders San Diego State University 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 San Diego, CA 92120 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jevans at mail.sdsu.edu Sat Oct 13 16:34:00 2007 From: jevans at mail.sdsu.edu (Julia Evans) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:34:00 -0700 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20071012173209.02306190@sunstroke.sdsu.edu> Message-ID: Brian, Thank you for a great idea. Please include me as well. We are interested in dynamic of pragmatics in gesture-speech mismatches in children with and with/out SLI. Julia Julia Evans. Ph.D ccc-slp School of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences San Diego State University San Diego, Ca 92182-1518 Phone 619-594-6350 http://slhs.sdsu.edu/facultydetail.php?ID=148 http://slhs.sdsu.edu/evans/index.php Let no child be demaned, nor have their wonder diminished because of our ignorance or inactivity, Let no child be deprived of discovery because we lack the resources to discover their problem Let no child doubt themselve or their mind because we are unsure of our commitment Foundation for Learning Disabilities '87 On Oct 12, 2007, at 5:33 PM, Margaret Friend wrote: > Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic > cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! > > Maggie Friend > > At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon Deák wrote: >> I'd be interested in participating in the group. >> Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set >> up--no moderator needed. >> -Gedeon >> >> On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >> Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, >> >> How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call >> it chiprag at googlegroups.com . We recently moved info- >> chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, >> my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would >> be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior >> figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, >> an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine >> too. Failing that, I could give it a try. >> >> --Brian MacWhinney >> >> On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: >> >> > Dear Info-CHILDES, >> > >> > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central >> > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental >> > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It >> > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and >> > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we >> > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. >> > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a >> > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. >> > >> > Thanks and have a nice day! >> > >> > Gerlind >> > >> > >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Gedeon O. Deák, Ph.D. >> Department of Cognitive Science >> 9500 Gilman Dr. >> Univ. CA, San Diego >> La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 >> http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab >> >> ph (858) 822-3352 >> fax (858) 534-1128 > Margaret Friend, Ph.D. > Child Language and Emotion Lab > Department of Psychology and > SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative > Disorders > San Diego State University > 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 > San Diego, CA 92120 > 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morgen at idf.ext.jussieu.fr Sat Oct 13 16:49:16 2007 From: morgen at idf.ext.jussieu.fr (Aliyah MORGENSTERN) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:49:16 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <3E112B83-9E55-422D-8377-5050A779425D@mail.sdsu.edu> Message-ID: Maybe Brian can create the list and then tell us how to subscribe. It would be too tiresome for him tto keep adding people... It sounds like quite a lot of info-childes people will be interested. Best, Aliyah Aliyah Morgenstern Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines Lyon, France Le 13 oct. 07 à 18:34, Julia Evans a écrit : > Brian, > Thank you for a great idea. > Please include me as well. We are interested in dynamic of > pragmatics in gesture-speech mismatches in children with and with/ > out SLI. > > Julia > > > Julia Evans. Ph.D ccc-slp > School of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences > San Diego State University > San Diego, Ca 92182-1518 > Phone 619-594-6350 > > http://slhs.sdsu.edu/facultydetail.php?ID=148 > http://slhs.sdsu.edu/evans/index.php > > Let no child be demaned, nor have their wonder diminished because > of our ignorance or inactivity, > Let no child be deprived of discovery because we lack the > resources to discover their problem > Let no child doubt themselve or their mind because we are unsure of > our commitment > > Foundation for Learning Disabilities '87 > > > > > On Oct 12, 2007, at 5:33 PM, Margaret Friend wrote: > >> Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic >> cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! >> >> Maggie Friend >> >> At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon Deák wrote: >>> I'd be interested in participating in the group. >>> Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set >>> up--no moderator needed. >>> -Gedeon >>> >>> On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >>> Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, >>> >>> How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could >>> call >>> it chiprag at googlegroups.com .. We recently moved info- >>> chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, >>> my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would >>> be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some >>> senior >>> figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing >>> that, >>> an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine >>> too. Failing that, I could give it a try. >>> >>> --Brian MacWhinney >>> >>> On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: >>> >>> > Dear Info-CHILDES, >>> > >>> > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central >>> > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing >>> developmental >>> > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It >>> > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays >>> and >>> > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we >>> > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. >>> > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a >>> > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. >>> > >>> > Thanks and have a nice day! >>> > >>> > Gerlind >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> >>> Gedeon O. Deák, Ph.D. >>> Department of Cognitive Science >>> 9500 Gilman Dr. >>> Univ. CA, San Diego >>> La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 >>> http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab >>> >>> ph (858) 822-3352 >>> fax (858) 534-1128 >> Margaret Friend, Ph.D. >> Child Language and Emotion Lab >> Department of Psychology and >> SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative >> Disorders >> San Diego State University >> 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 >> San Diego, CA 92120 >> 619-594-0273 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Sat Oct 13 20:59:27 2007 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:59:27 -0600 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <41e87b220710130642w1109a069gb96abfc653785f72@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Tom, I frankly don't understand some of this. First, did you really mean ' an implied "you" not "he" when you are discussing imperatives? If that's NOT a simple pronoun exchange slip, can you explain more? Can you give an example of a difference between exclamatives and imperatives that is not explainable by pragmatics/semantics? And could you elaborate what you mean by 'a system that treats pragmatics and semantics as confirmation routines for syntax'? I take it you mean that the child connects syntactic evidence to an innate grammar first, and the role pragmatics and semantics can play is secondary. Would you let such non-syntactic evidence disconfirm a hypothesis based on syntax, or only confirm it? In either case, can you explain why you take the position that you do? Lise On Oct 13, 2007, at 7:42 AM, Tom Roeper wrote: > IN 1975 Chomsky said acquisition had to be consistent with > "with triggering experience" which refers to more than syntax which > I asked > him about and he immediately agreed. Imperatives, which command > a child's attention, could be linked immediately to structural > representations > so that the child knows that there is an implied "he" not "you". > The whole > experience is necessary to set the subtle properties of imperatives > in place--- > and distinguish them from exclamatives (a paper linking semantics > and two word utterances has been written by me and Chris POtts if > anyone > is interested). > Getting the deductive part linked to a system that treats > pragmatics > and semantics as confirmation routines for syntax---that is the > challenge > we must meet I think. If we can model this, then we have a first step > toward incorporating the kinds of data that are implicitly being > referred to in this discussion I think, to explain language > acquisition. > To explain language use is quite a different matter---but one that can > give insights into acquisiiton model. > > Tom > > On 10/12/07, William Gregory Sakas wrote: >> Hi Everyone, >> >> IMHO Tom is right on this one. Chomsky moved linguistics into >> a field of inquiry similar to those of (for want of a better term) >> natural science To say Chomsky is obsolete, is basically to say that >> that move was wrong (NB we've been discussing Chomsky 'big-picture' >> here, not, say Minimalist Program or even autonomy of syntax). The >> 'facts', >> the linguistic data, should to be explained by a comprehensive theory >> that explains all -- not 70 percent, 80 percent or 90 percent. >> >> A theory posed in a generative (formal) framework is the right >> way to go about this. Though as Tom points out, it is a big big task. >> Short that, we let linguistics fall into studying day-to-day >> language as art ... insightful, well-thought-out, meaningful >> interpretation ... probably an approach some of us would advocate. >> >> But, unlike art, there are quantifiable 'wrongs' in human language >> (again as Tom points out). To me, as a scientist, this means that >> there >> must be a theory out there that can make fully accurate predictions >> about the rights-and-wrongs of human utterances (or at least >> 'Turing-accurate' predictions). >> >> Of course Chomsky is/has been wrong on many counts, as he himself >> often admits, but to say he's obsolete is to say that Galileo is >> the same >> when Galileo (re)invented a method of scientific investigation that's >> still the fundamental basis for scientific inquiry today. >> >> Best all, >> -- Wm >> >> William Gregory Sakas, Ph.D. >> Computer Science and Linguistics >> Hunter College and the Graduate Center >> City University of New York (CUNY) >> Email: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu >> Voice: 1 212 772.5211 >> Fax: 1 212 772.5219 >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Tom Roeper" >> To: "Dan I. Slobin" >> Cc: >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 8:34 PM >> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> >>> Dear All, >>> Well I guess I feel inclined to exhibit the opposite >>> challenge to >>> those >>> who disparage Chomsky's influence and current work on the >>> acquisition >>> of grammar. >>> First it seems like there should be some facts under discussion. >>> There is simply no non-grammatical approach that explains >>> when and where grammars are productive, or non-productive, in >>> the crucial cases. Who can explain why German children allow: >>> what did who eat >>> but English children balk at it, and allow only >>> who ate what >>> who can explain the pairing restriction on this expression---which >>> disordered children fail to exhibit, without grammar? >>> Who can explain why children allow >>> Near Bill, he put a hat {Bill = he] >>> and then learn not to. There is no crucial data I know---only >>> a shift at an abstract level explainable in terms of deep structure. >>> Who can explain why children get a diference between >>> whose hat is he lifting >>> and >>> who lifted his hat? >>> One can throw in psychological terms, but if one does not recreate >>> grammar, it is pretty much impossible without grammar. These are >>> some >>> of the results of grammaticdally based work. >>> >>> Here's the challenge. Of course, language involves social and >>> emotional factors. Who would not love to know how they are >>> connected? >>> The question is whether we have the tools to do anything more than >>> describe connections. Descriptive connecxtions generally understate >>> human ability--- like 19th century grammarians who acknowledged >>> "patterns" >>> but could not see the force behind creative generative power. >>> In my new book "The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language >>> Illuminates Humanism" I make the opposite claim: social and >>> cognitive approaches will not esplain the essence of children---the >>> basis for their sense of dignity---if it cannot incorporate clear, >>> algorithmic concepts of creativity---as captured by recursion-- >>> in sentences, adjectives, and possessives---and a projection of >>> structures that allow instant mechancial behavior. Our eyes dart >>> around the room with an individual program that is creative and >>> personal and fast. >>> Until we have really rich generative models of other parts >>> of the mind---the interfaces with grammar will be pedestrian >>> and not really revealing, nor in my opinion respectful, of >>> children. It is a big challenge----I cannot meet it, but I think >>> it is why a larger model of language that captures crucial >>> properties beyond grammar, has not emerged. >>> How does one integrate emotions into sentences? How do >>> you get your personality into your throat? Why does personality >>> affect voice tones but not color perception? How do we >>> generate unique emotions in unique situations just like we >>> generate unique sentences? The answers will come from rich >>> generative claims about the mind everywhere. They will not >>> come from very general statements about "interaction". >>> >>> This is the view articulated in my book. I welcome discussion >>> of this view and the ideas expressed there. >>> >>> >>> Tom Roeper >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On 10/11/07, Dan I. Slobin wrote: >>>> >>>> I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, >>>> linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, >>>> and their >>>> thinking >>>> still seriously influences much current work in various >>>> fields. In my >>>> case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he >>>> was my >>>> hero; >>>> he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful >>>> questions. >>>> And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, >>>> decades >>>> ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current >>>> approach >>>> is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> >>>> At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >>>> >>>> I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be >>>> insensitive, >>>> not >>>> to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that >>>> Halliday is >>>> not >>>> relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many >>>> linguists >>>> find >>>> relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of >>>> Chomsky. >>>> I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the >>>> figure is >>>> "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field >>>> includes >>>> functionalists and formalists alike. Right? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >>>> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >>>> To: Jeff MacSwan >>>> Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? >>>> >>>> It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics >>>> literature." >>>> I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, >>>> typological, >>>> diachronic, >>>> developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, >>>> pedagogical >>>> linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great >>>> progress >>>> with >>>> little >>>> or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a >>>> mention of >>>> Chomsky, >>>> for example, in last month's five-day international conference >>>> in Paris >>>> of >>>> the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more >>>> days of >>>> associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in >>>> our world, >>>> things look different depending on which camp you live in. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: >>>> >>>> It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks >>>> which >>>> disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when >>>> the most >>>> influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer >>>> "relevant." >>>> >>>> But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >>>> influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >>>> generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive >>>> sciences, >>>> computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. >>>> >>>> While one can do interesting and important linguistic research >>>> that does >>>> not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to >>>> linguistic >>>> theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >>>> significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >>>> linguistics literature. >>>> >>>> Jeff MacSwan >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >>>> [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat >>>> Ninio >>>> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >>>> To: r.n.campbell >>>> Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >>>> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >>>> >>>> Hi Robin, >>>> >>>> Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so >>>> maybe he's >>>> now a more relevant figure than before? >>>> >>>> Anat Ninio >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> r.n.campbell wrote: >>>>>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >>>>> >>>>> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >>>>> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also >>>>> obsolete. >>>>> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >>>>> -- >>>>> >>>>> Dr Robin N Campbell >>>>> Dept of Psychology >>>>> University of Stirling >>>>> STIRLING FK9 4LA >>>>> Scotland, UK >>>>> >>>>> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >>>>> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >>>>> Website: >>>> http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> >>>>> The University of Stirling is a university established in >>>>> Scotland by >>>>> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential >>>>> Information may >>>>> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee >>>>> indicated >>>>> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to >>>>> such >>>>> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to >>>>> anyone >>>>> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >>>>> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should >>>>> destroy this >>>>> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >>>>> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet >>>>> email >>>>> for messages of this kind. >>>>> >>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >>>> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >>>> >>>> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >>>> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >>>> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >>>> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >>>> USA >>>> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >>>> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >>>> >>>> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >>>> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >>>> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >>>> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >>>> USA >>>> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Tom Roeper >>> Dept of Lingiustics >>> UMass South College >>> Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA >>> 413 256 0390 >>> >>> >> >> >> > > > -- > Tom Roeper > Dept of Lingiustics > UMass South College > Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA > 413 256 0390 > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Amalric2 at aol.com Sun Oct 14 07:59:51 2007 From: Amalric2 at aol.com (Marie-Laure Amalric-Mitchell) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 03:59:51 EDT Subject: cancelling mail-list Message-ID: Hello, Please cancell me out of this mail list. I'm not interested in linguistics anymore. Thank-you. From pcomp at hunter.cuny.edu Sun Oct 14 18:32:47 2007 From: pcomp at hunter.cuny.edu (pcomp at hunter.cuny.edu) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:32:47 -0400 Subject: Special 1-day MIT Workshop: Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong? Message-ID: **************************************************************** Final Call for Participation Special 1-day MIT Workshop: Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong? Cambridge, MA, October 19th, 2007 *** Note Room Change! *** ***************************************************************** When: Friday, October 19th, 2007, 9 am - 5:45 pm (breakfast 9-9:30; lunch 12:00-1:00; afternoon refreshments) Where: (** Room change! **) Massachusetts Institute of Technology Wong Auditorium Building E51 (Tang Center) 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=e51&mapsearch=go) Webcast: This event will not be streamed live but will subsequently become available on the web via http://mitworld.mit.edu. Also available via Apple and iTunes at iTunes U. Registration: No advance registration required, no fee - open to all. RSVP's are appreciated but certainly not required. Program: 9:00-9:30 Breakfast (Coffee and bagels) In Foyer outside the Wong Auditorium 9:30-10:00 Opening Remarks: Robert Berwick (MIT) Michael Coen (University of Wisconsin-Madison) 10:00-10:45 Lila Gleitman (University of Pennsylvania) "Human Simulations of Language Learning" 10:45-11:15 Christopher Manning (Stanford University) "Machine Learning of Language from Distributional Evidence" 11:15-12:00 Partha Niyogi (University of Chicago) "The Computational Nature of Language Learning" 12:00-1:00 Lunch 1:00-1:30 Josh Tenenbaum (MIT), Amy Perfors (MIT), & Terry Regier (University of Chicago) "Explorations in Language Learnability Using Probabilistic Grammars and Child-Directed speech" 1:30-2:10 Howard Lasnik & Juan Uriagereka (UMD) "Structure Dependence, the Rational Learner, and Putnam's 'Sane Person'" 2:10-3:10 Noam Chomsky (MIT) "Remarks and Reflections" 3:10-3:30 Coffee Break 3:30-4:00 Sandiway Fong (University of Arizona) "Statistical Natural Language Parsing: Reliable Models of Language?" 4:00-4:30 William Sakas & Janet Dean Fodor (CUNY) "'Ideal' Language Learning and the Psychological Resource Problem" 15 minute break 4:45-5:45 Panel discussion: Charles Yang (University of Pennsylvania) Jean-Roger Vergnaud (USC) Anna-Maria di Sciullo (University of Québec) Norbert Hornstein (UMD) Robert Freiden (Princeton University & Université Paris) Organizers: Robert C. Berwick, MIT, berwick at csail.mit.edu Michael Coen, University of Wisconsin-Madison, mhcoen at cs.wisc.edu From stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca Sun Oct 14 18:47:29 2007 From: stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca (Joe Stemberger) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:47:29 -0700 Subject: Antiques Roadshow In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C45E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ecdemir at yahoo.com Mon Oct 15 01:08:00 2007 From: ecdemir at yahoo.com (ece demir) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:08:00 -0700 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <3E112B83-9E55-422D-8377-5050A779425D@mail.sdsu.edu> Message-ID: Hi, I would appreciate if you can include me as well. At the University of Chicago, we are investigating preschoolers' gestures accompanying their narratives and speech in general under different discourse contexts. We are mainly interested in seeing whether children's gestures reveal any additional sensitivity to narrative structure or discourse context that is not expressed in their speech. Thanks. Best regards. Ozlem Ece Demir ____________________________________________________________________________________ Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/ From hauser at eva.mpg.de Mon Oct 15 08:08:10 2007 From: hauser at eva.mpg.de (Gerlind Hauser) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:08:10 +0200 Subject: Googlegroup on Developmental Pragmatics Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, Colleagues! Thank you for so many positive responses. As Brian suggested, I had a look at the facilities of "Google Groups" and it's really useful - you can: - discuss things openly or in separate groups - create pages to introduce your research - upload documents or data you want to share No moderator is necessary. I set up a group named "Developmental Pragmatics Forum". To subscribe, please go to http://groups.google.de/group/devprag and follow the instructions. Everybody interested in the topic is welcome to join and participate! As a first step, I think, it would be great if everybody could create a page about himself and simply post the short descriptions of their work they now sent to me or to info-CHILDES. Looking forward to get to know more about your work, Best, Gerlind -- Gerlind Hauser Doctoral Student Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Psychology Leipzig ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From hauser at eva.mpg.de Mon Oct 15 09:43:05 2007 From: hauser at eva.mpg.de (Gerlind Hauser) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:43:05 +0200 Subject: Developmental Pragmatics Group in English - follow this link! Message-ID: To view the interface of the group and the instructions in English, please follow this link: http://groups.google.de/group/devprag?hl=en For other languages try to change your google preferences on "interface display" to your preferred language. Best, Gerlind From 20ROMANO at cua.edu Mon Oct 15 12:53:36 2007 From: 20ROMANO at cua.edu (Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:53:36 -0400 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Message-ID: Hello all, Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of bilingualism and fluency or know of a good source? Thanks!! Jennifer ____________________________ Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. GSA President Ph.D. Candidate Applied Experimental Psychology Cognitive Aging Lab 100 O'Boyle Hall The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 202-319-5748 20Romano at cua.edu From ezaretsky at comdis.umass.edu Mon Oct 15 13:31:18 2007 From: ezaretsky at comdis.umass.edu (Elena Zaretsky) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:31:18 -0400 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Message-ID: Dear Jennifer, This past summer my colleague and I hosted a Fulbright fellow from Morocco, Samir Diouny, who is looking at the bilingual issues in aphasia in patients who speak more than one language (i.e., Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan Spanish Arabic, Berber, Spanish, English, French). As part of his project while at the Umass-Amherst, we created a very extensive questionnaire that covers multiple aspects of language use. I think it may be of tremendous help to any researcher who is looking at the bilingual issues and can be adopted to any language. We would be happy to share this with you. Elena Zaretsky, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Communication Disorders UMass Amherst. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO" <20ROMANO at cua.edu> To: Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 8:53 AM Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Hello all, Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of bilingualism and fluency or know of a good source? Thanks!! Jennifer ____________________________ Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. GSA President Ph.D. Candidate Applied Experimental Psychology Cognitive Aging Lab 100 O'Boyle Hall The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 202-319-5748 20Romano at cua.edu From kohne005 at umn.edu Mon Oct 15 13:38:24 2007 From: kohne005 at umn.edu (kohne005) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:38:24 -0500 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire In-Reply-To: <72F8C31BAD2BF7488BABF3BDF077012301CADCCE@MAIL01.cua.edu> Message-ID: Dear Jennifer, Here are two well-designed questionnaires validated for research purposes with bilingual adults: 1. Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q; Marian, Blumenfeld, & Kaushanskaya, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 2007, 50, 940-967; also available from v-marian at northwestern.edu ). 2. L2 Language History Questionnaire (Li, Sepanski, & Zhao, 2006; also available at http://cogsci.richmond.edu/LHQ.php ). Best, Kathryn _________________________________________ Kathryn Kohnert, Ph.D., CCC-SLP University of Minnesota Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences Shevlin Hall 115 164 Pillsbury Dr., S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55455 www.ccsl.umn.edu www.slhs.umn.edu e-mail: kohne005 at umn.edu voice: (612)626-4733 -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 7:54 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Hello all, Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of bilingualism and fluency or know of a good source? Thanks!! Jennifer ____________________________ Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. GSA President Ph.D. Candidate Applied Experimental Psychology Cognitive Aging Lab 100 O'Boyle Hall The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 202-319-5748 20Romano at cua.edu From hwafroda at slu.edu Mon Oct 15 14:11:32 2007 From: hwafroda at slu.edu (hwafroda) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:11:32 -0500 Subject: Pragmatic group Message-ID: Please include me onthis listserve too. I am looking at pragmatic development in children adopted abroad. thank you. Deb Hwa-Froelich From pli at richmond.edu Mon Oct 15 14:46:19 2007 From: pli at richmond.edu (Ping Li) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:46:19 -0400 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks to Kathryn for pointing to our LHQ questionnaire. The full paper that describes the questionnaire is downloadable at http:// cogsci.richmond.edu/LHQ.php (see also Psychonomic Archive; http:// www.psychonomic.org/archive/index.html). Li, P., Sepanski, S., & Zhao, X. (2006). Language history questionnaire: A Web-based interface for bilingual research. Behavior Research Methods, 38(2), 202-210. (http:// cogsci.richmond.edu/questionnaire/brm06.pdf) Comments/suggestions welcome. PL ----------------------------------------------- Ping Li, Ph.D. Program Director Perception, Action and Cognition National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Blvd., Room 907 Arlington, VA 22230, USA http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?org=BCS On leave from: Professor of Psychology University of Richmond Richmond, VA 23173, USA http://www.richmond.edu/~pli/ http://cogsci.richmond.edu/ ----------------------------------------------- On Oct 15, 2007, at 9:38 AM, kohne005 wrote: > Dear Jennifer, > Here are two well-designed questionnaires validated for research > purposes > with bilingual adults: > > 1. Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q; Marian, > Blumenfeld, & Kaushanskaya, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing > Research 2007, 50, 940-967; also available from v- > marian at northwestern.edu ). > > > > 2. L2 Language History Questionnaire (Li, Sepanski, & Zhao, 2006; also > available at http://cogsci.richmond.edu/LHQ.php ). > > > Best, > Kathryn > > _________________________________________ > Kathryn Kohnert, Ph.D., CCC-SLP > University of Minnesota > Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences > Shevlin Hall 115 > 164 Pillsbury Dr., S.E. > Minneapolis, MN 55455 > > www.ccsl.umn.edu > www.slhs.umn.edu > e-mail: kohne005 at umn.edu > voice: (612)626-4733 > > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info- > childes at mail.talkbank.org] > On Behalf Of Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO > Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 7:54 AM > To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: bilingualism questionnaire > > Hello all, > Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of > bilingualism and > fluency or know of a good source? > Thanks!! > Jennifer > > ____________________________ > Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. > GSA President > Ph.D. Candidate > Applied Experimental Psychology > > Cognitive Aging Lab > 100 O'Boyle Hall > The Catholic University of America > Washington, DC 20064 > 202-319-5748 > 20Romano at cua.edu > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From allison-bean at uiowa.edu Mon Oct 15 16:23:31 2007 From: allison-bean at uiowa.edu (Bean, Allison F) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:23:31 -0500 Subject: Pragmatic group In-Reply-To: <47137514.1a1.73ab.1106800076@slu.edu> Message-ID: Please also include me on the pragmatic development listserve. Thanks, Allison Bean ________________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of hwafroda [hwafroda at slu.edu] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:11 AM To: Brian.MacWhinney at slu.edu; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Pragmatic group Please include me onthis listserve too. I am looking at pragmatic development in children adopted abroad. thank you. Deb Hwa-Froelich From pm at sfsu.edu Mon Oct 15 16:34:57 2007 From: pm at sfsu.edu (Philip M. Prinz) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:34:57 -0700 Subject: Pragmatic group In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hello, Please include me on the developmental pragmatic listerve, too. Thank you. Philip Prinz On Oct 15, 2007, at 9:23 AM, Bean, Allison F wrote: > Please also include me on the pragmatic development listserve. > Thanks, > Allison Bean > > ________________________________________ > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [info- > childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of hwafroda [hwafroda at slu.edu] > Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:11 AM > To: Brian.MacWhinney at slu.edu; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: Pragmatic group > > Please include me onthis listserve too. I am looking at > pragmatic development in children adopted abroad. > > thank you. > > Deb Hwa-Froelich > From jlm at psych.stanford.edu Mon Oct 15 16:49:05 2007 From: jlm at psych.stanford.edu (Jay McClelland) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:49:05 -0700 Subject: generative grammar and acquisition In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For an alternative perspective, particularly in relation to the views of Jackendoff, but also to the entire Chomskyian paradigm, I invite readers of this list to take a look at the following papers. -- Jay McClelland Bybee, J. and McClelland, J. L. (2005). Alternatives to the combinatorial paradigm of linguistic theory based on domain general principles of human cognition. /The Linguistic Review, 22(2-4)/, 381-410. http://psychology.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/BybeeMcC05.pdf McClelland, J. L. and Bybee, J. (in press). Gradience of Gradience: A reply to Jackendoff. /The Linguistic Review./ http://psychology.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/McCBybeeIPRepToJkndf.pdf Susan Foster-Cohen wrote: > Dear all: > > I have just been reading Ray Jackendoff's excellent essay "Reintegrating Generative Grammar" which forms chapter 2 of his new book "Language, consciousness, culture: Essays on mental structure". May I recommend it to you all in the context of the current discussion. While there is not a vast amount in it directly on acquisition it is extremely articulate about the relationship between generative linguistics and psycholinguistics and, now, neurolinguistics/cognitive science. It is a gracious acknowledgement of the importance of Chomsky's work while at the same time articulating why so many in cognitive science and acquisition have been/are so frustrated. As always with Ray's work, it is thoughtful, articulate, a pleasure to read, and accessible. I am anticipating that the rest of the book is going to be equally relevant to our concerns. > > Cheers, > > Susan Foster-Cohen > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Matthew Saxton > Sent: Fri 10/12/2007 8:09 PM > To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: [SPAM: 3.000] Antiques Roadshow > > From an InfoCHILDES correspondent of Susanna Bartsch: > > "my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any > acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage > costume jewelry ...... I would be very appreciative if you would put us > in touch with each other." > > > > I wonder, is this somehow connected with the discussion of Chomsky? On > which subject, I've been adding lots to my stock of learning on the > academic culture and history of child language research this past couple > of days. > > > > In general, I find the discussion about Chomsky's putative obsolescence > quite depressing. Internecine struggles that have lasted for decades > (including, for example, book-length treatments of the "Language War") > are depressing. But more depressing is the relative lack of empirical > maturity in the field of child language. In this, I agree with what > Brian MacWhinney has to say (and, of course, applaud the efforts of > CHILDES as a step in the right direction). Many studies on child > language still have sample sizes that look derisory compared with other > branches of the human sciences (mea culpa maxima). > > > > It is an easy matter to demonstrate that language is fundamental to the > human experience. It is also relatively straightforward to demonstrate > that research on language development is vitally important. To pluck > just two examples from the air: (1) at least 7% of children have serious > difficulty with first language acquisition (Tomblin et al., 1997); and > (2) 2nd language learning is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And > so on. Why, therefore, are politicians and businesses not throwing huge > amounts of money at us to do both basic and applied research on language > acquisition? I think there is a connection between the culture of open > warfare and relative lack of funding. We betray ourselves to the wider > world as members of an academic discipline that is unhealthily > polarised, relatively immature in its empirical base and academically > peripheral (not quite linguistics, not quite psychology, not quite....). > And this is the case several decades after Chomsky (and Roger Brown) got > people interested. > > > > But how did we get on to this? Oh yes: Robin Campbell diverted us from > my original question about the competence-performance distinction. On > which, I've had some very helpful and interesting replies and will, of > course, post a summary. > > > > Now, how does one get into the antiques business...........? > > > > Regards, > > > > Matthew. > > > > > > ********************************************************************* > > Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil > > School of Psychology and Human Development, > > Institute of Education, > > 25 Woburn Square, > > London, > > WC1H 0AA. > > U.K. > > > > Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 > > Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 > > > > http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 > > www.ioe.ac.uk > > > > > > From macw at cmu.edu Mon Oct 15 16:49:07 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:49:07 -0400 Subject: chiprag list Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, Over the weekend, three people went ahead independently with setting up Child Pragmatics GoogleGroups list. It is not clear which, if any, of these succeeded. Unfortunately, when I try to subscribe to this list, it is not working. I would like to ask people to refrain from posting messages regarding this topic to info- childes until we resolve the technical issues involved. Please send ALL communications regarding this issue directly to me at macw at cmu.edu and NOT to info-childes. I would also like to ask anyone who needs their address removed from info-childes, to send mail to me and not the mailing list. Many thanks, Brian MacWhinney From jordan.zlatev at ling.lu.se Mon Oct 15 18:41:43 2007 From: jordan.zlatev at ling.lu.se (Jordan Zlatev) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:41:43 +0200 Subject: SALC2007 Message-ID: Dear colleagues, We would like to inform you that the Scientific Program for the First Conference of the Swedish Association for Language and Cognition (SALC) to be held at Lund University between November 29 and December 1st 2007, has now been posted on the conference home site: http://www.salc-sssk.org/conference/ There will be - 5 plenary talks (by Susan Goldin-Meadow, Esa Itkonen, Chris Sinha, Peter Gärdenfors and Östen Dahl), - 45 oral presentations in the general session - 10 oral presentations each for the theme sessions: "Space in Language and Cognition", "Language and Gesture" and "The Dynamics of Symbolic Matter" - 15 poster presentations The Business Meeting of SALC will be held on Nov 30, 1-2 pm. We have registered over 100 participants, but have an additional 50 places left, so if you wish to participate, please use the homesite in order to register! We are looking forward to seeing all speakers and guests in Lund at the end of next month! For the Organizing Committee, Jordan Zlatev, President of SALC *************************************************** Jordan Zlatev, Associate Professor Department of Linguistics Center for Languages and Literature Lund University Box 201 221 00 Lund, Sweden email: jordan.zlatev at ling.lu.se http://www.ling.lu.se/persons/JordanZlatev.html *************************************************** From macw at cmu.edu Mon Oct 15 19:30:54 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:30:54 -0400 Subject: link is good Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, It appears that the new devprag at googlegroups.com list is indeed now operative. As Gerlind says, you can go to http://groups.google.de/group/devprag?hl=en and join that. I was trying to test the function that allows one to subscribe through just email and that function was not yet working. However, the function that relies on Google's interface is working fine. So, please go ahead now and follow this link as Gerlind suggests. Many thanks to Gerlind for managing this list and you should be now able to send further questions about this to her, -Brian MacWhinney From Katherine_Demuth at brown.edu Mon Oct 15 21:42:24 2007 From: Katherine_Demuth at brown.edu (Katherine Demuth) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:42:24 -0400 Subject: PhD positions in Bayesian models of Language Acquisition Message-ID: PhD positions in Bayesian models of Language Acquisition We have several positions available for PhD students in our NSF- funded research project on Bayesian models of language acquisition. Applicants should have a solid mathematical and/or computational background and will work on projects such as data analysis using forced-alignment speech-recognition technology and developing Bayesian models of language acquisition and language and vision. We expect to provide successful applicants with full financial support and a cross-disciplinary training program with a strong emphasis on Computer Science and/or Applied Mathematics. Applications for admission should be made to the graduate program of the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University by January 2, 2008. For further information contact Mark Johnson (Mark_Johnson at brown.edu) or Katherine Demuth (Katherine_Demuth at brown.edu). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cbowen at ihug.com.au Tue Oct 16 01:42:41 2007 From: cbowen at ihug.com.au (Caroline Bowen) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:42:41 +1000 Subject: Web-based Multicultural Resources from ASHA Message-ID: "Subject: Web-based Multicultural Resources from ASHA ASHA's Office of Multicultural Affairs has compiled information on the phonemic systems for the following languages: Arabic, Cantonese, English, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Audiologists can use this information to identify and modify materials and procedures during speech audiometry assessment. SLPs can use this information to identify a client's phonological system for languages other than English. http://tinyurl.com/lamgz === An issue brief discussing the final regulations concerning service delivery to culturally and linguistically diverse populations from the 2006 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part B as well as their implications for ASHA members is provided. These regulations affect assessment practices, eligibility criteria, and parents' rights at IEP meetings. http://tinyurl.com/2z7vj4 === A fact sheet on the assessment of English Language Learners under No Child Left Behind is available. School-based professionals can use this information to provide appropriate accommodations and modifications during assessment. http://tinyurl.com/2gqhtn === For professionals who are in supervisory or teaching positions, ASHA has developed strategies to aid in infusing multicultural content into education activities, including sample syllabi. http://tinyurl.com/yruckn === Reading Lists on over 20 topics such as African American English, Bilingualism, Deaf Culture, and Sexual Orientation are available to professionals who wish to obtain a more in-depth understanding of certain issues. http://tinyurl.com/2zq6ch === An article about cultural competence was written by the ASHA Multicultural Issues Board in 2004. http://tinyurl.com/2ewbvn " === "ASHA's Multicultural Issues Board has compiled resources from ASHA's website that may assist audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech-language and hearing scientists in their professional work. In order to help professionals gain access to these resources, some of the information contained at ASHA's website regarding multicultural issues has been highlighted below. As leaders in audiology and speech-language pathology, we hope you will disseminate the following information to interested parties. Please note that web addresses may occasionally change; if the address provided does not go to the correct page, searching on the ASHA website for the correct address using key words in the below descriptions is recommended. Thank you, Katherine Schryver-Stahly Chair, Multicultural Issues Board" From M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk Tue Oct 16 10:46:56 2007 From: M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk (Matthew Saxton) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:46:56 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: Dear All, It's been an interesting week on InfoCHILDES. My question about competence-performance produced a typically fascinating response (see below). More fascinating, perhaps, was the way my innocent query got diverted into two separate strands of discussion: one on the Legacy of Chomsky and one on the need for a pragmatics discussion forum. Matters snowballed, and, in the case of pragmatics, resulted in a potentially useful new resource for researchers in that area. All of which makes the following summary seem a little tame, but here goes (references listed below): As I dimly knew, the competence-performance distinction is by no means universally accepted and is explicitly rejected in some quarters. The unwarranted limitations it imposes are widely acknowledged, even within the nativist camp (see, for example, Tom Roeper's comments to InfoCHILDES on October 15th 2007). As usual, we find signs of Wheel Reinvention, starting with the well known fact that competence-performance was inspired by Saussure's (1916/1974) notions of langue and parole. Of course, there are differences: langue comprises a finite set of words and phrases, while parole is reserved for sentence formation (see Chomsky, 1972, pp19-20 for his take on Saussure). In a similar vein, Jessica Horst reminds us that, in the field of cognitive development, it has long been acknowledged that performance is highly context dependent, a phenomenon characterized by Piaget (1929) as horizontal décalage (see also recent work by Samuelson & Horst, in press). Dissatisfaction with the competence-performance split is by no means new, as indicated by Kaufer (1979), Valian (1979) and Black & Chiat (1981). More recent signs of discomfort with competence-performance can be witnessed in Seidenberg & MacDonald (1999) and the comments offered by Joseph Stemberger (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007). According to one correspondent, at least one reviewer has argued that this topic is out-of-date, but just to prove that it does, in fact, still attract serious attention, we have the following: Samuelson, Horst, Dobbertin, & Schutte, (2006); Ambridge, Rowland & Pine (in press); Samuelson & Horst (in press); and Hoff (under review). So what exactly is wrong with the competence-performance distinction? Well, I hope you'll forgive me for not being on top of this literature yet, but some of the headline points seem to be: * "In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a language seem inextricably bound" (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: "assuming that performance is based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects of competence" (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) * We must include a real bugbear for empirically minded souls, and one that is very well rehearsed: "performance factors" can always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall from children's mouths. If they don't fit the hypothesis under scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. * Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky's) that is not to everyone's taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland & Pine, in press). * One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be "an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and learning" (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. * Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations like competence, since the latter "excludes aspects of linguistic performance that are .... central to the structure of utterances" (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds' conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher). As we can see, the massed ranks of InfoCHILDES do not hold out much hope for competence versus performance. No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer supportive references. So perhaps I should offer some ballast. We should not forget that speech-production mechanisms are, at least in some ways, physiologically and functionally separate from the mental plans that set them in motion. When we reach the level of the physical articulators (lips, tongue, vocal cords and so on), this point is undeniable. There is, then, always room for the physical aspects of speech production to cause speech errors, quite independent from variation introduced by other contextual factors that might influence the linguistic-mental intentions of the speaker. Put another way, some slips of the tongue, false starts, hesitations and other stumbles could be seen as performance errors and also as separate from the mental competence that initiated a given utterance. One problem is that this gives short shrift to speech-production mechanisms. Perhaps we should talk instead about two kinds of competence: one concerned with linguistic competence, the other with speech production competence. At some level, therefore, it may be proper to acknowledge a split between competence and performance, or competence in one domain from competence in another. Thus, Black & Chiat (1981, p.39) emphasise that "the primary function of the distinction was not that of differentiating underlying knowledge and actual behaviour, but that of isolating one particular type of knowledge from others." We might add that "a theory of knowledge does not entail a particular theory of use" (Valian, 1979, p.3). For Tom Roeper, the "theory of use" would seem to be intrinsically uninteresting and, incidentally, not well understood: the "original competence/performance distinction ...... has to do with a kind of performance that everyone is willing to exclude" (InfoCHILDES, October 15th 2007). Nevertheless, the distinction persists (and as I observed in my first message, in many, many fields of academic enquiry). The fact that any such distinction throws up an empirical nightmare, in terms of tracing the origins of a given utterance back to its causes (and the interactions between them), would not, in itself, invalidate the conceptual integrity of a competence-performance (or competence-competence) distinction. I think what has altered since Chomsky (1965) is an added layer of conceptual complexity: the acknowledgement that an additional, and perhaps more interesting, source of linguistic variability stems, not from physical breakdowns, but from numerous other factors that could correctly be seen as part of the speaker's knowledge of language. These too, of course, create empirical headaches in trying to identify and explain what they are and how they function. You will understand that any errors in this summary stem entirely from performance factors, not my underlying competence (cough). I look forward to tackling this literature properly and thank InfoCHILDES correspondents for whetting my appetite. But first, I must tidy out my filing cabinets (as promised). If I start now, I should be free some time in 2010...... Regards, Matthew. Thanks Particular thanks are due to Ben Ambridge, Shula Chiat, Gedeon Deák, Erika Hoff, Jessica Horst, Evan Kidd, Jay McClelland, Tom Roeper, Joseph Stemberger and Virginia Valian. References Ambridge, B., Rowland, C.F. & Pine, J.M. (in press). Is structure dependence an innate constraint? New experimental evidence from children's complex-question production. Cognitive Science. Black, M. & Chiat, S. (1981). Psycholinguistics without 'psychological reality'. Linguistics, 19, 37-61. Chomsky, N. (1972). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Hoff, E. (under review). Context effects on young children's language use: The influence of conversational setting and partner. Kauffer, D. (1979). The competence/performance distinction in linguistic theory. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 9, 257-275. McClelland, J.L. & Bybee, J. (in press). Gradience of gradience: A reply to Jackendoff. The Linguistic Review. Piaget, J. (1929). The child's conception of the world. London: Routledge. Samuelson, L.K., Horst, J.S., Dobbertin, B.N. & Schutte, A.R. (2006). Knowledge, performance, and task: Décalage and dynamics in young children's noun generalizations. Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp720-725). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Samuelson, L. K. & Horst, J. S. (in press). Confronting complexity: Insights from the details of behavior over multiple timescales. Developmental Science. Saussure, F. de (1916/1974). Course in general linguistics. London: Fontana/Collins. Seidenberg, M. S., & MacDonald, M. C. (1999). A probabilistic constraints approach to language acquisition and processing. Cognitive Science, 23, 569-588. Valian, V. (1979). The wherefores and therefores of the competence-performance distinction. In W.E. Cooper & E.C.T. Walker (Eds.), Sentence processing: Psycholinguistic studies presented to Merrill Garrett. (pp1-26). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Tue Oct 16 17:45:20 2007 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:45:20 -0600 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Picking up on one of Matthew's themes: The study of speech errors - much advanced since Fromkin, by the way - is still one of our best windows into the production process. There are a lot of interesting papers collected in The State of the Art in Speech Error Research: Proceedings of the LSA Institute Workshop, ed. C. T. Schütze & V. S. Ferreira. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 53 (2007). The more I look at the process, the more it looks like a battle of aroused words and constructions trying to get 'out' and depending on good internal loops and inhibition mechanisms (traffic control) to keep from jamming up like the entrance to the Sumner Tunnel at rush hour. Lise On Oct 16, 2007, at 4:46 AM, Matthew Saxton wrote: > Dear All, > > It’s been an interesting week on InfoCHILDES. My question about > competence-performance produced a typically fascinating response > (see below). More fascinating, perhaps, was the way my innocent > query got diverted into two separate strands of discussion: one on > the Legacy of Chomsky and one on the need for a pragmatics > discussion forum. Matters snowballed, and, in the case of > pragmatics, resulted in a potentially useful new resource for > researchers in that area. All of which makes the following summary > seem a little tame, but here goes (references listed below): > > > > As I dimly knew, the competence-performance distinction is by no > means universally accepted and is explicitly rejected in some > quarters. The unwarranted limitations it imposes are widely > acknowledged, even within the nativist camp (see, for example, Tom > Roeper’s comments to InfoCHILDES on October 15th 2007). > > > > As usual, we find signs of Wheel Reinvention, starting with the > well known fact that competence-performance was inspired by > Saussure’s (1916/1974) notions of langue and parole. Of course, > there are differences: langue comprises a finite set of words and > phrases, while parole is reserved for sentence formation (see > Chomsky, 1972, pp19-20 for his take on Saussure). In a similar > vein, Jessica Horst reminds us that, in the field of cognitive > development, it has long been acknowledged that performance is > highly context dependent, a phenomenon characterized by Piaget > (1929) as horizontaldécalage (see also recent work by Samuelson & > Horst, in press). > > > > Dissatisfaction with the competence-performance split is by no > means new, as indicated by Kaufer (1979), Valian (1979) and Black & > Chiat (1981). More recent signs of discomfort with competence- > performance can be witnessed in Seidenberg & MacDonald (1999) and > the comments offered by Joseph Stemberger (InfoCHILDES, October > 14th 2007). According to one correspondent, at least one reviewer > has argued that this topic is out-of-date, but just to prove that > it does, in fact, still attract serious attention, we have the > following: Samuelson, Horst, Dobbertin, & Schutte, (2006); > Ambridge, Rowland & Pine (in press); Samuelson & Horst (in press); > and Hoff (under review). > > > > So what exactly is wrong with the competence-performance > distinction? Well, I hope you’ll forgive me for not being on top of > this literature yet, but some of the headline points seem to be: > > > > · “In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a > language seem inextricably bound” (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To > illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find > cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin > prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they > cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also > attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: “assuming that performance is > based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects > of competence” (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) > > · We must include a real bugbear for empirically minded souls, > and one that is very well rehearsed: “performance factors” can > always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall > from children’s mouths. If they don’t fit the hypothesis under > scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of > course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. > > · Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies > on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky’s) that is not to > everyone’s taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as > the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance > distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland > & Pine, in press). > > · One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee > (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be > “an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and > learning” (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes > with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a > given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. > > · Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations > like competence, since the latter “excludes aspects of linguistic > performance that are .... central to the structure of > utterances” (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is > exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social > factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech > output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds’ > conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher). > > > > As we can see, the massed ranks of InfoCHILDES do not hold out much > hope for competence versus performance. No-one has stepped forward > to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer > supportive references. So perhaps I should offer some ballast. We > should not forget that speech-production mechanisms are, at least > in some ways, physiologically and functionally separate from the > mental plans that set them in motion. When we reach the level of > the physical articulators (lips, tongue, vocal cords and so on), > this point is undeniable. There is, then, always room for the > physical aspects of speech production to cause speech errors, quite > independent from variation introduced by other contextual factors > that might influence the linguistic-mental intentions of the > speaker. Put another way, some slips of the tongue, false starts, > hesitations and other stumbles could be seen as performance errors > and also as separate from the mental competence that initiated a > given utterance. One problem is that this gives short shrift to > speech-production mechanisms. Perhaps we should talk instead about > two kinds of competence: one concerned with linguistic competence, > the other with speech production competence. At some level, > therefore, it may be proper to acknowledge a split between > competence and performance, or competence in one domain from > competence in another. Thus, Black & Chiat (1981, p.39) emphasise > that “the primary function of the distinction was not that of > differentiating underlying knowledge and actual behaviour, but that > of isolating one particular type of knowledge from others.” We > might add that “a theory of knowledge does not entail a particular > theory of use” (Valian, 1979, p.3). For Tom Roeper, the “theory of > use” would seem to be intrinsically uninteresting and, > incidentally, not well understood: the “original competence/ > performance distinction ...... has to do with a kind of performance > that everyone is willing to exclude” (InfoCHILDES, October 15th 2007). > > > > Nevertheless, the distinction persists (and as I observed in my > first message, in many, many fields of academic enquiry). The fact > that any such distinction throws up an empirical nightmare, in > terms of tracing the origins of a given utterance back to its > causes (and the interactions between them), would not, in itself, > invalidate the conceptual integrity of a competence-performance (or > competence-competence) distinction. I think what has altered since > Chomsky (1965) is an added layer of conceptual complexity: the > acknowledgement that an additional, and perhaps more interesting, > source of linguistic variability stems, not from physical > breakdowns, but from numerous other factors that could correctly be > seen as part of the speaker’s knowledge of language. These too, of > course, create empirical headaches in trying to identify and > explain what they are and how they function. > > > > You will understand that any errors in this summary stem entirely > from performance factors, not my underlying competence (cough). I > look forward to tackling this literature properly and thank > InfoCHILDES correspondents for whetting my appetite. But first, I > must tidy out my filing cabinets (as promised). If I start now, I > should be free some time in 2010...... > > > > Regards, > > > > Matthew. > > > > Thanks > > Particular thanks are due to Ben Ambridge, Shula Chiat, Gedeon > Deák, Erika Hoff, Jessica Horst, Evan Kidd, Jay McClelland, Tom > Roeper, Joseph Stemberger and Virginia Valian. > > > > References > > Ambridge, B., Rowland, C.F. & Pine, J.M. (in press). Is structure > dependence an innate constraint? New experimental evidence from > children’s complex-question production. Cognitive Science. > > Black, M. & Chiat, S. (1981). Psycholinguistics without > ‘psychological reality’. Linguistics, 19, 37-61. > > Chomsky, N. (1972). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace > Jovanovich > > Hoff, E. (under review). Context effects on young children’s > language use: The influence of conversational setting and partner. > > Kauffer, D. (1979). The competence/performance distinction in > linguistic theory. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 9,257–275. > > McClelland, J.L. & Bybee, J. (in press). Gradience of gradience: A > reply to Jackendoff. The Linguistic Review. > > Piaget, J. (1929). The child’s conception of the world. London: > Routledge. > > Samuelson, L.K., Horst, J.S., Dobbertin, B.N. & Schutte, A.R. > (2006). Knowledge, performance, and task: Décalage and dynamics in > young children's noun generalizations. Proceedings of the Twenty- > Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. > (pp720-725). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. > > Samuelson, L. K. & Horst, J. S. (in press). Confronting complexity: > Insights from the details of behavior over multiple timescales. > Developmental Science. > > Saussure, F. de (1916/1974). Course in general linguistics. London: > Fontana/Collins. > > Seidenberg, M. S., & MacDonald, M. C. (1999). A probabilistic > constraints approach to language acquisition and processing. > Cognitive Science, 23, 569–588. > > Valian, V. (1979). The wherefores and therefores of the competence- > performance distinction. In W.E. Cooper & E.C.T. Walker (Eds.), > Sentence processing: Psycholinguistic studies presented to Merrill > Garrett. (pp1-26). Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum. > > > > ********************************************************************* > > Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil > > School of Psychology and Human Development, > > Institute of Education, > > 25 Woburn Square, > > London, > > WC1H 0AA. > > U.K. > > > > Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 > > Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 > > > > http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 > > www.ioe.ac.uk > > > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lottiedalefarm at yahoo.co.uk Tue Oct 16 18:08:11 2007 From: lottiedalefarm at yahoo.co.uk (charlotte hall) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:08:11 +0100 Subject: Please remove me from the list Message-ID: Please will you remove me from the mailing list. Many thanks --------------------------------- Yahoo! Answers - Get better answers from someone who knows. Tryit now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lmb32 at columbia.edu Tue Oct 16 18:55:36 2007 From: lmb32 at columbia.edu (Lois Bloom) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:55:36 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: Reliving History. . . First, in his posting on October 12, Matthew Saxton shared his "depression" over the "internecine struggles that have lasted for decades" and the "relative lack of empirical maturity in the field of child language." He then described as "derisory" the "sample sizes of many studies in child language" . . . "compared with other branches of the human sciences." WELL . . . having spent more than 40 years and published 7 books and very many papers in the peer-reviewed journals, I own up to spending all those years and all those printed words on studying the language acquisition of fewer than 25 children. And so I sighed. And then on October 14, Joe Stemberger shared his experience "a few years ago" in which his work was derided because it "clearly had more to do with performance, and why would a linguist be interested in analyzing such data using the mechanisms of linguistic theory," and I sighed again. The criticism was very familiar to me having heard it often, many years ago. And I suspect it was familiar as well to others who have also spent hours, days, years listening, watching, and interpreting the sounds, words, sentences of very small children --yes, unabashedly studying their performance in the sincere effort to learn something about what they *knew* about language and how that *knowledge* changed over time. In my view of history, that criticism is the very heart of how the competence-performance distinction did, indeed, hold back progress in the field. It has been used as a club to knock the research of those of us who do not rely on introspection and grammaticality judgements, or who do not do experiments. And now today on October 16, Matthew has shared a very useful summary of what I found to be one of the more insightful discussions on the InfoCHILDES talkbank. I thank him for the summary and for starting the exchange as well. Please add one more citation to the list: Bloom, L., Miller, P., & Hood, L. (1975). Variation and reduction as aspects of competence in child language. In A. Pick (Ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Vol. 9, pp. 3-55). Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press. Reprinted in Bloom, L. (1991). Language Development from Two to Three (pp. 88-141). Cambridge University Press. in which we presented data (from performance, but data nevertheless) and proposed a model or 'theory of knowledge' to account for the variable length of early sentences, building on the "probabalistic grammars" of Patrick Suppes (1970) and the variation paradigm of Bill Labov (1969) and Cedergren and Sankoff (1974). (Really digging into ancient, pre-internet history here!) And so I applaud Matthew's conclusion that promotes a level of complexity beyond the simplistic C-P distinction: "the acknowledgement that an additional, and perhaps more interesting, source of linguistic variability stems, not from physical breakdowns, but from numerous other factors that could correctly be seen as part of speaker's knowledge of language." In our 1975 study, more than 30 years ago, my colleagues and I grappled with the "empirical headaches" he refers to, "trying to identify and explain what [those factors] are and how they function." Rather than continuing to escape into the antiques business. . . it's a gorgeous day today, and I'm heading out to the golf course. Cheers! LOIS BLOOM (Edward Lee Thorndike Professor Emeritus, Teachers College, Columbia University) 95 Wilson Road Easton CT 06612 phone: 203-261-4622 mobile: 203-673-7021 fax: 203-261-4689 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lempert at psych.toronto.edu Tue Oct 16 21:42:09 2007 From: lempert at psych.toronto.edu (Henrietta Lempert) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:42:09 -0400 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From adele at crl.ucsd.edu Tue Oct 16 23:05:46 2007 From: adele at crl.ucsd.edu (Adele Abrahamsen) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:05:46 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Hello, all. I came late to this discussion but just enjoyed reading the whole sweep of contributions all the way through Lise Menn and Lois Bloom’s post-summary reflections. Clearly the topic hasn’t been exhausted—each message makes thought-provoking points—so I will add a mention of the framework I worked out after years of poking at the question of how psychology and linguistics should, and do, interact. See: Abrahamsen, A. A. (1987). Bridging boundaries versus breaking boundaries: Psycholinguistics in perspective. Synthese, 72, 355-388. Abrahamsen, A. A. (1991). Bridging interdisciplinary boundaries: The case of kin terms. In C. Georgopoulos & R. Ishihara (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to language: Essays in honor of S.-Y. Kuroda (1-24). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Although linguistics, psychology, and their relationship have become more diverse and complicated in the years since I wrote these papers, I still find the basic framework useful especially in considering classic notions like competence. In brief, I emphasized that linguists study language as a cultural product—as an abstract structure resulting from behavior—and psychologists focus on behaviors in real time. I also suggested these enterprises could be connected in ways that bridge boundaries (e.g. a psycholinguist might reformat a linguistic account to make it a suitable tool for designing an experiment; a linguist might find in real-time processing an explanation for aspects of language structure), but they could instead be connected in ways that break boundaries (e.g. Chomsky’s notion of competence and its relation to performance). That is, Chomsky was acting as a linguist in working out various versions of his generative grammar, and switched to psychology to make his (influential and controversial) claims about competence-performance and language acquisition. I wrote (p. 381) “There is nothing inherently wrong in this; innovative thinkers often wear multiple hats…[but] …[m]any psychologists, frustrated with a distinction that did not find a natural fit within their own meta-theory, concluded that a ‘performance’ theory was all the theory that one needed; essentially, they decided that there need be no distinction between linguistic and psychological perspectives.” Arguably, many behavioral scientists and computer modelers pursuing this path are actually doing their own linguistics (vs. abandoning linguistics). Others use linguistic theories other than Chomsky’s as a tool (e.g. cognitive grammar), minus the boundary-breaking view that these are competence theories. The 1991 paper suggests how seemingly conflicting analyses and data on kin terms can be understood in terms of boundary-bridging connections, finding a role for linguistic abstraction that does not carry all the baggage of Chomsky’s competence notion. Nonetheless, I find the notion powerful in that thinking about whether or how it might apply nudges my thinking beyond bland assumptions. For example, Optimality Theory can at least provisionally be taken to be a kind of competence theory (albeit one based on constraint satisfaction). The nature of the relation between OT and connectionist networks seems to be boundary-bridging, not boundary-breaking. Does that suggest new directions to go in developing the notion of competence—or should we just not go there? Adele Abrahamsen Center for Research in Language University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive, CB 0526 La Jolla, CA 92093-0526 From cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk Wed Oct 17 01:01:31 2007 From: cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk (Virginia Yip (LIN)) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:01:31 +0800 Subject: ??: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: Dear Henrietta, This is an area where Cantonese and Mandarin (and even different varieties of Cantonese) differ substantially, which may be the source of the conflicting information. Our response will be mainly focused on Cantonese. In the DO construction with "give" respectively, the basic order is bei2-THEME-RECIPIENT in Cantonese but gei-RECIPIENT-THEME in Mandarin. Some varieties such as Malayan Cantonese (Killingley 1993) have both orders productively. Here are some points on Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong: 1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick: Cantonese: PD (okay) *DO (ruled out) (the PD can also be analysed as a serial verb construction: Matthews 2006) 2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) Cantonese: 'offer' and 'promise' allow neither construction, but use a complementation construction instead ("I promise to give you...") "Award" can take either PD or DO: PD: ngo zoeng jat baak man bei keoi I award one hundred dollar give/to 3sg DO: ngo zoeng keoi jat baak man I award 3sg one hundred dollar 3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. Cantonese: PD only *DO 4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and Mandarin? Chinese versus English? - yes, a relevant difference is that Cantonese passives with bei2 (high rising tone) requires the agent to be overtly expressed, whereas it's optional in Mandarin passives with 'bei' (a different morpheme from Cantonese). Chinese passives tend to be "adversative" in meaning and less productive than in English overall: although there are in fact many non-adversative passives in Mandarin and Cantonese, it's not the case that any predicate can be passivised. For example, passive constructions cannot be formed based on dative constructions in Cantonese (there is nothing like "I was given a prize"). Some child acquisition studies involving the Cantonese datives are Chan 2003, Gu 2007, and Yip & Matthews (2007, ch. 7). Some references: Chan, Angel Wing-Shan. 2003. The development of bei2 dative constructions in early child Cantonese. Unpublished MPhil Thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Gu, Chenjie Chloe. 2007. The acquisition of dative constructions in Cantonese-English bilingual children. Unpublished MPhil Thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Killingley, S.Y. 1993. Cantonese. Munich: Lincom Europa. Matthews, S. 2006. On serial verb constructions in Cantonese. In A.Y.Aikhenvald & R.M.W.Dixon (eds), Serial Verbs: a Cross-linguistic Typology. Oxford University Press. Pp 69-87. Matthews, S. & V.Yip. 1994. Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge Tang, Sze-Wing. 1998. On the 'inverted' double object construction. In Stephen Matthews (eds.), Studies in Cantonese Linguistics. Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, pp. 35-52. Yip, V. & S. Matthews. 2007. The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Best wishes from Hong Kong, Virginia Yip & Stephen Matthews -----????----- ???: Henrietta Lempert ???: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org ????: 2007/10/17 ?? 05:42 ??: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk Wed Oct 17 03:09:59 2007 From: cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk (Virginia Yip (LIN)) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:09:59 +0800 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: Concerning verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) we made the point that Cantonese 'offer' and 'promise' allow neither construction, but use a complementation construction instead ("I promise to give you..."). I'd like to draw your attention to the following data from Angel Chan who noted the possibility of prepositional dative and double dative with these verbs: offer 'tai4gung1' PD: ngo5 ho2ji3 tai4gung1 gau2zit3 bei2 lei5 I can offer ten-percent-off give you "I can offer you a ten percent discount" promise 'jing1sing4' DO: keoi5 jing1sing4 ngo5 saam1 gin6 si6 3SG promise me three CL things "He has promised me three things." PD : keoi5 jing1sing4 li1 bun2 syu1 bei2 ngo5 3SG promise this CL book give me "He has promised me this book!" bequeath 'wai4lau4' PD: keoi5 lau4 hou2do1 coi4caan2 bei2 go3 zai2 3SG leave much asset give CL son "He has bequeathed his son a great fortune." Virginia -----Original Message----- From: Henrietta Lempert [mailto:lempert at psych.toronto.edu] Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 5:42 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From holfert at uni-osnabrueck.de Wed Oct 17 10:21:16 2007 From: holfert at uni-osnabrueck.de (Helena Olfert) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:21:16 +0200 Subject: mailing-list Message-ID: Please remove me from the mailing list. Thank you! From limber at comcast.net Wed Oct 17 11:30:27 2007 From: limber at comcast.net (john limber) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:30:27 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" wrote: > ³No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, > or even to offer supportive references.² > OK‹ try this‹with references too! The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs defense‹ frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain conditional performance. Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a subset of the language one might observe under such and such conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two to three year old children¹s utterances I observed -- a lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. Did this mean these kids didn¹t have the potential for those structures in their behavioral repertoire‹their linguistic competence? Here¹s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)‹which curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves pragmatics. ³Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically based on spontaneous speech. This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also involved in speech production. Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use complex subject NPs. Is this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a reflection of pragmatic factors? Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need complex subjects. An extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position indicates that pragmatics may account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech.² In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up‹one shaky example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: Adult: ³Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird.² Child: ³I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. ³ I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language acquisition would handle this? Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child Language, 3, 309-318. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf John Limber University of New Hampshire Durham NH I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de Wed Oct 17 12:32:53 2007 From: mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de (Mechthild Kiegelmann) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:32:53 +0200 Subject: Baby Signing literature: summary Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, There were many helpful responses to my question about literature on baby signing. Below is a summary of the references . (I prepared the list without further formatting). Thank you for all your wonderful help! PD. Dr. Mechthild Kiegelmann University of Tübingen, Germany *Web Sites:* babysignal Wiebke Gericke http://www.babysignal.de BabySigns www.babysigns.com. Just follow the research "clickables." Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network: http://www.cllrnet.ca/news/inthenews/104 Signingsmart Michelle Anthony and Reyna Lindert http://www.signingsmart.com Signing Time http://www.signingtime.com/article_info.php?articles_id=11 If you go toward the bottom, you will see a link to a pdf file that has a bunch of references at the end. http://www.signingtime.com/benefits/STResearch_Summary.pdf Sign2me Joseph Garcia at http://www.sign2me.com *Books:* Acredolo, L. P., & Goodwyn, S. W. (1998). Baby signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk. Chicago: NTB/Contemporary Publishers. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S. (1996). Baby Signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk. Chicago: NTB/Contemporary Publishers. Daniels, M. (2001). Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey And research and publishing by Marylin Daniels Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon: Was will das Kind mir sagen? Die Körpersprache des Kindes verstehen lernen. Verlag Hans Huber, Bern 2005 Grabmeier, J. (1999). Infants use sign language to communicate at Ohio State School. Newswise Press. http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=SIGNLANG.OSU Volterra, V., & Erting, C. J. (Eds.) (1990). From gesture to language in hearing and deaf children (pp. 263-277). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. *Articles:* Abrahamsen, A. (2000). Explorations of enhanced gestural input to children in the bimodal period. In K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Eds.), The signs of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima (pp. 357-399). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Abrahamsen, A. A., Cavallo, M. M., & McCluer, J. A. (1985). Is the sign advantage a robust phenomenon? From gesture to language in two modalities. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 31, 177-209. Abrahamsen, A. A., Lamb, M., Brown-Williams, J., & McCarthy, S. (1991). Boundary conditions on language emergence: Contributions from atypical learners and input. In P. Siple & S. Fischer (Eds.), Theoretical issues in sign language research. Volume 2: Psychology¬ (pp. 231-254). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S. (1988). Symbolic gesturing in normal infants. Child Development, 59, 450-456. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S. (1996). Baby Signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk. Chicago: NTB/Contemporary Publishers. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S., Horobin, K., & Emmons, Y. (1999). The sign and sounds of early language development. In L. Balter & C. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A handbook of contemporary issues. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Linda Acredolo, et al. (1999), The signs and sounds of early langauge development. In C. Tamis-LeMonda & L. Balter (Eds.), Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues. Garland Press. Baker, S. A., Golinkoff, R. M., & Petitto, L. A. (2006). New insights into old puzzles from infants’ categorical discrimination of soundless phonetic units. Language Learning and Development, 2, 147-162.) Beukelman & Mirenda (1998). Augmentative and alternative communication: Management of severe communication disorders in children and adults. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Folven, R. J., & Bonvillian, J. D. (1991). The transition from nonreferential to referential language in children acquiring American Sign Language. Developmental Psychology, 27, 806-816. Goodwyn, S.W., Acredolo, L. P. & Brown, C. (2000). Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 81-103. S. W. Goodwyn & L. P. Acredolo (1993), Symbolic gesture versus word: Is there a modality advantage for onset of symbol use? Child Development, 64, 688-701. Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (Eds.) (1998). The nature and functions of gesture in children's communication. New Directions for Child Development, No. 79. Jossey-Bass. Kangas, K. & Lloyd, F. (1988). Early cognitive skills as prerequisites to augmentative and alternative communication use: What are we waiting for? Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 4, 211-221. Liang Wei-lan, Hao Bo, Zheng, Zhi-xiong, Tardif, T., Fletcher P3 (2005). Study of Chinese children’s gesture development. Lloyd, Fuller, & Arvidson (1997). Augmentative and alternative communication: A handbook of principles and practices. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Meier, R. P., & Newport, E. (1990). Out of the hands of babes: on a possible sign advantage in language acquisition. Language, 6, 1-23. Özçalışkan, Ş. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development. Cognition, 96 (3), B101-B113. Özçalışkan, Ş. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Do parents lead their children by the hand? Journal of Child Language, 32 (3), 481-505. Özçalışkan, Ş. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (under review). When gesture-speech combinations do and do not index linguistic change. Language and Cognitive Processes. Reilly, R.G. (in press). The relationship between object manipulation and language development in Broca's area: A connectionist simulation of Greenfield's hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Reilly, R.G. 1997. Brocas area and the development of object assembly and language production skills. In: Proceedings of AI-97, University of Ulster, Magee College, September. Reilly, R.G. 1997. Cortical software re-use: A neural basis for creative cognition. In: Proceedings of Mind 2, Dublin City University, September. The September 1997 issue of AAC: Augmentative and Alternative Communication (volume 13, number 3) is dedicated to language development. Especially: 1. (Paul, R.) Facilitating Transitions in Language Development for Children Using AAC 2. (Romski, Sevcik, & Adamson) Framework for Studying How Children with Developmental Disabilities Develop Language through Augmented Means. *Conference presentations* Acredolo, L. P., & Goodwyn, S.W. (July 2000). The long-term impact of symbolic gesturing during infancy on IQ at age 8. Paper presented at the meetings of the International Society for Infant Studies, Brighton, UK. Kiegelmann, M. (2007). Evaluation of Baby Signing. Paper presented at the 13th European Conference on Developmental Psychology. Jena, Germany. Presentations at the SRCD 2007 Biennial Meeting 2007 in Boston, MA, USA see: http://www.srcd.org/meeting/schedule/2007/searchview.cfm [10.10.2007]: Claire D. Vallotton, Catherine Ayoub. Symbols as coping tools: Both words and gestures support toddlers' development of self-regulation Raedy M. Ping, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Mary-Anne V. Decatur: Gesture, Cognitive Load, and Non-Visible Objects Makeba Parramore Wilbourn, Jenna Hallie Marshall, Marie-France Catherine Baveye, Marianella Casasola: Developmental Changes in Infants' Association of Gestures Versus Words With Objects Seyda Ozcaliskan, Susan Goldin-Meadow: Learning to Build Similarity Mappings in Gesture and Speech Ann M. Mastergeorge, Lesley B. Olswang: The Role of Communicative Gestures in Mother-Infant Dyads: The Trajectory of Joint Attention Whitney Goodrich, Eve A. Sauer, Jana M. Iverson, Susan Goldin-Meadow: From Children's Hands to Mothers' Mouth Claire D. Vallotton, Catherine Ayoub: Gesture as communication & thought? Predicting development of engagement skills and social-emotional concepts in young children Elizabeth Crais, Linda R. Watson, Grace T. Baranek: Early and Later Gestures Use in Infants with Autism Spectrum Disorders *archive of CHILDES-List* A search in the archive of this list showed that I am not the first one to ask the question about baby signing literature. A search found the following mails (Thank you, Adele Abrahamsen for the tip with the Archive!) http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa [search with “sign” and “bab” on 11.10.2007] 004308 07/10/06 09:56 47 Literature on Baby Signing 000865 00/04/01 15:44 51 signing in hearing babies 000863 00/03/30 13:58 68 Signing babies 000858 00/03/30 09:23 35 Re: signing in hearing babies 000850 00/03/29 11:15 59 Signing in hearing babies 000856 00/03/27 10:37 53 Re: signing in hearing babies 000847 00/03/25 17:21 216 Re: signing in hearing babies 000845 00/03/24 16:05 21 signing in hearing babies 000846 00/03/24 14:08 21 Re: signing in hearing babies 000081 99/01/15 17:00 31 Baby signs: THANK YOU! 000078 99/01/15 14:12 32 Baby Signs story 000080 99/01/15 12:04 50 More on Baby signs 000075 99/01/14 19:09 94 Re: "Baby Signs" -- good thing or not? 000074 99/01/14 15:36 56 teaching babies signs 000071 99/01/13 18:59 38 Re: Baby Signs 000069 99/01/13 16:52 21 Baby Signs 000068 99/01/12 23:44 42 "Baby Signs" -- good thing or not? From Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk Wed Oct 17 13:43:09 2007 From: Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk (Evan J Kidd) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:43:09 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ProgId Word.Document Generator Microsoft Word 11 Originator Microsoft Word 11 John, I don' t see how your example shows any support for the necessity of the competence-performance distinction. We have known for a long time that children don' t like to use relative clauses that modify main clause subjects. If your point is that children rarely hear them, then your data show that they also rarely use them, so at best, their ' competence' is shaky, as indeed your one example from _________________________________ Dr Evan Kidd Lecturer in Psychology School of Psychological Sciences University of Manchester Oxford Road M13 9PL Manchester, UK Ph: +44 (0) 161 275 2578 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 8587 http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/108727 __________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of john limber Sent: 17 October 2007 12:30 To: Matthew Saxton; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Cc: john limber Subject: Re: Competence vs. Performance: Summary On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" wrote: " No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer supportive references." OK- try this- with references too!The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs defense- frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain conditional performance. Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a subset of the language one might observe under such and such conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two to three year old children' s utterances I observed -- a lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. Did this mean these kids didn' t have the potential for those structures in their behavioral repertoire- their linguistic competence? Here' s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)- which curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves pragmatics." Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically based on spontaneous speech. This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also involved in speech production. Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use complex subject NPs. Isthis a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a reflection of pragmatic factors? Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need complex subjects. Anextensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position indicates that pragmatics may account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech." In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up- one shaky example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: Adult: " Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird." Child: " I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. " I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language acquisition would handle this? Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child Language, 3, 309-318. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf John Limber University of New Hampshire Durham NH I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From virginia.valian at hunter.cuny.edu Wed Oct 17 14:27:20 2007 From: virginia.valian at hunter.cuny.edu (Virginia Valian) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:27:20 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: Dear All, A slight emendation to Matthew's post, in which he said "No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer supportive references." My 1979 paper is a defense and I stand by it. The paper is called "The wherefores and therefores of the competence-performance distinction." Here's the link again: http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/docs/1979wherefores.pdf Perhaps a symposium on this topic would be good at an upcoming conference. Best, Virginia Valian Distinguished Professor, Psychology and Linguistics Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center 695 Park Ave, New York, NY, 10065, USA tel: 212/ 772-5463, 212/ 772-5557; fax: 212/ 650-3247 email: virginia.valian at hunter.cuny.edu http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/valian.htm http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/littlelinguist From stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca Wed Oct 17 16:47:05 2007 From: stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca (Joe Stemberger) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:47:05 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Oct 17 17:26:21 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:26:21 +0200 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <47163C89.6060203@interchange.ubc.ca> Message-ID: Hello Everybody, I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research and collect information on what people actually say, whether children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of competence/performance distinction is. The best, Anat Ninio Joe Stemberger wrote: > Hello, everyone. > > Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my career > working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech and > experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are outputs > that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead to > "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" > competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. > > Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing two > main points: > (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is > performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are > largely unknown after more than 40 years. > (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through performance. > > Consider John Limber's quote: > "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically > based on spontaneous speech. > This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also > involved in speech production." > > Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. > Just as there are performance factors in language perception, language > comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. > In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts of > any sort are "contaminated" by performance. > And it follows from that that inferences about competence must come > from performance, only and always. > > > OK, so now let's get concrete. > Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, and > you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. > Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. > In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce > such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. > (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they produce > coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with rhyming > regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) > Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every study > has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority for most > children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, and that, like > in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one of the predictors of > error rate. > This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. > But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that patterns > are being extracted and generalized. > > At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead of > SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy to come by. > As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that > experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of the > time in neutral contexts, > rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in the > first word).) > Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to novel > words at much greater rates. > So irregular patterns also show generalization. > > Consider another of John's quotes: > "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a > subset of the language one might observe under such and such conditions?" > > So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates > explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, > then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular and > irregular forms, because both types of patterns overgeneralize, right? > > Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar approach, > have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ pattern involves > the use of a rule after failure to access an irregular form, but that > overregularization of irregular patterns is a performance phenomenon, > based on the way that irregular forms are stored in and accessed from > the lexicon. > Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can > occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept "the" > competence-performance distinction. > > Which leads to this possibility: > all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are simply > stored in the lexicon. > All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance phenomenon. > And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more than > any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to performance > factors, right? > > Or even > The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the language. > Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever been > observed. > Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored exemplars. > You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? > Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper > bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to show > how it works. > > And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that > "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that sort > of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. > > >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have to > work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide a > range of types of data as possible. > And we want to develop theories that account for all of those data, in > detail. > If there's a distinction between competence and performance, that's > fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to explain > exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are due to > performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that aren't > accounted for in detail, it means that we should be uncomfortable, > because we need to account for it all. > > That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction has > been used in the past. > If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. > While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply linguistic > theory to child language, few are open to using child language to > provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two theoretical mechanisms. > > In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and working > on theories of how human language works, including claims about the > fundamental orgainization of the language system. > > As should we all. > > > ---Joe Stemberger > Linguistics > UBC > > > john limber pravi: >> >> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >> wrote: >> >> “No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.” >> >> OK— try this—with references too! >> >> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >> defense— frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are more >> or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain conditional >> performance. >> >> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >> conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary >> and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, >> to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds >> like a lame return to behaviorism. >> >> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two >> to three year old children’s utterances I observed -- a lack of >> relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >> >> Did this mean these kids didn’t have the potential for those >> structures in their behavioral repertoire—their linguistic >> competence? Here’s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)—which >> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >> pragmatics. >> >> “Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >> based on spontaneous speech. >> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >> involved in speech production. >> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >> complex subject NPs. Is >> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >> reflection of pragmatic factors? >> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need >> complex subjects. An >> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >> indicates that pragmatics may >> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar >> pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude >> children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the >> nature of spontaneous speech.” >> >> >> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children >> and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up—one shaky example from a >> three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a >> child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than 1/1000. >> Here are the two: >> >> Adult: “ Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird.” >> >> Child: “I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >> doesn't want me to open it. “ >> >> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language acquisition >> would handle this? >> >> >> >> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >> >> >> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >> Language, 3, 309-318. >> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >> >> >> John Limber >> University of New Hampshire >> Durham NH >> >> >> >> >> >> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >> >> Well these >> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >> >> >> >> >> From cschutze at ucla.edu Wed Oct 17 20:42:56 2007 From: cschutze at ucla.edu (Carson Schutze) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:42:56 -0700 Subject: I'll defend the C/P distinction! Message-ID: C = competence, P = performance below, because although I have the competence to type them, I know my performance system will make too many errors doing so :-) But back to serious business. Anat Ninio said: > I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent contributions > to this strand -- that we're all a little scared stating the obvious, > which is that the notion of competence as a separate entity from > performance is a philosophical error, pure and simple. I'm not scared to state what's obvious to me--that *rejecting* the C/P distinction is a philosophical error. And the fact that I have no problem with 98% of what's been said in this thread aside from denying C/P suggests that there's some misunderstanding about what embracing it entails for one's research program. So let me pick up from Joe's most recent posting and see if I can pinpoint the problem. [But let me also say: none of the 'problems' for C/P cited by Matthew Sexton in his summary posting are problems for it at all, in fact they don't even bear on it. This posting is already too long but we can get into that separately if people think it would be productive.] Joe says > (1) the exact division between what is competence and what is > performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are largely > unknown after more than 40 years. That's also true for syntax vs. semantics, morphology vs. phonology, semantics vs. pragmatics, etc. etc. That doesn't mean these aren't real and useful distinctions. They might or might not be real, but no one's shown that they aren't, and I defy anyone to argue that linguistics would have made more progress by ignoring the distinction. (And some of these go back hundreds if not thousands of years, so C/P has plenty of time to sort itself out.) > (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through performance. A point I harped on in my 1996 book, too. Certainly true today. Arguably in principle brain measures might someday falsify this, depending on a bunch of assumptions we can't even guess at the veracity of right now. But not in any of our lifetimes, so we can agree on this for all practical purposes. But this also doesn't imply that C/P is useless, incoherent, etc. Until recently there was no way to study genetics except by its effects on organisms, but that doesn't mean it was wrong or useless to make the genotype/phenotype distinction. Joe then discusses overgeneralization of morphological irregularities, and points out that these occur alongside overgeneralization of the "regular" forms, and that therefore the idea that the latter should be handled by the grammar while the former are handled by a processing theory is unmotivated, and the thin edge of a wedge by which all linguistic phenomena could be "dumped" into processing and therefore ignored by linguists. [I hope I'm not oversimplifying too much, Joe--I believe that was the essential idea.] For one thing, I agree that the division that Pinker, Clahsen et al. argue for is not the right way to go--that, partly for the reason Joe gives and partly for other reasons, all inflections should be treated in a single system. Morris Halle agrees. So does Charles Yang. So do Albright and Hayes. And we all want that system to be the grammar, not the processor. So in practice, *for this case* I don't think the slippery slope worry is justified. But Joe wants a guarantee that in principle C/P can't be used to justify a division of labor between grammar and processing that we would all consider crazy. Is that a reasonable standard? Can anyone show that "syntax" and "phonology" have been defined in a way that wouldn't allow everything we commonly think of as syntax to be classified as phonology? Since all sentences are built up out of sounds, clearly that cannot be excluded a priori. But has that prevented linguists from making profitable use of the distinction? Again, I think not. So sure, C/P could be used in crazy ways. No scientific theory can prevent itself from being used to do bad research. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater--even if you think that every piece of work ever done that has explicitly embraced C/P has been wrong wrong wrong, that's no argument that the C/P distinction itself is wrong, useless, nonsensical, etc. (You don't even know until you look really hard whether research that explicitly rejects C/P might not in fact be using it without realizing it.) Joe summarizes thus: > From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have to work with > performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide a range of > types of data > as possible. I agree, as does Chomsky--see quotes in my book. > And we want to develop theories that account for all of those data, > in detail. > If there's a distinction between competence and performance, that's fine, but > it has to be explicit, and our theories need to explain exactly which > phenomena are due to competence, which are due to performance, and why. Unless we're holding ourselves to a standard beyond that of any other science, I think a reasonable requirement would be that our theories should include a *hypothesis* about which phenomena are due to C vs. P, and they generally do, if only implicitly: people proposing theories of grammar are hypothesizing that the data they try to explain are in C, those proposing theories of processing are hypothesizing that the data they try to cover are in P, and in some cases there are explicit arguments that things that some theories treat as being in one should actually be treated as being in the other (as in the theories of ir/regular inflection cited above). And of course one may propose that a single theory should cover data that have traditionally been treated with separate theories, as in Colin Phillips's 'Parser is Grammar [PIG]' model. But to demand an explanation of why the division, if any, lies where it is hypothesized to lie, while it would be nice, surely can't be a prerequisite to employing C/P. Most theories in language don't have any "why" answers for anything, really. I think parsimony is justification enough at this point. (I.e., drawing the line here gives me more appealing theories of BOTH C AND P than drawing it somewhere else.) But of course Joe is correct that if you make a division somewhere and then cannot point to any proposals, by yourself or anyone else, for how to handle the facts that you've dumped in the other guy's backyard, you've taken a step backwards, not forwards. I think typically when linguists say "I assume X is due to performance," usually they have a vague sense that X resembles some phenomenon for which performance accounts have actually been proposed. The problem comes if they don't actually check whether their vague sense is correct and whether those accounts could plausibly extend to X. In an ideal world, they would go one step further than that: they would find a collaborator who works on those performance theories and develop an account that actually explains X. Nowadays, this is happening--not nearly enough, but the trend is clearly in the right direction.     Carson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Wed Oct 17 21:06:19 2007 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:06:19 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <471645BD.9010100@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the former to a mistake. It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language "ought to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of what speakers themselves believe. When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error from my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; to say that 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' to utter either number") would be nothing more than sophistry. The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by underlying representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch as the competence-performance distinction encapsulates that fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to dismiss. -- Gary Marcus Professor of Psychology New York University On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > Hello Everybody, > > I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent > contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared > stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a > separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and > simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" > instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. > Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential > or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of > it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. > > I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research > and collect information on what people actually say, whether > children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we > hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major > in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of > competence/performance distinction is. > > The best, > > Anat Ninio > > > > > > Joe Stemberger wrote: >> Hello, everyone. >> >> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech >> and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead >> to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >> >> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >> two main points: >> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >> performance. >> >> Consider John Limber's quote: >> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >> based on spontaneous speech. >> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >> involved in speech production." >> >> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >> come from performance, only and always. >> >> >> OK, so now let's get concrete. >> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, >> and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one >> of the predictors of error rate. >> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >> >> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy >> to come by. >> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of >> the time in neutral contexts, >> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >> the first word).) >> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >> novel words at much greater rates. >> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >> >> Consider another of John's quotes: >> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >> conditions?" >> >> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns >> overgeneralize, right? >> >> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns >> is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms >> are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept >> "the" competence-performance distinction. >> >> Which leads to this possibility: >> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >> simply stored in the lexicon. >> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >> phenomenon. >> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >> performance factors, right? >> >> Or even >> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >> language. >> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >> been observed. >> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >> exemplars. >> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >> show how it works. >> >> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >> >> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have >> to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide >> a range of types of data as possible. >> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >> data, in detail. >> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that >> aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >> >> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >> has been used in the past. >> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >> theoretical mechanisms. >> >> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >> working on theories of how human language works, including claims >> about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >> >> As should we all. >> >> >> ---Joe Stemberger >> Linguistics >> UBC >> >> >> john limber pravi: >>> >>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>> wrote: >>> >>> “No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.” >>> >>> OK— try this—with references too! >>> >>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>> defense— frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>> conditional performance. >>> >>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>> >>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>> two to three year old children’s utterances I observed -- a lack >>> of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>> >>> Did this mean these kids didn’t have the potential for those >>> structures in their behavioral repertoire—their linguistic >>> competence? Here’s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)—which >>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>> pragmatics. >>> >>> “Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>> based on spontaneous speech. >>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>> involved in speech production. >>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>> complex subject NPs. Is >>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>> need complex subjects. An >>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>> indicates that pragmatics may >>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to >>> conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything >>> more than the nature of spontaneous speech.” >>> >>> >>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up—one shaky >>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>> >>> Adult: “ Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>> weird.” >>> >>> Child: “I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>> doesn't want me to open it. “ >>> >>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>> acquisition would handle this? >>> >>> >>> >>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>> Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >> JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf> >>> >>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>> >>> >>> John Limber >>> University of New Hampshire >>> Durham NH >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>> >>> Well these >>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > > From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Oct 17 22:39:24 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:39:24 +0200 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <79E8A051-EB2B-4408-905C-E8B6630D6254@nyu.edu> Message-ID: I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this rationalistic perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect incorrect and misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades of research on transformations, deep structures, and innate parameters. There are other ways to look at the organization of reality, and my only hope is that the next generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will not repeat the mistakes of the last one. Anat Ninio Professor of Psychology The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Gary Marcus wrote: > > I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To > ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point > of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply > aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the > former to a mistake. > > It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in > 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited > Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to > treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as a > matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language "ought > to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a matter > of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of what > speakers themselves believe. > > When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of 87 > and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error from > my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum (viz. > 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a theoretical > tool with which to make that distinction; to say that 101 and 111 are > equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' to utter either > number") would be nothing more than sophistry. > > The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, > have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how can > I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once we > have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. > > In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the > daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from > surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that > task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping between > the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by underlying > representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch as the > competence-performance distinction encapsulates that fundamental > truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to dismiss. > > -- Gary Marcus > Professor of Psychology > New York University > > > > On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > >> Hello Everybody, >> >> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and >> simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" >> instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. >> Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential or >> ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of it, by >> Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. >> >> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research >> and collect information on what people actually say, whether children >> or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we hear is >> "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major in their >> first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of >> competence/performance distinction is. >> >> The best, >> >> Anat Ninio >> >> >> >> >> >> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>> Hello, everyone. >>> >>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my career >>> working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech and >>> experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >>> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead to >>> "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >>> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >>> >>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing two >>> main points: >>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >>> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >>> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>> performance. >>> >>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>> based on spontaneous speech. >>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>> involved in speech production." >>> >>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts of >>> any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must come >>> from performance, only and always. >>> >>> >>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, and >>> you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >>> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they produce >>> coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with rhyming >>> regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >>> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, and >>> that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one of the >>> predictors of error rate. >>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>> >>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >>> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy to >>> come by. >>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >>> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of the >>> time in neutral contexts, >>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >>> the first word).) >>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>> novel words at much greater rates. >>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>> >>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>> conditions?" >>> >>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >>> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >>> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >>> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns overgeneralize, >>> right? >>> >>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar approach, >>> have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ pattern >>> involves the use of a rule after failure to access an irregular >>> form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns is a >>> performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms are >>> stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >>> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept "the" >>> competence-performance distinction. >>> >>> Which leads to this possibility: >>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>> phenomenon. >>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more than >>> any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>> performance factors, right? >>> >>> Or even >>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the language. >>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever been >>> observed. >>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>> exemplars. >>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >>> show how it works. >>> >>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >>> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >>> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >>> >>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have to >>> work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide a >>> range of types of data as possible. >>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those data, >>> in detail. >>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, that's >>> fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to explain >>> exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are due to >>> performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that aren't >>> accounted for in detail, it means that we should be uncomfortable, >>> because we need to account for it all. >>> >>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction has >>> been used in the past. >>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply linguistic >>> theory to child language, few are open to using child language to >>> provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two theoretical >>> mechanisms. >>> >>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and working >>> on theories of how human language works, including claims about the >>> fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>> >>> As should we all. >>> >>> >>> ---Joe Stemberger >>> Linguistics >>> UBC >>> >>> >>> john limber pravi: >>>> >>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> “No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.” >>>> >>>> OK— try this—with references too! >>>> >>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>> defense— frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>> conditional performance. >>>> >>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary >>>> and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, >>>> to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds >>>> like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>> >>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two >>>> to three year old children’s utterances I observed -- a lack of >>>> relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>> >>>> Did this mean these kids didn’t have the potential for those >>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire—their linguistic >>>> competence? Here’s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)—which >>>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>>> pragmatics. >>>> >>>> “Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>> involved in speech production. >>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>>> complex subject NPs. Is >>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need >>>> complex subjects. An >>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar >>>> pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude >>>> children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the >>>> nature of spontaneous speech.” >>>> >>>> >>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children >>>> and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up—one shaky example from a >>>> three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a >>>> child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than >>>> 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>> >>>> Adult: “ Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird.” >>>> >>>> Child: “I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>>> doesn't want me to open it. “ >>>> >>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>> >>>> >>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>> >>>> >>>> John Limber >>>> University of New Hampshire >>>> Durham NH >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>> >>>> Well these >>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >> >> > > > From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Wed Oct 17 23:07:51 2007 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:07:51 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <47168F1C.7010005@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology in which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory of how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how to do so coherently without a competence-performance distinction. Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish competence from performance per se does not commit one to any particular theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a nativist about the rules of chess to think that a competence-performance distinction applies -- and does useful work there (e.g., in distinguishing "blunders" from more considered miscalculations). When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. -- gfm On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that > "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with > the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from > surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this > rationalistic perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect > incorrect and misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades > of research on transformations, deep structures, and innate > parameters. There are other ways to look at the organization of > reality, and my only hope is that the next generation of > theoreticians of both disciplines will not repeat the mistakes of > the last one. > > Anat Ninio > Professor of Psychology > The Hebrew University of Jerusalem > > > > Gary Marcus wrote: >> >> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the >> point of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and >> "spun" simply aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct >> and ascribe the former to a mistake. >> >> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in >> 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to >> treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not >> as a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of >> language "ought to be", according to some self-appointed >> grammarian) but as a matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a >> characterization of what speakers themselves believe. >> >> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum >> of 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient >> error from my general understanding of what would constitute a >> correct sum (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction >> gives us a theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; >> to say that 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have >> the 'competence' to utter either number") would be nothing more >> than sophistry. >> >> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, >> have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how >> can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself >> once we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. >> >> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with >> the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations >> from surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed >> at that task without a firm understanding of the fact that the >> mapping between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated >> not only by underlying representations but by a host of other >> factors. Inasmuch as the competence-performance distinction >> encapsulates that fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we >> cannot afford to dismiss. >> >> -- Gary Marcus >> Professor of Psychology >> New York University >> >> >> >> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >> >>> Hello Everybody, >>> >>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >>> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure >>> and simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time >>> "spinned" instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do >>> so. Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored >>> potential or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other >>> treatment of it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a >>> mystification of the obvious. >>> >>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing >>> research and collect information on what people actually say, >>> whether children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that >>> what we hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any >>> philosopher major in their first year would tell us how confused >>> the whole idea of competence/performance distinction is. >>> >>> The best, >>> >>> Anat Ninio >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>> Hello, everyone. >>>> >>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous >>>> speech and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that >>>> there are outputs that are "correct" but that performance >>>> factors can lead to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean >>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere >>>> practical. >>>> >>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >>>> two main points: >>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what >>>> is performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, >>>> are largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>> performance. >>>> >>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>> involved in speech production." >>>> >>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >>>> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>> >>>> >>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >>>> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates >>>> produce such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >>>> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of >>>> tokens.) >>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the >>>> minority for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the >>>> beginning, and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the >>>> verb is one of the predictors of error rate. >>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>> >>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, >>>> instead of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors >>>> are easy to come by. >>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In >>>> that experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about >>>> 2% of the time in neutral contexts, >>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular >>>> in the first word).) >>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>>> novel words at much greater rates. >>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>> >>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but >>>> a subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>> conditions?" >>>> >>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and >>>> encapsulates explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for >>>> generalization, then competence contains such procedures for >>>> creating both regular and irregular forms, because both types of >>>> patterns overgeneralize, right? >>>> >>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular >>>> patterns is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that >>>> irregular forms are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns >>>> can occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that >>>> accept "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>> >>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>> phenomenon. >>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >>>> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>>> performance factors, right? >>>> >>>> Or even >>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>> language. >>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >>>> been observed. >>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>> exemplars. >>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility >>>> to show how it works. >>>> >>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof >>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us >>>> to that sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere >>>> else. >>>> >>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we >>>> have to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with >>>> as wide a range of types of data as possible. >>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>> data, in detail. >>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >>>> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >>>> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data >>>> that aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >>>> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >>>> >>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >>>> has been used in the past. >>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >>>> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >>>> theoretical mechanisms. >>>> >>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>> working on theories of how human language works, including >>>> claims about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>>> >>>> As should we all. >>>> >>>> >>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>> Linguistics >>>> UBC >>>> >>>> >>>> john limber pravi: >>>>> >>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> “No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence- >>>>> performance >>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.” >>>>> >>>>> OK— try this—with references too! >>>>> >>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>>> defense— frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>>> conditional performance. >>>>> >>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but >>>>> a subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>>>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>> >>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>>>> two to three year old children’s utterances I observed -- a >>>>> lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>> >>>>> Did this mean these kids didn’t have the potential for those >>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire—their linguistic >>>>> competence? Here’s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)— >>>>> which curiously in connection with this current discussion, >>>>> involves pragmatics. >>>>> >>>>> “Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>> involved in speech production. >>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not >>>>> use complex subject NPs. Is >>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>>>> need complex subjects. An >>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant >>>>> to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects >>>>> anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech.” >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up—one shaky >>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>>>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>> >>>>> Adult: “ Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>>>> weird.” >>>>> >>>>> Child: “I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... >>>>> she doesn't want me to open it. “ >>>>> >>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. >>>>> Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of >>>>> Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>>>> Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>> JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf> >>>>> >>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>> >>>> pragmatics_performance.pdf> >>>>> >>>>> John Limber >>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>> Durham NH >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>> >>>>> Well these >>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Oct 17 23:33:45 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:33:45 +0200 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <69CFD5B5-CE98-4AC1-A131-E28D29A5AE35@nyu.edu> Message-ID: I'm sure one can come up with a well-articulated theory of psychology that won't scare us all with the dark shadow of behaviorism and still won't make an elementary mistake of identifying the rules of chess with a player's playing skill. This is what the competence/performance distinction is really about, isn't it? The pure rules versus the impure human behaviour? Take note that even when a player is making a mistake, he is using -- not terribly successfully -- his stored representation of the game's rules and his cumulated playing strategies. Why would you not see this as competence, I don't really understand. Stored competence can be partial, full of holes, context-dependent -- in fact, it is just (messy) potential for action, nothing more rule-like than that. I'm sure you'll agree to that, at the least. Anat Ninio Gary Marcus wrote: > So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology in > which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is > behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 > arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal > representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory of > how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how to do so > coherently without a competence-performance distinction. > > Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish competence > from performance per se does not commit one to any particular > theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a nativist about > the rules of chess to think that a competence-performance distinction > applies -- and does useful work there (e.g., in distinguishing > "blunders" from more considered miscalculations). > > When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is > essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. > > -- gfm > > > On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > >> I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that >> "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >> surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this rationalistic >> perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect incorrect and >> misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades of research on >> transformations, deep structures, and innate parameters. There are >> other ways to look at the organization of reality, and my only hope >> is that the next generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will >> not repeat the mistakes of the last one. >> >> Anat Ninio >> Professor of Psychology >> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem >> >> >> >> Gary Marcus wrote: >>> >>> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >>> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point >>> of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply >>> aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the >>> former to a mistake. >>> >>> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in >>> 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >>> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to >>> treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as >>> a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language >>> "ought to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a >>> matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of >>> what speakers themselves believe. >>> >>> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of >>> 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error >>> from my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum >>> (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a >>> theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; to say that >>> 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' >>> to utter either number") would be nothing more than sophistry. >>> >>> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, >>> have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how >>> can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once >>> we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. >>> >>> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >>> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >>> surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that >>> task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping >>> between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by >>> underlying representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch >>> as the competence-performance distinction encapsulates that >>> fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to >>> dismiss. >>> >>> -- Gary Marcus >>> Professor of Psychology >>> New York University >>> >>> >>> >>> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >>> >>>> Hello Everybody, >>>> >>>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >>>> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and >>>> simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" >>>> instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. >>>> Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential >>>> or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of >>>> it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. >>>> >>>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research >>>> and collect information on what people actually say, whether >>>> children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we >>>> hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major >>>> in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of >>>> competence/performance distinction is. >>>> >>>> The best, >>>> >>>> Anat Ninio >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>>> Hello, everyone. >>>>> >>>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech >>>>> and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >>>>> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead >>>>> to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >>>>> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >>>>> >>>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >>>>> two main points: >>>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >>>>> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >>>>> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>>> performance. >>>>> >>>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>> involved in speech production." >>>>> >>>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >>>>> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >>>>> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >>>>> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >>>>> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >>>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>>>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >>>>> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, >>>>> and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one >>>>> of the predictors of error rate. >>>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>>> >>>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >>>>> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy >>>>> to come by. >>>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >>>>> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of >>>>> the time in neutral contexts, >>>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >>>>> the first word).) >>>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>>>> novel words at much greater rates. >>>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>>> >>>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>> conditions?" >>>>> >>>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >>>>> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >>>>> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >>>>> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns >>>>> overgeneralize, right? >>>>> >>>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns >>>>> is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms >>>>> are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >>>>> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>>> >>>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>>>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>>> phenomenon. >>>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >>>>> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>>>> performance factors, right? >>>>> >>>>> Or even >>>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>>> language. >>>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >>>>> been observed. >>>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>>> exemplars. >>>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>>>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >>>>> show how it works. >>>>> >>>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >>>>> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >>>>> >>>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have >>>>> to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide >>>>> a range of types of data as possible. >>>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>>> data, in detail. >>>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >>>>> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >>>>> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that >>>>> aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >>>>> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >>>>> >>>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >>>>> has been used in the past. >>>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >>>>> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >>>>> theoretical mechanisms. >>>>> >>>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>>> working on theories of how human language works, including claims >>>>> about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>>>> >>>>> As should we all. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>>> Linguistics >>>>> UBC >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> john limber pravi: >>>>>> >>>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> “No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.” >>>>>> >>>>>> OK— try this—with references too! >>>>>> >>>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>>>> defense— frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>>>> conditional performance. >>>>>> >>>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>>>>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>>> >>>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>>>>> two to three year old children’s utterances I observed -- a lack >>>>>> of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>>> >>>>>> Did this mean these kids didn’t have the potential for those >>>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire—their linguistic >>>>>> competence? Here’s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)—which >>>>>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>>>>> pragmatics. >>>>>> >>>>>> “Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>>> involved in speech production. >>>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>>>>> complex subject NPs. Is >>>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>>>>> need complex subjects. An >>>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to >>>>>> conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything >>>>>> more than the nature of spontaneous speech.” >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up—one shaky >>>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>>>>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>>> >>>>>> Adult: “ Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>>>>> weird.” >>>>>> >>>>>> Child: “I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>>>>> doesn't want me to open it. “ >>>>>> >>>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>>>>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>>>>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> John Limber >>>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>>> Durham NH >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>>> >>>>>> Well these >>>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >> > > From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Thu Oct 18 00:02:56 2007 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:02:56 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <47169BD9.6040603@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: The interesting cases in chess are not ones in which experts violate the rules (exceedingly rare), but in which they violate their own standards of behavior (ie, fail to take into account his/her own stored representations), which is to say that blunders are (virtually by definition) cases in which performance deviates from competence. Here's a nice description from wikipedia: In chess, a blunder is a very bad move which is quickly recognised as a very bad move by the player who made it, typically before or directly after his opponent has made his reply move. They are usually caused by some oversight, whether from time pressure ..., overconfidence or carelessness. A theory of pure use would not allow for such a distinction; my only claim is that an adequate theory of psychology ought to. If there's further interest in this topic, I suggest we move it to a Google group. -- gfm On Oct 17, 2007, at 7:33 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > I'm sure one can come up with a well-articulated theory of > psychology that won't scare us all with the dark shadow of > behaviorism and still won't make an elementary mistake of > identifying the rules of chess with a player's playing skill. This > is what the competence/performance distinction is really about, > isn't it? The pure rules versus the impure human behaviour? > > Take note that even when a player is making a mistake, he is using > -- not terribly successfully -- his stored representation of the > game's rules and his cumulated playing strategies. Why would you > not see this as competence, I don't really understand. Stored > competence can be partial, full of holes, context-dependent -- in > fact, it is just (messy) potential for action, nothing more rule- > like than that. I'm sure you'll agree to that, at the least. > > Anat Ninio > > > Gary Marcus wrote: >> So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology >> in which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is >> behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 >> arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal >> representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory >> of how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how >> to do so coherently without a competence-performance distinction. >> >> Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish >> competence from performance per se does not commit one to any >> particular theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a >> nativist about the rules of chess to think that a competence- >> performance distinction applies -- and does useful work there >> (e.g., in distinguishing "blunders" from more considered >> miscalculations). >> >> When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is >> essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. >> >> -- gfm >> >> >> On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >> >>> I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption >>> that "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left >>> with the daunting challenge of inferring underlying >>> representations from surface behavior". Just imagine for a >>> minute that this rationalistic perception of psychology and >>> linguistics is in effect incorrect and misleading -- as well as >>> leading us to wasted decades of research on transformations, deep >>> structures, and innate parameters. There are other ways to look >>> at the organization of reality, and my only hope is that the next >>> generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will not repeat >>> the mistakes of the last one. >>> >>> Anat Ninio >>> Professor of Psychology >>> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem >>> >>> >>> >>> Gary Marcus wrote: >>>> >>>> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >>>> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the >>>> point of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and >>>> "spun" simply aren't on a par; people accept the latter as >>>> correct and ascribe the former to a mistake. >>>> >>>> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that >>>> in 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >>>> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever >>>> to treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this >>>> not as a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of >>>> language "ought to be", according to some self-appointed >>>> grammarian) but as a matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as >>>> a characterization of what speakers themselves believe. >>>> >>>> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum >>>> of 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient >>>> error from my general understanding of what would constitute a >>>> correct sum (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction >>>> gives us a theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; >>>> to say that 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have >>>> the 'competence' to utter either number") would be nothing more >>>> than sophistry. >>>> >>>> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have >>>> noted, have any number of difficulties, but most are >>>> methodological ("how can I tell which is which", a fact that >>>> will only reveal itself once we have properly carved nature at >>>> it joints), not theoretical. >>>> >>>> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with >>>> the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations >>>> from surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably >>>> succeed at that task without a firm understanding of the fact >>>> that the mapping between the two is often indirect: behavior is >>>> dictated not only by underlying representations but by a host of >>>> other factors. Inasmuch as the competence-performance >>>> distinction encapsulates that fundamental truth, it is a >>>> valuable tool that we cannot afford to dismiss. >>>> >>>> -- Gary Marcus >>>> Professor of Psychology >>>> New York University >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hello Everybody, >>>>> >>>>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>>>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>>>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as >>>>> a separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, >>>>> pure and simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the >>>>> time "spinned" instead of "spun", then they possess a >>>>> competence to do so. Competence is -- in plain English -- an a >>>>> priori stored potential or ability to produce some behaviour, >>>>> and any other treatment of it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at >>>>> best a mystification of the obvious. >>>>> >>>>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing >>>>> research and collect information on what people actually say, >>>>> whether children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying >>>>> that what we hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any >>>>> philosopher major in their first year would tell us how >>>>> confused the whole idea of competence/performance distinction is. >>>>> >>>>> The best, >>>>> >>>>> Anat Ninio >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>>>> Hello, everyone. >>>>>> >>>>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous >>>>>> speech and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion >>>>>> that there are outputs that are "correct" but that performance >>>>>> factors can lead to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean >>>>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere >>>>>> practical. >>>>>> >>>>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are >>>>>> missing two main points: >>>>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and >>>>>> what is performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish >>>>>> them, are largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>>>> performance. >>>>>> >>>>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>>> involved in speech production." >>>>>> >>>>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all >>>>>> acts of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long >>>>>> enough, and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates >>>>>> produce such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED >>>>>> (with rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about >>>>>> 25% of tokens.) >>>>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but >>>>>> every study has shown that such overregularizations are in the >>>>>> minority for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the >>>>>> beginning, and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of >>>>>> the verb is one of the predictors of error rate. >>>>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all >>>>>> ages. >>>>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>>>> >>>>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, >>>>>> instead of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such >>>>>> errors are easy to come by. >>>>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In >>>>>> that experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about >>>>>> 2% of the time in neutral contexts, >>>>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular >>>>>> in the first word).) >>>>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize >>>>>> to novel words at much greater rates. >>>>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>>>> >>>>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is >>>>>> but a subset of the language one might observe under such and >>>>>> such conditions?" >>>>>> >>>>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and >>>>>> encapsulates explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount >>>>>> for generalization, then competence contains such procedures >>>>>> for creating both regular and irregular forms, because both >>>>>> types of patterns overgeneralize, right? >>>>>> >>>>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular >>>>>> patterns is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that >>>>>> irregular forms are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns >>>>>> can occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that >>>>>> accept "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>>>> >>>>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to >>>>>> are simply stored in the lexicon. >>>>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>>>> phenomenon. >>>>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes >>>>>> more than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ >>>>>> difference to performance factors, right? >>>>>> >>>>>> Or even >>>>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>>>> language. >>>>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has >>>>>> ever been observed. >>>>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>>>> exemplars. >>>>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the >>>>>> proper bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my >>>>>> responsibility to show how it works. >>>>>> >>>>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof >>>>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us >>>>>> to that sort of system just as easily as it has led us >>>>>> anywhere else. >>>>>> >>>>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we >>>>>> have to work with performance data anyway, we want to work >>>>>> with as wide a range of types of data as possible. >>>>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>>>> data, in detail. >>>>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need >>>>>> to explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, >>>>>> which are due to performance, and why. And if there are >>>>>> aspects of data that aren't accounted for in detail, it means >>>>>> that we should be uncomfortable, because we need to account >>>>>> for it all. >>>>>> >>>>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance >>>>>> distinction has been used in the past. >>>>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using >>>>>> child language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between >>>>>> two theoretical mechanisms. >>>>>> >>>>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>>>> working on theories of how human language works, including >>>>>> claims about the fundamental orgainization of the language >>>>>> system. >>>>>> >>>>>> As should we all. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>>>> Linguistics >>>>>> UBC >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> john limber pravi: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> “No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence- >>>>>>> performance >>>>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.” >>>>>>> >>>>>>> OK— try this—with references too! >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly >>>>>>> needs defense— frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, >>>>>>> latent learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic >>>>>>> competence all are more or less scientific concepts designed >>>>>>> to variously explain conditional performance. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is >>>>>>> but a subset of the language one might observe under such and >>>>>>> such conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence >>>>>>> or similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands >>>>>>> of two to three year old children’s utterances I observed -- >>>>>>> a lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Did this mean these kids didn’t have the potential for those >>>>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire—their linguistic >>>>>>> competence? Here’s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)— >>>>>>> which curiously in connection with this current discussion, >>>>>>> involves pragmatics. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> “Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>>>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are >>>>>>> also involved in speech production. >>>>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not >>>>>>> use complex subject NPs. Is >>>>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do >>>>>>> not need complex subjects. An >>>>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant >>>>>>> to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects >>>>>>> anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech.” >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up—one shaky >>>>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from >>>>>>> my data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Adult: “ Well these buses that I've had today have been >>>>>>> really weird.” >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Child: “I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... >>>>>>> she doesn't want me to open it. “ >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. >>>>>>> Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of >>>>>>> Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>>>>>> Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>>>> JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>>>>>> pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>>> JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> John Limber >>>>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>>>> Durham NH >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Well these >>>>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Thu Oct 18 01:19:16 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:19:16 -0400 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the radar screen. This message summarized replies to a query about Baby Signs. I spent some time tracing the various web links involved and I would like to draw colleagues' attention to one issue in this research that troubles me. This is the status of a report by Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at www.babysigns.com and www.signingtime.com (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports speaks of a 12 point "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who are taught Baby Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, Mechthild's links also point to an article from the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andrée Durieux- Smith, and Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting that it provides no description of subject recruitment provedures, attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any pretesting. They conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range of baby signing products is not matched by good quality evidence that would reinforce manufacturers' claims." It is worth adding that the groups were already different when the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not as evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result of the initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been published in a journal. I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am also quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method for achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. However, I find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby Signs alone could achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several years of Head Start lead to nothing measurably permanent. I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies supporting these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about them. --Brian MacWhinney, CMU From cschutze at ucla.edu Thu Oct 18 03:06:53 2007 From: cschutze at ucla.edu (Carson Schutze) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:06:53 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: OK, in response to what Matthew suggests “is wrong with the C/P distinction”: ·      “In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a language seem inextricably bound” (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: “assuming that performance is based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects of competence” (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) This seems to be an argument against the idea that C and P are totally unconnected, do not interact, do not jointly influence behavior, or something like that. But to claim that they are logically distinct does not imply any of those other things, so this does not bear on the issue.  “performance factors” can always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall from children’s mouths. If they don’t fit the hypothesis under scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. I agree, as discussed in my previous posting. But this isn’t the fault of drawing the C/P distinction, this is the fault of insufficient research. ·      Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky’s) that is not to everyone’s taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland & Pine, in press). This is a total nonsequitur—see Gary’s posting. C/P has nothing to do with any particular account of grammar, even if both were written about by the same guy (who has repeatedly noted that he did not “propose” C/P since it’s always been around as an assumption, except perhaps for the Skinnerians). ·      One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be “an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and learning” (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. Another nonsequitur. In fact, in the earliest work on generative syntax (Logical Structures..., 1955) already incorporated degrees of “grammaticalness”, as Chomsky called it then, as do many versions of OT today (while still being models of grammar, not models of processing). ·      Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations like competence, since the latter “excludes aspects of linguistic performance that are .... central to the structure of utterances” (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds’ conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher).   Competence doesn’t exclude that or anything else, if it is systematic behavior (it does exclude blunders, as Gary says). I sense here some allusion to the passage in Aspects that talks about an “ideal speaker-hearer...”, but even on the ridiculous assumption that everyone working in this paradigm is bound by every word uttered by its de facto leader 40+ years ago, no such exclusion would follow. > Perhaps we should talk instead about two kinds of competence: one > concerned with linguistic >competence, the other with speech > production competence. At some level, therefore, it may be proper to > >acknowledge a split between competence and performance, or > competence in one domain from >competence in another. Right. Certainly Chomsky and everyone else I know would be content with positing grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence, for example (which does not preclude interactions between them, just like positing syntactic competence and phonological competence doesn’t preclude such interactions). It’s all about carving up the empirical pie (which is all behavior, hence performance, as I think we all agree) in a way that gives us the most scientifically appealing theories of each of the domains.    Carson   -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschutze at ucla.edu Thu Oct 18 03:18:20 2007 From: cschutze at ucla.edu (Carson Schutze) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:18:20 -0700 Subject: REPOST with formatting Message-ID: [SORRY, previous version lost the distinction between quoting and my replies, this will be easier to read.] OK, in response to what Matthew suggests “is wrong with the C/P distinction”: · “In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a language seem inextricably bound” (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: “assuming that performance is based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects of competence” (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) This seems to be an argument against the idea that C and P are totally unconnected, do not interact, do not jointly influence behavior, or something like that. But to claim that they are logically distinct does not imply any of those other things, so this does not bear on the issue. “performance factors” can always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall from children’s mouths. If they don’t fit the hypothesis under scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. I agree, as discussed in my previous posting. But this isn’t the fault of drawing the C/P distinction, this is the fault of insufficient research. · Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky’s) that is not to everyone’s taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland & Pine, in press). This is a total nonsequitur—see Gary’s posting. C/P has nothing to do with any particular account of grammar, even if both were written about by the same guy (who has repeatedly noted that he did not “propose” C/P since it’s always been around as an assumption, except perhaps for the Skinnerians). · One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be “an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and learning” (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. Another nonsequitur. In fact, in the earliest work on generative syntax (Logical Structures..., 1955) already incorporated degrees of “grammaticalness”, as Chomsky called it then, as do many versions of OT today (while still being models of grammar, not models of processing). · Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations like competence, since the latter “excludes aspects of linguistic performance that are .... central to the structure of utterances” (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds’ conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher). Competence doesn’t exclude that or anything else, if it is systematic behavior (it does exclude blunders, as Gary says). I sense here some allusion to the passage in Aspects that talks about an “ideal speaker-hearer...”, but even on the ridiculous assumption that everyone working in this paradigm is bound by every word uttered by its de facto leader 40+ years ago, no such exclusion would follow. > Perhaps we should talk instead about two kinds of competence: one > concerned with linguistic competence, the other with speech > production competence. At some level, therefore, it may be proper to > acknowledge a split between competence and performance, or > competence in one domain from competence in another. Right. Certainly Chomsky and everyone else I know would be content with positing grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence, for example (which does not preclude interactions between them, just like positing syntactic competence and phonological competence doesn’t preclude such interactions). It’s all about carving up the empirical pie (which is all behavior, hence performance, as I think we all agree) in a way that gives us the most scientifically appealing theories of each of the domains. Carson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From agwalker at cox.net Thu Oct 18 04:28:57 2007 From: agwalker at cox.net (Anne Graffam Walker) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:28:57 -0400 Subject: Please remove... Message-ID: ...me from this list. It's been lovely, but... Anne Graffam Walker, Ph.D. Forensic Linguist -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 18 05:00:26 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:00:26 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance Message-ID: I would suggest that anyone who claims there is no competence/performance distinction in language is being terribly unfair to Miss Teen USA, South Carolina http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Anat Ninio Sent: Wed 10/17/2007 1:33 PM To: Gary Marcus Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Competence vs. Performance: Summary I'm sure one can come up with a well-articulated theory of psychology that won't scare us all with the dark shadow of behaviorism and still won't make an elementary mistake of identifying the rules of chess with a player's playing skill. This is what the competence/performance distinction is really about, isn't it? The pure rules versus the impure human behaviour? Take note that even when a player is making a mistake, he is using -- not terribly successfully -- his stored representation of the game's rules and his cumulated playing strategies. Why would you not see this as competence, I don't really understand. Stored competence can be partial, full of holes, context-dependent -- in fact, it is just (messy) potential for action, nothing more rule-like than that. I'm sure you'll agree to that, at the least. Anat Ninio Gary Marcus wrote: > So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology in > which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is > behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 > arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal > representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory of > how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how to do so > coherently without a competence-performance distinction. > > Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish competence > from performance per se does not commit one to any particular > theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a nativist about > the rules of chess to think that a competence-performance distinction > applies -- and does useful work there (e.g., in distinguishing > "blunders" from more considered miscalculations). > > When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is > essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. > > -- gfm > > > On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > >> I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that >> "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >> surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this rationalistic >> perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect incorrect and >> misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades of research on >> transformations, deep structures, and innate parameters. There are >> other ways to look at the organization of reality, and my only hope >> is that the next generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will >> not repeat the mistakes of the last one. >> >> Anat Ninio >> Professor of Psychology >> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem >> >> >> >> Gary Marcus wrote: >>> >>> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >>> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point >>> of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply >>> aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the >>> former to a mistake. >>> >>> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in >>> 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >>> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to >>> treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as >>> a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language >>> "ought to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a >>> matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of >>> what speakers themselves believe. >>> >>> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of >>> 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error >>> from my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum >>> (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a >>> theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; to say that >>> 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' >>> to utter either number") would be nothing more than sophistry. >>> >>> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, >>> have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how >>> can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once >>> we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. >>> >>> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >>> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >>> surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that >>> task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping >>> between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by >>> underlying representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch >>> as the competence-performance distinction encapsulates that >>> fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to >>> dismiss. >>> >>> -- Gary Marcus >>> Professor of Psychology >>> New York University >>> >>> >>> >>> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >>> >>>> Hello Everybody, >>>> >>>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >>>> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and >>>> simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" >>>> instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. >>>> Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential >>>> or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of >>>> it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. >>>> >>>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research >>>> and collect information on what people actually say, whether >>>> children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we >>>> hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major >>>> in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of >>>> competence/performance distinction is. >>>> >>>> The best, >>>> >>>> Anat Ninio >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>>> Hello, everyone. >>>>> >>>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech >>>>> and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >>>>> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead >>>>> to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >>>>> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >>>>> >>>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >>>>> two main points: >>>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >>>>> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >>>>> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>>> performance. >>>>> >>>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>> involved in speech production." >>>>> >>>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >>>>> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >>>>> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >>>>> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >>>>> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >>>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>>>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >>>>> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, >>>>> and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one >>>>> of the predictors of error rate. >>>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>>> >>>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >>>>> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy >>>>> to come by. >>>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >>>>> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of >>>>> the time in neutral contexts, >>>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >>>>> the first word).) >>>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>>>> novel words at much greater rates. >>>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>>> >>>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>> conditions?" >>>>> >>>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >>>>> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >>>>> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >>>>> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns >>>>> overgeneralize, right? >>>>> >>>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns >>>>> is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms >>>>> are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >>>>> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>>> >>>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>>>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>>> phenomenon. >>>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >>>>> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>>>> performance factors, right? >>>>> >>>>> Or even >>>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>>> language. >>>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >>>>> been observed. >>>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>>> exemplars. >>>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>>>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >>>>> show how it works. >>>>> >>>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >>>>> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >>>>> >>>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have >>>>> to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide >>>>> a range of types of data as possible. >>>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>>> data, in detail. >>>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >>>>> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >>>>> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that >>>>> aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >>>>> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >>>>> >>>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >>>>> has been used in the past. >>>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >>>>> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >>>>> theoretical mechanisms. >>>>> >>>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>>> working on theories of how human language works, including claims >>>>> about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>>>> >>>>> As should we all. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>>> Linguistics >>>>> UBC >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> john limber pravi: >>>>>> >>>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> "No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references." >>>>>> >>>>>> OK- try this-with references too! >>>>>> >>>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>>>> defense- frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>>>> conditional performance. >>>>>> >>>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>>>>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>>> >>>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>>>>> two to three year old children's utterances I observed -- a lack >>>>>> of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>>> >>>>>> Did this mean these kids didn't have the potential for those >>>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire-their linguistic >>>>>> competence? Here's the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)-which >>>>>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>>>>> pragmatics. >>>>>> >>>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>>> involved in speech production. >>>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>>>>> complex subject NPs. Is >>>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>>>>> need complex subjects. An >>>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to >>>>>> conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything >>>>>> more than the nature of spontaneous speech." >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up-one shaky >>>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>>>>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>>> >>>>>> Adult: " Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>>>>> weird." >>>>>> >>>>>> Child: "I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>>>>> doesn't want me to open it. " >>>>>> >>>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>>>>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>>>>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>>>> > >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>>> > >>>>>> >>>>>> John Limber >>>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>>> Durham NH >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>>> >>>>>> Well these >>>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 18 05:28:22 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:28:22 -0400 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: We have a study that looked at this question for Mandarin double object constructions and tested whether there was a correlation either within or between semantic subclasses of verbs (basically there was a strong correlation within the semantic subclasses that allow DO constructions but not between classes or within classes that do not allow DO construction). The paper is reported in Chung and Gordon -- 2003 I believe. There is a copy of the paper on my website listed below if you click on the tab that says "Documents and Papers" Peter Gordon Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Henrietta Lempert Sent: Tue 10/16/2007 11:42 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mei.lin at newcastle.ac.uk Thu Oct 18 08:17:46 2007 From: mei.lin at newcastle.ac.uk (Mei Lin) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:17:46 +0100 Subject: Please take my name off the link Message-ID: Please take my name off the link. Thanks Mei From kathrin_schrader at gmx.de Thu Oct 18 09:27:07 2007 From: kathrin_schrader at gmx.de (Kathrin Schrader) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:27:07 +0200 Subject: please remove me from the list Message-ID: Please remove me from the list. Regards K. Schrader -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athena_seraf at hotmail.com Thu Oct 18 09:28:14 2007 From: athena_seraf at hotmail.com (athena serafeimidou) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:28:14 +0000 Subject: please remove me from the list In-Reply-To: <001601c81169$0d8e0a70$657b070a@BRAINWARE> Message-ID: Please, remove me from this list mama Athena baby Lydia http:/bf.lilypie.com/V5oAp3.png From: kathrin_schrader at gmx.deTo: info-childes at mail.talkbank.orgSubject: please remove me from the listDate: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:27:07 +0200 Please remove me from the list. Regards K. Schrader _________________________________________________________________ Explore the seven wonders of the world http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=7+wonders+world&mkt=en-US&form=QBRE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Thu Oct 18 10:27:16 2007 From: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk (r.n.campbell) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:27:16 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance In-Reply-To: Message-ID: While this is moderately amusing to those with a taste for schadenfreude, it is not data which forces adoption of a competence-performance distinction. Rather, this data strongly suggests that language ability is not any sort of uniform trait, and that language learning has fallen badly short here. Robin >I would suggest that anyone who claims there is no >competence/performance distinction in language is being terribly >unfair to Miss Teen USA, South Carolina > >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww > >Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 >Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia >University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: >(212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 -- Dr Robin N Campbell Dept of Psychology University of Stirling STIRLING FK9 4LA Scotland, UK telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From khirshpa at temple.edu Thu Oct 18 12:27:22 2007 From: khirshpa at temple.edu (Kathy Hirsh-Pasek) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:27:22 -0400 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points In-Reply-To: <8CC7F274-6378-4C04-A5DB-96282F3FE7D9@cmu.edu> Message-ID: Brian, I could not agree more and it is among many untested claims in the literature. In 2005, the Kaiser Foundation did a report about the claims made by many products that are simply unfounded in the literature. These claims have, however, fueled a 20 billion dollar educational toy industry so we must all be mindful of how we are represented outside the halls of academe. I was for example horrified by claims from toys suggesting that even 6 mo olds could learn 5 languages by pushing a series of buttons. On baby sign in particular, I have seen a number of tapes in which parents use baby sign with children and I am always heartened by the fact that they not only use sign, but also concurrently speak more to their children. Thus, the results of baby sign that are reported are not for sign alone. Further, parents who are more likely to buy the products and to use baby sign are most likely those who also want to communicate more with children. To the extent that more language input and language content boosts later IQ scores (not necessarily IQ but the scores), we have a potential mediator. I do not know of any definitive published evidence on the IQ difference though I know Linda Acredolo has a number of papers on the effects. Even in those papers, I wonder about selection bias and the fact that sign is accompanied by oral language. A final note, is that I actually like the baby sign approach used by Acredolo and Goodwyn and I think the product is a good one. Other baby sign approaches claim to teach "sign language" and that could not be farther from the truth (unless of course knowing a few signs from ASL is the same as learning the language). More work needs to be done in this area given that it has captured the imagination of parents and teachers. kathy On Oct 17, 2007, at 9:19 PM, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was > an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the > radar screen. This message summarized replies to a query about > Baby Signs. I spent some time tracing the various web links > involved and I would like to draw colleagues' attention to one > issue in this research that troubles me. This is the status of a > report by Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at > www.babysigns.com and www.signingtime.com > (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports speaks of a 12 point > "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who are taught Baby > Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, Mechthild's links > also point to an article from the Canadian Language and Literacy > Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andrée Durieux-Smith, and > Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting > that it provides no description of subject recruitment provedures, > attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any pretesting. They > conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range of baby > signing products is not matched by good quality evidence that would > reinforce manufacturers' claims." > It is worth adding that the groups were already different > when the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not > as evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result > of the initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was > presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been > published in a journal. > I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I > certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am > also quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method > for achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. > However, I find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby > Signs alone could achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several > years of Head Start lead to nothing measurably permanent. > I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims > with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies > supporting these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about > them. > > --Brian MacWhinney, CMU From kohne005 at umn.edu Thu Oct 18 13:00:05 2007 From: kohne005 at umn.edu (Kathryn Kohnert) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:00:05 -0500 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Henrietta- I forwarded your question to Pui Fong Kan and pasted below is here response. Best, Kathryn FROM PUI FONG KAN: There are two books about Cantonese & Mandarin grammar that you might find useful -- Cantonese : a comprehensive grammar by Stephen Matthews Mandarin Chinese : a functional reference grammar by Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson My thoughts (as a Cantonese & Mandarin speaker) about the questions --- 1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are based on Pinker, 1989), Cantonese: PD? DO? Mandarin: PD? DO? 2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) Cantonese: PD? DO? Mandarin: PD? DO? # 1 & 2 Different datives are used in Cantonese & Mandarin. But basically they are used in the same position in a sentence in both languages. Both PD & DO are possible in both languages. #2 involves a word for the future. 3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. Cantonese: PD? DO? Mandarin: PD? DO? # 3 Differences in Cantonese & Mandarin Mandarin -- both PD & DO Cantonese -- PD (It would be awkward using DO.) 4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and Mandarin? Chinese versus English? #4 Basically the agentive passives are very similar in Cantonese & Mandarin. Passive constructions are quite different between Chinese and English. For more information about the differences between the passive constructions in Chinese and in English, see http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/corplang/LCMC/ www.lancs.ac.uk/postgrad/xiaoz/papers/passive%20paper.doc Pui Fong Kan (kanx0004 at umn.edu) Doctoral Candidate Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences University of Minnesota www.ccsl.umn.edu -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Henrietta Lempert Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 4:42 PM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From aananda at stanford.edu Thu Oct 18 15:23:12 2007 From: aananda at stanford.edu (Bruno Estigarribia) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:23:12 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Hello all, Of necessity a short contribution: I am abroad (still have to read tom´s reference on Superiority to have an opinion on that too... does the day have 25 hours anywhere on the globe?) > > > > As usual, we find signs of Wheel Reinvention, starting with the well > known >fact that competence-performance was inspired by Saussure's > (1916/1974) >notions of langue and parole. Misinspired if anything, and still often misquoted. For Saussure, LANGUE is a social phenomenon that does not reside in the individual but as a set/network of conventions. He explicitly said (or his students, rather) that no individual possesses LANGUE. So it CANNOT be competence, which fully resides, in Chomskyan linguistics, in the brain of the individual. Competence, in my view, has little to do with langue. The only thing that Chomsky maintained from Saussure was that some dichotomy might be useful... Bruno From wexler at MIT.EDU Thu Oct 18 16:06:27 2007 From: wexler at MIT.EDU (Ken Wexler) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:06:27 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Friends, Sigh. Every bone in my body says to not reply to this discussion, generated in emotion, and so often (certainly not uniformly) lacking factual basis and reasoned discourse, especially whenever people start discussing Noam Chomsky. The question of the current influence and legacy of Noam Chomsky, the man whose influence is felt in every corner of the scientific study of language today (and much of cognitive science more generally), is just silly, and that issue doesn't need me to comment on it. But the attack on the field of language acquisition, while equally without basis, equally non-factual and non-reasoned, might confuse students. I know that those around in the 1970's, who reacted strongly to the approach of generative (i.e. scientific) grammar, who are still making the same false or irrelevant claims today, will not be convinced by empirical reality and logical argumentation. But I worry about the students, or the younger researchers and professors. Are they confused by all this? Do they really think that it's true that the field of language acquisition is so bad? That it hasn't achieved significant results? That its methodology is mostly bad? That is hasn't made inroads and helped to influence the course of the study of language disabilities? That it ignores pragmatics and processing? It wasn't my impression that anybody could possibly believe these false claims. It's true that most of the responders (like me) don't seem particularly young. Nevertheless, it might be worth a reply for the young people. Finally, reading John Limber's rational, common-sensical and calm reply tipped the balance for me. (Since then there have been other reasonable responses, including Carson Schutze's and Gary Marcus.") It might be useful to say something. So this is for the young people who don't know the field. Welcome to the field. I apologize that this will have to go on at some length. I'll only mention a few of the responses, and touch on a few of the issues. Mostly I'd like to defend the field of language acquisition and to discuss its current status. I'll also take a shot at trying to figure out why all the emotion and false beliefs. On the competence/performance distinction, as John and some others point out, it is inescapable, if one is to do serious scientific work. A summary of the discussion said there were no defenders of the distinction. (Since I wrote most of this, others have come forth). That can only be because the assumption is so wide-spread and basic, so crucial to advancements in the field, that by far most actual workers in the field find it inconceivable for the most part to question it and just find the question non-productive (I'll discuss exceptions soon). We should look at questions like this in a wider scientific context. The competence/performance distinction isn't just something used in the study of language. It is basic to modern cognitive science. Possibly the clearest general statement of the foundational view on this is in the work of the great late vision scientist David Marr (for whom the Marr Prize for best student paper in the (US) Cognitive Science Society is named.) I suggest the first chapter of his book for background reading on this issue, with his very clear analogy to a cash register. Marr argued that to study completely any cognitive system, 4 levels of analysis were necessary. The theory of the computation, the representational level, the algorithmic level and the implementational (for humans, this is the biological) level. The theory of the computation was a necessary part. Marr explicitly (in other papers, too, in a somewhat detailed manner) pointed out that the theory of the computation was like linguistic theory. The representational theory is obvious - what are the types of representations? A given computational theory might have different representational types. The algorithmic level is similar to what we usually call the "processing" theory, and the implementational level is the biological, physical instantiation (for a computer silicon, etc.). Both linguistic theory and the sub-field called language acquisition are constantly discussing all of these levels. If more progress has been made on the higher levels, so that less (but not nothing) is known about biological implementation, this is probably due to the difficulty of the field, especially the experimental difficulty given that we are working with humans. We can't for good ethical reason do the obvious experiments. But it was inconceivable to Marr and to much of modern cognitive science that there would be no theory of the computation. One might think of the competence/performance distinction, in these somewhat more detailed terms, as Marr's distinction between the computational level and the algorithmic level. So it's true that most of the contemporary field of language acquisition works within such a framework, and major advances have been made, in my opinion. (I'll return to this). O.k., so let's consider alternatives. What actually occurring approach has denied this distinction, and how has that approach fared? Well, behaviorism denies the approach. For, say, Skinner, there was no such distinction. How has Skinner fared in explaining acquisition phenomena, in generating empirical research on language acquisition, etc.? Surely no answer from me is required. In a more contemporary manner, an approach that's often called "Connectionism" also usually (not always, I think) denies the distinction. So that, for example, theories of "Distributed Learning" attempt to explain phenomena by a model that is supposed to be somewhat related to a model of neurons working together (though with serious deviations from the real biology very often) and "learning" different weights, and this was supposed to explain phenomena without appealing to a competence/performance distinction. This approach was quite active in cognitive science for, what, 25 years? It attempted to replace the original cognitive science approach that was consistent with Marr's analysis. Obviously this isn't the place to summarize the achievements of this approach, and I am not expert enough to do that anyway. But let me give my impressions. First, is this the approach that the critics of language acquisition, Dan Slobin, Robin Campbell, have in mind? Is this what they're pushing? I don't THINK it is, but if it isn't, what approach do they actually have in mind? What serious progress has been made using an approach that doesn't include the distinction? Second, and this is only impressionistic and anecdotal, but I do have the impression that Connectionism in this strong form is pretty much dying away. Because it didn't work well enough. (I'll return to what might be replacing it). I have the impression that many major figures in Psychology who adopted this approach to learning for a long time, are feeling it hasn't succeeded well enough, and are looking for an alternative (I think I know what that alternative is, and will discuss it soon). Please remember that I am trained (as a grad student) in experimental psychology and mathematical psychology, work in Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT where there are many cognitive scientists, and know many of the senior figures, in some cases having gone to grad school with them. On the basis of this experience, I see a less active push for replacing representational approaches completely by connectionist modeling. I could be wrong, and it's not a necessary point, but that's my impression. In fact, what is replacing the hope of the learning theorists, as opposed to Connectionism? It seems to be Bayesian inference. Most of the learning theory energy, including "statistical" learning theory seems to be focused around that type of model. But, of course, Bayesian inference is completely compatible with Marr's analysis, it in fact finds it necessary. There must be a set of "hypotheses" that are considered and selected via the learning mechanism (Bayes' Rule, in some computational form). Thus the work of my colleague Josh Tennenbaum is completely compatible with these notions. I can't imagine how such an approach would attempt to get rid of the distinction between performance/processing and competence. Or consider the statistical approach of Charles Yang, PHD computer science at MIT, now at Yale, who uses a kind of statistical learning theory to help to explain how grammars are selected. Obviously such an approach uses the competence/performance distinction. It goes without saying that the classic mathematical learning/learnability theory for language, what's been called "learnability theory", a field I played some role in, e.g. my (w/ Hamburger and Culicover) "Degree-2 Theory") assumes the approach. It too used some statistical considerations. Its culminating Theory 9 of chapter 4 proved learnability in the limit with probability 1. But it didn't deny the crucial distinction between competence and performance. Or how about computational approaches to parameter-setting? Gibson and Wexler (was it in Language? I think Linguistic Inquiry). The distinction was there. But then how about some of the responses that argued against their approach and for other ways of learning, think Elan Dresher on cue theory or Janet Fodor on her version of cue theory. Ditto, they would use the competence/performance distinction. The point being that serious computational/mathematical approaches to language acquisition use this distinction, it's natural for them. And hard to find much that doesn't. A few attempts at small problems in connectionism, yes, but not a serious sustained attack on learnability. My point is not to argue for any particular approach, rather to show the great usefulness of the distinction for those who have serious interests in learning. Language is the cognitive system par excellence in which to study learning because there are so obviously events of learning; there is cross-linguistic variation, so there must be these effects of experience. It is harder to maintain for sure in other cognitive systems that they have any serious learning component, at least it is a more subtle question. In language it is obvious. That is why we have such serious attempts to study learning. There are lots of reasons to say that to date the attempts are inadequate, but I know of no reason to think that the distinction of competence and performance is a problem rather than a help. These are the kinds of learning theories that people actually work on and produce results with (not good enough yet, it should go without saying). In summary, actual computational theories of learning, using statistical and other information, have traditionally assumed the competence/performance distinction and seem to be mostly doing so today. The attempt to do without such a distinction led to limited results that seem to not really be useful for the underlying problem. (Note that this is not to say that neural models couldn't be useful; they might in principle be quite useful for helping to explain one level of the puzzle). I suspect that these arguments about what actually happens in computational learning theory might miss the point of what's bothering some of the critics. They don't actually work in learning theory and probably don't much like computational/formal considerations, so I suspect that actually bringing up real models under discussion won't convince them. But if anybody is interested in a clear analysis of the actual problem of language learning, and wants to know how learning theory works, real models should be under discussion. I note a resurgence in attempts at computational models of learning grammar, for those parts that must be learned. This is welcome. The competence/performance distinction is fundamental to these approaches. Third, most approaches that didn't assume the competence/performance distinction didn't actually explain any real empirical phenomena in development. It is amazing how many papers have been published arguing that there was only one level, more or less the neural-network level, and that all of language was "learned" and provided as the only empirical basis some experiment on adults. The crucial empirical data of , say, grammatical development weren't discussed. It's not as if there aren't quite a few quite significant, quite reliable and general data (I'll return to this). But these were simply roundly ignored and mostly the claims were made on the basis of a few studies with college sophomores. Those of you interested in language development, are you satisfied with this? Possibly the largest exception was the well-known debate on what explains past tense overregularization by young children, did one need a representational theory or was connectionism enough? Some empirical developmental data came under discussion, even by the connectionist camp. I won't get into the details of this difficult discussion, and one that I'm not an expert on, but only point out that it's a terribly small and non-representative part of the language acquisition problem. It just doesn't cut it, with the wide range of general phenomena that are understood, to discuss a very small part of the problem and believe that that provides a general answer. Nevertheless, at least in this discussion, some developmental data were actually used by the connectionists. But the harder problems, the ones that are more obviously difficult to account for via "frequency" arguments, weren't touched. In summary, connectionist approaches didn't take over the field, didn't make contact with most of the problems, didn't make contact with most of the important empirical results concerning linguistic development and possibly are of waning interest today even to the practitioners. (All of this independent of the question of whether neural models are useful. Why shouldn't they be?) But I must admit, I don't THINK this is what people like Dan Slobin and Robin Campbell have in mind, anyway. But since there was a very active movement to pursue this line of thought, denying the competence/performance distinction, and since it was the most active field that I know of working on learning and pursuing the lack of a distinction and where it went, I thought it deserved some attention. Joe Stemberger writes "that the exact division between what is competence and what is performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are largely unknown after more than 40 years". Of course, the "exact division" is not known ahead of time, and "criteria" aren't something that's completely given. What is competence and what is performance is an empirical matter, a matter that can and should be studied empirically. That's how it works in cognitive science; why shouldn't it work that way in the sub-branch called language acquisition? Criteria are "known" as a question of theory and experiment, and we do have a good idea about them, without a lot of disagreement. Thus "memory" considerations are called "performance" and "knowledge" considerations are called "competence." Of course, which phenomena are which is a matter for the field to decide empirically. That's the way science works, that's the way it's done in the study of vision, or of cognitive development, etc. that's what Marr of course would have envisioned. Let's take a real example of how empirical issues can be used to argue for competence versus performance, an example well known in the field, even classic. (John Limber has already given one, here's another one). On the basis of empirical studies of child speech, Nina Hyams proposed that children mis-set the null-subject parameter, thus explaining the frequent lack of subjects in child speech in English. Her theory thus was a matter of knowledge; she hypothesized that children (some age before 3) had the wrong (i.e. non-adult) knowledge about English. This is competence, all agree, I would think. (This doesn't imply that the reason for the lack of knowledge isn't performance, it might be, but that's another issue). Now, in the first language acquisition class I taught at MIT, Paul Bloom heard me lecture on this, and thought it was wrong. He thought that it was more likely that kids omitted subjects because of some kind of memory bottleneck. Paul thought, and all agreed, so far as I know, that if the productions with missing null subjects were explained as a production problem due to a certain kind of memory bottleneck, the explanation would be that kids at this age had a performance limitation. So far as I know, there is no dispute that memory bottlenecks are performance and parameter values are competence. Both sides in the controversy over which is correct agreed on this. The issue was, what is the true, empirically true, explanation of the missing subjects? It wasn't a dispute over whether there is such a thing as competence and performance; both sides agreed with this rational foundation for the field. To his great credit, Paul didn't just say oh, it must be performance, it must be memory. Rather he developed a model that would explain the subject omission as a matter of memory, and made predictions from that model, relating VP size to rate of subject omission and use of pronominal versus lexical subjects. He argued that his memory bottleneck model could predict this data and that the missing competence theory in this case couldn't predict the data. Thus he made an empirical argument that missing subjects in children were a matter of performance. I wasn't convinced by this argument. And it wasn't because I thought all explanations of child behavior must involve competence; after all, it was a traditional argument for many non-adult phenomena that it was a performance limitation that explained them. That's one of the motivations, presumably, for Paul's analysis. He wanted to maintain that kids had the correct knowledge, thus it had to be performance that explained the facts. But I didn't simply state that we know it's competence, how could one state that? So I kept thinking about it, as did Nina Hyams, and we realized that the memory model that Paul came up with actually gave the wrong predictions, especially if one expanded the data base and looked at the pronominal/empty subject trade-off and how it changed as kids grew older. We also made an attempt to explain Paul's observations. On the basis of these empirical data, Nina and I wrote a paper arguing that in fact the subject omissions were due to a grammatical process, that it was indeed competence. I've left out all the interesting details. The interested reader can find both papers in Linguistic Inquiry, as well as another reply from Paul. I also believe that further research has pretty clearly demonstrated that null-subjects in non-null-subject languages in kids are due to a grammatical process, although not Hyams' original analysis (something to which she agrees). Thus the great prevalence of null subjects in other child languages with Optional Infinitives as opposed to finite utterances (though not exclusively, a fact that must be explained) argues in favor of the null subjects being allowed because infinitivals typically take null subjects. This was the hypothesis I came up with on the basis of much research on Optional Infinitives and null subjects. Both Hyams' original assumption about a mis-set parameter and my proposal that most null-subjects are due to the infinitival nature of the verb (given the fact that infinitivals typically take null-subjects) are claims that it is competence that is predicting the null-subjects in kids. My point here is not to argue for a particular model; there is a huge and fascinating array of work on the topic, and although it's pretty clear that the consensus among most of those who actually work on the topic is that it is a grammatical phenomenon, based on all this empirical data, my point is simply to point out that it's an empirical issue, to which all who actually work on the topic agree. The empirical point of view works. In general empirical results should rule, I'm a great empiricist in this regard, and believe that all the complaining people do isn't based on empirical reasoning. Just look at Robin's original complain or Dan's response.. They are simply ignoring the empirical results and telling us what they'd like to see. Think of what several of the critics have said, that work should proceed, e.g. Anant Ninio write, "I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research and collect information on what people actually say." Calls for doing research, in a new paradigm (what is that paradigm?). The field as it exists, the generative-based field, has a large numbers of results, real analysis and real empirical results, and something to learn as one thinks about research. Yes, it's work, but doing science is work. Isn't this the way to begin research in language acquisition? If, 50 years after the modern founding of the field, the anti competence/performance people are calling for rolling up our sleeves and doing some research in the new framework (what is it?), shouldn't it be thought that this framework, whatever it is, doesn't easily allow work to proceed? Let's see some examples first, then we can discuss whether it's possible to have a non-behaviorist formulation of a science without the relevant distinctions, as Anant Ninio claims is possible, without telling us what it is. Gary Marcus rightly points out that this is, be definition, behaviorism, and Carson Schutze points out that sometimes we model the competence/performance distinction by analogy to other distinctions that we agree on. We can't do tremendously better than that until we have better performance models, but it is something the field works on. And very often the distinctions are perfectly clear enough as in the null subject example I have discussed. Performance or competence for any particular phenomenon? An empirical issue. End of story. The rest is in the details. Putting aside the competence/performance distinction, what I was most bothered about in this discussion were the statements that language acquisition is in bad shape, hasn't progressed far enough, has far too small sample sizes (really? Always?). Anybody who actually knows, say, the generative-grammar based field of language acquisition knows that, although sometimes methodological critiques apply, there are also excellent studies, from a methodological point of view. In fact, I think it straightforward to maintain that the increase in generative grammar based studies in acquisition greatly increased the empirical and quantitative sophistication of these studies. Pre-generative studies all too often based their empirical findings on an observed example, with no idea how general it was. Consider, for example, Dan's Slobin important series of edited books on cross-linguistic acquisition. I think this is a valuable contribution, and a work I often turn to when I know nothing about a language and especially, when there are no more detailed studies available. Much of the contributions base their arguments on observations of examples, without serious quantitative study. This is definitely doesn't apply to every page of the books, or every author, and I don't want to tar all the contributions with the same brush. But it's often a frustrating book to read because one doesn't really know what the empirical facts are after reading the book. (Nevertheless, often valuable). Now, let's look at one of the results about early acquisition that has come out of the generative-based literature. Consider the Optional Infinitive stage, say before 3 or so (depends on which language and which phenomenon, the details are studied). Consider the verb second languages like German or Dutch. The empirical generalization is that kids at a young age in this language often produce non-finite main verbs (completely different from what adults typically do; adults do this only occasionally, for special semantic purposes, exhortatives and so on). But in German or Dutch, when the kid produces a finite verb it strongly tends to be in second position; when the kid produces a (ungrammatical for most part, in adult language) non-finite root verb, it strongly tends to be in final position. Care is taken to make sure that we can tell for sure; there must be 3 constituents available for analysis so that we know if it's 2nd or final. When Poeppel and I (Language) published our first (German) study on this, there was one kid's data analyzed. Tremendously small, as we of course knew then. But the data was close to perfect; it wasn't a question of a statistical tendency, rather there were only a small number of observations in the "off-diagonals." So this data is very regular, in all studies, so far as I know. What the data looks like, I argued, is more like psychophysical data. We got a large amount of data on one child (though much smaller than in later studies) and analyzed the heck out of it and showed regular results. This is typically how the field of psychophysics works, 1, or 2 or 3 subjects. It's because of the regularity of the data. Nevertheless, we knew that it wasn't enough, because we had to make sure that we didn't have an unusual kid. The field progressed by studying large numbers of kids and analyzing the heck out of their data. So, Jeannette Schaeffer, Gerard Bol and I produced a study of TD (typically developing) and SLI (Specific Language Impairment) kids in Dutch, at the appropriate ages)published in Syntax a couple of years ago, based on data Bol had collected years ago. If I recall, we had 40 TD kids in the sample, 20 SLI kids. There were thousands of TD utterances over all. And plenty of Optional Infinitives (we measured the rate as a function of age, see the paper). The finiteness/word order correlation (finite in 2nd position, non-finite in final) was almost perfect, something like 1% off-diagonal observations, out of a few thousand TD utterances. (Perhaps 2,000? Doing this from memory; see the paper). Remarkably regular results. For the most part this phenomenon hadn't been studied in pre-generative times and surprised everybody. Certainly the beauty and regularity of the empirical phenomena weren't known. And certainly there were no studies of the quantitative detail of this type of study. (For another example, see Amy Pierce's book (first an MIT dissertation) of the pas ('not') verb versus verb pas correlation depending on finite or non-finite verb. Her work used Patsy Lightbown's data, Patsy having been a student of Lois Bloom. And analyzed the heck out of the data. Lois of course claims that MIT people are only interested in "theory" and not empirical results, a total falsehood, based on ignoring study after study, experiment after experiment, paper after paper. This is another of those 1970's falsehoods, repeated as if it were still then, as I say false even then, way before I was at MIT, ignoring for example, the important early founding book of modern experimental psycholinguistics, including acquisition and processing, by Fodor, Bever and Katz. Urban myths die hard, especially when there are those interested in perpetuating them. (While I am at it, Dan Slobin, surely you know better. This is 2007. You were disappointed in the lack of semantics in generative grammar? You have GOT to be kidding. There is a HUGE and important study of semantics in generative grammar, at MIT and many, many other places. In fact, it's clear that the generative approach is the dominant approach to semantics. There's hardly anything else, so far as I know. How could it be otherwise, since generative mostly means "scientific, explicit"? Dan, what you must be saying is that you must have a hunch there is another approach to semantics, what else could you be saying. But semanticists don't think so, almost completely.). Back to the empirical situation of modern day language acquisition, generative based language acquisition. These results on finiteness versus word order are just the beginning, there are many, many other results, quite regular, quite known in many cases. They are very important to understand and explain and are the basis for some fields of language acquisition. The methodology is excellent, the transcripts and observations are done (in most cases) with care, the amount of data is huge by the standards of many other parts of psychology, and the regularity of the results exceeds almost everything I know in cognitive science (with the exception of some fields of perception), more than anything else in what we call higher level cognition. Brian, you want bigger sample sizes? So provide them. THESE studies often have larger sample sizes, and of course, the bigger the better. But we have regular results. I suspect that what some people who are complaining don't like is that we have been so successful; the empirical data are quantitative and regular, the theories are explicit, the number of people wanting to study this stuff and do it is large. We are thriving. What's the problem? Could it be better? Surely. I'm constantly complaining, because I want us to be better. But evaluate us poorly in comparison to other parts of psychology? Surely you are jesting. (See my "Lenneberg's Dream" where I say that this part, at least, of language acquisition has the "smell of science" and that the data feel more like chemistry than like psychology). Good psychologists, in cognitive development for example, by the way, share my belief in the wondrousness of our field's data; they only wish they had data like that. At least the ones who know about it. There are many, many more things that aren't known than are known. There are major puzzles. There are lots of parts of the field where the data isn't regular and we're puzzled. But the field keeps attempting to increase its empirical knowledge base, doing better and better, while always paying attention to theoretical questions. How else could science work? This is true in the more experimental as well as naturalistic data side, too. We have a much better idea of the time course of development of, oh I don't know, many things, say verbal passive in English in the work of Christopher Hirsch and myself (there are many other examples, I'm just thinking locally for speed). Much of this work started with observations of people who weren't particularly explicitly generative but who used some ideas about language that linguists study. To take one example (besides passive), the development of the semantics of determiners got a major start in the important experiments of Mike Maratsos and Annette Karmiloff-Smith. Neither a friend of generative grammar, but both speaking in a language that is familiar to those who study the semantics of determiners in generative grammar. Are the slow developments, the errors, syntactic or semantic or pragmatic or performance-based? These are important questions, approached in a very active discussion including people who are generative-grammar based. The "egocentric" theory has a place, and there are challenges. But this is just science. Go to the BU meeting, say, and you'll find active debate and new experiments. One of the complaints in the postings is that "generative" approaches somehow exclude pragmatic considerations. How could this possibly be believed by anybody who knows anything of the field? My great semantics/pragmatics colleague Irene Heim has co-taught some seminars in acquisition with me in recent years. Her famous and classic work on reference one might think of as being more pragmatic than semantic (obviously it is both). We (the field) are constantly talking about pragmatic considerations in development. Look back at the Principle B acquisition related to pragmatic deficiency work I spent so many years doing, and its relation to say, pragmatic difficulties in the development of determiners that Sergey Avrutin and I brought forth, and to Sergey's major continuation and expansion of lines of research relating to discourse and pragmatics. Or the debate between Tanya Reinhart and Yossi Grodzinsky on the one hand, versus me (and Rozz Thornton sometimes) on the other hand, on the Principle B pronoun errors. I think it's a pragmatic problem, they think it's a processing problem. Yes, these can be distinguished in principle, though it is hard work trying to find distinct empirical predictions. It is an important thing to work on though. It's not so important as to who is right (though clearly we want to know the answer). But what is crucial is the scientific attempt to find empirical phenomena to distinguish hypotheses. Or consider a paper Jeannette Schaeffer wrote attempting to understand whether a certain SLI phenomenon was pragmatic or syntactic, i.e. where the deficiency was. The point again, was that it was an empirical issue. There is so much else in pragmatic development that has been done and is being done. How about the very nice beginning (at least) literature on scalar implicature? The contributions from Penn, lots of on-going work, including theoretical considerations from Danny Fox about pragmatic versus syntactic contributions. Or how about Stephen Crain's pretty current experiments showing that kids at a certain age know what is usually taken to be the "semantic" definition of "or" (inclusionary) and understand the usual exclusionary interpretation as a scalar implicature, a pragmatic effect? One can go on and on. Probably there is less so far in pragmatics than in syntax in development, but it just needs people to work on it. No issue in principle, hard to see what it could be. Somebody claimed the field was missing an opportunity to say something about language impairment. Are you kidding? Do you know about the field of language impairment and how work has proceeded? Do you know about the generative-based papers in the major journal (American, at any rate) in the field, the Journal of Speech, Hearing and Language Impairment? Do you knot know about the major role of Rice and my Extended Optional Infinitive phenomenon (based on the TD work I've briefly described) in this journal and this field. (Rice is a Professor of Speech, an expert on SLI). Of course, some people might want to question that hypothesis, and you find other experts on SLI, professors of speech, e.g. Larry Leonard, who argue that the OI phenomenon isn't enough, perhaps in some cases wrong, though more of what he says agrees with it than disagrees with it. I think it's still right as a major phenomenon in English, the data mostly corroborate it, and Leonard misses the wonderful explanations that the field has produced for e.g. why English has more OI's than Dutch does (see the paper in Syntax by Schaeffer, Bol and me that I referred to previously). Leonard, too, uses some aspects of generative grammar. Thus the most important move in the study of SLI, in my opinion, is the large extent to which generative grammar based developmental results are under discussion; this is not the place to argue for a particular theory, though I have in many papers in the impairment literature. Or consider Alex Perovic and my paper that just appeared in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics on certain grammatical phenomena in Williams syndrome (raising and binding). Generative grammar based empirical language development results have had a major impact on the study of language impairment, and many people in the speech community welcome these results. At the same time, what has been discovered in the speech/impairment community has greatly helped us in our attempt to study TD language development in the generative framework. What has really happened over the last 15 years or so is the way we're cooperating, across fields. One other exciting example. Bishop, Adams and Norbury recently published in a genetics journal an exciting behavioral genetic study. They looked at various measures of language impairment in a large sample of identical and fraternal children with language impairment, identified at age 4, tested at 6. They used standardized tests, test of phonological working memory (non-word repetition (NWR), vocabulary, and a pre-publication version of the standard test on finiteness (based on all those years of research I and the field did on the optional infinitive stage plus our own impairment research) that Rice and I have now published (TEGI). Results? Amazing. Finiteness, measured by TEGI, had, if I recall, the largest heritability component, mostly inherited. NWR was also very much inherited. Vocabulary very little inherited, as makes sense. Furthermore, in a major move, they did a DeFries-Fulker analysis that shows that the genetic source of finiteness was mostly independent of the genetic source of phonological working memory (NWR). Conclusion; most likely there are separate genetic systems for these 2 disabilities. This very much helps to explain why some scientists get different results. There are probably at least 2 (not necessarily a huge number) of types of language impairment, one due to limited phonological working memory, one due to grammatical deficiency. This helps to explain a mystery, how could phonological working memory deficiency explain the detailed grammatical phenomena we know to occur in SLI? E.g. lots of OI's with, for the most part, correct agreement, correct setting of parameters (as in SLI in Dutch, see e.g. the paper from Syntax above). To Bishop's great credit she published these results and drew, albeit reluctantly, the correct empirical conclusions. Reluctantly because she has mostly thought that one general purpose psychological mechanism, like phonological working memory, could explain SLI. These results make it look as if some grammatical phenomena independent of this could explain parts of SLI. Bishop has not identified herself as part of the generative tradition and probably feels skeptical. But the empirical results point in that direction. Remarkable results. We should always be aware of the possibility that the finiteness results depend on something else, but we don't know what, and there are no proposals. (More precisely, there are computational level proposals, in particular my Unique Checking Constraint). We know that they DON'T depend on phonological working memory, both from earlier TD work and from this genetic research. Wow! Doesn't that excite you? We are moving in on a genetics of language, some of which is related to linguistic structures. Look at the history of how this happened and what it says about how serious cooperation between fields and approaches, taking the issues seriously, can lead to results. I was lecturing in my first grad class at MIT around 1988 or 1989. I had described how some kinds of movement relations (A-chains) appear to be late (Borer and my hypothesis) in acquisition. Recently some work had appeared in syntax by Jean-Yves Pollack in French, building on earlier observations of Joe Emonds, concerning verb movement. This was not A-movement. I knew of no related acquisition research, and openly speculated on the question of whether young kids knew this type of movement, verb movement, giving the example of French verb finiteness and the order of pas, basing this suggestion on Pollack's papers. I guessed we wouldn't easily be able to observe the relevant phenomena, because (as John Limber and others have noted), subordinate clauses aren't there at the beginning. Amy Pierce, then a grad student, was in the class, as was Juergen Weissenborn, who was visiting MIT from Germany. They both went out and looked at data on French they had, and they both confirmed early knowledge of verb movement, the relation w/ pas. How could this be, I asked? Where were they observing infinitives? Well, Amy said, they're actually giving non-finite verbs in root position. So empirical results in acquisition (about passives and so-on), developmental theory (Borer and my work) and a new syntactic idea (Pollack) led to all this new work, up to then only in TD. Then, of course, we expanded out to all sorts of language in my lab, and the OI stage was born. Others joined in, and we found some hints in earlier research too. Mabel Rice asked me what I thought of SLI, and how that could exist, hearing me talk, came to spend a semester in the lab, and we decided to investigate SLI together. Ultimately we developed a standardized test. Dorothy Bishop, students and colleagues used this in behavioral genetic research, presumably not caring much about syntax, but syntax, empirical developmental work on TD, and many other fields went into the background for all this. This is how science works, by cooperation, by keeping an open mind, a rational mind, by not simply expressing emotion about how the field MUST be, but by calmly doing experiment and theory, making errors, correcting them. We are on the road to a genetics of language and hopefully much more, and the competence/performance distinction and the scientific (generative) approach is one of the crucial elements in all this. If your ideology says no, o.k. say no. If you are more interested, as apparently Robin Campbell is, in what we have to say about literature, well, perhaps you should study literature. Robin writes: "it's important to take stock, and the right question to ask is 'Where are the good outcomes?'. Have the sick been healed? Are children better educated? Are there benefits to art or literature? " (Though there ARE generative based things that have been said about literature. Still, if you have humanistic rather than scientific tendencies completely, then perhaps you should think about literature. Though I would argue we've learned much about the human species from the kind of work I've discussed). It's true that we haven't healed kids, but I submit that the results of the field might be useful in helping to work with impaired children. Surely there is reason to believe that a genetics of language impairment would possibly help us in healing. That's how science works, slowly. Will we get there soon? Don't know, but we are making rather clear progress. What has another approach done? Will we do imaging research? Will we attempt to understand what the brain is doing in all this. Yes, of course. Will we succeed? I don't know, but what else can you do? In summary, language acquisition has made major progress, the scientific, (generative approach, including the competence/performance distinction) has been crucial to this, the field is thriving, and we go on and on and on. So what is bothering all the critics? Clearly it isn't the state of the field, which is doing well. (For students out there who never heard of any of this, there is a good textbook for some of it at any rate, Teresa Guasti's. Ignore what your professors tell you about the field, especially if they try to argue against fundamental distinctions like competence and performance. Read this book and the papers). In my Plenary talk at the BU conference a few years ago, I tried to ask how we were doing as a field, basing my comments on Roger Brown's fond hope for the field to do well, given his disappointing experience in other fields of psychology that he worked in (see the preface or introduction to A First Language). I concluded that the field was doing pretty well, thank you, with major contributions both from linguistic theory and clear empirical methodology. People from various viewpoints, arguing from different sides of a hypothesis, were making progress by providing arguments and data. I argued that theory and experiment were obvious and necessary features of the field, how could it be otherwise in science? My impression is that people felt drawn together, both those who identified themselves as generativists and those who didn't. We are all in this together, trying to understand. One fundamental assumption is that we want to be scientists. Of course, if this isn't shared, all bets are off. So how come there is such hostility? Here's what might be happening, though now we're talking about sociological issues, and I feel on less certain grounds. The field of generative-based acquisition is thriving. Is it the mainstream approach? It's very hard to say when one is so active and involved in the field. A field has friends and enemies. But let me refer to what others say. Many who are against the generative approach have complained because this approach seems dominant, e.g. many complain about Chomsky's influence; we see it in the remarks that initiated this discussion. Liz Bates, may she rest in peace, made a career out of saying the generative-based approach was dominant, and complaining about it and trying to do something else. So our enemies think we're dominant, we're mainstream. How about our friends? As I say, it's very hard to tell. But I'll note that Teun Hoekstra and Bonnie Schwartz, in their 1993 edited book with the papers from the first acquisition workshop at GLOW (the major biannual generative linguistic theory conference in Europe) wrote that perhaps the "theoretical" [i.e. generative] approach finally, after all these years is dominant. And that was 1993; the generative approach has only grown since then. So PERHAPS (I admit that it's hard to know) the generative approach is dominant, is mainstream. That doesn't make it correct. God knows, there have been dominant approaches that were dead wrong. But perhaps that counts for the emotion among those who haven't accepted it. PERHAPS (I agree I don't know) they don't like the results, the beautiful results, that generative based acquisition studies have attained, studies that go against their grain. Perhaps they don't like that so many students want to study generative based work. Perhaps they don't like the fact that the applications, to language impairment, to genetics, to many other fields, have been coming thick and fast, though still far too slow. Perhaps they just have the feeling that all this is wrong, and don't know what to do about it. I know most of the people who have responded, have interacted with them. I have always wondered why they feel this way, so at odds with the facts. I don't know why the emotion is so hard. Perhaps I just feel lucky and happy that things have worked. Who knew all those years ago that it would work out? I for one only knew that it was science or nothing; we had to try. Perhaps others aren't happy with science coming into a cozy field that could be approached humanisitically or in some other way. Fair enough. I take it for granted that everybody is a good person. We have different interests, perhaps. You could say, Ken, why science? Is that ALL there is in the world? The answer is no. There is much, much else. I have no doubt I (and others who think in more or less the same way about the field) are lacking in much understanding that can be appreciated in other ways. I am happy for them to study things the way they want to. Why are they so unhappy that we do what we do? Young people, again. If you want to be scientists and help to increase understanding of language development, please think about all this. If it doesn't excite you, o.k. My apologies for this lengthy tome; its only saving grace, perhaps, is that it could have been 100 times longer. From exlua at yahoo.com Thu Oct 18 17:34:03 2007 From: exlua at yahoo.com (Daniel Santos) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:34:03 -0700 Subject: Remove me from your list, please!! Message-ID: Thank you! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 18 18:41:54 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:41:54 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance Message-ID: Robin, Miss South Carolina was perfectly coherent the next day on talk shows after her embarrassing moment was broadcast over YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQKNvPn3V-8&mode=related&search= My slightly less than serious point was that to not make a distinction between competence and performance is to say that her "performance" at the beauty pageant should not be distinguished from her actual knowledge of language, which seems to be your implication when you say that "language learning has fallen badly short here." This is precisely the conclusion that you would have to draw if you do not make allowances for impaired performance under stressful conditions. The claim about competence/performance is simply that the whole spectrum of everyday speech contains minor to major stresses and often fails to fully reveal the underlying knowledge of language (i.e., the natural language exemplified by the local dialect of one's culture). Peter Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: r.n.campbell [mailto:r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk] Sent: Thu 10/18/2007 12:27 AM To: Gordon, Peter; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: RE: Competence vs. Performance While this is moderately amusing to those with a taste for schadenfreude, it is not data which forces adoption of a competence-performance distinction. Rather, this data strongly suggests that language ability is not any sort of uniform trait, and that language learning has fallen badly short here. Robin I would suggest that anyone who claims there is no competence/performance distinction in language is being terribly unfair to Miss Teen USA, South Carolina http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 -- Dr Robin N Campbell Dept of Psychology University of Stirling STIRLING FK9 4LA Scotland, UK telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adele at crl.ucsd.edu Fri Oct 19 02:56:21 2007 From: adele at crl.ucsd.edu (Adele Abrahamsen) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:56:21 -0700 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points In-Reply-To: <8CC7F274-6378-4C04-A5DB-96282F3FE7D9@cmu.edu> Message-ID: The claim of later IQ effects unfortunately distracts from the most important impact of Acredolo and Goodwyn's work. It was long assumed that manual symbols would compete, and hence interfere, with spoken words. In my own research on what is now called baby sign, initially I could offer potential participants nothing more than indirect evidence and reasoning to the contrary. So I was delighted when Goodwyn and Acredolo (1993) provided compelling direct evidence that baby signs do not interfere with acquisition of spoken words. Moreover, regardless of whether baby signs facilitate spoken words, clearly a baby who acquires them has more symbols available for use. (E.g., a reanalysis of G&A's data in Abrahamsen 2000 showed a median of 5.8 gestures when the median number of words was 5.9; for those toddlers with no overlap, that doubled the number of meanings that could be expressed through symbols at that time.) There also is a hard-to-predict subgroup of toddlers for whom baby signs carry much more than half the communicative burden for several months, which would seem to be advantageous. It is much more challenging to determine the extent to which, if at all, baby signing results in facilitation of spoken language or general development. To their credit Acredolo and Goodwyn included longitudinal comparison groups in their design, but as Brian and Kathy noted, the results raised more questions than they answered. Ideally someone would step up and do a replication study with a larger number of randomly assigned or closely-matched participants. Meanwhile, it would be sensible to base the decision to enhance gestural input to a baby on practical considerations (e.g., is there a caretaker who would enjoy doing it?) and on those outcomes for which there is ample evidence (e.g., a modest, possibly temporary increase in the number of symbols when both gestures and words are counted). There is no need to reach beyond this to apparent effects that are large or of long duration and for which there is no obvious mechanism, such as the claim of a 12-point IQ boost at 8 years. (Evidence and plausibility of verbal facilitation lies between these extremes.) Isabelle Barriere made the interesting point that, even as parents of hearing toddlers buy videos and take baby sign classes, the old worries about interference live on recommendations to parents of children with cochlear implants. I would add that the issues and relevant studies extend far beyond the baby sign literature, especially with respect to syntactically structured language. > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was > an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the radar screen. This message summarized replies to a query about Baby Signs. I spent some time tracing the various web links involved and I would like to draw colleagues' attention to one issue in this > research that troubles me. This is the status of a report by > Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at www.babysigns.com and www.signingtime.com (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports > speaks of a 12 point "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who are taught Baby Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, Mechthild's links also point to an article from the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andrée Durieux- Smith, and Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting that it provides no description of subject recruitment > provedures, attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any > pretesting. They conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range of baby signing products is not matched by good quality > evidence that would reinforce manufacturers' claims." > It is worth adding that the groups were already different when > the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not as > evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result of the initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was > presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been published in a journal. > I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I > certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am also quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method for achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. However, I find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby Signs alone could achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several years of Head Start lead to nothing measurably permanent. > I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims > with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies supporting these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about them. > > --Brian MacWhinney, CMU > From boyatzis at bucknell.edu Fri Oct 19 15:36:46 2007 From: boyatzis at bucknell.edu (Chris Boyatzis) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:36:46 -0400 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points In-Reply-To: <62309.132.239.1.232.1192762581.squirrel@crl.ucsd.edu> Message-ID: I have enjoyed the recent discussion about baby signs and wish to underscore the point of Adele Abrahamsen's message: that the debate over IQ effects overlooks the really important aspects of Acredolo and Goodwyn's work, which spoke more to the debate on whether early signing and/or gesturing in oral/aural children would somehow impede their spoken language development. I organized and edited a special issue on children and gesture for the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, published in 2000 (summer issue, vol. 24). The Acredolo and Goodwyn team have two papers in that issue, the most pertinent to the discussion here an experimental design (co-authored by Catherine Brown) of 11-month-old infants randomly assigned to three different conditions of varying levels of parental (signed and spoken) input. An excerpt from their Discussion: "The results...particularly the comparisons between the Sign Training group and the Non-intervention Control group, strongly support the hypothesis that symbolic gesturing facilitates the early stages of verbal language development.... infants who augmented their fledgling vocabularies with symbolic gestures outperformed those who did not. The fact that no such advantage was found for the infants in the Verbal Training group provides reassuring evidence that the superior performance of the ST infants was not simply a function of their families being involved in a language-centered intervention program. The explanation seems to lie instead within the gesturing experience itself." I have no dog in this fight, not even a puppy in the scuffle, but I write simply to encourage interested parties to read this fine paper and return to, as Adele suggested, the real points of their work. In this 2000 paper there is no measurement or discussion of IQ but the measurement of many language indices longitudinally at 15, 19, 24, 30, and 36 months. (Would that our field featured more longitudinal and experimental designs, of any developmental phenomena!) Chris Boyatzis At 10:56 PM 10/18/2007, Adele Abrahamsen wrote: >The claim of later IQ effects unfortunately distracts from the most >important impact of Acredolo and Goodwyn's work. > >It was long assumed that manual symbols would compete, and hence >interfere, with spoken words. In my own research on what is now called >baby sign, initially I could offer potential participants nothing more >than indirect evidence and reasoning to the contrary. So I was delighted >when Goodwyn and Acredolo (1993) provided compelling direct evidence that >baby signs do not interfere with acquisition of spoken words. Moreover, >regardless of whether baby signs facilitate spoken words, clearly a baby >who acquires them has more symbols available for use. (E.g., a reanalysis >of G&A's data in Abrahamsen 2000 showed a median of 5.8 gestures when the >median number of words was 5.9; for those toddlers with no overlap, that >doubled the number of meanings that could be expressed through symbols at >that time.) There also is a hard-to-predict subgroup of toddlers for whom >baby signs carry much more than half the communicative burden for several >months, which would seem to be advantageous. > >It is much more challenging to determine the extent to which, if at all, >baby signing results in facilitation of spoken language or general >development. To their credit Acredolo and Goodwyn included longitudinal >comparison groups in their design, but as Brian and Kathy noted, the >results raised more questions than they answered. Ideally someone would >step up and do a replication study with a larger number of randomly >assigned or closely-matched participants. > >Meanwhile, it would be sensible to base the decision to enhance gestural >input to a baby on practical considerations (e.g., is there a caretaker >who would enjoy doing it?) and on those outcomes for which there is ample >evidence (e.g., a modest, possibly temporary increase in the number of >symbols when both gestures and words are counted). There is no need to >reach beyond this to apparent effects that are large or of long duration >and for which there is no obvious mechanism, such as the claim of a >12-point IQ boost at 8 years. (Evidence and plausibility of verbal >facilitation lies between these extremes.) > >Isabelle Barriere made the interesting point that, even as parents of >hearing toddlers buy videos and take baby sign classes, the old worries >about interference live on recommendations to parents of children with >cochlear implants. I would add that the issues and relevant studies extend >far beyond the baby sign literature, especially with respect to >syntactically structured language. > > > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > > > During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was > > an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the radar >screen. This message summarized replies to a query about Baby Signs. I >spent some time tracing the various web links involved and I would like to >draw colleagues' attention to one issue in this > > research that troubles me. This is the status of a report by > > Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at www.babysigns.com >and www.signingtime.com (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports > > speaks of a 12 point "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who >are taught Baby Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, >Mechthild's links also point to an article from the Canadian Language and >Literacy Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andrée Durieux- Smith, and >Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting that it >provides no description of subject recruitment > > provedures, attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any > > pretesting. They conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range >of baby signing products is not matched by good quality > > evidence that would reinforce manufacturers' claims." > > It is worth adding that the groups were already different when > > the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not as > > evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result of the >initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was > > presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been >published in a journal. > > I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I > > certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am also >quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method for >achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. However, I >find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby Signs alone could >achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several years of Head Start lead to >nothing measurably permanent. > > I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims > > with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies supporting >these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about them. > > > > --Brian MacWhinney, CMU > > Chris J. Boyatzis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology Bucknell University Lewisburg PA 17837 Office phone: 570.577.1696 FAX 570.577.7007 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 19 20:30:51 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:30:51 -0400 Subject: moving info-childes to Google Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, For a variety of technical reasons, I would like to move the info-childes at mail.talkbank.org mailing list to Google. The address of the new list is info-childes at googlegroups.com. Google Groups provides many advantages, including the ability to change your address by yourself, and the ability to upload files. You can also create a profile describing yourself and your research. Once my request for the move is approved at Google, you will receive a message asking you to subscribe. If you respond and confirm, you will be subscribed. After that you can control your change or delete your subscription directly through the Google interface. This works best if you have a Google account, which is easy to set up. However, if you want to avoid having a Google account, it is still pretty easy to modify your subscription through email. Please remember that you need to confirm using the mail account to which Google sends you a message. If you want a different mail account, you can just ignore the invitation and go to Google and subscribe directly. If you have any problems with any of this, please just send me a message to macw at cmu.edu. Many thanks. From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 19 21:45:10 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:45:10 -0400 Subject: moving mailing list Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, For a variety of technical reasons, I would like to move the info-childes at mail.talkbank.org mailing list to Google. The address of the new list is info-childes at googlegroups.com. Google Groups provides many advantages, including the ability to change your address by yourself, and the ability to upload files. You can also create a profile describing yourself and your research. Once my request for the move is approved at Google, you will receive a message asking you to subscribe. If you respond and confirm, you will be subscribed. After that you can control your change or delete your subscription directly through the Google interface. Using the Google interface also allows you to create a profile and add and monitor other groups easily. To subscribe using the Google interface, go to groups.google.com and get an account. You do not need a Gmail account and you don't need to use email for googlegroups mail. To subscribe without the web interface, just send a message to info-childes-subscribe at googlegroups.com. Please remember that you need to confirm using the mail account to which Google sends you a message. If you want a different mail account, you can just ignore the invitation and go to Google and subscribe directly. If you have any problems with any of this, please just send me a message to macw at cmu.edu. Many thanks. -- Brian MacWhinney From k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk Tue Oct 23 15:32:40 2007 From: k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk (Katie Alcock) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:32:40 +0100 Subject: The latest in recording technology (is this the first message?) Message-ID: I've usually used minidisk recorders up till now both for recording children in the field and for creating language stimuli. We've had some success recently with MP3 recorders (solid-state) for field recordings but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about: How good quality these are for creating sound files to link to transcriptions How good the recorders are in the long term - do they die easily? and also Are they any good for creating clean, high quality sound files to use as laboratory stimuli? If they are good, do people have specific recommendations of recorders? We have a few in our department that people have used for recording testing/interview sessions but to create some new stimuli I think I'm going to need to get either a new minidisk recorder or something slightly more modern. Thanks Katie Alccok Katie Alcock, DPhil, CPsychol Lecturer Department of Psychology University of Lancaster Fylde College Lancaster LA1 4YF Tel 01524 593833 Fax 01524 593744 Web http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/KatieAlcock.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From alaakso at indiana.edu Tue Oct 23 18:08:29 2007 From: alaakso at indiana.edu (Aarre Laakso) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:08:29 -0400 Subject: The latest in recording technology (is this the first message?) Message-ID: Hi Katie, I recommend you read http://talkbank.org/da/ and the following previous posts: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0701C&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R512&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0601E&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R499&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0601E&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R199&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0611A&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R2&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0611A&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R27&I=-3 Regards, Aarre Laakso Katie Alcock wrote: > I've usually used minidisk recorders up till now both for recording children > in the field and for creating language stimuli. We've had some success > recently with MP3 recorders (solid-state) for field recordings but I'm > wondering if anyone has any ideas about: > > How good quality these are for creating sound files to link to > transcriptions > How good the recorders are in the long term - do they die easily? > and also > Are they any good for creating clean, high quality sound files to use as > laboratory stimuli? > > If they are good, do people have specific recommendations of recorders? We > have a few in our department that people have used for recording > testing/interview sessions but to create some new stimuli I think I'm going > to need to get either a new minidisk recorder or something slightly more > modern. > > Thanks > > Katie Alccok > > > Katie Alcock, DPhil, CPsychol > Lecturer > Department of Psychology > University of Lancaster > Fylde College > Lancaster LA1 4YF > Tel 01524 593833 > Fax 01524 593744 > Web http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/KatieAlcock.html > > >> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From yasshiraijp at gmail.com Thu Oct 25 15:31:19 2007 From: yasshiraijp at gmail.com (Yasuhiro Shirai) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:31:19 +0900 Subject: Tenure track position: Rank Open, U of Pittsburgh, Syntax/Spanish Linguistics Message-ID: The University of Pittsburgh Department of Linguistics (http://www.linguistics.pitt.edu/index.htm) invites applications for a tenure stream faculty position, open rank, beginning September 1, 2008, pending budgetary approval. Applicants must have a primary research program in Syntax and Spanish Linguistics; teaching experience in these areas is also desirable. Applicants with secondary specializations in any of the following areas will be given highest consideration: semantics, first language acquisition, and second language acquisition. Preference will be given to candidates that have experience in fieldwork-based linguistic description, experimental methods, and corpus-based studies. Candidates should send a CV (including a list of funded research if applicable), a statement of research and teaching interests, copies of two reprints or other written work, teaching evaluations (required), and the names, email addresses, and postal addresses of at least three references (the applicant should notify these potential referees of their application). Send materials to: Linguistics Search Committee, Department of Linguistics, 2816 CL, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; (412) 524-5900; Fax (412) 624-6130. Email enquiries should be directed to Scott Kiesling, Chair: kiesling at pitt.edu. To ensure full consideration completed applications must be received by November 9, 2007. Preliminary interviews may be held at the LSA meeting in Chicago in January 2008. The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and members of minority groups under-represented in academia are especially encouraged to apply. -- Yasuhiro Shirai Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics 2806 Cathedral of Learning University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Tel: 412-624-5933 URL: http://www.linguistics.pitt.edu/people/faculty/shirai.htm JSLS: http://www.cyber.sist.chukyo-u.ac.jp/JSLS/index.html Handbook: http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521833345 (on leave in Japan till December 2007) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sarae at post.tau.ac.il Sat Oct 27 18:57:08 2007 From: sarae at post.tau.ac.il (sara eyal) Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 20:57:08 +0200 Subject: subscribtion Message-ID: As I have not received yet any message to subscribe to the Google list of the childes mailing list, I am asking hereby to subscribe to the Google list. Sara Eyal sarae at post.tau.ac.il --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Sun Oct 28 00:27:41 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 20:27:41 -0400 Subject: subscribtion In-Reply-To: <001401c818cb$2d009620$0500000a@user> Message-ID: Dear Sara, Actually, your message posted fine and you are subscribed. Strangely enough, Google says that you have not verified your account properly by either responding to the message from Google or else logging on directly. And it says that you are not allowed to post, but in fact you can post fine. If you really want to clear this up you should log into your Google account yourself, since there is nothing more that I can do. However, everything actually seems to be working. --Brian On Oct 27, 2007, at 2:57 PM, sara eyal wrote: > As I have not received yet any message to subscribe to the Google > list of the childes mailing list, I am asking hereby to subscribe > to the Google list. > Sara Eyal > sarae at post.tau.ac.il > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Mon Oct 29 16:30:21 2007 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Gathercole) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:30:21 +0000 Subject: Call, Visiting Researchers, Ctr for Bilingualism Message-ID: CALL FOR APPLICATIONS VISITING RESEARCHER PROGRAMME ESRC CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON BILINGUALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE The new ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice at Bangor University, in North Wales, seeks applications from researchers around the world for its Visiting Researcher programme. The Centre has as its main focus the promotion of research into all aspects of bilingualism, from a variety of perspectives and in a variety of contexts. There are four research groups in the Centre, focusing on four strands of theoretical and practical issues related to bilingualism. You can obtain information on these groups and on the Centre in general in our leaflet and at our website, at http://bilingualism.bangor.ac.uk/. The purpose of the Visiting Researcher programme is to encourage and foster high quality research in bilingualism, to provide a sabbatical or temporary 'home' for bilingualism researchers who wish to interact with other researchers at the Centre, and to encourage interaction and collaboration among researchers from both outside and inside the Centre. Visiting Researchers will be provided with office space and will have full access to the facilities of the Centre. Research Visits at the Centre would normally cover periods of a few days up to a year. Applicants may apply for support to cover travel expenses to and from the Centre and living expenses while staying in Bangor. In some cases, the Centre may be able to provide income support for a researcher who is on unpaid leave from his/her home institution. Applications will be accepted for costs normally ranging from £1,000 to £10,000, but awards will be allotted according to the funds available and the perceived needs. Interested parties should fill out the application form, outlining their proposed plans for research and estimated costs, and attach a short c.v. Deadline for application for a visit any time from spring 2008 through summer 2009, is December 10, 2007. For further information, please email the Centre at r.a.ieuan at bangor.ac.uk, or write to Prof. V. Mueller Gathercole, Co-Director, ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, and Head of Centre's Visiting Researcher Programme, Bangor University: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk. APPLICATION FORM Visiting Researcher Programme ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice Name: Date: Address: Expected dates for Centre visit: Affiliation: I. Please outline the type of project you wish to conduct or collaborate on while you are at the Centre. Please include the following in your description [maximum 1000 words]: a. Title of Project, b. Theoretical question/issue, c. Proposed methodology, d. Bilingual population(s) of interest, e. Import of the research, f. Expected outputs. II. Please provide an estimate of expenses related to your visit. Please include information on the following: a. Travel costs, b. Housing costs, c. Other research costs, if any. III. Equipment: a. Please specify if you will have any special research needs (e.g., use of general research equipment, access to specialised research equipment [e.g., ERP, MEG], need for laboratory space, etc.). b. If so, please indicate which of these needs you will be providing from your own resources, and which you are requesting through the Centre. If the latter, please indicate the level of need, e.g., in time. -- Mae'r e-bost yma'n amodol ar delerau ac amodau ymwadiad e-bost Prifysgol Bangor. Gellir darllen testun llawn yr ymwadiad yma: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer This email is subject to the terms and conditions of the Bangor University email disclaimer. The full text of the disclaimer can be read here: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4272 bytes Desc: not available URL: From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Mon Oct 29 17:16:15 2007 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Gathercole) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:16:15 +0000 Subject: Call for abstracts Bilingualism conference Oct 2008 Message-ID: Call for Papers INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MODELS OF INTERACTION IN BILINGUALS ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom October 24 - 26, 2008 The ESRC Centre for Bilingualism in Theory and Practice invites submissions for talks and posters on the topic of "Models of Interaction in Bilinguals", broadly defined to include, e.g., interaction between the bilingual's two languages, interaction between language and cognition, interaction between bilinguals' writing systems/literacy, and any other relevant topic. INVITED SPEAKERS Ellen Bialystok, York University and Rotman Research Institute of the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto Ton Dijkstra, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, The Netherlands David Green, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Dept. of Psychology, University College London, UK Judith Kroll, Pennsylvania State University, USA Ping Li, University of Richmond, Virginia, USA Núria Sebastián Gallés, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain Oral Presentations will be half hour talks.  N.B.: All invited and accepted speakers must submit a short version of their talk prior to the conference, for circulation to other presenters and for availability through our website to other participants. Posters should be 80 x 120 cm (A0) or less. The word limit for abstracts for oral presentations and posters is 200 words, excluding references, title, and author information. [Note: A selection of papers from the conference will be submitted to a peer-review process for possible inclusion in a special issue of International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism on "Models of Interaction in Bilinguals", with Virginia Gathercole as Guest Editor. We will invite all oral presenters to submit more complete copies of their papers for consideration, and all poster presenters will be invited to similarly submit papers for possible inclusion. A separate call will also go out for possible submissions from outside the conference. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Please note that paper submission will not guarantee acceptance, however.] Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 1, 2007 Abstracts will be submitted and processed electronically, at www.bilingualism.bangor.ac.uk For further information, please see our website or contact the ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, r.a.ieuan at bangor.ac.uk, or Prof. Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, at bilconf at bangor.ac.uk. Forthcoming Conferences to be sponsored by the Centre: 2009/2010 - Neurobilingualism [contact: Guillaume Thierry] 2010/2011 - Bilingual/Multi-lingual Education [contact: Colin Baker] 2011/2012 - Social Aspects of Bilingualism [contact: Eddie Williams] -- Mae'r e-bost yma'n amodol ar delerau ac amodau ymwadiad e-bost Prifysgol Bangor. Gellir darllen testun llawn yr ymwadiad yma: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer This email is subject to the terms and conditions of the Bangor University email disclaimer. The full text of the disclaimer can be read here: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 5078 bytes Desc: not available URL: From angelchan at arts.cuhk.edu.hk Mon Oct 29 07:26:35 2007 From: angelchan at arts.cuhk.edu.hk (Angel Chan (LIN)) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:26:35 +0800 Subject: new audiovisual materials for the promotion of CHILDES Message-ID: Dear all, We are happy to announce the following new audiovisual materials for the promotion of CHILDES: 1. A 12-minute video clip "CHILDES and bilingual corpora" produced by Uta Lam and our team at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where Brian MacWhinney and Virginia Yip discussed the origin and evolution of CHILDES in the last two decades. The dialogue took place in June 2007 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It also covers a number of milestones (innovative technology, multimedia features, diversity of languages and automatic morphosyntactic analysis) and the construction of bilingual corpora. The video is now posted on the following websites: http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/intro/ http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/book/bilingualchild/Chapter1.html http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/brian+macWhinney/video/x37r50_20 0706brianyipinterview_people A slightly shorter version is posted on Youtube. 2. A 26-minute audio clip with the extended version of the interview is available at the CHILDES and CUHK websites. Cheers, Angel Angel Chan Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre Coordinator Childhood Bilingualism Research Centre Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages The Chinese University of Hong Kong Mobile: (852) 9132 8401 Tel: (852) 2609 7019 Fax: (852) 2603 7755 Homepage: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/people/angelchan/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From D.J.Messer at open.ac.uk Fri Oct 5 14:19:28 2007 From: D.J.Messer at open.ac.uk (D.J.Messer) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 15:19:28 +0100 Subject: FW: Research Fellow: Specific Language Impairment Message-ID: Dear colleagues, We would be grateful if you could circulate the information for this two-year postdoctoral Research Fellow position at London South Bank University. Many thanks, Lucy Henry Dr. Lucy Henry Reader in Psychology Department of Psychology London South Bank University 103 Borough Road London SE1 0AA henrylc at lsbu.ac.uk FACULTY OF ARTS & HUMAN SCIENCES RESEARCH FELLOW: SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT & EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING ?30,478 - ?35,808 PA - 2 YEAR FIXED TERM We seek a talented individual for a project investigating Executive Functioning abilities in young people with Specific Language Impairment. The project has been funded by an ESRC award. You will have a higher degree in a relevant subject and have experience of working with young people. For further informal discussion and clarification of the role please contact Dr Lucy Henry (henrylc at lsbu.ac.uk) or Professor David Messer (d.j.messer at open.ac.uk). For full details & application form, please visit www.lsbu.ac.uk/humanres or send a stamped addressed envelope to HR, LSBU, 103 Borough Road, London SE1 0AA. Please quote REF: X3064. Closing date: 26 October. An Equal Opportunities Employer. Start date: 1 January 2008 Further information about the project This research investigates executive functioning (EF) abilities in young people with specific language impairment (SLI). SLI is a common neurodevelopmental disorder marked by language delays that are out of line with the young person's other abilities. Executive functioning refers to the higher order cognitive skills required for novel tasks with no well-learned patterns of responding. Recent theoretical approaches have suggested that brain regions implicated in EF show abnormalities in young people with SLI. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide a thorough investigation of a broad range of their EF skills. In particular, the work will assess whether young people with SLI have weaknesses in EF over and above their language difficulties. Carefully chosen matched measures of EF will either involve tasks which are language based or do not involve language to test this hypothesis. Young people with SLI will be compared to typical peers of similar non-verbal intellectual ability and age on these two sets of EF measures, to determine whether they have difficulties with either or both sets of EF tasks. Further analyses will examine detailed predictions concerning the precise links between different aspects of EF skill and particular language weaknesses such as poor vocabulary and grammatical impairments. Main Activities and Responsibilities 1. To make final submissions for ethical approval. 2. To negotiate with schools to ensure efficient recruitment of appropriately matched samples of children with and without SLI. 3. To timetable the recruitment and testing of children for the research project. 4. To administer standardised and non-standardised language assessments, non-verbal ability and executive functioning tests (data collection). 5. To score and interpret these tests. 6. To manage data sets. 7. To have major responsibility for data analysis. 8. To be involved in the writing up of findings and provision of feedback to schools and relevant professionals. -- Copyright in this email and in any attachments belongs to London South Bank University. This email, and its attachments if any, may be confidential or legally privileged and is intended to be seen only by the person to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please note the following: (1) You should take immediate action to notify the sender and delete the original email and all copies from your computer systems; (2) You should not read copy or use the contents of the email nor disclose it or its existence to anyone else. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and should not be taken as those of London South Bank University, unless this is specifically stated. London South Bank University is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales. The following details apply to London South Bank University: Company number - 00986761; Registered office and trading address - 103 Borough Road London SE1 0AA; VAT number - 778 1116 17; Email address - lsbuinfo at lsbu.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de Sat Oct 6 07:56:19 2007 From: mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de (Mechthild Kiegelmann) Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 09:56:19 +0200 Subject: Literature on Baby Signing Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, there is growing popularity in the use of some Signs from a local sign language in hearing families with hearing babies. I am working on evaluating this so called "baby signing" from a developmental psychology perspective. If any of you could help me find relevant literature, I would appreciate this very much. I would be interested in text in English or other languages. Of course, I will post a collection of the references here. So far, for main references about baby signing I found these: Goodwyn , S. , Acredolo, L., & Brown, C. (2000). Impact of symbolic gesturing on early language development. /Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 81-103 / Johnston, J.C., Durieux-Smith, A. & Bloom, K. (2005). Teaching gestural signs to infants to advance child development: A review of the evidence. First Language, vol. 25(2), 235-251. Thompson, R. , McKerchar, P., & Dancho, K. (2004). The effects of delayed physical prompts and reinforcement on infant sign language acquisition. /Journal of applied behavior analysis/. 37, 379-383. Thank you in advance for your help. Mechthild Kiegelmann PD Mechthild Kiegelmann, Ed.D. University of T?bingen Educational and Developmental Psychology School of Education M?nzgasse 22-30 D-72074 T?bingen Germany From luciavenezuela at hotmail.com Sun Oct 7 15:10:38 2007 From: luciavenezuela at hotmail.com (luciavenezuela at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 08:10:38 -0700 Subject: I've added you as a friend on StumbleUpon Message-ID: miluchi (luciavenezuela at hotmail.com) has invited you to StumbleUpon! You can see my other favorites here: http://miluchi.stumbleupon.com Thanks, miluchi --- StumbleUpon lets you discover great sites with a single click. Give it a try at: http://www.stumbleupon.com/join.php?friend=4045382&emailcode=mk5hzi4iymusqfoh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Mon Oct 8 00:08:29 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 20:08:29 -0400 Subject: symposium on syntactic complexity Message-ID: THE GENESIS OF SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM The 12th Biennial Rice University Symposium on Language, co-organized by Matt Shibatani (Rice University) and T. Giv?n (University of Oregon), will be held in the Farnsworth Pavilion of the Ley Student Center on March 27th-29th, 2008. The topic-"The genesis of syntactic complexity"-in part builds on the success of the 11th biennial symposium on complex verb constructions and explores the genesis and nature of syntactic complexity from an interdisciplinary perspective. Structural complexity may be defined broadly as the "chunking" of linear-sequential structure into hierarchic one (cf. Herbert A. Simon 1962 "The architecture of complexity"). The creation of such hierarchic structure is a common process language shares with motor control, vision, memory, and music. It is often associated with the move from attended to automated processing. Our symposium will focus on one particular type of syntactic complexity, that of clauses ('propositions') embedded inside other clauses-under a unified intonation contour. We examine two syntactic domains in which such embedding structures are generally found to cluster: (i) in the verb phrase (complex predicates, clause-union, verb complementation), and (ii) in the noun phrase (relative clauses and noun complementation). The symposium will concern itself primarily with the genesis of these complex structures, comparing the three main developmental trends of language: Diachrony, child language development, and evolution. For all three, we will explore the linguistic, cognitive, neurological and biological aspects of the genesis and development of complex syntax. The symposium is open to the public. Further information will be posted shortly in the webpage: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~eivs/sympo/ Contributors: 1. Diachronic development: B. Heine (Koeln) & T. Kouteva (Duesseldorf) A. Pawley (Canberra) O. Dahl (Stockholm) G. Deutscher (Leiden) M. Mithun (Santa Barbara) C. Bowern (Rice) M. Hilpert & C. Koops (Rice) M. Shibatani (Rice) T. Giv?n (Oregon) 2. Child development: H. Diessel (Jena) C. Rojas (UNAM) T. Giv?n (Oregon) 3. Cognitive and & neurological aspects: B. MacWhinney (CMU) D. Fernandez-Duque (Villanova) F. Pulvermuller (Cambridge) E. Pederson & M. Barker (Oregon) D. Tucker (Oregon) 4. Biology and evolution: D. Bickerton (Hawaii) N. Tublitz (Oregon) From Nanjo.Bogdanowicz at mpi.nl Mon Oct 8 12:08:46 2007 From: Nanjo.Bogdanowicz at mpi.nl (Nanjo Bogdanowicz) Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 14:08:46 +0200 Subject: two year post-doctoral position MPI for Psycholinguistics Message-ID: Two year post-doctoral position The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) is offering a two year post-doctoral position in the field of cognitive development/first language acquisition. The post is without teaching responsibilities and comes with considerable technical support and assistance for running experiments. The candidate would work within the Categories and Concepts Across Language and Culture project, which investigates variation and constraints in semantic categories across languages and the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic representations. A focal area for the project is the linguistic encoding of the senses across the world?s languages, and current work examines whether some sensory modalities are more readily expressed in language than others (e.g., is smell more codable than color)? The candidate would be expected to contribute to the project by conducting research on perceptual categorization in children and/or on acquisition of language for different sensory modalities. There are opportunities to collaborate with members of the Acquisition group and Language & Cognition group. A background in developmental psychology or first language acquisition is essential. Experience with cross-linguistic work/fieldwork would be welcome, but is not necessary. Applications should include: a curriculum vitae, including a full list of publications, the names of two referees who would be willing to write letters of recommendation, examples of published work and a cover letter describing research interests and how the candidate would contribute to the Categories project. Please send applications to Nanjo Bogdanowicz (Nanjo.Bogdanowicz at mpi.nl). For more information about the position, email Asifa Majid (Asifa.Majid at mpi.nl). Deadline for applications is 1st November 2007, with a view to an immediate start date (although the starting date is negotiable). -- Nanjo Bogdanowicz Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics P.O.Box 310 Phone+31 (0)24 3521454 6500 AH Nijmegen Fax +31 (0)24 3521213 nanjo.bogdanowicz at mpi.nl From macw at cmu.edu Wed Oct 10 01:37:11 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 21:37:11 -0400 Subject: Janet bilingual corpus Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, I would like to announce the addition of a seventh bilingual child to the Chinese University Cantonese-English bilingual corpus developed by Virginia Yip, Stephen Matthews, and their colleagues. The transcripts for this seventh child -- Janet -- are linked to video and the transcription is in Cantonese and English with a %mor line. This is an auspicious day for this announcement, since it is 10/10 which is also a holiday in Taiwan. The web page for the CUHK project, which discusses their recent book and corpus, can be found at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/book/ bilingualchild/ and the data are available in CHILDES in the /Biling segment. Many thanks to Virginia, Stephen, and their colleagues for the addition of this new bilingual child. -- Brian MacWhinney From bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Wed Oct 10 09:37:27 2007 From: bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de (bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:37:27 GMT Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping Message-ID: Dear all, I have a question on the Syntactic Bootstrapping approach which I surely could clarify myself by checking the relevant literature, but for reasons of time, I thought I could ask you, in the hope some of you out there have the answer at hand and/or can indicate some references where I can find it. The question is: Is the supposition right that the Syntactic Bootstrapping hypothesis posits unlearned (innate) syntactic-semantic correlations and mappings (e.g., transitivity --> causality), just as Semantic Bootstrapping does, only the other way round (e.g., subject <-- agent)? Or is it the case that in Synt. Boot. these categories are learned? Or yet is it the case that this issue is viewed differently by proponents of Synt. Boot? Or ? Thank you very much in advance! Best Susanna ***************************************************************** Susanna Bartsch https://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/bartsch/ bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS) Centre for General Linguistics, Typology, and Universals Research Schuetzenstr. 18 10117 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 (0)30 20192562 Fax +49 (0)30 20192402 ***************************************************************** From cats22 at frontiernet.net Wed Oct 10 15:21:46 2007 From: cats22 at frontiernet.net (Doug Harris) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:21:46 -0400 Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping In-Reply-To: <20071010093727.23773.qmail@dmz01.zas.gwz-berlin.de> Message-ID: Speaking of _bootstrapping_, I heard an interesting variation of that (source) word the other day, I believe it was on NPR, while I was _so_ otherwise engaged I couldn't make a written note to myself on it: A man was talking about, I believe, how his town would struggle together after some disaster or other and "pull its bootstrings up" and work toward recovery, or whatever. I'm sorry I can't be more precise on the source. (the other) doug -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 5:37 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping Dear all, I have a question on the Syntactic Bootstrapping approach which I surely could clarify myself by checking the relevant literature, but for reasons of time, I thought I could ask you, in the hope some of you out there have the answer at hand and/or can indicate some references where I can find it. The question is: Is the supposition right that the Syntactic Bootstrapping hypothesis posits unlearned (innate) syntactic-semantic correlations and mappings (e.g., transitivity --> causality), just as Semantic Bootstrapping does, only the other way round (e.g., subject <-- agent)? Or is it the case that in Synt. Boot. these categories are learned? Or yet is it the case that this issue is viewed differently by proponents of Synt. Boot? Or.? Thank you very much in advance! Best Susanna ***************************************************************** Susanna Bartsch https://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/bartsch/ bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS) Centre for General Linguistics, Typology, and Universals Research Schuetzenstr. 18 10117 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 (0)30 20192562 Fax +49 (0)30 20192402 ***************************************************************** From boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de Wed Oct 10 19:17:10 2007 From: boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de (Marita =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6hning?=) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 21:17:10 +0200 Subject: European Masters in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL): Call for applications / scholarships Message-ID: European Masters Programme in Clinical Linguistics (EMCL): Call for applications for 2008/09 course and Erasmus Mundus scholarships - The programme: The Erasmus Mundus EMCL ('European Masters in Clinical Linguistics') course is a 15 month full-time interdisciplinary and transnational university programme at Masters level. It provides integrated training in theoretical and experimental neurosciences and psycholinguistics with clinical issues. The aim of the Masters Course is to train highly qualified advanced students who are excellently prepared for research work and PhD programmes in the above fields. The transnational consortium comprises four universities: Groningen (NL), Joensuu (FI), Milano-Bicocca (IT) and Potsdam (DE). The programme consists of three terms: the core courses offered in the first term aim at providing the students with general knowledge about the fields mentioned above. During the second and third term, the students attend specialised courses. For the second term, students may choose to move from their first host university to another one, while all students meet at the University of Potsdam during the third term. To finish the programme successfully, the student writes a Masters thesis and attends a summer school or conference. All courses are taught in English. - The Erasmus Mundus scholarship for non-EU students: The EMCL programme is part of the Erasmus Mundus initiative of the European Union, providing an Erasmus Mundus scholarship covering tuition fees (? 7,500.-), living and travelling costs for non-EU students admitted to the programme (amounting to a total of ? 29,000.-/scholarship). The EMCL-programme thus has a strong extra-European profile. - Information for applicants from EU countries: Students from EU-countries may not apply for the Erasmus Mundus scholarship, but pay a reduced tuition fee of 2,700.-. - Application information: Requirement for application is at least three years of higher education (BA, BSc or equivalent) with an emphasis on speech and language pathology, linguistics, biomedical sciences, psychology or special education. We invite high profile students worldwide to submit their applications for participation in the 2008/09 course (which starts in September 2008) until January 15, 2008 (application deadline). - Further information and contact: For more detailed information on Erasmus Mundus, the EMCL programme's aims, curriculum, admission criteria, scholarships, organisation, contact information etc., please visit our website at: www.emcl-mundus.com For further information, non-European applicants may contact Dr. Frank Burchert (burchert at ling.uni-potsdam.de ). European students send their requests about the programme to Dr. Roel Jonkers (r.jonkers at let.rug.nl ). From M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 11:07:23 2007 From: M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk (Matthew Saxton) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:07:23 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? Message-ID: Dear All, Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? I'm convinced that, at some point recently, a very interesting article on this issue flashed before my eyes, before disappearing forever, possibly into my 'filing' cabinet. There is, of course, a huge literature in which competence vs. performance is considered and, very often, taken for granted. I notice also that the pairing of these concepts is common currency in many other fields beyond psycholinguistics (e.g., cognitive therapy, animal ecology, engineering, medicine, and so on). Of course, the way the two terms are used probably differs from one field to another, but undoubtedly, competence is often pitted against performance in an uncontroversial manner. I am therefore very interested to find any discussion which challenges the competence-performance distinction. If anyone can help, I promise to sort out my filing cabinet..... Regards, Matthew Saxton. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 11:18:21 2007 From: Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk (Evan J Kidd) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:18:21 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C449@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Generator Microsoft Word 11 (filtered) Hi Matthew, You might check out: Seidenberg, M. S., & MacDonald, M. C. (1999). A probabilistic constraints approach to language acquisition and processing. Cognitive Science, 23, 569 - 588. The paper explicitly addresses the issue from a connectionist perspective. This is an interesting topic - could you post a summary? Best, Evan _________________________________ Dr Evan Kidd Lecturer in Psychology School of Psychological Sciences University of Manchester Oxford Road M13 9PL Manchester, UK Ph: +44 (0) 161 275 2578 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 8587 http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/108727 __________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Saxton Sent: 11 October 2007 12:07 To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? Dear All, Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? I' m convinced that, at some point recently, a very interesting article on this issue flashed before my eyes, before disappearing forever, possibly into my ' filing' cabinet. There is, of course, a huge literature in which competence vs. performance is considered and, very often, taken for granted. I notice also that the pairing of these concepts is common currency in many other fields beyond psycholinguistics (e.g., cognitive therapy, animal ecology, engineering, medicine, and so on). Of course, the way the two terms are used probably differs from one field to another, but undoubtedly, competence is often pitted against performance in an uncontroversial manner. I am therefore very interested to find any discussion which challenges the competence-performance distinction. If anyone can help, I promise to sort out my filing cabinet..... Regards, Matthew Saxton. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 13:09:14 2007 From: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk (r.n.campbell) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:09:14 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C449@M1.ioead> Message-ID: >Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. -- Dr Robin N Campbell Dept of Psychology University of Stirling STIRLING FK9 4LA Scotland, UK telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 13:23:31 2007 From: k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk (Katie Alcock) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:23:31 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If this happened, it would still not prevent undergraduates from thinking that Chomsky and Skinner are the only two people ever to have written anything about language acquisition. Katie Alcock Katie Alcock, DPhil Lecturer Department of Psychology University of Lancaster Fylde College Lancaster LA1 4YF Tel 01524 593833 Fax 01524 593744 Web http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/KatieAlcock.html From: "r.n.campbell" > Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction? A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Thu Oct 11 14:55:53 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:55:53 +0200 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Robin, Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's now a more relevant figure than before? Anat Ninio r.n.campbell wrote: >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > -- > > Dr Robin N Campbell > Dept of Psychology > University of Stirling > STIRLING FK9 4LA > Scotland, UK > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > -- > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > for messages of this kind. > From rnunez at uic.edu Thu Oct 11 15:36:34 2007 From: rnunez at uic.edu (Nunez-Cedeno, Rafael) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:36:34 -0500 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <470E3979.9090903@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: I believe Dr. Campbell's wish it just that: wishful thinking. Chomsky, despite his retirement, continues being as relevant today as he has always been. If you are a syntactician, you know what I mean. But then again, as Calderon de la Barca wrote "los sue?os, sue?os son" ('dreams are dreams'). Rafael Nunez-Cedeno On Thu, October 11, 2007 9:55 am, Anat Ninio wrote: > Hi Robin, > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > now a more relevant figure than before? > > Anat Ninio > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >> >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> -- >> >> Dr Robin N Campbell >> Dept of Psychology >> University of Stirling >> STIRLING FK9 4LA >> Scotland, UK >> >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> >> -- >> >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> for messages of this kind. >> > > > Rafael Nu?ez-Cede?o, Professor Co-editor of Probus: International Journal of Latin and Romance Linguistics University of Illinois at Chicago Dept. of Spanish/FIP (MC 315) 601 S. Morgan Street Chicago, IL 60607 Tel: 312-996-0271 Fax: 312-413-1044 From macswan at asu.edu Thu Oct 11 16:23:08 2007 From: macswan at asu.edu (Jeff MacSwan) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:23:08 -0700 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <470E3979.9090903@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current linguistics literature. Jeff MacSwan -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM To: r.n.campbell Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? Hi Robin, Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's now a more relevant figure than before? Anat Ninio r.n.campbell wrote: >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > -- > > Dr Robin N Campbell > Dept of Psychology > University of Stirling > STIRLING FK9 4LA > Scotland, UK > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > -- > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > for messages of this kind. > From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Thu Oct 11 16:29:15 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:29:15 +0200 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <49BBB0F28D193647A264CCB9CC8E16991B6266@EX07.asurite.ad.asu.edu> Message-ID: Well, generativism hasn't been the same since Chomsky turned his theory into a sub-type of Dependency Grammar! My enthusiasm for highly-abstract syntax as a framework for developmental theory has always been very restricted, so it's good news that Chomsky doesn't work that way any more. Anat Ninio Jeff MacSwan wrote: > It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which > disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most > influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > > But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and > influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics > generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, > computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > > While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does > not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic > theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or > significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current > linguistics literature. > > Jeff MacSwan > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio > Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM > To: r.n.campbell > Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > > Hi Robin, > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > now a more relevant figure than before? > > Anat Ninio > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: > >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >>> >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> -- >> >> Dr Robin N Campbell >> Dept of Psychology >> University of Stirling >> STIRLING FK9 4LA >> Scotland, UK >> >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> >> -- >> >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> for messages of this kind. >> >> > > > > From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 11 18:47:45 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:47:45 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: I think it would be an interesting exercise if Robin (and other Anti-Chomskians) could give us a sense of how child language might have developed without Chomsky and why it would have benefited from his absence. Peter Gordon Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Anat Ninio Sent: Thu 10/11/2007 6:29 AM To: Jeff MacSwan Cc: Anat Ninio; r.n.campbell; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? Well, generativism hasn't been the same since Chomsky turned his theory into a sub-type of Dependency Grammar! My enthusiasm for highly-abstract syntax as a framework for developmental theory has always been very restricted, so it's good news that Chomsky doesn't work that way any more. Anat Ninio Jeff MacSwan wrote: > It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which > disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most > influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > > But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and > influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics > generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, > computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > > While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does > not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic > theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or > significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current > linguistics literature. > > Jeff MacSwan > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio > Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM > To: r.n.campbell > Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > > Hi Robin, > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > now a more relevant figure than before? > > Anat Ninio > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: > >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >>> >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> -- >> >> Dr Robin N Campbell >> Dept of Psychology >> University of Stirling >> STIRLING FK9 4LA >> Scotland, UK >> >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> >> -- >> >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> for messages of this kind. >> >> > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From slobin at berkeley.edu Thu Oct 11 19:00:44 2007 From: slobin at berkeley.edu (Dan I. Slobin) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:00:44 -0700 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <49BBB0F28D193647A264CCB9CC8E16991B6270@EX07.asurite.ad.asu .edu> Message-ID: I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their thinking still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my hero; he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful questions. And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current approach is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. Dan At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be >insensitive, not to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for >instance, that Halliday is not relevant today. The question is, >relevant to whom? While many linguists find relevance in Halliday's >work, others don't. The same can be said of Chomsky. I think it >would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is "not >relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes >functionalists and formalists alike. Right? > > >From: Dan I. Slobin [mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >To: Jeff MacSwan >Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? > >It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." >I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, >diachronic, >developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical >linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great >progress with little >or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of Chomsky, >for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris of >the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of >associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, >things look different depending on which camp you live in. > >Dan > >At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: > >It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which >disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most >influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > >But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, >computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > >While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does >not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic >theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >linguistics literature. > >Jeff MacSwan > >-----Original Message----- >From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >[ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio >Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >To: r.n.campbell >Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > >Hi Robin, > >Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's >now a more relevant figure than before? > >Anat Ninio > > > >r.n.campbell wrote: > >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > > -- > > > > Dr Robin N Campbell > > Dept of Psychology > > University of Stirling > > STIRLING FK9 4LA > > Scotland, UK > > > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > > > -- > > > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > > for messages of this kind. > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics > >Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From slobin at berkeley.edu Thu Oct 11 19:10:51 2007 From: slobin at berkeley.edu (Dan I. Slobin) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:10:51 -0700 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: I can't imagine this exercise, Peter. Chomsky was critically important in posing some of the most important, and still current questions: How does the child arrive at a grammar with limited information about grammar provided in the input? Is their an innately specified device for this task? What are the differences between knowledge and skill? How can we formally represent the underlying structures of language? Is grammar autonomous? Are there language universals, and are they biologically based? Etc. etc. My disappointment over the years was with the narrowness of the answers, the rigidity and psychological implausibility of the various formalisms, and an ideological disregard of what the child can learn from the speech+situation world in which it lives and grows--that is, disregard of the roles of semantics and pragmatics and their cognitive, biological bases, as well as disregard of the roles of frequency, memory, and processing as necessary components of a model of language acquisition. In fact, when I invited Chomsky to contribute a chapter on language development to my early volume, The Ontogenesis of Grammar (1971), he replied--and this was in 1966--that he had no idea about how or why language development occurred. He said it was a puzzle that acquisition was not instantaneous, and he had nothing to say about development. (All of this led me to write a paper, way back in 1988, "Confessions of a wayward Chomskyan.") Yes, I reiterate, I am still driven by the questions that he posed a half-century ago--though not by his current position. Dan At 11:47 AM 10/11/2007, Gordon, Peter wrote: >I think it would be an interesting exercise if Robin (and other >Anti-Chomskians) could give us a sense of how child language might >have developed without Chomsky and why it would have benefited from >his absence. > >Peter Gordon > > >Peter Gordon, Associate Professor >525 W 120th St. Box 180 >Biobehavioral Sciences Department >Teachers College, Columbia University >New York, NY 10027 >Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 >FAX: (212) 678-8233 >Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 > >---------- >From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Anat Ninio >Sent: Thu 10/11/2007 6:29 AM >To: Jeff MacSwan >Cc: Anat Ninio; r.n.campbell; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > >Well, generativism hasn't been the same since Chomsky turned his theory >into a sub-type of Dependency Grammar! My enthusiasm for highly-abstract >syntax as a framework for developmental theory has always been very >restricted, so it's good news that Chomsky doesn't work that way any more. > >Anat Ninio > >Jeff MacSwan wrote: > > It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which > > disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most > > influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." > > > > But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and > > influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics > > generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, > > computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. > > > > While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does > > not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic > > theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or > > significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current > > linguistics literature. > > > > Jeff MacSwan > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > > > [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] > On Behalf Of Anat Ninio > > Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM > > To: r.n.campbell > > Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > > Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > > > > Hi Robin, > > > > Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's > > now a more relevant figure than before? > > > > Anat Ninio > > > > > > > > r.n.campbell wrote: > > > >>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > >>> > >> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > >> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > >> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > >> -- > >> > >> Dr Robin N Campbell > >> Dept of Psychology > >> University of Stirling > >> STIRLING FK9 4LA > >> Scotland, UK > >> > >> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > >> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > >> Website: > http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > >> > >> -- > >> > >> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > >> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > >> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > >> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > >> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > >> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > >> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > >> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > >> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > >> for messages of this kind. > >> > >> > > > > > > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Thu Oct 11 19:12:48 2007 From: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk (Robin Campbell) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:12:48 +0100 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: When some new approach to a subject comes along, it deserves a bit of slack. Let's see where it goes. Chomsky didn't get much to begin with. In ill-natured debates James Sledd avoided outright libel by remarking only that 'The academic garden was full of real toads with imaginary jewels in their heads', while Charles Hockett gently pointed out that MIT Ph.D theses would be 'as worthless as horoscopes'. But Chomsky's ideas soon got plenty slack: linguistics departments filled up with followers who swept out the infidels, and psychology departments drank thirstily from the new well, and forced their students to do likewise. But after some time has passed it's important to take stock, and the right question to ask is 'Where are the good outcomes?'. Have the sick been healed? Are children better educated? Are there benefits to art or literature? Has the brass head spoken? Well, it's 50 years now since the publication of Syntactic Structures. Where are the good outcomes? For the study of language acquisition, for example? Is it time for the S.S. Generative Enterprise to boldly go into the nearest convenient black hole? I suspect it may be. Robin -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. From lmb32 at columbia.edu Thu Oct 11 21:24:07 2007 From: lmb32 at columbia.edu (Lois Bloom) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:24:07 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: As someone who, like Dan, cut my teeth on the Chomsky doctrine in the 1960s, my own work evolved subsequently in a different direction altogether in frustrated response to the persistent isolation of language within the GTG framework. It's worth pointing out, in response to Katie's comment about undergraduates "thinking that Chomsky and Skinner are the only two people ever to have written anything about language acquisition" that, indeed, neither Chomsky nor Skinner actually studied real live children acquiring a real live language. In a letter to me (dated November 2, 1987 regarding discussion at a BU conference), Noam referred to "many of the people [there] well-known in child language acquisition studies (about which I know next to nothing)." The MIT enterprise is about acquisition in only the most abstract, theoretical sense admitting neither the rest of cognition nor a child's social and emotional life. One might well wonder why, in the world according to MIT, these things were, at best, ignored or, at worst, denigrated. Perhaps fitting them into the theory is just too hard. Lois Bloom ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan I. Slobin To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 3:00 PM Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their thinking still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my hero; he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful questions. And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current approach is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. Dan At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be insensitive, not to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that Halliday is not relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many linguists find relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of Chomsky. I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes functionalists and formalists alike. Right? From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM To: Jeff MacSwan Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, diachronic, developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great progress with little or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of Chomsky, for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris of the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, things look different depending on which camp you live in. Dan At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current linguistics literature. Jeff MacSwan -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat Ninio Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM To: r.n.campbell Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? Hi Robin, Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's now a more relevant figure than before? Anat Ninio r.n.campbell wrote: >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* > > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. > -- > > Dr Robin N Campbell > Dept of Psychology > University of Stirling > STIRLING FK9 4LA > Scotland, UK > > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk > Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php > > -- > > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email > for messages of this kind. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Thu Oct 11 22:25:59 2007 From: bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de (bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:25:59 GMT Subject: Question on Syntactic Bootstrapping (fwd) Message-ID: Dear all, Many many thanks to the people having replied to my query, their messages were extremely helpful. I'll post a summary to the list in the next days. In this context, the following text was added as a P.S. in a reply to my query. I wonder what you people think of that. I for my part am sort of flabbergasted. PS -- Though I've been a writer and editor for many years, my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage costume jewelry -- for themselves or, better, for resale there -- I would be very appreciative if you would put us in touch with each other. Best Susanna ***************************************************************** Susanna Bartsch https://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/mitarb/homepage/bartsch/ bartsch at zas.gwz-berlin.de Zentrum fuer Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS) Centre for General Linguistics, Typology, and Universals Research Schuetzenstr. 18 10117 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 (0)30 20192562 Fax +49 (0)30 20192402 ***************************************************************** From macw at cmu.edu Thu Oct 11 23:06:59 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:06:59 +0800 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Peter, Fair question. Personally, I have found Chomsky's ideas sometimes right on and sometimes wildly implausible. I think that, in the final analysis, the field would have benefitted more if the ideas had been presented as just that -- as ideas, rather than as established scientific fact. Transformations, the cycle, rule- ordering, feeding, bleeding, the grammar gene, the sudden evolution of language, speech is special, the centrality of recursion, minimalism, mapping interfaces, principles and parameters, poverty of stimulus, modularity, early full competence, and the like. These are all fascinating ideas. But so are competition, cue validity, constructions, entrenchment, transfer, thematic structure, dependency relations, coevolution, sensorimotor bases, gesture-speech linkages, linguistic relativity, thinking for speaking, dynamic systems, learning to learn, resonance, and neural plasticity. What troubles me is that the first set of ideas was presented as a single take-it- or-leave-it package and contrasted with the second package, which was often dismissed as something that had "already been shown to be implausible." My personal assessment of the developments of the last 50 years is that, the single-package approach largely outlived its usefulness by about 1980. By then, it was clear that the pieces of the overall package were not logically or empirically co-dependent. If we had been able to "get over" this barrier, I think we would now have made quicker progress on (1) linking L1 and L2 theory, (2) grounding acquisitional theory on data, including video recordings, of real interactions, (3) made more headway on understanding real-time processing of language by normal children and children with disabilities, (4) developed a more solid quantitative methodological base for ongoing work, and (5) been able to field full working simulations of the acquisition of language. In this regard, science is really often just a trade-off of time and manpower. If we, as a field, had devoted less energy to attempts to characterize systems for parameter setting, I think we would have made more progress on these five fundamental fronts, building a firmer basis for ongoing work. In my mind, Chomsky's most important contribution is his initial one -- the emphasis on generativity. If our models of language learning are good at all, they should be able to model and depict the actual course of language development. In 1980, it was basically impossible to do this, because we did not have the relevant corpora. My own focus has been on solving this problem through the construction of CHILDES. Now, I believe, we are in a position to get back to the central task. We should be able to show how, using data available in real interactions with real children with real video and audio, children succeed in learning language. I don't think that the issue here is about Chomsky's presence or absence. Some of his questions are good and cannot be forgotten. But it is time to move on. -- Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 2:47 AM, Gordon, Peter wrote: > I think it would be an interesting exercise if Robin (and other > Anti-Chomskians) could give us a sense of how child language might > have developed without Chomsky and why it would have benefited from > his absence. > > Peter Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aananda at stanford.edu Fri Oct 12 01:45:34 2007 From: aananda at stanford.edu (Bruno Estigarribia) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:45:34 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <41e87b220710111734l7de2b72dmd7176c187a848a0b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I welcome Tom's approach: let's discuss concrete claims. However, I must disagree because I don't think we have the same sense of "explanation" in mind. For instance, if explaining the oddity of "what did who eat" depends on defining an otherwise unmotivated notion of "superiority", then I don't know what "explanation" means any longer. (In fact, (1) I---together with other colleagues at Stanford---have done work showing that superiority is best explained by processing biases: the data are gradient, D-linked explanations a la Pesetsky are unmotivated and empirically wrong, and "superiority" does not exist as soon as more than two wh-words are involved; (2) Chomsky himself has lately "decided" that superiority is not really a core grammar phenomenon but something to do with focus---take that for what it's worth) Many of us linguists feel that generative syntax (in the Chomskyan sense, not in the broader sense that includes LFG and HPSG) only works at the shallowest levels of data, helped along by such dubious and unfounded distinctions as competence/performance and core/periphery, and the unrestrained use of speaker/researcher intuitions. So, I would very much love for Tom to tell us what the explanations he has in mind are so that we can discuss them openly here. Cheers, Bruno Estigarribia > Dear All, > Well I guess I feel inclined to exhibit the opposite challenge to those > who disparage Chomsky's influence and current work on the acquisition > of grammar. > First it seems like there should be some facts under discussion. > There is simply no non-grammatical approach that explains > when and where grammars are productive, or non-productive, in > the crucial cases. Who can explain why German children allow: > what did who eat > but English children balk at it, and allow only > who ate what > who can explain the pairing restriction on this expression---which > disordered children fail to exhibit, without grammar? > Who can explain why children allow > Near Bill, he put a hat {Bill = he] > and then learn not to. There is no crucial data I know---only > a shift at an abstract level explainable in terms of deep structure. > Who can explain why children get a diference between > whose hat is he lifting > and > who lifted his hat? > One can throw in psychological terms, but if one does not recreate > grammar, it is pretty much impossible without grammar. These are some > of the results of grammaticdally based work. > > Here's the challenge. Of course, language involves social and > emotional factors. Who would not love to know how they are connected? > The question is whether we have the tools to do anything more than > describe connections. Descriptive connecxtions generally understate > human ability--- like 19th century grammarians who acknowledged "patterns" > but could not see the force behind creative generative power. > In my new book "The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language > Illuminates Humanism" I make the opposite claim: social and > cognitive approaches will not esplain the essence of children---the > basis for their sense of dignity---if it cannot incorporate clear, > algorithmic concepts of creativity---as captured by recursion-- > in sentences, adjectives, and possessives---and a projection of > structures that allow instant mechancial behavior. Our eyes dart > around the room with an individual program that is creative and > personal and fast. > Until we have really rich generative models of other parts > of the mind---the interfaces with grammar will be pedestrian > and not really revealing, nor in my opinion respectful, of > children. It is a big challenge----I cannot meet it, but I think > it is why a larger model of language that captures crucial > properties beyond grammar, has not emerged. > How does one integrate emotions into sentences? How do > you get your personality into your throat? Why does personality > affect voice tones but not color perception? How do we > generate unique emotions in unique situations just like we > generate unique sentences? The answers will come from rich > generative claims about the mind everywhere. They will not > come from very general statements about "interaction". > > This is the view articulated in my book. I welcome discussion > of this view and the ideas expressed there. > > > Tom Roeper > > > > > On 10/11/07, Dan I. Slobin wrote: > >> I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, >> linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their >> thinking >> still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my >> case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my hero; >> he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful questions. >> And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades >> ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current approach >> is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. >> >> Dan >> >> >> At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >> >> I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be insensitive, not >> to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that Halliday is not >> relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many linguists find >> relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of Chomsky. >> I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is >> "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes >> functionalists and formalists alike. Right? >> >> >> >> From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >> To: Jeff MacSwan >> Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." >> I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, >> diachronic, >> developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical >> linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great progress with >> little >> or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of >> Chomsky, >> for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris of >> the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of >> associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, >> things look different depending on which camp you live in. >> >> Dan >> >> At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: >> >> It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which >> disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most >> influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." >> >> But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >> influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >> generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, >> computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. >> >> While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does >> not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic >> theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >> significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >> linguistics literature. >> >> Jeff MacSwan >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat >> Ninio >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >> To: r.n.campbell >> Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> Hi Robin, >> >> Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's >> now a more relevant figure than before? >> >> Anat Ninio >> >> >> >> r.n.campbell wrote: >> >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >> > >> > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> > -- >> > >> > Dr Robin N Campbell >> > Dept of Psychology >> > University of Stirling >> > STIRLING FK9 4LA >> > Scotland, UK >> > >> > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> > Website: >> http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> > >> > -- >> > >> > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> > for messages of this kind. >> > >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> >> > > > From fwouk at comcast.net Fri Oct 12 04:49:22 2007 From: fwouk at comcast.net (Fay Wouk) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:49:22 +1300 Subject: IPSyn question Message-ID: Could someone with experience using Scarbourough's Index of Productive Syntax answer a question for me? The V6 level is Auxiliary be, do have in VP. Would utterances which have contracted is ('s) as their verb be acceptable here? I note that they can only be second exemplars for V4, so I'm wondering if they can also only be second exemplars for V6. Further, would it make any difference if the child had already been credited with 2 points at V4, for having produced 's as a second exemplar, and 'm as first exemplar? thanks, Fay Dr. Fay Wouk Senior Lecturer in Linguistics Dept. of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics University of Auckland From M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk Fri Oct 12 07:09:08 2007 From: M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk (Matthew Saxton) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:09:08 +0100 Subject: Antiques Roadshow Message-ID: >From an InfoCHILDES correspondent of Susanna Bartsch: "my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage costume jewelry ...... I would be very appreciative if you would put us in touch with each other." I wonder, is this somehow connected with the discussion of Chomsky? On which subject, I've been adding lots to my stock of learning on the academic culture and history of child language research this past couple of days. In general, I find the discussion about Chomsky's putative obsolescence quite depressing. Internecine struggles that have lasted for decades (including, for example, book-length treatments of the "Language War") are depressing. But more depressing is the relative lack of empirical maturity in the field of child language. In this, I agree with what Brian MacWhinney has to say (and, of course, applaud the efforts of CHILDES as a step in the right direction). Many studies on child language still have sample sizes that look derisory compared with other branches of the human sciences (mea culpa maxima). It is an easy matter to demonstrate that language is fundamental to the human experience. It is also relatively straightforward to demonstrate that research on language development is vitally important. To pluck just two examples from the air: (1) at least 7% of children have serious difficulty with first language acquisition (Tomblin et al., 1997); and (2) 2nd language learning is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And so on. Why, therefore, are politicians and businesses not throwing huge amounts of money at us to do both basic and applied research on language acquisition? I think there is a connection between the culture of open warfare and relative lack of funding. We betray ourselves to the wider world as members of an academic discipline that is unhealthily polarised, relatively immature in its empirical base and academically peripheral (not quite linguistics, not quite psychology, not quite....). And this is the case several decades after Chomsky (and Roger Brown) got people interested. But how did we get on to this? Oh yes: Robin Campbell diverted us from my original question about the competence-performance distinction. On which, I've had some very helpful and interesting replies and will, of course, post a summary. Now, how does one get into the antiques business...........? Regards, Matthew. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hauser at eva.mpg.de Fri Oct 12 07:29:53 2007 From: hauser at eva.mpg.de (Gerlind Hauser) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:29:53 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a mailing list of the people interested in this topic. Thanks and have a nice day! Gerlind From Bhuvana.Narasimhan at mpi.nl Fri Oct 12 10:39:55 2007 From: Bhuvana.Narasimhan at mpi.nl (Bhuvana Narasimhan) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:39:55 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <470F2271.5010706@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: Dear Gerlind (and Info-CHILDES), Creating a mailing list of people interested in developmental pragmatics (and semantics) is indeed a good way to promote an exchange of ideas. Fyi, we have recently initiated a new project on "Information structure in language acquisition" at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics which examines how children and adults learn correspondences between discourse-pragmatic notions (topic-comment, given-new) and linguistic devices such as intonation, word order or discourse particles in different languages. More information can be found on our website (http://www.mpi.nl/research/projects/informationstructure/). Best wishes, Christine Dimroth, Bhuvana Narasimhan On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:29 AM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central task: > So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It seems > that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and I > thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we could > better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > From c_kurumada at hotmail.com Fri Oct 12 13:49:42 2007 From: c_kurumada at hotmail.com (kurumada chigusa) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:49:42 +0900 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <07f726973ebdcd2ceeb52b55761a53ef@mpi.nl> Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES I am a student in Japan looking for a grad school to do my Ph.D. I have been working on the acquisition of the Japanese topic particle from a discourse/pragmatic perspective. Since, as Gerlind mentioned, it is not easy to find people doing developmental pragmatics as their main research topic, I would appreciate it very much if any of you could give me tips or pointers for where (which grad school?) I might find people to share such ideas and interests with. Thank you. Chigusa KURUMADA c_kurumada at hotmail.com Department of Language and Information Sciences, University of Tokyo > CC: INFO-CHILDES at mail.talkbank.org> From: Bhuvana.Narasimhan at mpi.nl> Subject: Re: Who's doing developmental pragmatics?> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:39:55 +0200> To: hauser at eva.mpg.de> > Dear Gerlind (and Info-CHILDES),> > Creating a mailing list of people interested in developmental > pragmatics (and semantics) is indeed> a good way to promote an exchange of ideas.> > Fyi, we have recently initiated a new project on "Information structure > in language acquisition" at the> Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics which examines how children > and adults learn> correspondences between discourse-pragmatic notions (topic-comment, > given-new) and linguistic> devices such as intonation, word order or discourse particles in > different languages. More information> can be found on our website > (http://www.mpi.nl/research/projects/informationstructure/).> > Best wishes,> Christine Dimroth, Bhuvana Narasimhan> > > On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:29 AM, Gerlind Hauser wrote:> > > Dear Info-CHILDES,> _________________________________________________________________ ?????????????????IE7?MSN??????????????? http://promotion.msn.co.jp/ie7/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mfleck at cs.uiuc.edu Fri Oct 12 14:52:05 2007 From: mfleck at cs.uiuc.edu (Margaret Fleck) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:52:05 -0500 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <470ED1BE.3080507@stanford.edu> Message-ID: It is worth bearing in mind that Chomsky was in at the very start of the development of formal grammar technology, essential to creating both compilers for computer languages, formal models for linguistics, and algorithms for computational linguistics. He is still cited in the undergraduate computer science curriculum for that reason. He was also a key figure in pushing everyone to develop models that were well-enough formalized that they could be tested, first by hand and eventually using computers. Even if you don't like his specific models, and you think his later work is unhelpfully detached from reality, you have to give him credit for these earlier contributions. Margaret From mcf636 at hotmail.com Fri Oct 12 15:46:39 2007 From: mcf636 at hotmail.com (Madalena Cruz-Ferreira) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:46:39 +0000 Subject: Monolingual insights about language [was: Chomsky: Obsolete?] In-Reply-To: <470F8A15.2040509@cs.uiuc.edu> Message-ID: Chomskyan insights about language are monolingual, aren't they? That leaves out a lot of language and a lot of children. Or perhaps I got the whole thing wrong? Madalena ________________________ Madalena Cruz-Ferreiramcf636 at hotmail.com ________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Get your free suite of Windows Live services! http://www.get.live.com/wl/all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crojas at servidor.unam.mx Fri Oct 12 17:27:21 2007 From: crojas at servidor.unam.mx (Cecilia Rojas) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:27:21 -0500 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <07f726973ebdcd2ceeb52b55761a53ef@mpi.nl> Message-ID: Dear all, I'm currently working on Spanish early verb inflection, but what I'm looking for in every topic I visit, is a pragmatic account of the processes considered to be grammatically oriented -at least in early years- before the leveling of a grammar is in place. This holds for relative constructions as holds for lexical development, or early constrast in verb inflection Cecilia Rojas Instituto de Investigaciones Filol?gicas Universidad Nacional Aut?noma de M?xico Cd. Universitaria, DF 04510 Fax 5255 56652903Mensaje citado por: Bhuvana Narasimhan : > Dear Gerlind (and Info-CHILDES), > > Creating a mailing list of people interested in developmental > pragmatics (and semantics) is indeed > a good way to promote an exchange of ideas. > > Fyi, we have recently initiated a new project on "Information structure > > in language acquisition" at the > Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics which examines how children > and adults learn > correspondences between discourse-pragmatic notions (topic-comment, > given-new) and linguistic > devices such as intonation, word order or discourse particles in > different languages. More information > can be found on our website > (http://www.mpi.nl/research/projects/informationstructure/). > > Best wishes, > Christine Dimroth, Bhuvana Narasimhan > > > On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:29 AM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > > > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central task: > > So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It seems > > that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and I > > thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we could > > better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > > > Gerlind > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------- www.correo.unam.mx UNAMonos Comunic?ndonos From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 12 21:19:55 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:19:55 +0800 Subject: IPSyn question In-Reply-To: <98C76EDD-C0A4-4DBE-A886-3D25C1A09792@comcast.net> Message-ID: Fay, I haven't done much PSyn coding myself, but I was closely involved with Kenji Sagae's computerized formulation of IPSyn. In the process of building his automatic IPSyn, Kenji received coded IPSyn's from three people who we took as the "gold standard." I would not want to divulge in public which of the three coders ended up with the score closest to that of the program, but perhaps I can say that, in the end, the program and the humans were all getting close to 95% accuracy. Now, the nice thing about the program is that Kenji could actually check his code to see how it is programmed for this. This is not to say that the program is "right" but at least one can look at the code and see what it does all the time. Once these fine details of IPSyn coding get resolved in the community, they can then be locked in to the program. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 12:49 PM, Fay Wouk wrote: > Could someone with experience using Scarbourough's Index of > Productive Syntax answer a question for me? > > The V6 level is Auxiliary be, do have in VP. Would utterances > which have contracted is ('s) as their verb be acceptable here? I > note that they can only be second exemplars for V4, so I'm > wondering if they can also only be second exemplars for V6. > Further, would it make any difference if the child had already been > credited with 2 points at V4, for having produced 's as a second > exemplar, and 'm as first exemplar? > > thanks, > Fay > > Dr. Fay Wouk > Senior Lecturer in Linguistics > Dept. of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics > University of Auckland > > From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 12 21:28:12 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:28:12 +0800 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <470F2271.5010706@eva.mpg.de> Message-ID: Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call it chiprag at googlegroups.com. We recently moved info- chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine too. Failing that, I could give it a try. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > > From susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz Sat Oct 13 00:36:27 2007 From: susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz (Susan Foster-Cohen) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:36:27 +1300 Subject: generative grammar and acquisition Message-ID: P.S. to my recent e-mail. I have also recently read Tom Roeper's new book, and he does indeed poses many extremely important challenges to us as a child language community. I recommend it wholeheartedly in the context of our discussion, and particularly urge researchers to test out the little experimental paradigms that he presents throughout the book. Cheers, Susan From mfriend at sunstroke.sdsu.edu Sat Oct 13 00:33:10 2007 From: mfriend at sunstroke.sdsu.edu (Margaret Friend) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:33:10 -0700 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! Maggie Friend At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon De?k wrote: >I'd be interested in participating in the group. >Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be >extremely easy to set up--no moderator needed. >-Gedeon > >On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney <macw at cmu.edu> wrote: >Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, > > How about a new mailing list at > googlegroups.com? We could call >it >chiprag at googlegroups.com. >We recently moved info- >chibolts at mail.talkbank.org >to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, >my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would >be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior >figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, >an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine >too. Failing that, I could give it a try. > >--Brian MacWhinney > >On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > > > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > > > Gerlind > > > > > > > > > > > >-- > >Gedeon O. De?k, Ph.D. >Department of Cognitive Science >9500 Gilman Dr. >Univ. CA, San Diego >La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 >http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab > >ph (858) 822-3352 >fax (858) 534-1128 Margaret Friend, Ph.D. Child Language and Emotion Lab Department of Psychology and SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders San Diego State University 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 San Diego, CA 92120 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz Sat Oct 13 00:34:21 2007 From: susan.foster-cohen at canterbury.ac.nz (Susan Foster-Cohen) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:34:21 +1300 Subject: generative grammar and acquisition Message-ID: Dear all: I have just been reading Ray Jackendoff's excellent essay "Reintegrating Generative Grammar" which forms chapter 2 of his new book "Language, consciousness, culture: Essays on mental structure". May I recommend it to you all in the context of the current discussion. While there is not a vast amount in it directly on acquisition it is extremely articulate about the relationship between generative linguistics and psycholinguistics and, now, neurolinguistics/cognitive science. It is a gracious acknowledgement of the importance of Chomsky's work while at the same time articulating why so many in cognitive science and acquisition have been/are so frustrated. As always with Ray's work, it is thoughtful, articulate, a pleasure to read, and accessible. I am anticipating that the rest of the book is going to be equally relevant to our concerns. Cheers, Susan Foster-Cohen -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Matthew Saxton Sent: Fri 10/12/2007 8:09 PM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: [SPAM: 3.000] Antiques Roadshow >From an InfoCHILDES correspondent of Susanna Bartsch: "my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage costume jewelry ...... I would be very appreciative if you would put us in touch with each other." I wonder, is this somehow connected with the discussion of Chomsky? On which subject, I've been adding lots to my stock of learning on the academic culture and history of child language research this past couple of days. In general, I find the discussion about Chomsky's putative obsolescence quite depressing. Internecine struggles that have lasted for decades (including, for example, book-length treatments of the "Language War") are depressing. But more depressing is the relative lack of empirical maturity in the field of child language. In this, I agree with what Brian MacWhinney has to say (and, of course, applaud the efforts of CHILDES as a step in the right direction). Many studies on child language still have sample sizes that look derisory compared with other branches of the human sciences (mea culpa maxima). It is an easy matter to demonstrate that language is fundamental to the human experience. It is also relatively straightforward to demonstrate that research on language development is vitally important. To pluck just two examples from the air: (1) at least 7% of children have serious difficulty with first language acquisition (Tomblin et al., 1997); and (2) 2nd language learning is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And so on. Why, therefore, are politicians and businesses not throwing huge amounts of money at us to do both basic and applied research on language acquisition? I think there is a connection between the culture of open warfare and relative lack of funding. We betray ourselves to the wider world as members of an academic discipline that is unhealthily polarised, relatively immature in its empirical base and academically peripheral (not quite linguistics, not quite psychology, not quite....). And this is the case several decades after Chomsky (and Roger Brown) got people interested. But how did we get on to this? Oh yes: Robin Campbell diverted us from my original question about the competence-performance distinction. On which, I've had some very helpful and interesting replies and will, of course, post a summary. Now, how does one get into the antiques business...........? Regards, Matthew. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk From sakas at hunter.cuny.edu Sat Oct 13 02:48:17 2007 From: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu (William Gregory Sakas) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:48:17 -0400 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? Message-ID: Hi Everyone, IMHO Tom is right on this one. Chomsky moved linguistics into a field of inquiry similar to those of (for want of a better term) natural science To say Chomsky is obsolete, is basically to say that that move was wrong (NB we've been discussing Chomsky 'big-picture' here, not, say Minimalist Program or even autonomy of syntax). The 'facts', the linguistic data, should to be explained by a comprehensive theory that explains all -- not 70 percent, 80 percent or 90 percent. A theory posed in a generative (formal) framework is the right way to go about this. Though as Tom points out, it is a big big task. Short that, we let linguistics fall into studying day-to-day language as art ... insightful, well-thought-out, meaningful interpretation ... probably an approach some of us would advocate. But, unlike art, there are quantifiable 'wrongs' in human language (again as Tom points out). To me, as a scientist, this means that there must be a theory out there that can make fully accurate predictions about the rights-and-wrongs of human utterances (or at least 'Turing-accurate' predictions). Of course Chomsky is/has been wrong on many counts, as he himself often admits, but to say he's obsolete is to say that Galileo is the same when Galileo (re)invented a method of scientific investigation that's still the fundamental basis for scientific inquiry today. Best all, -- Wm William Gregory Sakas, Ph.D. Computer Science and Linguistics Hunter College and the Graduate Center City University of New York (CUNY) Email: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu Voice: 1 212 772.5211 Fax: 1 212 772.5219 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Roeper" To: "Dan I. Slobin" Cc: Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 8:34 PM Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? > Dear All, > Well I guess I feel inclined to exhibit the opposite challenge to > those > who disparage Chomsky's influence and current work on the acquisition > of grammar. > First it seems like there should be some facts under discussion. > There is simply no non-grammatical approach that explains > when and where grammars are productive, or non-productive, in > the crucial cases. Who can explain why German children allow: > what did who eat > but English children balk at it, and allow only > who ate what > who can explain the pairing restriction on this expression---which > disordered children fail to exhibit, without grammar? > Who can explain why children allow > Near Bill, he put a hat {Bill = he] > and then learn not to. There is no crucial data I know---only > a shift at an abstract level explainable in terms of deep structure. > Who can explain why children get a diference between > whose hat is he lifting > and > who lifted his hat? > One can throw in psychological terms, but if one does not recreate > grammar, it is pretty much impossible without grammar. These are some > of the results of grammaticdally based work. > > Here's the challenge. Of course, language involves social and > emotional factors. Who would not love to know how they are connected? > The question is whether we have the tools to do anything more than > describe connections. Descriptive connecxtions generally understate > human ability--- like 19th century grammarians who acknowledged "patterns" > but could not see the force behind creative generative power. > In my new book "The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language > Illuminates Humanism" I make the opposite claim: social and > cognitive approaches will not esplain the essence of children---the > basis for their sense of dignity---if it cannot incorporate clear, > algorithmic concepts of creativity---as captured by recursion-- > in sentences, adjectives, and possessives---and a projection of > structures that allow instant mechancial behavior. Our eyes dart > around the room with an individual program that is creative and > personal and fast. > Until we have really rich generative models of other parts > of the mind---the interfaces with grammar will be pedestrian > and not really revealing, nor in my opinion respectful, of > children. It is a big challenge----I cannot meet it, but I think > it is why a larger model of language that captures crucial > properties beyond grammar, has not emerged. > How does one integrate emotions into sentences? How do > you get your personality into your throat? Why does personality > affect voice tones but not color perception? How do we > generate unique emotions in unique situations just like we > generate unique sentences? The answers will come from rich > generative claims about the mind everywhere. They will not > come from very general statements about "interaction". > > This is the view articulated in my book. I welcome discussion > of this view and the ideas expressed there. > > > Tom Roeper > > > > > On 10/11/07, Dan I. Slobin wrote: >> >> I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, >> linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, and their >> thinking >> still seriously influences much current work in various fields. In my >> case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he was my >> hero; >> he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful >> questions. >> And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, decades >> ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current >> approach >> is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. >> >> Dan >> >> >> At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >> >> I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be insensitive, >> not >> to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that Halliday is >> not >> relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many linguists >> find >> relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of >> Chomsky. >> I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the figure is >> "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field includes >> functionalists and formalists alike. Right? >> >> >> >> From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >> To: Jeff MacSwan >> Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics literature." >> I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, typological, >> diachronic, >> developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, pedagogical >> linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great progress >> with >> little >> or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a mention of >> Chomsky, >> for example, in last month's five-day international conference in Paris >> of >> the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more days of >> associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in our world, >> things look different depending on which camp you live in. >> >> Dan >> >> At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: >> >> It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks which >> disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when the most >> influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer "relevant." >> >> But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >> influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >> generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive sciences, >> computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. >> >> While one can do interesting and important linguistic research that does >> not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to linguistic >> theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >> significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >> linguistics literature. >> >> Jeff MacSwan >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat >> Ninio >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >> To: r.n.campbell >> Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> Hi Robin, >> >> Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so maybe he's >> now a more relevant figure than before? >> >> Anat Ninio >> >> >> >> r.n.campbell wrote: >> >> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >> > >> > A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >> > discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also obsolete. >> > For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >> > -- >> > >> > Dr Robin N Campbell >> > Dept of Psychology >> > University of Stirling >> > STIRLING FK9 4LA >> > Scotland, UK >> > >> > telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >> > email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >> > Website: >> http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >> > >> > -- >> > >> > The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by >> > charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may >> > be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated >> > in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such >> > person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone >> > and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >> > prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this >> > message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >> > immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email >> > for messages of this kind. >> > >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >> >> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >> USA >> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> > > > -- > Tom Roeper > Dept of Lingiustics > UMass South College > Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA > 413 256 0390 > > From mariehojholt at stofanet.dk Sat Oct 13 06:29:06 2007 From: mariehojholt at stofanet.dk (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Marie_H=F8jholt?=) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:29:06 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: I would also like to be included! Are anyone taking on the actual establishing of the forum? Best Marie Hoejholt Grad. student Linguistics, Aarhus, Denmark ----- Original Message ----- From: Margaret Friend To: "Gedeon De?k" ; Brian MacWhinney Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 2:33 AM Subject: Re: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! Maggie Friend At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon De?k wrote: I'd be interested in participating in the group. Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set up--no moderator needed. -Gedeon On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call it chiprag at googlegroups.com . We recently moved info- chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine too. Failing that, I could give it a try. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > > -- Gedeon O. De?k, Ph.D. Department of Cognitive Science 9500 Gilman Dr. Univ. CA, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab ph (858) 822-3352 fax (858) 534-1128 Margaret Friend, Ph.D. Child Language and Emotion Lab Department of Psychology and SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders San Diego State University 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 San Diego, CA 92120 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From P.Hendriks at rug.nl Sat Oct 13 08:01:05 2007 From: P.Hendriks at rug.nl (P.Hendriks) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:01:05 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: Dear Gerlind and info-childes, I would also be interested in a mailing list on developmental pragmatics. At the University of Groningen, we recently initiated a project on developmental semantics and pragmatics, studying asymmetries between children's production and their comprehension of several aspects of semantics/pragmatics. We also intend to look at children and adolescents with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. More information about our project is available on our project website (http://www.let.rug.nl/~hendriks/vici.htm). Also, adding to the discussion on Chomsky and generative grammar, I agree with William Gregory Sakas that we should distinguish between Chomsky's 'big picture' of linguistics as a natural science and Chomsky's particular ideas about syntax. Currently, several alternatives are being developed to Chomsky's particular view on syntax which still adhere to Chomsky's big picture, for example Optimality-Theoretic models of language acquisition. These models depart from Chomsky's particular view of autonomous syntax (by also taking into account meaning and context), while still being formal and generative and yielding testable predictions with respect to language acquisition. Best wishes, --Petra Hendriks From mskcusb at mscc.huji.ac.il Sat Oct 13 14:12:57 2007 From: mskcusb at mscc.huji.ac.il (Shoshana Blum-Kulka) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:12:57 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Message-ID: Dear Gerlind, Great idea, I'd love to join the group. We have two projects going on developmental pragmatics-in the first we have followed two cohorts of Israeli children for three years (combining ethnography with semi-structured interviews) initially looking at the development of extended genres, like explanations and narratives, and more recently at various discourse phenomena in natural peer talk, like speech representation, pretend play and literate language and the emergence of sociable conversation. Part of this work is cross-cultural, examining the spread of all genres in the natural peer talk of young Israeli and American children (with Catherine Snow and Rebecca Sutherland) (a list of publications from this project can be provided later on). The second project focuses on the development of pragmatic competence in Hebrew as as a seond language by young (preschool and kindergarten) immigrant children in Israel; this too is a longitudinal study, currently its third year, combining linguistic ethnography, semi-structured interviews and standard tests. best, Shoshana Blum-Kulka Professor Emerita Shoshana Blum-Kulka Department of Communication and School of Education Hebrew University Jerusalem, 91905 Israel From: Margaret Friend To: "Gedeon De?k" ; Brian MacWhinney Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 2:33 AM Subject: Re: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! Maggie Friend At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon De?k wrote: I'd be interested in participating in the group. Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set up--no moderator needed. -Gedeon On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call it chiprag at googlegroups.com . We recently moved info- chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine too. Failing that, I could give it a try. --Brian MacWhinney On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. > > Thanks and have a nice day! > > Gerlind > > > -- Gedeon O. De?k, Ph.D. Department of Cognitive Science 9500 Gilman Dr. Univ. CA, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab ph (858) 822-3352 fax (858) 534-1128 Margaret Friend, Ph.D. Child Language and Emotion Lab Department of Psychology and SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders San Diego State University 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 San Diego, CA 92120 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jevans at mail.sdsu.edu Sat Oct 13 16:34:00 2007 From: jevans at mail.sdsu.edu (Julia Evans) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:34:00 -0700 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20071012173209.02306190@sunstroke.sdsu.edu> Message-ID: Brian, Thank you for a great idea. Please include me as well. We are interested in dynamic of pragmatics in gesture-speech mismatches in children with and with/out SLI. Julia Julia Evans. Ph.D ccc-slp School of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences San Diego State University San Diego, Ca 92182-1518 Phone 619-594-6350 http://slhs.sdsu.edu/facultydetail.php?ID=148 http://slhs.sdsu.edu/evans/index.php Let no child be demaned, nor have their wonder diminished because of our ignorance or inactivity, Let no child be deprived of discovery because we lack the resources to discover their problem Let no child doubt themselve or their mind because we are unsure of our commitment Foundation for Learning Disabilities '87 On Oct 12, 2007, at 5:33 PM, Margaret Friend wrote: > Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic > cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! > > Maggie Friend > > At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon De?k wrote: >> I'd be interested in participating in the group. >> Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set >> up--no moderator needed. >> -Gedeon >> >> On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >> Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, >> >> How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could call >> it chiprag at googlegroups.com . We recently moved info- >> chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, >> my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would >> be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some senior >> figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing that, >> an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine >> too. Failing that, I could give it a try. >> >> --Brian MacWhinney >> >> On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: >> >> > Dear Info-CHILDES, >> > >> > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central >> > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing developmental >> > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It >> > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays and >> > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we >> > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. >> > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a >> > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. >> > >> > Thanks and have a nice day! >> > >> > Gerlind >> > >> > >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Gedeon O. De?k, Ph.D. >> Department of Cognitive Science >> 9500 Gilman Dr. >> Univ. CA, San Diego >> La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 >> http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab >> >> ph (858) 822-3352 >> fax (858) 534-1128 > Margaret Friend, Ph.D. > Child Language and Emotion Lab > Department of Psychology and > SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative > Disorders > San Diego State University > 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 > San Diego, CA 92120 > 619-594-0273 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morgen at idf.ext.jussieu.fr Sat Oct 13 16:49:16 2007 From: morgen at idf.ext.jussieu.fr (Aliyah MORGENSTERN) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:49:16 +0200 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <3E112B83-9E55-422D-8377-5050A779425D@mail.sdsu.edu> Message-ID: Maybe Brian can create the list and then tell us how to subscribe. It would be too tiresome for him tto keep adding people... It sounds like quite a lot of info-childes people will be interested. Best, Aliyah Aliyah Morgenstern Ecole Normale Sup?rieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines Lyon, France Le 13 oct. 07 ? 18:34, Julia Evans a ?crit : > Brian, > Thank you for a great idea. > Please include me as well. We are interested in dynamic of > pragmatics in gesture-speech mismatches in children with and with/ > out SLI. > > Julia > > > Julia Evans. Ph.D ccc-slp > School of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences > San Diego State University > San Diego, Ca 92182-1518 > Phone 619-594-6350 > > http://slhs.sdsu.edu/facultydetail.php?ID=148 > http://slhs.sdsu.edu/evans/index.php > > Let no child be demaned, nor have their wonder diminished because > of our ignorance or inactivity, > Let no child be deprived of discovery because we lack the > resources to discover their problem > Let no child doubt themselve or their mind because we are unsure of > our commitment > > Foundation for Learning Disabilities '87 > > > > > On Oct 12, 2007, at 5:33 PM, Margaret Friend wrote: > >> Please include me as well! I'm primarily interested in pragmatic >> cues in the input. Thanks for a great idea! >> >> Maggie Friend >> >> At 04:41 PM 10/12/2007, Gedeon De?k wrote: >>> I'd be interested in participating in the group. >>> Yes, as Brian says, a google group would be extremely easy to set >>> up--no moderator needed. >>> -Gedeon >>> >>> On 10/12/07, Brian MacWhinney wrote: >>> Dear Gerlind, Bhuvana, and Kurumada, >>> >>> How about a new mailing list at googlegroups.com? We could >>> call >>> it chiprag at googlegroups.com .. We recently moved info- >>> chibolts at mail.talkbank.org to chibolts at googlegroups.com and, so far, >>> my opinion of the Google Groups facility is very positive. I would >>> be willing to set this up, but it would be even better if some >>> senior >>> figure in Developmental Pragmatics would take this on. Failing >>> that, >>> an energetic young person with good computer access would serve fine >>> too. Failing that, I could give it a try. >>> >>> --Brian MacWhinney >>> >>> On Oct 12, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Gerlind Hauser wrote: >>> >>> > Dear Info-CHILDES, >>> > >>> > as Brian MacWhinney said: it's time to get back to the central >>> > task: So, I am looking for the people out there doing >>> developmental >>> > pragmatics as one important aspect of language acquisition. It >>> > seems that there are not so many working on this topic nowadays >>> and >>> > I thought a bit of networking might be a good idea to see how we >>> > could better exchange our ideas and strengthen the field a bit. >>> > Please let me know any ideas. Maybe we could start by creating a >>> > mailing list of the people interested in this topic. >>> > >>> > Thanks and have a nice day! >>> > >>> > Gerlind >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> >>> Gedeon O. De?k, Ph.D. >>> Department of Cognitive Science >>> 9500 Gilman Dr. >>> Univ. CA, San Diego >>> La Jolla, CA 92093-0515 >>> http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~deak/cdlab >>> >>> ph (858) 822-3352 >>> fax (858) 534-1128 >> Margaret Friend, Ph.D. >> Child Language and Emotion Lab >> Department of Psychology and >> SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative >> Disorders >> San Diego State University >> 6363 Alvarado Court, Ste.103 >> San Diego, CA 92120 >> 619-594-0273 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Sat Oct 13 20:59:27 2007 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:59:27 -0600 Subject: Chomsky: Obsolete? In-Reply-To: <41e87b220710130642w1109a069gb96abfc653785f72@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Tom, I frankly don't understand some of this. First, did you really mean ' an implied "you" not "he" when you are discussing imperatives? If that's NOT a simple pronoun exchange slip, can you explain more? Can you give an example of a difference between exclamatives and imperatives that is not explainable by pragmatics/semantics? And could you elaborate what you mean by 'a system that treats pragmatics and semantics as confirmation routines for syntax'? I take it you mean that the child connects syntactic evidence to an innate grammar first, and the role pragmatics and semantics can play is secondary. Would you let such non-syntactic evidence disconfirm a hypothesis based on syntax, or only confirm it? In either case, can you explain why you take the position that you do? Lise On Oct 13, 2007, at 7:42 AM, Tom Roeper wrote: > IN 1975 Chomsky said acquisition had to be consistent with > "with triggering experience" which refers to more than syntax which > I asked > him about and he immediately agreed. Imperatives, which command > a child's attention, could be linked immediately to structural > representations > so that the child knows that there is an implied "he" not "you". > The whole > experience is necessary to set the subtle properties of imperatives > in place--- > and distinguish them from exclamatives (a paper linking semantics > and two word utterances has been written by me and Chris POtts if > anyone > is interested). > Getting the deductive part linked to a system that treats > pragmatics > and semantics as confirmation routines for syntax---that is the > challenge > we must meet I think. If we can model this, then we have a first step > toward incorporating the kinds of data that are implicitly being > referred to in this discussion I think, to explain language > acquisition. > To explain language use is quite a different matter---but one that can > give insights into acquisiiton model. > > Tom > > On 10/12/07, William Gregory Sakas wrote: >> Hi Everyone, >> >> IMHO Tom is right on this one. Chomsky moved linguistics into >> a field of inquiry similar to those of (for want of a better term) >> natural science To say Chomsky is obsolete, is basically to say that >> that move was wrong (NB we've been discussing Chomsky 'big-picture' >> here, not, say Minimalist Program or even autonomy of syntax). The >> 'facts', >> the linguistic data, should to be explained by a comprehensive theory >> that explains all -- not 70 percent, 80 percent or 90 percent. >> >> A theory posed in a generative (formal) framework is the right >> way to go about this. Though as Tom points out, it is a big big task. >> Short that, we let linguistics fall into studying day-to-day >> language as art ... insightful, well-thought-out, meaningful >> interpretation ... probably an approach some of us would advocate. >> >> But, unlike art, there are quantifiable 'wrongs' in human language >> (again as Tom points out). To me, as a scientist, this means that >> there >> must be a theory out there that can make fully accurate predictions >> about the rights-and-wrongs of human utterances (or at least >> 'Turing-accurate' predictions). >> >> Of course Chomsky is/has been wrong on many counts, as he himself >> often admits, but to say he's obsolete is to say that Galileo is >> the same >> when Galileo (re)invented a method of scientific investigation that's >> still the fundamental basis for scientific inquiry today. >> >> Best all, >> -- Wm >> >> William Gregory Sakas, Ph.D. >> Computer Science and Linguistics >> Hunter College and the Graduate Center >> City University of New York (CUNY) >> Email: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu >> Voice: 1 212 772.5211 >> Fax: 1 212 772.5219 >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Tom Roeper" >> To: "Dan I. Slobin" >> Cc: >> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 8:34 PM >> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >> >> >>> Dear All, >>> Well I guess I feel inclined to exhibit the opposite >>> challenge to >>> those >>> who disparage Chomsky's influence and current work on the >>> acquisition >>> of grammar. >>> First it seems like there should be some facts under discussion. >>> There is simply no non-grammatical approach that explains >>> when and where grammars are productive, or non-productive, in >>> the crucial cases. Who can explain why German children allow: >>> what did who eat >>> but English children balk at it, and allow only >>> who ate what >>> who can explain the pairing restriction on this expression---which >>> disordered children fail to exhibit, without grammar? >>> Who can explain why children allow >>> Near Bill, he put a hat {Bill = he] >>> and then learn not to. There is no crucial data I know---only >>> a shift at an abstract level explainable in terms of deep structure. >>> Who can explain why children get a diference between >>> whose hat is he lifting >>> and >>> who lifted his hat? >>> One can throw in psychological terms, but if one does not recreate >>> grammar, it is pretty much impossible without grammar. These are >>> some >>> of the results of grammaticdally based work. >>> >>> Here's the challenge. Of course, language involves social and >>> emotional factors. Who would not love to know how they are >>> connected? >>> The question is whether we have the tools to do anything more than >>> describe connections. Descriptive connecxtions generally understate >>> human ability--- like 19th century grammarians who acknowledged >>> "patterns" >>> but could not see the force behind creative generative power. >>> In my new book "The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language >>> Illuminates Humanism" I make the opposite claim: social and >>> cognitive approaches will not esplain the essence of children---the >>> basis for their sense of dignity---if it cannot incorporate clear, >>> algorithmic concepts of creativity---as captured by recursion-- >>> in sentences, adjectives, and possessives---and a projection of >>> structures that allow instant mechancial behavior. Our eyes dart >>> around the room with an individual program that is creative and >>> personal and fast. >>> Until we have really rich generative models of other parts >>> of the mind---the interfaces with grammar will be pedestrian >>> and not really revealing, nor in my opinion respectful, of >>> children. It is a big challenge----I cannot meet it, but I think >>> it is why a larger model of language that captures crucial >>> properties beyond grammar, has not emerged. >>> How does one integrate emotions into sentences? How do >>> you get your personality into your throat? Why does personality >>> affect voice tones but not color perception? How do we >>> generate unique emotions in unique situations just like we >>> generate unique sentences? The answers will come from rich >>> generative claims about the mind everywhere. They will not >>> come from very general statements about "interaction". >>> >>> This is the view articulated in my book. I welcome discussion >>> of this view and the ideas expressed there. >>> >>> >>> Tom Roeper >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On 10/11/07, Dan I. Slobin wrote: >>>> >>>> I agree. Note, that I made no claims about "relevance." Clearly, >>>> linguists like Chomsky and Halliday are relevant in many ways, >>>> and their >>>> thinking >>>> still seriously influences much current work in various >>>> fields. In my >>>> case, I took courses from Chomsky in the early sixties, when he >>>> was my >>>> hero; >>>> he definitely refocused the field and phrased new and fruitful >>>> questions. >>>> And I learned much from Halliday when he lectured at Berkeley, >>>> decades >>>> ago. With regard to Chomsky, the question is whether his current >>>> approach >>>> is useful for the fields that I listed in my last email. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> >>>> At 10:01 AM 10/11/2007, Jeff MacSwan wrote: >>>> >>>> I would agree with these remarks. But I think it would be >>>> insensitive, >>>> not >>>> to mention empirically incorrect, to say, for instance, that >>>> Halliday is >>>> not >>>> relevant today. The question is, relevant to whom? While many >>>> linguists >>>> find >>>> relevance in Halliday's work, others don't. The same can be said of >>>> Chomsky. >>>> I think it would be a mistake to say of either example that the >>>> figure is >>>> "not relevant" to linguistics (or to anything) since the field >>>> includes >>>> functionalists and formalists alike. Right? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> From: Dan I. Slobin [ mailto:slobin at berkeley.edu] >>>> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:52 AM >>>> To: Jeff MacSwan >>>> Subject: RE: Chomsky: Obsolete? >>>> >>>> It depends on what you consider "the current linguistics >>>> literature." >>>> I enjoy the rich literature on functional, conceptual, >>>> typological, >>>> diachronic, >>>> developmental, anthropological, psychological, sociological, >>>> pedagogical >>>> linguistic literature--all of which quite happily make great >>>> progress >>>> with >>>> little >>>> or no reference to generativist work. There was hardly a >>>> mention of >>>> Chomsky, >>>> for example, in last month's five-day international conference >>>> in Paris >>>> of >>>> the Association for Linguistic Typology, as well as four more >>>> days of >>>> associated workshops on many topics. Like many ideologies in >>>> our world, >>>> things look different depending on which camp you live in. >>>> >>>> Dan >>>> >>>> At 09:23 AM 10/11/2007, you wrote: >>>> >>>> It's not a surprise that those who are committed to frameworks >>>> which >>>> disavow generativist work would gleefully await the day when >>>> the most >>>> influential figure, who also created the field, is no longer >>>> "relevant." >>>> >>>> But Chomsky's work actually continues to grow in significance and >>>> influence, precisely due to its relevance not only to linguistics >>>> generally, but also to the social sciences, the cognitive >>>> sciences, >>>> computer science and mathematics, and philosophy. >>>> >>>> While one can do interesting and important linguistic research >>>> that does >>>> not heavily rely on Chomsky's own specific contributions to >>>> linguistic >>>> theory, the idea that his work has generally lost relevance or >>>> significance reflects a lack of acquaintance with the current >>>> linguistics literature. >>>> >>>> Jeff MacSwan >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >>>> [ mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Anat >>>> Ninio >>>> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:56 AM >>>> To: r.n.campbell >>>> Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org >>>> Subject: Re: Chomsky: Obsolete? >>>> >>>> Hi Robin, >>>> >>>> Chomsky actually changed his mind about what syntax is, so >>>> maybe he's >>>> now a more relevant figure than before? >>>> >>>> Anat Ninio >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> r.n.campbell wrote: >>>>>> *Competence vs. Performance: A False Distinction?* >>>>> >>>>> A broader topic (which includes this one and is equally worth >>>>> discussing) is that Noam Chomsky and all his works are also >>>>> obsolete. >>>>> For me, it will be a happy day when this is so. >>>>> -- >>>>> >>>>> Dr Robin N Campbell >>>>> Dept of Psychology >>>>> University of Stirling >>>>> STIRLING FK9 4LA >>>>> Scotland, UK >>>>> >>>>> telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 >>>>> email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk >>>>> Website: >>>> http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> >>>>> The University of Stirling is a university established in >>>>> Scotland by >>>>> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential >>>>> Information may >>>>> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee >>>>> indicated >>>>> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to >>>>> such >>>>> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to >>>>> anyone >>>>> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is >>>>> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should >>>>> destroy this >>>>> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise >>>>> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet >>>>> email >>>>> for messages of this kind. >>>>> >>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >>>> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >>>> >>>> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >>>> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >>>> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >>>> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >>>> USA >>>> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School >>>> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics >>>> >>>> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu >>>> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292 >>>> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769 >>>> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293 >>>> USA >>>> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Tom Roeper >>> Dept of Lingiustics >>> UMass South College >>> Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA >>> 413 256 0390 >>> >>> >> >> >> > > > -- > Tom Roeper > Dept of Lingiustics > UMass South College > Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA > 413 256 0390 > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Amalric2 at aol.com Sun Oct 14 07:59:51 2007 From: Amalric2 at aol.com (Marie-Laure Amalric-Mitchell) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 03:59:51 EDT Subject: cancelling mail-list Message-ID: Hello, Please cancell me out of this mail list. I'm not interested in linguistics anymore. Thank-you. From pcomp at hunter.cuny.edu Sun Oct 14 18:32:47 2007 From: pcomp at hunter.cuny.edu (pcomp at hunter.cuny.edu) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:32:47 -0400 Subject: Special 1-day MIT Workshop: Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong? Message-ID: **************************************************************** Final Call for Participation Special 1-day MIT Workshop: Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong? Cambridge, MA, October 19th, 2007 *** Note Room Change! *** ***************************************************************** When: Friday, October 19th, 2007, 9 am - 5:45 pm (breakfast 9-9:30; lunch 12:00-1:00; afternoon refreshments) Where: (** Room change! **) Massachusetts Institute of Technology Wong Auditorium Building E51 (Tang Center) 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=e51&mapsearch=go) Webcast: This event will not be streamed live but will subsequently become available on the web via http://mitworld.mit.edu. Also available via Apple and iTunes at iTunes U. Registration: No advance registration required, no fee - open to all. RSVP's are appreciated but certainly not required. Program: 9:00-9:30 Breakfast (Coffee and bagels) In Foyer outside the Wong Auditorium 9:30-10:00 Opening Remarks: Robert Berwick (MIT) Michael Coen (University of Wisconsin-Madison) 10:00-10:45 Lila Gleitman (University of Pennsylvania) "Human Simulations of Language Learning" 10:45-11:15 Christopher Manning (Stanford University) "Machine Learning of Language from Distributional Evidence" 11:15-12:00 Partha Niyogi (University of Chicago) "The Computational Nature of Language Learning" 12:00-1:00 Lunch 1:00-1:30 Josh Tenenbaum (MIT), Amy Perfors (MIT), & Terry Regier (University of Chicago) "Explorations in Language Learnability Using Probabilistic Grammars and Child-Directed speech" 1:30-2:10 Howard Lasnik & Juan Uriagereka (UMD) "Structure Dependence, the Rational Learner, and Putnam's 'Sane Person'" 2:10-3:10 Noam Chomsky (MIT) "Remarks and Reflections" 3:10-3:30 Coffee Break 3:30-4:00 Sandiway Fong (University of Arizona) "Statistical Natural Language Parsing: Reliable Models of Language?" 4:00-4:30 William Sakas & Janet Dean Fodor (CUNY) "'Ideal' Language Learning and the Psychological Resource Problem" 15 minute break 4:45-5:45 Panel discussion: Charles Yang (University of Pennsylvania) Jean-Roger Vergnaud (USC) Anna-Maria di Sciullo (University of Qu?bec) Norbert Hornstein (UMD) Robert Freiden (Princeton University & Universit? Paris) Organizers: Robert C. Berwick, MIT, berwick at csail.mit.edu Michael Coen, University of Wisconsin-Madison, mhcoen at cs.wisc.edu From stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca Sun Oct 14 18:47:29 2007 From: stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca (Joe Stemberger) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:47:29 -0700 Subject: Antiques Roadshow In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C45E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ecdemir at yahoo.com Mon Oct 15 01:08:00 2007 From: ecdemir at yahoo.com (ece demir) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:08:00 -0700 Subject: Who's doing developmental pragmatics? In-Reply-To: <3E112B83-9E55-422D-8377-5050A779425D@mail.sdsu.edu> Message-ID: Hi, I would appreciate if you can include me as well. At the University of Chicago, we are investigating preschoolers' gestures accompanying their narratives and speech in general under different discourse contexts. We are mainly interested in seeing whether children's gestures reveal any additional sensitivity to narrative structure or discourse context that is not expressed in their speech. Thanks. Best regards. Ozlem Ece Demir ____________________________________________________________________________________ Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/ From hauser at eva.mpg.de Mon Oct 15 08:08:10 2007 From: hauser at eva.mpg.de (Gerlind Hauser) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:08:10 +0200 Subject: Googlegroup on Developmental Pragmatics Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, Colleagues! Thank you for so many positive responses. As Brian suggested, I had a look at the facilities of "Google Groups" and it's really useful - you can: - discuss things openly or in separate groups - create pages to introduce your research - upload documents or data you want to share No moderator is necessary. I set up a group named "Developmental Pragmatics Forum". To subscribe, please go to http://groups.google.de/group/devprag and follow the instructions. Everybody interested in the topic is welcome to join and participate! As a first step, I think, it would be great if everybody could create a page about himself and simply post the short descriptions of their work they now sent to me or to info-CHILDES. Looking forward to get to know more about your work, Best, Gerlind -- Gerlind Hauser Doctoral Student Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Psychology Leipzig ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From hauser at eva.mpg.de Mon Oct 15 09:43:05 2007 From: hauser at eva.mpg.de (Gerlind Hauser) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:43:05 +0200 Subject: Developmental Pragmatics Group in English - follow this link! Message-ID: To view the interface of the group and the instructions in English, please follow this link: http://groups.google.de/group/devprag?hl=en For other languages try to change your google preferences on "interface display" to your preferred language. Best, Gerlind From 20ROMANO at cua.edu Mon Oct 15 12:53:36 2007 From: 20ROMANO at cua.edu (Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:53:36 -0400 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Message-ID: Hello all, Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of bilingualism and fluency or know of a good source? Thanks!! Jennifer ____________________________ Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. GSA President Ph.D. Candidate Applied Experimental Psychology Cognitive Aging Lab 100 O'Boyle Hall The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 202-319-5748 20Romano at cua.edu From ezaretsky at comdis.umass.edu Mon Oct 15 13:31:18 2007 From: ezaretsky at comdis.umass.edu (Elena Zaretsky) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:31:18 -0400 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Message-ID: Dear Jennifer, This past summer my colleague and I hosted a Fulbright fellow from Morocco, Samir Diouny, who is looking at the bilingual issues in aphasia in patients who speak more than one language (i.e., Moroccan Arabic, Moroccan Spanish Arabic, Berber, Spanish, English, French). As part of his project while at the Umass-Amherst, we created a very extensive questionnaire that covers multiple aspects of language use. I think it may be of tremendous help to any researcher who is looking at the bilingual issues and can be adopted to any language. We would be happy to share this with you. Elena Zaretsky, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Communication Disorders UMass Amherst. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO" <20ROMANO at cua.edu> To: Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 8:53 AM Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Hello all, Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of bilingualism and fluency or know of a good source? Thanks!! Jennifer ____________________________ Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. GSA President Ph.D. Candidate Applied Experimental Psychology Cognitive Aging Lab 100 O'Boyle Hall The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 202-319-5748 20Romano at cua.edu From kohne005 at umn.edu Mon Oct 15 13:38:24 2007 From: kohne005 at umn.edu (kohne005) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:38:24 -0500 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire In-Reply-To: <72F8C31BAD2BF7488BABF3BDF077012301CADCCE@MAIL01.cua.edu> Message-ID: Dear Jennifer, Here are two well-designed questionnaires validated for research purposes with bilingual adults: 1. Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q; Marian, Blumenfeld, & Kaushanskaya, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 2007, 50, 940-967; also available from v-marian at northwestern.edu ). 2. L2 Language History Questionnaire (Li, Sepanski, & Zhao, 2006; also available at http://cogsci.richmond.edu/LHQ.php ). Best, Kathryn _________________________________________ Kathryn Kohnert, Ph.D., CCC-SLP University of Minnesota Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences Shevlin Hall 115 164 Pillsbury Dr., S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55455 www.ccsl.umn.edu www.slhs.umn.edu e-mail: kohne005 at umn.edu voice: (612)626-4733 -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 7:54 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: bilingualism questionnaire Hello all, Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of bilingualism and fluency or know of a good source? Thanks!! Jennifer ____________________________ Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. GSA President Ph.D. Candidate Applied Experimental Psychology Cognitive Aging Lab 100 O'Boyle Hall The Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 202-319-5748 20Romano at cua.edu From hwafroda at slu.edu Mon Oct 15 14:11:32 2007 From: hwafroda at slu.edu (hwafroda) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:11:32 -0500 Subject: Pragmatic group Message-ID: Please include me onthis listserve too. I am looking at pragmatic development in children adopted abroad. thank you. Deb Hwa-Froelich From pli at richmond.edu Mon Oct 15 14:46:19 2007 From: pli at richmond.edu (Ping Li) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:46:19 -0400 Subject: bilingualism questionnaire In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks to Kathryn for pointing to our LHQ questionnaire. The full paper that describes the questionnaire is downloadable at http:// cogsci.richmond.edu/LHQ.php (see also Psychonomic Archive; http:// www.psychonomic.org/archive/index.html). Li, P., Sepanski, S., & Zhao, X. (2006). Language history questionnaire: A Web-based interface for bilingual research. Behavior Research Methods, 38(2), 202-210. (http:// cogsci.richmond.edu/questionnaire/brm06.pdf) Comments/suggestions welcome. PL ----------------------------------------------- Ping Li, Ph.D. Program Director Perception, Action and Cognition National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Blvd., Room 907 Arlington, VA 22230, USA http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?org=BCS On leave from: Professor of Psychology University of Richmond Richmond, VA 23173, USA http://www.richmond.edu/~pli/ http://cogsci.richmond.edu/ ----------------------------------------------- On Oct 15, 2007, at 9:38 AM, kohne005 wrote: > Dear Jennifer, > Here are two well-designed questionnaires validated for research > purposes > with bilingual adults: > > 1. Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q; Marian, > Blumenfeld, & Kaushanskaya, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing > Research 2007, 50, 940-967; also available from v- > marian at northwestern.edu ). > > > > 2. L2 Language History Questionnaire (Li, Sepanski, & Zhao, 2006; also > available at http://cogsci.richmond.edu/LHQ.php ). > > > Best, > Kathryn > > _________________________________________ > Kathryn Kohnert, Ph.D., CCC-SLP > University of Minnesota > Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences > Shevlin Hall 115 > 164 Pillsbury Dr., S.E. > Minneapolis, MN 55455 > > www.ccsl.umn.edu > www.slhs.umn.edu > e-mail: kohne005 at umn.edu > voice: (612)626-4733 > > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info- > childes at mail.talkbank.org] > On Behalf Of Romano, Jennifer 20ROMANO > Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 7:54 AM > To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: bilingualism questionnaire > > Hello all, > Does anyone have a good questionnaire measuring degree of > bilingualism and > fluency or know of a good source? > Thanks!! > Jennifer > > ____________________________ > Jennifer C. Romano, M.A. > GSA President > Ph.D. Candidate > Applied Experimental Psychology > > Cognitive Aging Lab > 100 O'Boyle Hall > The Catholic University of America > Washington, DC 20064 > 202-319-5748 > 20Romano at cua.edu > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From allison-bean at uiowa.edu Mon Oct 15 16:23:31 2007 From: allison-bean at uiowa.edu (Bean, Allison F) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:23:31 -0500 Subject: Pragmatic group In-Reply-To: <47137514.1a1.73ab.1106800076@slu.edu> Message-ID: Please also include me on the pragmatic development listserve. Thanks, Allison Bean ________________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of hwafroda [hwafroda at slu.edu] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:11 AM To: Brian.MacWhinney at slu.edu; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Pragmatic group Please include me onthis listserve too. I am looking at pragmatic development in children adopted abroad. thank you. Deb Hwa-Froelich From pm at sfsu.edu Mon Oct 15 16:34:57 2007 From: pm at sfsu.edu (Philip M. Prinz) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:34:57 -0700 Subject: Pragmatic group In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hello, Please include me on the developmental pragmatic listerve, too. Thank you. Philip Prinz On Oct 15, 2007, at 9:23 AM, Bean, Allison F wrote: > Please also include me on the pragmatic development listserve. > Thanks, > Allison Bean > > ________________________________________ > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [info- > childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of hwafroda [hwafroda at slu.edu] > Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:11 AM > To: Brian.MacWhinney at slu.edu; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: Pragmatic group > > Please include me onthis listserve too. I am looking at > pragmatic development in children adopted abroad. > > thank you. > > Deb Hwa-Froelich > From jlm at psych.stanford.edu Mon Oct 15 16:49:05 2007 From: jlm at psych.stanford.edu (Jay McClelland) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:49:05 -0700 Subject: generative grammar and acquisition In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For an alternative perspective, particularly in relation to the views of Jackendoff, but also to the entire Chomskyian paradigm, I invite readers of this list to take a look at the following papers. -- Jay McClelland Bybee, J. and McClelland, J. L. (2005). Alternatives to the combinatorial paradigm of linguistic theory based on domain general principles of human cognition. /The Linguistic Review, 22(2-4)/, 381-410. http://psychology.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/BybeeMcC05.pdf McClelland, J. L. and Bybee, J. (in press). Gradience of Gradience: A reply to Jackendoff. /The Linguistic Review./ http://psychology.stanford.edu/~jlm/papers/McCBybeeIPRepToJkndf.pdf Susan Foster-Cohen wrote: > Dear all: > > I have just been reading Ray Jackendoff's excellent essay "Reintegrating Generative Grammar" which forms chapter 2 of his new book "Language, consciousness, culture: Essays on mental structure". May I recommend it to you all in the context of the current discussion. While there is not a vast amount in it directly on acquisition it is extremely articulate about the relationship between generative linguistics and psycholinguistics and, now, neurolinguistics/cognitive science. It is a gracious acknowledgement of the importance of Chomsky's work while at the same time articulating why so many in cognitive science and acquisition have been/are so frustrated. As always with Ray's work, it is thoughtful, articulate, a pleasure to read, and accessible. I am anticipating that the rest of the book is going to be equally relevant to our concerns. > > Cheers, > > Susan Foster-Cohen > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Matthew Saxton > Sent: Fri 10/12/2007 8:09 PM > To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org > Subject: [SPAM: 3.000] Antiques Roadshow > > From an InfoCHILDES correspondent of Susanna Bartsch: > > "my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any > acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage > costume jewelry ...... I would be very appreciative if you would put us > in touch with each other." > > > > I wonder, is this somehow connected with the discussion of Chomsky? On > which subject, I've been adding lots to my stock of learning on the > academic culture and history of child language research this past couple > of days. > > > > In general, I find the discussion about Chomsky's putative obsolescence > quite depressing. Internecine struggles that have lasted for decades > (including, for example, book-length treatments of the "Language War") > are depressing. But more depressing is the relative lack of empirical > maturity in the field of child language. In this, I agree with what > Brian MacWhinney has to say (and, of course, applaud the efforts of > CHILDES as a step in the right direction). Many studies on child > language still have sample sizes that look derisory compared with other > branches of the human sciences (mea culpa maxima). > > > > It is an easy matter to demonstrate that language is fundamental to the > human experience. It is also relatively straightforward to demonstrate > that research on language development is vitally important. To pluck > just two examples from the air: (1) at least 7% of children have serious > difficulty with first language acquisition (Tomblin et al., 1997); and > (2) 2nd language learning is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And > so on. Why, therefore, are politicians and businesses not throwing huge > amounts of money at us to do both basic and applied research on language > acquisition? I think there is a connection between the culture of open > warfare and relative lack of funding. We betray ourselves to the wider > world as members of an academic discipline that is unhealthily > polarised, relatively immature in its empirical base and academically > peripheral (not quite linguistics, not quite psychology, not quite....). > And this is the case several decades after Chomsky (and Roger Brown) got > people interested. > > > > But how did we get on to this? Oh yes: Robin Campbell diverted us from > my original question about the competence-performance distinction. On > which, I've had some very helpful and interesting replies and will, of > course, post a summary. > > > > Now, how does one get into the antiques business...........? > > > > Regards, > > > > Matthew. > > > > > > ********************************************************************* > > Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil > > School of Psychology and Human Development, > > Institute of Education, > > 25 Woburn Square, > > London, > > WC1H 0AA. > > U.K. > > > > Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 > > Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 > > > > http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 > > www.ioe.ac.uk > > > > > > From macw at cmu.edu Mon Oct 15 16:49:07 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:49:07 -0400 Subject: chiprag list Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, Over the weekend, three people went ahead independently with setting up Child Pragmatics GoogleGroups list. It is not clear which, if any, of these succeeded. Unfortunately, when I try to subscribe to this list, it is not working. I would like to ask people to refrain from posting messages regarding this topic to info- childes until we resolve the technical issues involved. Please send ALL communications regarding this issue directly to me at macw at cmu.edu and NOT to info-childes. I would also like to ask anyone who needs their address removed from info-childes, to send mail to me and not the mailing list. Many thanks, Brian MacWhinney From jordan.zlatev at ling.lu.se Mon Oct 15 18:41:43 2007 From: jordan.zlatev at ling.lu.se (Jordan Zlatev) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:41:43 +0200 Subject: SALC2007 Message-ID: Dear colleagues, We would like to inform you that the Scientific Program for the First Conference of the Swedish Association for Language and Cognition (SALC) to be held at Lund University between November 29 and December 1st 2007, has now been posted on the conference home site: http://www.salc-sssk.org/conference/ There will be - 5 plenary talks (by Susan Goldin-Meadow, Esa Itkonen, Chris Sinha, Peter G?rdenfors and ?sten Dahl), - 45 oral presentations in the general session - 10 oral presentations each for the theme sessions: "Space in Language and Cognition", "Language and Gesture" and "The Dynamics of Symbolic Matter" - 15 poster presentations The Business Meeting of SALC will be held on Nov 30, 1-2 pm. We have registered over 100 participants, but have an additional 50 places left, so if you wish to participate, please use the homesite in order to register! We are looking forward to seeing all speakers and guests in Lund at the end of next month! For the Organizing Committee, Jordan Zlatev, President of SALC *************************************************** Jordan Zlatev, Associate Professor Department of Linguistics Center for Languages and Literature Lund University Box 201 221 00 Lund, Sweden email: jordan.zlatev at ling.lu.se http://www.ling.lu.se/persons/JordanZlatev.html *************************************************** From macw at cmu.edu Mon Oct 15 19:30:54 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:30:54 -0400 Subject: link is good Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, It appears that the new devprag at googlegroups.com list is indeed now operative. As Gerlind says, you can go to http://groups.google.de/group/devprag?hl=en and join that. I was trying to test the function that allows one to subscribe through just email and that function was not yet working. However, the function that relies on Google's interface is working fine. So, please go ahead now and follow this link as Gerlind suggests. Many thanks to Gerlind for managing this list and you should be now able to send further questions about this to her, -Brian MacWhinney From Katherine_Demuth at brown.edu Mon Oct 15 21:42:24 2007 From: Katherine_Demuth at brown.edu (Katherine Demuth) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:42:24 -0400 Subject: PhD positions in Bayesian models of Language Acquisition Message-ID: PhD positions in Bayesian models of Language Acquisition We have several positions available for PhD students in our NSF- funded research project on Bayesian models of language acquisition. Applicants should have a solid mathematical and/or computational background and will work on projects such as data analysis using forced-alignment speech-recognition technology and developing Bayesian models of language acquisition and language and vision. We expect to provide successful applicants with full financial support and a cross-disciplinary training program with a strong emphasis on Computer Science and/or Applied Mathematics. Applications for admission should be made to the graduate program of the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University by January 2, 2008. For further information contact Mark Johnson (Mark_Johnson at brown.edu) or Katherine Demuth (Katherine_Demuth at brown.edu). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cbowen at ihug.com.au Tue Oct 16 01:42:41 2007 From: cbowen at ihug.com.au (Caroline Bowen) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:42:41 +1000 Subject: Web-based Multicultural Resources from ASHA Message-ID: "Subject: Web-based Multicultural Resources from ASHA ASHA's Office of Multicultural Affairs has compiled information on the phonemic systems for the following languages: Arabic, Cantonese, English, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Audiologists can use this information to identify and modify materials and procedures during speech audiometry assessment. SLPs can use this information to identify a client's phonological system for languages other than English. http://tinyurl.com/lamgz === An issue brief discussing the final regulations concerning service delivery to culturally and linguistically diverse populations from the 2006 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part B as well as their implications for ASHA members is provided. These regulations affect assessment practices, eligibility criteria, and parents' rights at IEP meetings. http://tinyurl.com/2z7vj4 === A fact sheet on the assessment of English Language Learners under No Child Left Behind is available. School-based professionals can use this information to provide appropriate accommodations and modifications during assessment. http://tinyurl.com/2gqhtn === For professionals who are in supervisory or teaching positions, ASHA has developed strategies to aid in infusing multicultural content into education activities, including sample syllabi. http://tinyurl.com/yruckn === Reading Lists on over 20 topics such as African American English, Bilingualism, Deaf Culture, and Sexual Orientation are available to professionals who wish to obtain a more in-depth understanding of certain issues. http://tinyurl.com/2zq6ch === An article about cultural competence was written by the ASHA Multicultural Issues Board in 2004. http://tinyurl.com/2ewbvn " === "ASHA's Multicultural Issues Board has compiled resources from ASHA's website that may assist audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech-language and hearing scientists in their professional work. In order to help professionals gain access to these resources, some of the information contained at ASHA's website regarding multicultural issues has been highlighted below. As leaders in audiology and speech-language pathology, we hope you will disseminate the following information to interested parties. Please note that web addresses may occasionally change; if the address provided does not go to the correct page, searching on the ASHA website for the correct address using key words in the below descriptions is recommended. Thank you, Katherine Schryver-Stahly Chair, Multicultural Issues Board" From M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk Tue Oct 16 10:46:56 2007 From: M.Saxton at ioe.ac.uk (Matthew Saxton) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:46:56 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: Dear All, It's been an interesting week on InfoCHILDES. My question about competence-performance produced a typically fascinating response (see below). More fascinating, perhaps, was the way my innocent query got diverted into two separate strands of discussion: one on the Legacy of Chomsky and one on the need for a pragmatics discussion forum. Matters snowballed, and, in the case of pragmatics, resulted in a potentially useful new resource for researchers in that area. All of which makes the following summary seem a little tame, but here goes (references listed below): As I dimly knew, the competence-performance distinction is by no means universally accepted and is explicitly rejected in some quarters. The unwarranted limitations it imposes are widely acknowledged, even within the nativist camp (see, for example, Tom Roeper's comments to InfoCHILDES on October 15th 2007). As usual, we find signs of Wheel Reinvention, starting with the well known fact that competence-performance was inspired by Saussure's (1916/1974) notions of langue and parole. Of course, there are differences: langue comprises a finite set of words and phrases, while parole is reserved for sentence formation (see Chomsky, 1972, pp19-20 for his take on Saussure). In a similar vein, Jessica Horst reminds us that, in the field of cognitive development, it has long been acknowledged that performance is highly context dependent, a phenomenon characterized by Piaget (1929) as horizontal d?calage (see also recent work by Samuelson & Horst, in press). Dissatisfaction with the competence-performance split is by no means new, as indicated by Kaufer (1979), Valian (1979) and Black & Chiat (1981). More recent signs of discomfort with competence-performance can be witnessed in Seidenberg & MacDonald (1999) and the comments offered by Joseph Stemberger (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007). According to one correspondent, at least one reviewer has argued that this topic is out-of-date, but just to prove that it does, in fact, still attract serious attention, we have the following: Samuelson, Horst, Dobbertin, & Schutte, (2006); Ambridge, Rowland & Pine (in press); Samuelson & Horst (in press); and Hoff (under review). So what exactly is wrong with the competence-performance distinction? Well, I hope you'll forgive me for not being on top of this literature yet, but some of the headline points seem to be: * "In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a language seem inextricably bound" (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: "assuming that performance is based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects of competence" (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) * We must include a real bugbear for empirically minded souls, and one that is very well rehearsed: "performance factors" can always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall from children's mouths. If they don't fit the hypothesis under scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. * Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky's) that is not to everyone's taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland & Pine, in press). * One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be "an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and learning" (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. * Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations like competence, since the latter "excludes aspects of linguistic performance that are .... central to the structure of utterances" (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds' conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher). As we can see, the massed ranks of InfoCHILDES do not hold out much hope for competence versus performance. No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer supportive references. So perhaps I should offer some ballast. We should not forget that speech-production mechanisms are, at least in some ways, physiologically and functionally separate from the mental plans that set them in motion. When we reach the level of the physical articulators (lips, tongue, vocal cords and so on), this point is undeniable. There is, then, always room for the physical aspects of speech production to cause speech errors, quite independent from variation introduced by other contextual factors that might influence the linguistic-mental intentions of the speaker. Put another way, some slips of the tongue, false starts, hesitations and other stumbles could be seen as performance errors and also as separate from the mental competence that initiated a given utterance. One problem is that this gives short shrift to speech-production mechanisms. Perhaps we should talk instead about two kinds of competence: one concerned with linguistic competence, the other with speech production competence. At some level, therefore, it may be proper to acknowledge a split between competence and performance, or competence in one domain from competence in another. Thus, Black & Chiat (1981, p.39) emphasise that "the primary function of the distinction was not that of differentiating underlying knowledge and actual behaviour, but that of isolating one particular type of knowledge from others." We might add that "a theory of knowledge does not entail a particular theory of use" (Valian, 1979, p.3). For Tom Roeper, the "theory of use" would seem to be intrinsically uninteresting and, incidentally, not well understood: the "original competence/performance distinction ...... has to do with a kind of performance that everyone is willing to exclude" (InfoCHILDES, October 15th 2007). Nevertheless, the distinction persists (and as I observed in my first message, in many, many fields of academic enquiry). The fact that any such distinction throws up an empirical nightmare, in terms of tracing the origins of a given utterance back to its causes (and the interactions between them), would not, in itself, invalidate the conceptual integrity of a competence-performance (or competence-competence) distinction. I think what has altered since Chomsky (1965) is an added layer of conceptual complexity: the acknowledgement that an additional, and perhaps more interesting, source of linguistic variability stems, not from physical breakdowns, but from numerous other factors that could correctly be seen as part of the speaker's knowledge of language. These too, of course, create empirical headaches in trying to identify and explain what they are and how they function. You will understand that any errors in this summary stem entirely from performance factors, not my underlying competence (cough). I look forward to tackling this literature properly and thank InfoCHILDES correspondents for whetting my appetite. But first, I must tidy out my filing cabinets (as promised). If I start now, I should be free some time in 2010...... Regards, Matthew. Thanks Particular thanks are due to Ben Ambridge, Shula Chiat, Gedeon De?k, Erika Hoff, Jessica Horst, Evan Kidd, Jay McClelland, Tom Roeper, Joseph Stemberger and Virginia Valian. References Ambridge, B., Rowland, C.F. & Pine, J.M. (in press). Is structure dependence an innate constraint? New experimental evidence from children's complex-question production. Cognitive Science. Black, M. & Chiat, S. (1981). Psycholinguistics without 'psychological reality'. Linguistics, 19, 37-61. Chomsky, N. (1972). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Hoff, E. (under review). Context effects on young children's language use: The influence of conversational setting and partner. Kauffer, D. (1979). The competence/performance distinction in linguistic theory. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 9, 257-275. McClelland, J.L. & Bybee, J. (in press). Gradience of gradience: A reply to Jackendoff. The Linguistic Review. Piaget, J. (1929). The child's conception of the world. London: Routledge. Samuelson, L.K., Horst, J.S., Dobbertin, B.N. & Schutte, A.R. (2006). Knowledge, performance, and task: D?calage and dynamics in young children's noun generalizations. Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp720-725). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Samuelson, L. K. & Horst, J. S. (in press). Confronting complexity: Insights from the details of behavior over multiple timescales. Developmental Science. Saussure, F. de (1916/1974). Course in general linguistics. London: Fontana/Collins. Seidenberg, M. S., & MacDonald, M. C. (1999). A probabilistic constraints approach to language acquisition and processing. Cognitive Science, 23, 569-588. Valian, V. (1979). The wherefores and therefores of the competence-performance distinction. In W.E. Cooper & E.C.T. Walker (Eds.), Sentence processing: Psycholinguistic studies presented to Merrill Garrett. (pp1-26). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. ********************************************************************* Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA. U.K. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 www.ioe.ac.uk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU Tue Oct 16 17:45:20 2007 From: Lise.Menn at Colorado.EDU (Lise Menn) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:45:20 -0600 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Picking up on one of Matthew's themes: The study of speech errors - much advanced since Fromkin, by the way - is still one of our best windows into the production process. There are a lot of interesting papers collected in The State of the Art in Speech Error Research: Proceedings of the LSA Institute Workshop, ed. C. T. Sch?tze & V. S. Ferreira. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 53 (2007). The more I look at the process, the more it looks like a battle of aroused words and constructions trying to get 'out' and depending on good internal loops and inhibition mechanisms (traffic control) to keep from jamming up like the entrance to the Sumner Tunnel at rush hour. Lise On Oct 16, 2007, at 4:46 AM, Matthew Saxton wrote: > Dear All, > > It?s been an interesting week on InfoCHILDES. My question about > competence-performance produced a typically fascinating response > (see below). More fascinating, perhaps, was the way my innocent > query got diverted into two separate strands of discussion: one on > the Legacy of Chomsky and one on the need for a pragmatics > discussion forum. Matters snowballed, and, in the case of > pragmatics, resulted in a potentially useful new resource for > researchers in that area. All of which makes the following summary > seem a little tame, but here goes (references listed below): > > > > As I dimly knew, the competence-performance distinction is by no > means universally accepted and is explicitly rejected in some > quarters. The unwarranted limitations it imposes are widely > acknowledged, even within the nativist camp (see, for example, Tom > Roeper?s comments to InfoCHILDES on October 15th 2007). > > > > As usual, we find signs of Wheel Reinvention, starting with the > well known fact that competence-performance was inspired by > Saussure?s (1916/1974) notions of langue and parole. Of course, > there are differences: langue comprises a finite set of words and > phrases, while parole is reserved for sentence formation (see > Chomsky, 1972, pp19-20 for his take on Saussure). In a similar > vein, Jessica Horst reminds us that, in the field of cognitive > development, it has long been acknowledged that performance is > highly context dependent, a phenomenon characterized by Piaget > (1929) as horizontald?calage (see also recent work by Samuelson & > Horst, in press). > > > > Dissatisfaction with the competence-performance split is by no > means new, as indicated by Kaufer (1979), Valian (1979) and Black & > Chiat (1981). More recent signs of discomfort with competence- > performance can be witnessed in Seidenberg & MacDonald (1999) and > the comments offered by Joseph Stemberger (InfoCHILDES, October > 14th 2007). According to one correspondent, at least one reviewer > has argued that this topic is out-of-date, but just to prove that > it does, in fact, still attract serious attention, we have the > following: Samuelson, Horst, Dobbertin, & Schutte, (2006); > Ambridge, Rowland & Pine (in press); Samuelson & Horst (in press); > and Hoff (under review). > > > > So what exactly is wrong with the competence-performance > distinction? Well, I hope you?ll forgive me for not being on top of > this literature yet, but some of the headline points seem to be: > > > > ? ?In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a > language seem inextricably bound? (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To > illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find > cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin > prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they > cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also > attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: ?assuming that performance is > based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects > of competence? (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) > > ? We must include a real bugbear for empirically minded souls, > and one that is very well rehearsed: ?performance factors? can > always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall > from children?s mouths. If they don?t fit the hypothesis under > scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of > course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. > > ? Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies > on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky?s) that is not to > everyone?s taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as > the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance > distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland > & Pine, in press). > > ? One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee > (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be > ?an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and > learning? (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes > with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a > given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. > > ? Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations > like competence, since the latter ?excludes aspects of linguistic > performance that are .... central to the structure of > utterances? (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is > exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social > factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech > output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds? > conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher). > > > > As we can see, the massed ranks of InfoCHILDES do not hold out much > hope for competence versus performance. No-one has stepped forward > to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer > supportive references. So perhaps I should offer some ballast. We > should not forget that speech-production mechanisms are, at least > in some ways, physiologically and functionally separate from the > mental plans that set them in motion. When we reach the level of > the physical articulators (lips, tongue, vocal cords and so on), > this point is undeniable. There is, then, always room for the > physical aspects of speech production to cause speech errors, quite > independent from variation introduced by other contextual factors > that might influence the linguistic-mental intentions of the > speaker. Put another way, some slips of the tongue, false starts, > hesitations and other stumbles could be seen as performance errors > and also as separate from the mental competence that initiated a > given utterance. One problem is that this gives short shrift to > speech-production mechanisms. Perhaps we should talk instead about > two kinds of competence: one concerned with linguistic competence, > the other with speech production competence. At some level, > therefore, it may be proper to acknowledge a split between > competence and performance, or competence in one domain from > competence in another. Thus, Black & Chiat (1981, p.39) emphasise > that ?the primary function of the distinction was not that of > differentiating underlying knowledge and actual behaviour, but that > of isolating one particular type of knowledge from others.? We > might add that ?a theory of knowledge does not entail a particular > theory of use? (Valian, 1979, p.3). For Tom Roeper, the ?theory of > use? would seem to be intrinsically uninteresting and, > incidentally, not well understood: the ?original competence/ > performance distinction ...... has to do with a kind of performance > that everyone is willing to exclude? (InfoCHILDES, October 15th 2007). > > > > Nevertheless, the distinction persists (and as I observed in my > first message, in many, many fields of academic enquiry). The fact > that any such distinction throws up an empirical nightmare, in > terms of tracing the origins of a given utterance back to its > causes (and the interactions between them), would not, in itself, > invalidate the conceptual integrity of a competence-performance (or > competence-competence) distinction. I think what has altered since > Chomsky (1965) is an added layer of conceptual complexity: the > acknowledgement that an additional, and perhaps more interesting, > source of linguistic variability stems, not from physical > breakdowns, but from numerous other factors that could correctly be > seen as part of the speaker?s knowledge of language. These too, of > course, create empirical headaches in trying to identify and > explain what they are and how they function. > > > > You will understand that any errors in this summary stem entirely > from performance factors, not my underlying competence (cough). I > look forward to tackling this literature properly and thank > InfoCHILDES correspondents for whetting my appetite. But first, I > must tidy out my filing cabinets (as promised). If I start now, I > should be free some time in 2010...... > > > > Regards, > > > > Matthew. > > > > Thanks > > Particular thanks are due to Ben Ambridge, Shula Chiat, Gedeon > De?k, Erika Hoff, Jessica Horst, Evan Kidd, Jay McClelland, Tom > Roeper, Joseph Stemberger and Virginia Valian. > > > > References > > Ambridge, B., Rowland, C.F. & Pine, J.M. (in press). Is structure > dependence an innate constraint? New experimental evidence from > children?s complex-question production. Cognitive Science. > > Black, M. & Chiat, S. (1981). Psycholinguistics without > ?psychological reality?. Linguistics, 19, 37-61. > > Chomsky, N. (1972). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace > Jovanovich > > Hoff, E. (under review). Context effects on young children?s > language use: The influence of conversational setting and partner. > > Kauffer, D. (1979). The competence/performance distinction in > linguistic theory. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 9,257?275. > > McClelland, J.L. & Bybee, J. (in press). Gradience of gradience: A > reply to Jackendoff. The Linguistic Review. > > Piaget, J. (1929). The child?s conception of the world. London: > Routledge. > > Samuelson, L.K., Horst, J.S., Dobbertin, B.N. & Schutte, A.R. > (2006). Knowledge, performance, and task: D?calage and dynamics in > young children's noun generalizations. Proceedings of the Twenty- > Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. > (pp720-725). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. > > Samuelson, L. K. & Horst, J. S. (in press). Confronting complexity: > Insights from the details of behavior over multiple timescales. > Developmental Science. > > Saussure, F. de (1916/1974). Course in general linguistics. London: > Fontana/Collins. > > Seidenberg, M. S., & MacDonald, M. C. (1999). A probabilistic > constraints approach to language acquisition and processing. > Cognitive Science, 23, 569?588. > > Valian, V. (1979). The wherefores and therefores of the competence- > performance distinction. In W.E. Cooper & E.C.T. Walker (Eds.), > Sentence processing: Psycholinguistic studies presented to Merrill > Garrett. (pp1-26). Hillsdale, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum. > > > > ********************************************************************* > > Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil > > School of Psychology and Human Development, > > Institute of Education, > > 25 Woburn Square, > > London, > > WC1H 0AA. > > U.K. > > > > Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509 > > Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304 > > > > http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248 > > www.ioe.ac.uk > > > > Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274 1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017 Boulder CO 80302 Professor Emerita of Linguistics Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science University of Colorado Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics] Campus Mail Address: UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science Campus Physical Address: CINC 234 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lottiedalefarm at yahoo.co.uk Tue Oct 16 18:08:11 2007 From: lottiedalefarm at yahoo.co.uk (charlotte hall) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:08:11 +0100 Subject: Please remove me from the list Message-ID: Please will you remove me from the mailing list. Many thanks --------------------------------- Yahoo! Answers - Get better answers from someone who knows. Tryit now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lmb32 at columbia.edu Tue Oct 16 18:55:36 2007 From: lmb32 at columbia.edu (Lois Bloom) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:55:36 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: Reliving History. . . First, in his posting on October 12, Matthew Saxton shared his "depression" over the "internecine struggles that have lasted for decades" and the "relative lack of empirical maturity in the field of child language." He then described as "derisory" the "sample sizes of many studies in child language" . . . "compared with other branches of the human sciences." WELL . . . having spent more than 40 years and published 7 books and very many papers in the peer-reviewed journals, I own up to spending all those years and all those printed words on studying the language acquisition of fewer than 25 children. And so I sighed. And then on October 14, Joe Stemberger shared his experience "a few years ago" in which his work was derided because it "clearly had more to do with performance, and why would a linguist be interested in analyzing such data using the mechanisms of linguistic theory," and I sighed again. The criticism was very familiar to me having heard it often, many years ago. And I suspect it was familiar as well to others who have also spent hours, days, years listening, watching, and interpreting the sounds, words, sentences of very small children --yes, unabashedly studying their performance in the sincere effort to learn something about what they *knew* about language and how that *knowledge* changed over time. In my view of history, that criticism is the very heart of how the competence-performance distinction did, indeed, hold back progress in the field. It has been used as a club to knock the research of those of us who do not rely on introspection and grammaticality judgements, or who do not do experiments. And now today on October 16, Matthew has shared a very useful summary of what I found to be one of the more insightful discussions on the InfoCHILDES talkbank. I thank him for the summary and for starting the exchange as well. Please add one more citation to the list: Bloom, L., Miller, P., & Hood, L. (1975). Variation and reduction as aspects of competence in child language. In A. Pick (Ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Vol. 9, pp. 3-55). Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press. Reprinted in Bloom, L. (1991). Language Development from Two to Three (pp. 88-141). Cambridge University Press. in which we presented data (from performance, but data nevertheless) and proposed a model or 'theory of knowledge' to account for the variable length of early sentences, building on the "probabalistic grammars" of Patrick Suppes (1970) and the variation paradigm of Bill Labov (1969) and Cedergren and Sankoff (1974). (Really digging into ancient, pre-internet history here!) And so I applaud Matthew's conclusion that promotes a level of complexity beyond the simplistic C-P distinction: "the acknowledgement that an additional, and perhaps more interesting, source of linguistic variability stems, not from physical breakdowns, but from numerous other factors that could correctly be seen as part of speaker's knowledge of language." In our 1975 study, more than 30 years ago, my colleagues and I grappled with the "empirical headaches" he refers to, "trying to identify and explain what [those factors] are and how they function." Rather than continuing to escape into the antiques business. . . it's a gorgeous day today, and I'm heading out to the golf course. Cheers! LOIS BLOOM (Edward Lee Thorndike Professor Emeritus, Teachers College, Columbia University) 95 Wilson Road Easton CT 06612 phone: 203-261-4622 mobile: 203-673-7021 fax: 203-261-4689 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lempert at psych.toronto.edu Tue Oct 16 21:42:09 2007 From: lempert at psych.toronto.edu (Henrietta Lempert) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:42:09 -0400 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From adele at crl.ucsd.edu Tue Oct 16 23:05:46 2007 From: adele at crl.ucsd.edu (Adele Abrahamsen) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:05:46 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Hello, all. I came late to this discussion but just enjoyed reading the whole sweep of contributions all the way through Lise Menn and Lois Bloom?s post-summary reflections. Clearly the topic hasn?t been exhausted?each message makes thought-provoking points?so I will add a mention of the framework I worked out after years of poking at the question of how psychology and linguistics should, and do, interact. See: Abrahamsen, A. A. (1987). Bridging boundaries versus breaking boundaries: Psycholinguistics in perspective. Synthese, 72, 355-388. Abrahamsen, A. A. (1991). Bridging interdisciplinary boundaries: The case of kin terms. In C. Georgopoulos & R. Ishihara (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to language: Essays in honor of S.-Y. Kuroda (1-24). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Although linguistics, psychology, and their relationship have become more diverse and complicated in the years since I wrote these papers, I still find the basic framework useful especially in considering classic notions like competence. In brief, I emphasized that linguists study language as a cultural product?as an abstract structure resulting from behavior?and psychologists focus on behaviors in real time. I also suggested these enterprises could be connected in ways that bridge boundaries (e.g. a psycholinguist might reformat a linguistic account to make it a suitable tool for designing an experiment; a linguist might find in real-time processing an explanation for aspects of language structure), but they could instead be connected in ways that break boundaries (e.g. Chomsky?s notion of competence and its relation to performance). That is, Chomsky was acting as a linguist in working out various versions of his generative grammar, and switched to psychology to make his (influential and controversial) claims about competence-performance and language acquisition. I wrote (p. 381) ?There is nothing inherently wrong in this; innovative thinkers often wear multiple hats?[but] ?[m]any psychologists, frustrated with a distinction that did not find a natural fit within their own meta-theory, concluded that a ?performance? theory was all the theory that one needed; essentially, they decided that there need be no distinction between linguistic and psychological perspectives.? Arguably, many behavioral scientists and computer modelers pursuing this path are actually doing their own linguistics (vs. abandoning linguistics). Others use linguistic theories other than Chomsky?s as a tool (e.g. cognitive grammar), minus the boundary-breaking view that these are competence theories. The 1991 paper suggests how seemingly conflicting analyses and data on kin terms can be understood in terms of boundary-bridging connections, finding a role for linguistic abstraction that does not carry all the baggage of Chomsky?s competence notion. Nonetheless, I find the notion powerful in that thinking about whether or how it might apply nudges my thinking beyond bland assumptions. For example, Optimality Theory can at least provisionally be taken to be a kind of competence theory (albeit one based on constraint satisfaction). The nature of the relation between OT and connectionist networks seems to be boundary-bridging, not boundary-breaking. Does that suggest new directions to go in developing the notion of competence?or should we just not go there? Adele Abrahamsen Center for Research in Language University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive, CB 0526 La Jolla, CA 92093-0526 From cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk Wed Oct 17 01:01:31 2007 From: cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk (Virginia Yip (LIN)) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:01:31 +0800 Subject: ??: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: Dear Henrietta, This is an area where Cantonese and Mandarin (and even different varieties of Cantonese) differ substantially, which may be the source of the conflicting information. Our response will be mainly focused on Cantonese. In the DO construction with "give" respectively, the basic order is bei2-THEME-RECIPIENT in Cantonese but gei-RECIPIENT-THEME in Mandarin. Some varieties such as Malayan Cantonese (Killingley 1993) have both orders productively. Here are some points on Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong: 1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick: Cantonese: PD (okay) *DO (ruled out) (the PD can also be analysed as a serial verb construction: Matthews 2006) 2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) Cantonese: 'offer' and 'promise' allow neither construction, but use a complementation construction instead ("I promise to give you...") "Award" can take either PD or DO: PD: ngo zoeng jat baak man bei keoi I award one hundred dollar give/to 3sg DO: ngo zoeng keoi jat baak man I award 3sg one hundred dollar 3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. Cantonese: PD only *DO 4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and Mandarin? Chinese versus English? - yes, a relevant difference is that Cantonese passives with bei2 (high rising tone) requires the agent to be overtly expressed, whereas it's optional in Mandarin passives with 'bei' (a different morpheme from Cantonese). Chinese passives tend to be "adversative" in meaning and less productive than in English overall: although there are in fact many non-adversative passives in Mandarin and Cantonese, it's not the case that any predicate can be passivised. For example, passive constructions cannot be formed based on dative constructions in Cantonese (there is nothing like "I was given a prize"). Some child acquisition studies involving the Cantonese datives are Chan 2003, Gu 2007, and Yip & Matthews (2007, ch. 7). Some references: Chan, Angel Wing-Shan. 2003. The development of bei2 dative constructions in early child Cantonese. Unpublished MPhil Thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Gu, Chenjie Chloe. 2007. The acquisition of dative constructions in Cantonese-English bilingual children. Unpublished MPhil Thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Killingley, S.Y. 1993. Cantonese. Munich: Lincom Europa. Matthews, S. 2006. On serial verb constructions in Cantonese. In A.Y.Aikhenvald & R.M.W.Dixon (eds), Serial Verbs: a Cross-linguistic Typology. Oxford University Press. Pp 69-87. Matthews, S. & V.Yip. 1994. Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge Tang, Sze-Wing. 1998. On the 'inverted' double object construction. In Stephen Matthews (eds.), Studies in Cantonese Linguistics. Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, pp. 35-52. Yip, V. & S. Matthews. 2007. The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Best wishes from Hong Kong, Virginia Yip & Stephen Matthews -----????----- ???: Henrietta Lempert ???: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org ????: 2007/10/17 ?? 05:42 ??: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk Wed Oct 17 03:09:59 2007 From: cymatt at arts.cuhk.edu.hk (Virginia Yip (LIN)) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:09:59 +0800 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: Concerning verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) we made the point that Cantonese 'offer' and 'promise' allow neither construction, but use a complementation construction instead ("I promise to give you..."). I'd like to draw your attention to the following data from Angel Chan who noted the possibility of prepositional dative and double dative with these verbs: offer 'tai4gung1' PD: ngo5 ho2ji3 tai4gung1 gau2zit3 bei2 lei5 I can offer ten-percent-off give you "I can offer you a ten percent discount" promise 'jing1sing4' DO: keoi5 jing1sing4 ngo5 saam1 gin6 si6 3SG promise me three CL things "He has promised me three things." PD : keoi5 jing1sing4 li1 bun2 syu1 bei2 ngo5 3SG promise this CL book give me "He has promised me this book!" bequeath 'wai4lau4' PD: keoi5 lau4 hou2do1 coi4caan2 bei2 go3 zai2 3SG leave much asset give CL son "He has bequeathed his son a great fortune." Virginia -----Original Message----- From: Henrietta Lempert [mailto:lempert at psych.toronto.edu] Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 5:42 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From holfert at uni-osnabrueck.de Wed Oct 17 10:21:16 2007 From: holfert at uni-osnabrueck.de (Helena Olfert) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:21:16 +0200 Subject: mailing-list Message-ID: Please remove me from the mailing list. Thank you! From limber at comcast.net Wed Oct 17 11:30:27 2007 From: limber at comcast.net (john limber) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:30:27 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" wrote: > ?No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, > or even to offer supportive references.? > OK? try this?with references too! The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs defense? frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain conditional performance. Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a subset of the language one might observe under such and such conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two to three year old children?s utterances I observed -- a lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. Did this mean these kids didn?t have the potential for those structures in their behavioral repertoire?their linguistic competence? Here?s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)?which curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves pragmatics. ?Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically based on spontaneous speech. This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also involved in speech production. Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use complex subject NPs. Is this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a reflection of pragmatic factors? Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need complex subjects. An extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position indicates that pragmatics may account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech.? In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up?one shaky example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: Adult: ?Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird.? Child: ?I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. ? I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language acquisition would handle this? Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child Language, 3, 309-318. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf John Limber University of New Hampshire Durham NH I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de Wed Oct 17 12:32:53 2007 From: mechthild.kiegelmann at uni-tuebingen.de (Mechthild Kiegelmann) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:32:53 +0200 Subject: Baby Signing literature: summary Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, There were many helpful responses to my question about literature on baby signing. Below is a summary of the references . (I prepared the list without further formatting). Thank you for all your wonderful help! PD. Dr. Mechthild Kiegelmann University of T?bingen, Germany *Web Sites:* babysignal Wiebke Gericke http://www.babysignal.de BabySigns www.babysigns.com. Just follow the research "clickables." Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network: http://www.cllrnet.ca/news/inthenews/104 Signingsmart Michelle Anthony and Reyna Lindert http://www.signingsmart.com Signing Time http://www.signingtime.com/article_info.php?articles_id=11 If you go toward the bottom, you will see a link to a pdf file that has a bunch of references at the end. http://www.signingtime.com/benefits/STResearch_Summary.pdf Sign2me Joseph Garcia at http://www.sign2me.com *Books:* Acredolo, L. P., & Goodwyn, S. W. (1998). Baby signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk. Chicago: NTB/Contemporary Publishers. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S. (1996). Baby Signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk. Chicago: NTB/Contemporary Publishers. Daniels, M. (2001). Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey And research and publishing by Marylin Daniels Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon: Was will das Kind mir sagen? Die K?rpersprache des Kindes verstehen lernen. Verlag Hans Huber, Bern 2005 Grabmeier, J. (1999). Infants use sign language to communicate at Ohio State School. Newswise Press. http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=SIGNLANG.OSU Volterra, V., & Erting, C. J. (Eds.) (1990). From gesture to language in hearing and deaf children (pp. 263-277). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. *Articles:* Abrahamsen, A. (2000). Explorations of enhanced gestural input to children in the bimodal period. In K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Eds.), The signs of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima (pp. 357-399). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Abrahamsen, A. A., Cavallo, M. M., & McCluer, J. A. (1985). Is the sign advantage a robust phenomenon? From gesture to language in two modalities. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 31, 177-209. Abrahamsen, A. A., Lamb, M., Brown-Williams, J., & McCarthy, S. (1991). Boundary conditions on language emergence: Contributions from atypical learners and input. In P. Siple & S. Fischer (Eds.), Theoretical issues in sign language research. Volume 2: Psychology? (pp. 231-254). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S. (1988). Symbolic gesturing in normal infants. Child Development, 59, 450-456. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S. (1996). Baby Signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk. Chicago: NTB/Contemporary Publishers. Acredolo, L.,& Goodwyn, S., Horobin, K., & Emmons, Y. (1999). The sign and sounds of early language development. In L. Balter & C. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A handbook of contemporary issues. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Linda Acredolo, et al. (1999), The signs and sounds of early langauge development. In C. Tamis-LeMonda & L. Balter (Eds.), Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues. Garland Press. Baker, S. A., Golinkoff, R. M., & Petitto, L. A. (2006). New insights into old puzzles from infants? categorical discrimination of soundless phonetic units. Language Learning and Development, 2, 147-162.) Beukelman & Mirenda (1998). Augmentative and alternative communication: Management of severe communication disorders in children and adults. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Folven, R. J., & Bonvillian, J. D. (1991). The transition from nonreferential to referential language in children acquiring American Sign Language. Developmental Psychology, 27, 806-816. Goodwyn, S.W., Acredolo, L. P. & Brown, C. (2000). Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 81-103. S. W. Goodwyn & L. P. Acredolo (1993), Symbolic gesture versus word: Is there a modality advantage for onset of symbol use? Child Development, 64, 688-701. Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (Eds.) (1998). The nature and functions of gesture in children's communication. New Directions for Child Development, No. 79. Jossey-Bass. Kangas, K. & Lloyd, F. (1988). Early cognitive skills as prerequisites to augmentative and alternative communication use: What are we waiting for? Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 4, 211-221. Liang Wei-lan, Hao Bo, Zheng, Zhi-xiong, Tardif, T., Fletcher P3 (2005). Study of Chinese children?s gesture development. Lloyd, Fuller, & Arvidson (1997). Augmentative and alternative communication: A handbook of principles and practices. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Meier, R. P., & Newport, E. (1990). Out of the hands of babes: on a possible sign advantage in language acquisition. Language, 6, 1-23. ?z?al??kan, ?. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development. Cognition, 96 (3), B101-B113. ?z?al??kan, ?. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Do parents lead their children by the hand? Journal of Child Language, 32 (3), 481-505. ?z?al??kan, ?. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (under review). When gesture-speech combinations do and do not index linguistic change. Language and Cognitive Processes. Reilly, R.G. (in press). The relationship between object manipulation and language development in Broca's area: A connectionist simulation of Greenfield's hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Reilly, R.G. 1997. Brocas area and the development of object assembly and language production skills. In: Proceedings of AI-97, University of Ulster, Magee College, September. Reilly, R.G. 1997. Cortical software re-use: A neural basis for creative cognition. In: Proceedings of Mind 2, Dublin City University, September. The September 1997 issue of AAC: Augmentative and Alternative Communication (volume 13, number 3) is dedicated to language development. Especially: 1. (Paul, R.) Facilitating Transitions in Language Development for Children Using AAC 2. (Romski, Sevcik, & Adamson) Framework for Studying How Children with Developmental Disabilities Develop Language through Augmented Means. *Conference presentations* Acredolo, L. P., & Goodwyn, S.W. (July 2000). The long-term impact of symbolic gesturing during infancy on IQ at age 8. Paper presented at the meetings of the International Society for Infant Studies, Brighton, UK. Kiegelmann, M. (2007). Evaluation of Baby Signing. Paper presented at the 13th European Conference on Developmental Psychology. Jena, Germany. Presentations at the SRCD 2007 Biennial Meeting 2007 in Boston, MA, USA see: http://www.srcd.org/meeting/schedule/2007/searchview.cfm [10.10.2007]: Claire D. Vallotton, Catherine Ayoub. Symbols as coping tools: Both words and gestures support toddlers' development of self-regulation Raedy M. Ping, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Mary-Anne V. Decatur: Gesture, Cognitive Load, and Non-Visible Objects Makeba Parramore Wilbourn, Jenna Hallie Marshall, Marie-France Catherine Baveye, Marianella Casasola: Developmental Changes in Infants' Association of Gestures Versus Words With Objects Seyda Ozcaliskan, Susan Goldin-Meadow: Learning to Build Similarity Mappings in Gesture and Speech Ann M. Mastergeorge, Lesley B. Olswang: The Role of Communicative Gestures in Mother-Infant Dyads: The Trajectory of Joint Attention Whitney Goodrich, Eve A. Sauer, Jana M. Iverson, Susan Goldin-Meadow: From Children's Hands to Mothers' Mouth Claire D. Vallotton, Catherine Ayoub: Gesture as communication & thought? Predicting development of engagement skills and social-emotional concepts in young children Elizabeth Crais, Linda R. Watson, Grace T. Baranek: Early and Later Gestures Use in Infants with Autism Spectrum Disorders *archive of CHILDES-List* A search in the archive of this list showed that I am not the first one to ask the question about baby signing literature. A search found the following mails (Thank you, Adele Abrahamsen for the tip with the Archive!) http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa [search with ?sign? and ?bab? on 11.10.2007] 004308 07/10/06 09:56 47 Literature on Baby Signing 000865 00/04/01 15:44 51 signing in hearing babies 000863 00/03/30 13:58 68 Signing babies 000858 00/03/30 09:23 35 Re: signing in hearing babies 000850 00/03/29 11:15 59 Signing in hearing babies 000856 00/03/27 10:37 53 Re: signing in hearing babies 000847 00/03/25 17:21 216 Re: signing in hearing babies 000845 00/03/24 16:05 21 signing in hearing babies 000846 00/03/24 14:08 21 Re: signing in hearing babies 000081 99/01/15 17:00 31 Baby signs: THANK YOU! 000078 99/01/15 14:12 32 Baby Signs story 000080 99/01/15 12:04 50 More on Baby signs 000075 99/01/14 19:09 94 Re: "Baby Signs" -- good thing or not? 000074 99/01/14 15:36 56 teaching babies signs 000071 99/01/13 18:59 38 Re: Baby Signs 000069 99/01/13 16:52 21 Baby Signs 000068 99/01/12 23:44 42 "Baby Signs" -- good thing or not? From Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk Wed Oct 17 13:43:09 2007 From: Evan.J.Kidd at manchester.ac.uk (Evan J Kidd) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:43:09 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ProgId Word.Document Generator Microsoft Word 11 Originator Microsoft Word 11 John, I don' t see how your example shows any support for the necessity of the competence-performance distinction. We have known for a long time that children don' t like to use relative clauses that modify main clause subjects. If your point is that children rarely hear them, then your data show that they also rarely use them, so at best, their ' competence' is shaky, as indeed your one example from _________________________________ Dr Evan Kidd Lecturer in Psychology School of Psychological Sciences University of Manchester Oxford Road M13 9PL Manchester, UK Ph: +44 (0) 161 275 2578 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 8587 http://www.psych-sci.manchester.ac.uk/staff/108727 __________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of john limber Sent: 17 October 2007 12:30 To: Matthew Saxton; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Cc: john limber Subject: Re: Competence vs. Performance: Summary On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" wrote: " No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer supportive references." OK- try this- with references too!The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs defense- frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain conditional performance. Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a subset of the language one might observe under such and such conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two to three year old children' s utterances I observed -- a lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. Did this mean these kids didn' t have the potential for those structures in their behavioral repertoire- their linguistic competence? Here' s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)- which curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves pragmatics." Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically based on spontaneous speech. This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also involved in speech production. Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use complex subject NPs. Isthis a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a reflection of pragmatic factors? Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need complex subjects. Anextensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position indicates that pragmatics may account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech." In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up- one shaky example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: Adult: " Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird." Child: " I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. " I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language acquisition would handle this? Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child Language, 3, 309-318. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf John Limber University of New Hampshire Durham NH I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From virginia.valian at hunter.cuny.edu Wed Oct 17 14:27:20 2007 From: virginia.valian at hunter.cuny.edu (Virginia Valian) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:27:20 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: Dear All, A slight emendation to Matthew's post, in which he said "No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance distinction, or even to offer supportive references." My 1979 paper is a defense and I stand by it. The paper is called "The wherefores and therefores of the competence-performance distinction." Here's the link again: http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/docs/1979wherefores.pdf Perhaps a symposium on this topic would be good at an upcoming conference. Best, Virginia Valian Distinguished Professor, Psychology and Linguistics Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center 695 Park Ave, New York, NY, 10065, USA tel: 212/ 772-5463, 212/ 772-5557; fax: 212/ 650-3247 email: virginia.valian at hunter.cuny.edu http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/valian.htm http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/littlelinguist From stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca Wed Oct 17 16:47:05 2007 From: stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca (Joe Stemberger) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:47:05 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Oct 17 17:26:21 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:26:21 +0200 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <47163C89.6060203@interchange.ubc.ca> Message-ID: Hello Everybody, I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research and collect information on what people actually say, whether children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of competence/performance distinction is. The best, Anat Ninio Joe Stemberger wrote: > Hello, everyone. > > Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my career > working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech and > experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are outputs > that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead to > "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" > competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. > > Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing two > main points: > (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is > performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are > largely unknown after more than 40 years. > (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through performance. > > Consider John Limber's quote: > "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically > based on spontaneous speech. > This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also > involved in speech production." > > Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. > Just as there are performance factors in language perception, language > comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. > In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts of > any sort are "contaminated" by performance. > And it follows from that that inferences about competence must come > from performance, only and always. > > > OK, so now let's get concrete. > Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, and > you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. > Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. > In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce > such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. > (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they produce > coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with rhyming > regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) > Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every study > has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority for most > children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, and that, like > in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one of the predictors of > error rate. > This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. > But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that patterns > are being extracted and generalized. > > At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead of > SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy to come by. > As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that > experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of the > time in neutral contexts, > rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in the > first word).) > Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to novel > words at much greater rates. > So irregular patterns also show generalization. > > Consider another of John's quotes: > "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a > subset of the language one might observe under such and such conditions?" > > So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates > explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, > then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular and > irregular forms, because both types of patterns overgeneralize, right? > > Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar approach, > have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ pattern involves > the use of a rule after failure to access an irregular form, but that > overregularization of irregular patterns is a performance phenomenon, > based on the way that irregular forms are stored in and accessed from > the lexicon. > Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can > occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept "the" > competence-performance distinction. > > Which leads to this possibility: > all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are simply > stored in the lexicon. > All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance phenomenon. > And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more than > any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to performance > factors, right? > > Or even > The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the language. > Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever been > observed. > Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored exemplars. > You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? > Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper > bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to show > how it works. > > And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that > "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that sort > of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. > > >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have to > work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide a > range of types of data as possible. > And we want to develop theories that account for all of those data, in > detail. > If there's a distinction between competence and performance, that's > fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to explain > exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are due to > performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that aren't > accounted for in detail, it means that we should be uncomfortable, > because we need to account for it all. > > That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction has > been used in the past. > If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. > While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply linguistic > theory to child language, few are open to using child language to > provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two theoretical mechanisms. > > In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and working > on theories of how human language works, including claims about the > fundamental orgainization of the language system. > > As should we all. > > > ---Joe Stemberger > Linguistics > UBC > > > john limber pravi: >> >> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >> wrote: >> >> ?No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.? >> >> OK? try this?with references too! >> >> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >> defense? frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are more >> or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain conditional >> performance. >> >> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >> conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary >> and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, >> to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds >> like a lame return to behaviorism. >> >> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two >> to three year old children?s utterances I observed -- a lack of >> relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >> >> Did this mean these kids didn?t have the potential for those >> structures in their behavioral repertoire?their linguistic >> competence? Here?s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)?which >> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >> pragmatics. >> >> ?Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >> based on spontaneous speech. >> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >> involved in speech production. >> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >> complex subject NPs. Is >> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >> reflection of pragmatic factors? >> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need >> complex subjects. An >> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >> indicates that pragmatics may >> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar >> pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude >> children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the >> nature of spontaneous speech.? >> >> >> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children >> and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up?one shaky example from a >> three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a >> child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than 1/1000. >> Here are the two: >> >> Adult: ? Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird.? >> >> Child: ?I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >> doesn't want me to open it. ? >> >> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language acquisition >> would handle this? >> >> >> >> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >> >> >> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >> Language, 3, 309-318. >> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >> >> >> John Limber >> University of New Hampshire >> Durham NH >> >> >> >> >> >> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >> >> Well these >> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >> >> >> >> >> From cschutze at ucla.edu Wed Oct 17 20:42:56 2007 From: cschutze at ucla.edu (Carson Schutze) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:42:56 -0700 Subject: I'll defend the C/P distinction! Message-ID: C = competence, P = performance below, because although I have the competence to type them, I know my performance system will make too many errors doing so :-) But back to serious business. Anat Ninio said: > I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent contributions > to this strand -- that we're all a little scared stating the obvious, > which is that the notion of competence as a separate entity from > performance is a philosophical error, pure and simple. I'm not scared to state what's obvious to me--that *rejecting* the C/P distinction is a philosophical error. And the fact that I have no problem with 98% of what's been said in this thread aside from denying C/P suggests that there's some misunderstanding about what embracing it entails for one's research program. So let me pick up from Joe's most recent posting and see if I can pinpoint the problem. [But let me also say: none of the 'problems' for C/P cited by Matthew Sexton in his summary posting are problems for it at all, in fact they don't even bear on it. This posting is already too long but we can get into that separately if people think it would be productive.] Joe says > (1) the exact division between what is competence and what is > performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are largely > unknown after more than 40 years. That's also true for syntax vs. semantics, morphology vs. phonology, semantics vs. pragmatics, etc. etc. That doesn't mean these aren't real and useful distinctions. They might or might not be real, but no one's shown that they aren't, and I defy anyone to argue that linguistics would have made more progress by ignoring the distinction. (And some of these go back hundreds if not thousands of years, so C/P has plenty of time to sort itself out.) > (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through performance. A point I harped on in my 1996 book, too. Certainly true today. Arguably in principle brain measures might someday falsify this, depending on a bunch of assumptions we can't even guess at the veracity of right now. But not in any of our lifetimes, so we can agree on this for all practical purposes. But this also doesn't imply that C/P is useless, incoherent, etc. Until recently there was no way to study genetics except by its effects on organisms, but that doesn't mean it was wrong or useless to make the genotype/phenotype distinction. Joe then discusses overgeneralization of morphological irregularities, and points out that these occur alongside overgeneralization of the "regular" forms, and that therefore the idea that the latter should be handled by the grammar while the former are handled by a processing theory is unmotivated, and the thin edge of a wedge by which all linguistic phenomena could be "dumped" into processing and therefore ignored by linguists. [I hope I'm not oversimplifying too much, Joe--I believe that was the essential idea.] For one thing, I agree that the division that Pinker, Clahsen et al. argue for is not the right way to go--that, partly for the reason Joe gives and partly for other reasons, all inflections should be treated in a single system. Morris Halle agrees. So does Charles Yang. So do Albright and Hayes. And we all want that system to be the grammar, not the processor. So in practice, *for this case* I don't think the slippery slope worry is justified. But Joe wants a guarantee that in principle C/P can't be used to justify a division of labor between grammar and processing that we would all consider crazy. Is that a reasonable standard? Can anyone show that "syntax" and "phonology" have been defined in a way that wouldn't allow everything we commonly think of as syntax to be classified as phonology? Since all sentences are built up out of sounds, clearly that cannot be excluded a priori. But has that prevented linguists from making profitable use of the distinction? Again, I think not. So sure, C/P could be used in crazy ways. No scientific theory can prevent itself from being used to do bad research. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater--even if you think that every piece of work ever done that has explicitly embraced C/P has been wrong wrong wrong, that's no argument that the C/P distinction itself is wrong, useless, nonsensical, etc. (You don't even know until you look really hard whether research that explicitly rejects C/P might not in fact be using it without realizing it.) Joe summarizes thus: > From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have to work with > performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide a range of > types of data > as possible. I agree, as does Chomsky--see quotes in my book. > And we want to develop theories that account for all of those data, > in detail. > If there's a distinction between competence and performance, that's fine, but > it has to be explicit, and our theories need to explain exactly which > phenomena are due to competence, which are due to performance, and why. Unless we're holding ourselves to a standard beyond that of any other science, I think a reasonable requirement would be that our theories should include a *hypothesis* about which phenomena are due to C vs. P, and they generally do, if only implicitly: people proposing theories of grammar are hypothesizing that the data they try to explain are in C, those proposing theories of processing are hypothesizing that the data they try to cover are in P, and in some cases there are explicit arguments that things that some theories treat as being in one should actually be treated as being in the other (as in the theories of ir/regular inflection cited above). And of course one may propose that a single theory should cover data that have traditionally been treated with separate theories, as in Colin Phillips's 'Parser is Grammar [PIG]' model. But to demand an explanation of why the division, if any, lies where it is hypothesized to lie, while it would be nice, surely can't be a prerequisite to employing C/P. Most theories in language don't have any "why" answers for anything, really. I think parsimony is justification enough at this point. (I.e., drawing the line here gives me more appealing theories of BOTH C AND P than drawing it somewhere else.) But of course Joe is correct that if you make a division somewhere and then cannot point to any proposals, by yourself or anyone else, for how to handle the facts that you've dumped in the other guy's backyard, you've taken a step backwards, not forwards. I think typically when linguists say "I assume X is due to performance," usually they have a vague sense that X resembles some phenomenon for which performance accounts have actually been proposed. The problem comes if they don't actually check whether their vague sense is correct and whether those accounts could plausibly extend to X. In an ideal world, they would go one step further than that: they would find a collaborator who works on those performance theories and develop an account that actually explains X. Nowadays, this is happening--not nearly enough, but the trend is clearly in the right direction.? ?? Carson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Wed Oct 17 21:06:19 2007 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:06:19 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <471645BD.9010100@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the former to a mistake. It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language "ought to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of what speakers themselves believe. When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error from my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; to say that 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' to utter either number") would be nothing more than sophistry. The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by underlying representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch as the competence-performance distinction encapsulates that fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to dismiss. -- Gary Marcus Professor of Psychology New York University On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > Hello Everybody, > > I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent > contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared > stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a > separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and > simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" > instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. > Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential > or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of > it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. > > I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research > and collect information on what people actually say, whether > children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we > hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major > in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of > competence/performance distinction is. > > The best, > > Anat Ninio > > > > > > Joe Stemberger wrote: >> Hello, everyone. >> >> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech >> and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead >> to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >> >> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >> two main points: >> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >> performance. >> >> Consider John Limber's quote: >> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >> based on spontaneous speech. >> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >> involved in speech production." >> >> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >> come from performance, only and always. >> >> >> OK, so now let's get concrete. >> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, >> and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one >> of the predictors of error rate. >> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >> >> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy >> to come by. >> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of >> the time in neutral contexts, >> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >> the first word).) >> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >> novel words at much greater rates. >> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >> >> Consider another of John's quotes: >> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >> conditions?" >> >> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns >> overgeneralize, right? >> >> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns >> is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms >> are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept >> "the" competence-performance distinction. >> >> Which leads to this possibility: >> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >> simply stored in the lexicon. >> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >> phenomenon. >> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >> performance factors, right? >> >> Or even >> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >> language. >> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >> been observed. >> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >> exemplars. >> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >> show how it works. >> >> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >> >> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have >> to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide >> a range of types of data as possible. >> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >> data, in detail. >> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that >> aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >> >> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >> has been used in the past. >> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >> theoretical mechanisms. >> >> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >> working on theories of how human language works, including claims >> about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >> >> As should we all. >> >> >> ---Joe Stemberger >> Linguistics >> UBC >> >> >> john limber pravi: >>> >>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>> wrote: >>> >>> ?No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.? >>> >>> OK? try this?with references too! >>> >>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>> defense? frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>> conditional performance. >>> >>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>> >>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>> two to three year old children?s utterances I observed -- a lack >>> of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>> >>> Did this mean these kids didn?t have the potential for those >>> structures in their behavioral repertoire?their linguistic >>> competence? Here?s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)?which >>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>> pragmatics. >>> >>> ?Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>> based on spontaneous speech. >>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>> involved in speech production. >>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>> complex subject NPs. Is >>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>> need complex subjects. An >>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>> indicates that pragmatics may >>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to >>> conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything >>> more than the nature of spontaneous speech.? >>> >>> >>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up?one shaky >>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>> >>> Adult: ? Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>> weird.? >>> >>> Child: ?I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>> doesn't want me to open it. ? >>> >>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>> acquisition would handle this? >>> >>> >>> >>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>> Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >> JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf> >>> >>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>> >>> >>> John Limber >>> University of New Hampshire >>> Durham NH >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>> >>> Well these >>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > > From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Oct 17 22:39:24 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:39:24 +0200 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <79E8A051-EB2B-4408-905C-E8B6630D6254@nyu.edu> Message-ID: I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this rationalistic perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect incorrect and misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades of research on transformations, deep structures, and innate parameters. There are other ways to look at the organization of reality, and my only hope is that the next generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will not repeat the mistakes of the last one. Anat Ninio Professor of Psychology The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Gary Marcus wrote: > > I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To > ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point > of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply > aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the > former to a mistake. > > It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in > 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited > Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to > treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as a > matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language "ought > to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a matter > of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of what > speakers themselves believe. > > When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of 87 > and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error from > my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum (viz. > 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a theoretical > tool with which to make that distinction; to say that 101 and 111 are > equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' to utter either > number") would be nothing more than sophistry. > > The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, > have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how can > I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once we > have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. > > In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the > daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from > surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that > task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping between > the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by underlying > representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch as the > competence-performance distinction encapsulates that fundamental > truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to dismiss. > > -- Gary Marcus > Professor of Psychology > New York University > > > > On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > >> Hello Everybody, >> >> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and >> simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" >> instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. >> Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential or >> ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of it, by >> Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. >> >> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research >> and collect information on what people actually say, whether children >> or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we hear is >> "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major in their >> first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of >> competence/performance distinction is. >> >> The best, >> >> Anat Ninio >> >> >> >> >> >> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>> Hello, everyone. >>> >>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my career >>> working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech and >>> experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >>> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead to >>> "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >>> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >>> >>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing two >>> main points: >>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >>> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >>> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>> performance. >>> >>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>> based on spontaneous speech. >>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>> involved in speech production." >>> >>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts of >>> any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must come >>> from performance, only and always. >>> >>> >>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, and >>> you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >>> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they produce >>> coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with rhyming >>> regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >>> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, and >>> that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one of the >>> predictors of error rate. >>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>> >>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >>> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy to >>> come by. >>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >>> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of the >>> time in neutral contexts, >>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >>> the first word).) >>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>> novel words at much greater rates. >>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>> >>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>> conditions?" >>> >>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >>> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >>> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >>> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns overgeneralize, >>> right? >>> >>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar approach, >>> have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ pattern >>> involves the use of a rule after failure to access an irregular >>> form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns is a >>> performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms are >>> stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >>> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept "the" >>> competence-performance distinction. >>> >>> Which leads to this possibility: >>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>> phenomenon. >>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more than >>> any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>> performance factors, right? >>> >>> Or even >>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the language. >>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever been >>> observed. >>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>> exemplars. >>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >>> show how it works. >>> >>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >>> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >>> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >>> >>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have to >>> work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide a >>> range of types of data as possible. >>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those data, >>> in detail. >>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, that's >>> fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to explain >>> exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are due to >>> performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that aren't >>> accounted for in detail, it means that we should be uncomfortable, >>> because we need to account for it all. >>> >>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction has >>> been used in the past. >>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply linguistic >>> theory to child language, few are open to using child language to >>> provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two theoretical >>> mechanisms. >>> >>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and working >>> on theories of how human language works, including claims about the >>> fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>> >>> As should we all. >>> >>> >>> ---Joe Stemberger >>> Linguistics >>> UBC >>> >>> >>> john limber pravi: >>>> >>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> ?No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.? >>>> >>>> OK? try this?with references too! >>>> >>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>> defense? frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>> conditional performance. >>>> >>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is fragmentary >>>> and ill-formed? While every case demands its own explanatory story, >>>> to toss out the whole idea of competence or similar concepts sounds >>>> like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>> >>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of two >>>> to three year old children?s utterances I observed -- a lack of >>>> relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>> >>>> Did this mean these kids didn?t have the potential for those >>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire?their linguistic >>>> competence? Here?s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)?which >>>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>>> pragmatics. >>>> >>>> ?Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>> involved in speech production. >>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>>> complex subject NPs. Is >>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not need >>>> complex subjects. An >>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A similar >>>> pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to conclude >>>> children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything more than the >>>> nature of spontaneous speech.? >>>> >>>> >>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of children >>>> and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up?one shaky example from a >>>> three-year old and another from an adult. The probability that a >>>> child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my data, less than >>>> 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>> >>>> Adult: ? Well these buses that I've had today have been really weird.? >>>> >>>> Child: ?I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>>> doesn't want me to open it. ? >>>> >>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>> >>>> >>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>> >>>> >>>> John Limber >>>> University of New Hampshire >>>> Durham NH >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>> >>>> Well these >>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >> >> > > > From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Wed Oct 17 23:07:51 2007 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:07:51 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <47168F1C.7010005@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology in which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory of how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how to do so coherently without a competence-performance distinction. Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish competence from performance per se does not commit one to any particular theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a nativist about the rules of chess to think that a competence-performance distinction applies -- and does useful work there (e.g., in distinguishing "blunders" from more considered miscalculations). When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. -- gfm On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that > "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with > the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from > surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this > rationalistic perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect > incorrect and misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades > of research on transformations, deep structures, and innate > parameters. There are other ways to look at the organization of > reality, and my only hope is that the next generation of > theoreticians of both disciplines will not repeat the mistakes of > the last one. > > Anat Ninio > Professor of Psychology > The Hebrew University of Jerusalem > > > > Gary Marcus wrote: >> >> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the >> point of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and >> "spun" simply aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct >> and ascribe the former to a mistake. >> >> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in >> 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to >> treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not >> as a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of >> language "ought to be", according to some self-appointed >> grammarian) but as a matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a >> characterization of what speakers themselves believe. >> >> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum >> of 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient >> error from my general understanding of what would constitute a >> correct sum (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction >> gives us a theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; >> to say that 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have >> the 'competence' to utter either number") would be nothing more >> than sophistry. >> >> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, >> have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how >> can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself >> once we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. >> >> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with >> the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations >> from surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed >> at that task without a firm understanding of the fact that the >> mapping between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated >> not only by underlying representations but by a host of other >> factors. Inasmuch as the competence-performance distinction >> encapsulates that fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we >> cannot afford to dismiss. >> >> -- Gary Marcus >> Professor of Psychology >> New York University >> >> >> >> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >> >>> Hello Everybody, >>> >>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >>> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure >>> and simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time >>> "spinned" instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do >>> so. Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored >>> potential or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other >>> treatment of it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a >>> mystification of the obvious. >>> >>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing >>> research and collect information on what people actually say, >>> whether children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that >>> what we hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any >>> philosopher major in their first year would tell us how confused >>> the whole idea of competence/performance distinction is. >>> >>> The best, >>> >>> Anat Ninio >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>> Hello, everyone. >>>> >>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous >>>> speech and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that >>>> there are outputs that are "correct" but that performance >>>> factors can lead to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean >>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere >>>> practical. >>>> >>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >>>> two main points: >>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what >>>> is performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, >>>> are largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>> performance. >>>> >>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>> involved in speech production." >>>> >>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >>>> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>> >>>> >>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >>>> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates >>>> produce such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >>>> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of >>>> tokens.) >>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the >>>> minority for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the >>>> beginning, and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the >>>> verb is one of the predictors of error rate. >>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>> >>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, >>>> instead of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors >>>> are easy to come by. >>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In >>>> that experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about >>>> 2% of the time in neutral contexts, >>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular >>>> in the first word).) >>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>>> novel words at much greater rates. >>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>> >>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but >>>> a subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>> conditions?" >>>> >>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and >>>> encapsulates explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for >>>> generalization, then competence contains such procedures for >>>> creating both regular and irregular forms, because both types of >>>> patterns overgeneralize, right? >>>> >>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular >>>> patterns is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that >>>> irregular forms are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns >>>> can occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that >>>> accept "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>> >>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>> phenomenon. >>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >>>> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>>> performance factors, right? >>>> >>>> Or even >>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>> language. >>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >>>> been observed. >>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>> exemplars. >>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility >>>> to show how it works. >>>> >>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof >>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us >>>> to that sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere >>>> else. >>>> >>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we >>>> have to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with >>>> as wide a range of types of data as possible. >>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>> data, in detail. >>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >>>> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >>>> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data >>>> that aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >>>> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >>>> >>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >>>> has been used in the past. >>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >>>> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >>>> theoretical mechanisms. >>>> >>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>> working on theories of how human language works, including >>>> claims about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>>> >>>> As should we all. >>>> >>>> >>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>> Linguistics >>>> UBC >>>> >>>> >>>> john limber pravi: >>>>> >>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> ?No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence- >>>>> performance >>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.? >>>>> >>>>> OK? try this?with references too! >>>>> >>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>>> defense? frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>>> conditional performance. >>>>> >>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but >>>>> a subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>>>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>> >>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>>>> two to three year old children?s utterances I observed -- a >>>>> lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>> >>>>> Did this mean these kids didn?t have the potential for those >>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire?their linguistic >>>>> competence? Here?s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)? >>>>> which curiously in connection with this current discussion, >>>>> involves pragmatics. >>>>> >>>>> ?Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>> involved in speech production. >>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not >>>>> use complex subject NPs. Is >>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>>>> need complex subjects. An >>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant >>>>> to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects >>>>> anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech.? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up?one shaky >>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>>>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>> >>>>> Adult: ? Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>>>> weird.? >>>>> >>>>> Child: ?I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... >>>>> she doesn't want me to open it. ? >>>>> >>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. >>>>> Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of >>>>> Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>>>> Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>> JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf> >>>>> >>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>> >>>> pragmatics_performance.pdf> >>>>> >>>>> John Limber >>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>> Durham NH >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>> >>>>> Well these >>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > From msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Oct 17 23:33:45 2007 From: msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il (Anat Ninio) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:33:45 +0200 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <69CFD5B5-CE98-4AC1-A131-E28D29A5AE35@nyu.edu> Message-ID: I'm sure one can come up with a well-articulated theory of psychology that won't scare us all with the dark shadow of behaviorism and still won't make an elementary mistake of identifying the rules of chess with a player's playing skill. This is what the competence/performance distinction is really about, isn't it? The pure rules versus the impure human behaviour? Take note that even when a player is making a mistake, he is using -- not terribly successfully -- his stored representation of the game's rules and his cumulated playing strategies. Why would you not see this as competence, I don't really understand. Stored competence can be partial, full of holes, context-dependent -- in fact, it is just (messy) potential for action, nothing more rule-like than that. I'm sure you'll agree to that, at the least. Anat Ninio Gary Marcus wrote: > So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology in > which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is > behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 > arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal > representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory of > how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how to do so > coherently without a competence-performance distinction. > > Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish competence > from performance per se does not commit one to any particular > theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a nativist about > the rules of chess to think that a competence-performance distinction > applies -- and does useful work there (e.g., in distinguishing > "blunders" from more considered miscalculations). > > When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is > essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. > > -- gfm > > > On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > >> I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that >> "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >> surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this rationalistic >> perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect incorrect and >> misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades of research on >> transformations, deep structures, and innate parameters. There are >> other ways to look at the organization of reality, and my only hope >> is that the next generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will >> not repeat the mistakes of the last one. >> >> Anat Ninio >> Professor of Psychology >> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem >> >> >> >> Gary Marcus wrote: >>> >>> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >>> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point >>> of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply >>> aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the >>> former to a mistake. >>> >>> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in >>> 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >>> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to >>> treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as >>> a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language >>> "ought to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a >>> matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of >>> what speakers themselves believe. >>> >>> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of >>> 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error >>> from my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum >>> (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a >>> theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; to say that >>> 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' >>> to utter either number") would be nothing more than sophistry. >>> >>> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, >>> have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how >>> can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once >>> we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. >>> >>> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >>> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >>> surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that >>> task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping >>> between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by >>> underlying representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch >>> as the competence-performance distinction encapsulates that >>> fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to >>> dismiss. >>> >>> -- Gary Marcus >>> Professor of Psychology >>> New York University >>> >>> >>> >>> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >>> >>>> Hello Everybody, >>>> >>>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >>>> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and >>>> simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" >>>> instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. >>>> Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential >>>> or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of >>>> it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. >>>> >>>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research >>>> and collect information on what people actually say, whether >>>> children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we >>>> hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major >>>> in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of >>>> competence/performance distinction is. >>>> >>>> The best, >>>> >>>> Anat Ninio >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>>> Hello, everyone. >>>>> >>>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech >>>>> and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >>>>> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead >>>>> to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >>>>> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >>>>> >>>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >>>>> two main points: >>>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >>>>> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >>>>> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>>> performance. >>>>> >>>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>> involved in speech production." >>>>> >>>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >>>>> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >>>>> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >>>>> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >>>>> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >>>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>>>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >>>>> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, >>>>> and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one >>>>> of the predictors of error rate. >>>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>>> >>>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >>>>> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy >>>>> to come by. >>>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >>>>> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of >>>>> the time in neutral contexts, >>>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >>>>> the first word).) >>>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>>>> novel words at much greater rates. >>>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>>> >>>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>> conditions?" >>>>> >>>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >>>>> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >>>>> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >>>>> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns >>>>> overgeneralize, right? >>>>> >>>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns >>>>> is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms >>>>> are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >>>>> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>>> >>>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>>>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>>> phenomenon. >>>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >>>>> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>>>> performance factors, right? >>>>> >>>>> Or even >>>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>>> language. >>>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >>>>> been observed. >>>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>>> exemplars. >>>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>>>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >>>>> show how it works. >>>>> >>>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >>>>> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >>>>> >>>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have >>>>> to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide >>>>> a range of types of data as possible. >>>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>>> data, in detail. >>>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >>>>> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >>>>> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that >>>>> aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >>>>> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >>>>> >>>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >>>>> has been used in the past. >>>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >>>>> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >>>>> theoretical mechanisms. >>>>> >>>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>>> working on theories of how human language works, including claims >>>>> about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>>>> >>>>> As should we all. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>>> Linguistics >>>>> UBC >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> john limber pravi: >>>>>> >>>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> ?No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.? >>>>>> >>>>>> OK? try this?with references too! >>>>>> >>>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>>>> defense? frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>>>> conditional performance. >>>>>> >>>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>>>>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>>> >>>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>>>>> two to three year old children?s utterances I observed -- a lack >>>>>> of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>>> >>>>>> Did this mean these kids didn?t have the potential for those >>>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire?their linguistic >>>>>> competence? Here?s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)?which >>>>>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>>>>> pragmatics. >>>>>> >>>>>> ?Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>>> involved in speech production. >>>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>>>>> complex subject NPs. Is >>>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>>>>> need complex subjects. An >>>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to >>>>>> conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything >>>>>> more than the nature of spontaneous speech.? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up?one shaky >>>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>>>>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>>> >>>>>> Adult: ? Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>>>>> weird.? >>>>>> >>>>>> Child: ?I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>>>>> doesn't want me to open it. ? >>>>>> >>>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>>>>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>>>>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> John Limber >>>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>>> Durham NH >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>>> >>>>>> Well these >>>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >> > > From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Thu Oct 18 00:02:56 2007 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:02:56 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <47169BD9.6040603@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> Message-ID: The interesting cases in chess are not ones in which experts violate the rules (exceedingly rare), but in which they violate their own standards of behavior (ie, fail to take into account his/her own stored representations), which is to say that blunders are (virtually by definition) cases in which performance deviates from competence. Here's a nice description from wikipedia: In chess, a blunder is a very bad move which is quickly recognised as a very bad move by the player who made it, typically before or directly after his opponent has made his reply move. They are usually caused by some oversight, whether from time pressure ..., overconfidence or carelessness. A theory of pure use would not allow for such a distinction; my only claim is that an adequate theory of psychology ought to. If there's further interest in this topic, I suggest we move it to a Google group. -- gfm On Oct 17, 2007, at 7:33 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > I'm sure one can come up with a well-articulated theory of > psychology that won't scare us all with the dark shadow of > behaviorism and still won't make an elementary mistake of > identifying the rules of chess with a player's playing skill. This > is what the competence/performance distinction is really about, > isn't it? The pure rules versus the impure human behaviour? > > Take note that even when a player is making a mistake, he is using > -- not terribly successfully -- his stored representation of the > game's rules and his cumulated playing strategies. Why would you > not see this as competence, I don't really understand. Stored > competence can be partial, full of holes, context-dependent -- in > fact, it is just (messy) potential for action, nothing more rule- > like than that. I'm sure you'll agree to that, at the least. > > Anat Ninio > > > Gary Marcus wrote: >> So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology >> in which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is >> behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 >> arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal >> representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory >> of how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how >> to do so coherently without a competence-performance distinction. >> >> Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish >> competence from performance per se does not commit one to any >> particular theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a >> nativist about the rules of chess to think that a competence- >> performance distinction applies -- and does useful work there >> (e.g., in distinguishing "blunders" from more considered >> miscalculations). >> >> When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is >> essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. >> >> -- gfm >> >> >> On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >> >>> I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption >>> that "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left >>> with the daunting challenge of inferring underlying >>> representations from surface behavior". Just imagine for a >>> minute that this rationalistic perception of psychology and >>> linguistics is in effect incorrect and misleading -- as well as >>> leading us to wasted decades of research on transformations, deep >>> structures, and innate parameters. There are other ways to look >>> at the organization of reality, and my only hope is that the next >>> generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will not repeat >>> the mistakes of the last one. >>> >>> Anat Ninio >>> Professor of Psychology >>> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem >>> >>> >>> >>> Gary Marcus wrote: >>>> >>>> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >>>> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the >>>> point of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and >>>> "spun" simply aren't on a par; people accept the latter as >>>> correct and ascribe the former to a mistake. >>>> >>>> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that >>>> in 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >>>> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever >>>> to treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this >>>> not as a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of >>>> language "ought to be", according to some self-appointed >>>> grammarian) but as a matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as >>>> a characterization of what speakers themselves believe. >>>> >>>> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum >>>> of 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient >>>> error from my general understanding of what would constitute a >>>> correct sum (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction >>>> gives us a theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; >>>> to say that 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have >>>> the 'competence' to utter either number") would be nothing more >>>> than sophistry. >>>> >>>> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have >>>> noted, have any number of difficulties, but most are >>>> methodological ("how can I tell which is which", a fact that >>>> will only reveal itself once we have properly carved nature at >>>> it joints), not theoretical. >>>> >>>> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with >>>> the daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations >>>> from surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably >>>> succeed at that task without a firm understanding of the fact >>>> that the mapping between the two is often indirect: behavior is >>>> dictated not only by underlying representations but by a host of >>>> other factors. Inasmuch as the competence-performance >>>> distinction encapsulates that fundamental truth, it is a >>>> valuable tool that we cannot afford to dismiss. >>>> >>>> -- Gary Marcus >>>> Professor of Psychology >>>> New York University >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hello Everybody, >>>>> >>>>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>>>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>>>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as >>>>> a separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, >>>>> pure and simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the >>>>> time "spinned" instead of "spun", then they possess a >>>>> competence to do so. Competence is -- in plain English -- an a >>>>> priori stored potential or ability to produce some behaviour, >>>>> and any other treatment of it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at >>>>> best a mystification of the obvious. >>>>> >>>>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing >>>>> research and collect information on what people actually say, >>>>> whether children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying >>>>> that what we hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any >>>>> philosopher major in their first year would tell us how >>>>> confused the whole idea of competence/performance distinction is. >>>>> >>>>> The best, >>>>> >>>>> Anat Ninio >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>>>> Hello, everyone. >>>>>> >>>>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous >>>>>> speech and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion >>>>>> that there are outputs that are "correct" but that performance >>>>>> factors can lead to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean >>>>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere >>>>>> practical. >>>>>> >>>>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are >>>>>> missing two main points: >>>>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and >>>>>> what is performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish >>>>>> them, are largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>>>> performance. >>>>>> >>>>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>>> involved in speech production." >>>>>> >>>>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all >>>>>> acts of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long >>>>>> enough, and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates >>>>>> produce such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED >>>>>> (with rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about >>>>>> 25% of tokens.) >>>>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but >>>>>> every study has shown that such overregularizations are in the >>>>>> minority for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the >>>>>> beginning, and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of >>>>>> the verb is one of the predictors of error rate. >>>>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all >>>>>> ages. >>>>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>>>> >>>>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, >>>>>> instead of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such >>>>>> errors are easy to come by. >>>>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In >>>>>> that experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about >>>>>> 2% of the time in neutral contexts, >>>>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular >>>>>> in the first word).) >>>>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize >>>>>> to novel words at much greater rates. >>>>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>>>> >>>>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is >>>>>> but a subset of the language one might observe under such and >>>>>> such conditions?" >>>>>> >>>>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and >>>>>> encapsulates explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount >>>>>> for generalization, then competence contains such procedures >>>>>> for creating both regular and irregular forms, because both >>>>>> types of patterns overgeneralize, right? >>>>>> >>>>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular >>>>>> patterns is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that >>>>>> irregular forms are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns >>>>>> can occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that >>>>>> accept "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>>>> >>>>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to >>>>>> are simply stored in the lexicon. >>>>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>>>> phenomenon. >>>>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes >>>>>> more than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ >>>>>> difference to performance factors, right? >>>>>> >>>>>> Or even >>>>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>>>> language. >>>>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has >>>>>> ever been observed. >>>>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>>>> exemplars. >>>>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the >>>>>> proper bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my >>>>>> responsibility to show how it works. >>>>>> >>>>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof >>>>>> that "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us >>>>>> to that sort of system just as easily as it has led us >>>>>> anywhere else. >>>>>> >>>>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we >>>>>> have to work with performance data anyway, we want to work >>>>>> with as wide a range of types of data as possible. >>>>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>>>> data, in detail. >>>>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need >>>>>> to explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, >>>>>> which are due to performance, and why. And if there are >>>>>> aspects of data that aren't accounted for in detail, it means >>>>>> that we should be uncomfortable, because we need to account >>>>>> for it all. >>>>>> >>>>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance >>>>>> distinction has been used in the past. >>>>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using >>>>>> child language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between >>>>>> two theoretical mechanisms. >>>>>> >>>>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>>>> working on theories of how human language works, including >>>>>> claims about the fundamental orgainization of the language >>>>>> system. >>>>>> >>>>>> As should we all. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>>>> Linguistics >>>>>> UBC >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> john limber pravi: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ?No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence- >>>>>>> performance >>>>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references.? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> OK? try this?with references too! >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly >>>>>>> needs defense? frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, >>>>>>> latent learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic >>>>>>> competence all are more or less scientific concepts designed >>>>>>> to variously explain conditional performance. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is >>>>>>> but a subset of the language one might observe under such and >>>>>>> such conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence >>>>>>> or similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands >>>>>>> of two to three year old children?s utterances I observed -- >>>>>>> a lack of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Did this mean these kids didn?t have the potential for those >>>>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire?their linguistic >>>>>>> competence? Here?s the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)? >>>>>>> which curiously in connection with this current discussion, >>>>>>> involves pragmatics. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ?Inferences about linguistic competence in children are >>>>>>> typically based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are >>>>>>> also involved in speech production. >>>>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not >>>>>>> use complex subject NPs. Is >>>>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do >>>>>>> not need complex subjects. An >>>>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant >>>>>>> to conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects >>>>>>> anything more than the nature of spontaneous speech.? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up?one shaky >>>>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from >>>>>>> my data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Adult: ? Well these buses that I've had today have been >>>>>>> really weird.? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Child: ?I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... >>>>>>> she doesn't want me to open it. ? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. >>>>>>> Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of >>>>>>> Language (pp. 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>>>>>> Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>>>> JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/ >>>>>>> pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>>> JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> John Limber >>>>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>>>> Durham NH >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Well these >>>>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Thu Oct 18 01:19:16 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:19:16 -0400 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the radar screen. This message summarized replies to a query about Baby Signs. I spent some time tracing the various web links involved and I would like to draw colleagues' attention to one issue in this research that troubles me. This is the status of a report by Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at www.babysigns.com and www.signingtime.com (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports speaks of a 12 point "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who are taught Baby Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, Mechthild's links also point to an article from the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andr?e Durieux- Smith, and Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting that it provides no description of subject recruitment provedures, attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any pretesting. They conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range of baby signing products is not matched by good quality evidence that would reinforce manufacturers' claims." It is worth adding that the groups were already different when the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not as evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result of the initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been published in a journal. I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am also quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method for achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. However, I find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby Signs alone could achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several years of Head Start lead to nothing measurably permanent. I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies supporting these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about them. --Brian MacWhinney, CMU From cschutze at ucla.edu Thu Oct 18 03:06:53 2007 From: cschutze at ucla.edu (Carson Schutze) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:06:53 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary Message-ID: OK, in response to what Matthew suggests ?is wrong with the C/P distinction?: ?????? ?In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a language seem inextricably bound? (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: ?assuming that performance is based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects of competence? (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) This seems to be an argument against the idea that C and P are totally unconnected, do not interact, do not jointly influence behavior, or something like that. But to claim that they are logically distinct does not imply any of those other things, so this does not bear on the issue. ??performance factors? can always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall from children?s mouths. If they don?t fit the hypothesis under scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. I agree, as discussed in my previous posting. But this isn?t the fault of drawing the C/P distinction, this is the fault of insufficient research. ?????? Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky?s) that is not to everyone?s taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland & Pine, in press). This is a total nonsequitur?see Gary?s posting. C/P has nothing to do with any particular account of grammar, even if both were written about by the same guy (who has repeatedly noted that he did not ?propose? C/P since it?s always been around as an assumption, except perhaps for the Skinnerians). ?????? One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be ?an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and learning? (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. Another nonsequitur. In fact, in the earliest work on generative syntax (Logical Structures..., 1955) already incorporated degrees of ?grammaticalness?, as Chomsky called it then, as do many versions of OT today (while still being models of grammar, not models of processing). ?????? Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations like competence, since the latter ?excludes aspects of linguistic performance that are .... central to the structure of utterances? (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds? conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher). ? Competence doesn?t exclude that or anything else, if it is systematic behavior (it does exclude blunders, as Gary says). I sense here some allusion to the passage in Aspects that talks about an ?ideal speaker-hearer...?, but even on the ridiculous assumption that everyone working in this paradigm is bound by every word uttered by its de facto leader 40+ years ago, no such exclusion would follow. > Perhaps we should talk instead about two kinds of competence: one > concerned with linguistic >competence, the other with speech > production competence. At some level, therefore, it may be proper to > >acknowledge a split between competence and performance, or > competence in one domain from >competence in another. Right. Certainly Chomsky and everyone else I know would be content with positing grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence, for example (which does not preclude interactions between them, just like positing syntactic competence and phonological competence doesn?t preclude such interactions). It?s all about carving up the empirical pie (which is all behavior, hence performance, as I think we all agree) in a way that gives us the most scientifically appealing theories of each of the domains. ?? Carson ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cschutze at ucla.edu Thu Oct 18 03:18:20 2007 From: cschutze at ucla.edu (Carson Schutze) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:18:20 -0700 Subject: REPOST with formatting Message-ID: [SORRY, previous version lost the distinction between quoting and my replies, this will be easier to read.] OK, in response to what Matthew suggests ?is wrong with the C/P distinction?: ? ?In everyday usage, the notions of knowing and using a language seem inextricably bound? (Kaufer, 1979, p.257). To illustrate, Kaufer points out that one must strain hard to find cases of people using a language they do not know (reciting Latin prayers, perhaps) or, on the other hand, knowing a language they cannot use (e.g., some forms of aphasia). A similar point is also attributed by Stemberger to Fromkin: ?assuming that performance is based on competence, we expect performance to reflect many aspects of competence? (InfoCHILDES, October 14th 2007) This seems to be an argument against the idea that C and P are totally unconnected, do not interact, do not jointly influence behavior, or something like that. But to claim that they are logically distinct does not imply any of those other things, so this does not bear on the issue. ?performance factors? can always be invoked to explain away awkward-shaped pearls that fall from children?s mouths. If they don?t fit the hypothesis under scrutiny they are rejected, seemingly on good grounds, but, of course, invoking performance in this way is not at all well motivated. I agree, as discussed in my previous posting. But this isn?t the fault of drawing the C/P distinction, this is the fault of insufficient research. ? Another view: the competence-performance distinction relies on a particular account of adult grammar (Chomsky?s) that is not to everyone?s taste. If one rejects a Chomskyan version of grammar as the endpoint of development, then the competence-performance distinction is rendered redundant in the process (Ambridge, Rowland & Pine, in press). This is a total nonsequitur?see Gary?s posting. C/P has nothing to do with any particular account of grammar, even if both were written about by the same guy (who has repeatedly noted that he did not ?propose? C/P since it?s always been around as an assumption, except perhaps for the Skinnerians). ? One possible alternative is offered by McClelland & Bybee (in press), based on the notion of gradience, which they take to be ?an inherent feature of language representation, processing, and learning? (McClelland & Bybee, in press, p.1). This view clashes with the traditional notion of grammatical competence in which a given utterance is either grammatical or ungrammatical. Another nonsequitur. In fact, in the earliest work on generative syntax (Logical Structures..., 1955) already incorporated degrees of ?grammaticalness?, as Chomsky called it then, as do many versions of OT today (while still being models of grammar, not models of processing). ? Connectionist approaches also often clash with idealizations like competence, since the latter ?excludes aspects of linguistic performance that are .... central to the structure of utterances? (Seidenberg & MacDonald, 1999, p.572). This point is exemplified by Hoff (under review) with her observation that social factors can affect the linguistic form of observed child speech output (for example, the contrast witnessed in two-year-olds? conversation with their own mothers versus a researcher). Competence doesn?t exclude that or anything else, if it is systematic behavior (it does exclude blunders, as Gary says). I sense here some allusion to the passage in Aspects that talks about an ?ideal speaker-hearer...?, but even on the ridiculous assumption that everyone working in this paradigm is bound by every word uttered by its de facto leader 40+ years ago, no such exclusion would follow. > Perhaps we should talk instead about two kinds of competence: one > concerned with linguistic competence, the other with speech > production competence. At some level, therefore, it may be proper to > acknowledge a split between competence and performance, or > competence in one domain from competence in another. Right. Certainly Chomsky and everyone else I know would be content with positing grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence, for example (which does not preclude interactions between them, just like positing syntactic competence and phonological competence doesn?t preclude such interactions). It?s all about carving up the empirical pie (which is all behavior, hence performance, as I think we all agree) in a way that gives us the most scientifically appealing theories of each of the domains. Carson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From agwalker at cox.net Thu Oct 18 04:28:57 2007 From: agwalker at cox.net (Anne Graffam Walker) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:28:57 -0400 Subject: Please remove... Message-ID: ...me from this list. It's been lovely, but... Anne Graffam Walker, Ph.D. Forensic Linguist -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 18 05:00:26 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:00:26 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance Message-ID: I would suggest that anyone who claims there is no competence/performance distinction in language is being terribly unfair to Miss Teen USA, South Carolina http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Anat Ninio Sent: Wed 10/17/2007 1:33 PM To: Gary Marcus Cc: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: Competence vs. Performance: Summary I'm sure one can come up with a well-articulated theory of psychology that won't scare us all with the dark shadow of behaviorism and still won't make an elementary mistake of identifying the rules of chess with a player's playing skill. This is what the competence/performance distinction is really about, isn't it? The pure rules versus the impure human behaviour? Take note that even when a player is making a mistake, he is using -- not terribly successfully -- his stored representation of the game's rules and his cumulated playing strategies. Why would you not see this as competence, I don't really understand. Stored competence can be partial, full of holes, context-dependent -- in fact, it is just (messy) potential for action, nothing more rule-like than that. I'm sure you'll agree to that, at the least. Anat Ninio Gary Marcus wrote: > So far as I know, the only well-articulated theory of psychology in > which a competence-performance distinction does not arise is > behaviorism, and in that connection I still find Chomsky's 1959 > arguments to be compelling. If we are to talk of internal > representations -- and I believe we must -- we must have a theory of > how those representations relate to behavior; I don't see how to do so > coherently without a competence-performance distinction. > > Please note, by the way, that a commitment to distinguish competence > from performance per se does not commit one to any particular > theoretical apparatus; one need not, for example, be a nativist about > the rules of chess to think that a competence-performance distinction > applies -- and does useful work there (e.g., in distinguishing > "blunders" from more considered miscalculations). > > When we discuss the merits of Chomsky's various proposals, it is > essential that we judge each of those hypotheses on its own merits. > > -- gfm > > > On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:39 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: > >> I disagree strongly, dear Gary, with your untested assumption that >> "in psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >> surface behavior". Just imagine for a minute that this rationalistic >> perception of psychology and linguistics is in effect incorrect and >> misleading -- as well as leading us to wasted decades of research on >> transformations, deep structures, and innate parameters. There are >> other ways to look at the organization of reality, and my only hope >> is that the next generation of theoreticians of both disciplines will >> not repeat the mistakes of the last one. >> >> Anat Ninio >> Professor of Psychology >> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem >> >> >> >> Gary Marcus wrote: >>> >>> I couldn't disagree more strenuously with this last posting. To >>> ascribe both "spinned" and "spun" to competence is to miss the point >>> of the distinction, not to undermine it. "Spinned" and "spun" simply >>> aren't on a par; people accept the latter as correct and ascribe the >>> former to a mistake. >>> >>> It makes perfect sense to collect data on both (I did just that in >>> 1992 SRCD Monograph on overregularizations, and I have cited >>> Stemberger's data in this connection), but no sense whatsoever to >>> treat the two as if they are on equal footing. And I say this not as >>> a matter of prescriptive linguistics (what the rules of language >>> "ought to be", according to some self-appointed grammarian) but as a >>> matter of descriptive psycholinguistics, as a characterization of >>> what speakers themselves believe. >>> >>> When I inadvertently forget to carry a 1 and report that the sum of >>> 87 and 24 is 101, we need to able to distinguish my transient error >>> from my general understanding of what would constitute a correct sum >>> (viz. 111). A competence-performance distinction gives us a >>> theoretical tool with which to make that distinction; to say that >>> 101 and 111 are equally good answers ("since I have the 'competence' >>> to utter either number") would be nothing more than sophistry. >>> >>> The competence-performance distinction does, as others have noted, >>> have any number of difficulties, but most are methodological ("how >>> can I tell which is which", a fact that will only reveal itself once >>> we have properly carved nature at it joints), not theoretical. >>> >>> In psychology, and in linguistics, we are continually left with the >>> daunting challenge of inferring underlying representations from >>> surface behavior; there is no way we can conceivably succeed at that >>> task without a firm understanding of the fact that the mapping >>> between the two is often indirect: behavior is dictated not only by >>> underlying representations but by a host of other factors. Inasmuch >>> as the competence-performance distinction encapsulates that >>> fundamental truth, it is a valuable tool that we cannot afford to >>> dismiss. >>> >>> -- Gary Marcus >>> Professor of Psychology >>> New York University >>> >>> >>> >>> On Oct 17, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Anat Ninio wrote: >>> >>>> Hello Everybody, >>>> >>>> I have a feeling -- following Joe Stemberger's excellent >>>> contributions to this strand -- that we're all a little scared >>>> stating the obvious, which is that the notion of competence as a >>>> separate entity from performance is a philosophical error, pure and >>>> simple. If under time stress people say in 4% of the time "spinned" >>>> instead of "spun", then they possess a competence to do so. >>>> Competence is -- in plain English -- an a priori stored potential >>>> or ability to produce some behaviour, and any other treatment of >>>> it, by Chomsky or whoever, is at best a mystification of the obvious. >>>> >>>> I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research >>>> and collect information on what people actually say, whether >>>> children or adults, and don't heed the voices saying that what we >>>> hear is "merely" this or "merely" that, when any philosopher major >>>> in their first year would tell us how confused the whole idea of >>>> competence/performance distinction is. >>>> >>>> The best, >>>> >>>> Anat Ninio >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Joe Stemberger wrote: >>>>> Hello, everyone. >>>>> >>>>> Just to start, I'd like to mention that I've spent all of my >>>>> career working on speech errors in adults (both spontaneous speech >>>>> and experimental tasks), and so I accept the notion that there are >>>>> outputs that are "correct" but that performance factors can lead >>>>> to "incorrect" outputs. But that doesn't mean that "the" >>>>> competence-performance distinction gets us anywhere practical. >>>>> >>>>> Defenses of "the" competence-performance distinction are missing >>>>> two main points: >>>>> (1) that the exact division between what is competence and what is >>>>> performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are >>>>> largely unknown after more than 40 years. >>>>> (2) There is no clear way to test competence except through >>>>> performance. >>>>> >>>>> Consider John Limber's quote: >>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>> involved in speech production." >>>>> >>>>> Well, yes, there are performance factors in language production. >>>>> Just as there are performance factors in language perception, >>>>> language comprehension, grammaticality judgments, etc. >>>>> In the real world, we can observe only performance, and all acts >>>>> of any sort are "contaminated" by performance. >>>>> And it follows from that that inferences about competence must >>>>> come from performance, only and always. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> OK, so now let's get concrete. >>>>> Observe a native speaker of English of any age for long enough, >>>>> and you will find them saying *SPINNED instead of SPUN. >>>>> Ask them about it, and they'll tell you that it was an error. >>>>> In typical speeded experimental situations, undergraduates produce >>>>> such errors about 4% of the time in neutral contexts. >>>>> (And in an experiment that I'm just finishing up, where they >>>>> produce coordinated verbs, the error GRINNED AND *SPINNED (with >>>>> rhyming regular in the first word) shoots up to about 25% of tokens.) >>>>> Young children produce such outputs from an early age, but every >>>>> study has shown that such overregularizations are in the minority >>>>> for most children (and most irregular verbs) from the beginning, >>>>> and that, like in adult speech, the frequency of the verb is one >>>>> of the predictors of error rate. >>>>> This is a generally viewed as a performance phenomenon at all ages. >>>>> But yet it is cited all the time as a nice deomstration that >>>>> patterns are being extracted and generalized. >>>>> >>>>> At the same time, speakers will also occasionally produce, instead >>>>> of SPUN, *SPAN. In experimental situations, such errors are easy >>>>> to come by. >>>>> As well as things like *GRUN instead of regular GRINNED. (In that >>>>> experiment that I'm just finishing up, *GRUN occurs about 2% of >>>>> the time in neutral contexts, >>>>> rising to about 6% in SPUN AND *GRUN (with a rhyming irregular in >>>>> the first word).) >>>>> Bybee & Moder 1983 showed that irregular patterns generalize to >>>>> novel words at much greater rates. >>>>> So irregular patterns also show generalization. >>>>> >>>>> Consider another of John's quotes: >>>>> "Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>> conditions?" >>>>> >>>>> So, if we MUST conclude that competence extracts and encapsulates >>>>> explicit procedures (such as rules) to occount for generalization, >>>>> then competence contains such procedures for creating both regular >>>>> and irregular forms, because both types of patterns >>>>> overgeneralize, right? >>>>> >>>>> Steve Pinker, Harald Clausen, and others taking a similar >>>>> approach, have argued that the overgeneralization of the -/ed/ >>>>> pattern involves the use of a rule after failure to access an >>>>> irregular form, but that overregularization of irregular patterns >>>>> is a performance phenomenon, based on the way that irregular forms >>>>> are stored in and accessed from the lexicon. >>>>> Which leads to the conclusion that generalization of patterns can >>>>> occur for performance reasons, even in approaches that accept >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction. >>>>> >>>>> Which leads to this possibility: >>>>> all inflected forms that a speaker has been been exposed to are >>>>> simply stored in the lexicon. >>>>> All generalization, even of regular patterns, is a performance >>>>> phenomenon. >>>>> And while it's true that the -/ED/ pattern overgeneralizes more >>>>> than any other pattern, we could attribute /that/ difference to >>>>> performance factors, right? >>>>> >>>>> Or even >>>>> The purpose of a grammar is to enumerate the sentences of the >>>>> language. >>>>> Actual grammars consist of storing every sentence that has ever >>>>> been observed. >>>>> Generalization is just a performance phenomenon across stored >>>>> exemplars. >>>>> You want to know in detail how generalization occurs? >>>>> Hey, that's a performance phenomenon. It lies outside the proper >>>>> bounds of linguistic theory, and so it's not my responsibility to >>>>> show how it works. >>>>> >>>>> And what I personally would want to see is some formal proof that >>>>> "the" competence-performance distinction couldn't lead us to that >>>>> sort of system just as easily as it has led us anywhere else. >>>>> >>>>> >From a practical perspective, it seems to me that, since we have >>>>> to work with performance data anyway, we want to work with as wide >>>>> a range of types of data as possible. >>>>> And we want to develop theories that account for all of those >>>>> data, in detail. >>>>> If there's a distinction between competence and performance, >>>>> that's fine, but it has to be explicit, and our theories need to >>>>> explain exactly which phenomena are due to competence, which are >>>>> due to performance, and why. And if there are aspects of data that >>>>> aren't accounted for in detail, it means that we should be >>>>> uncomfortable, because we need to account for it all. >>>>> >>>>> That isn't the way that "the" competence-performance distinction >>>>> has been used in the past. >>>>> If it had been, that would've been fine, as far as I'm concerned. >>>>> While some theoretical linguists feel it's fine to apply >>>>> linguistic theory to child language, few are open to using child >>>>> language to provide the tie-breaker for choosing between two >>>>> theoretical mechanisms. >>>>> >>>>> In the meantime, I'll happily go on studying performance and >>>>> working on theories of how human language works, including claims >>>>> about the fundamental orgainization of the language system. >>>>> >>>>> As should we all. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---Joe Stemberger >>>>> Linguistics >>>>> UBC >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> john limber pravi: >>>>>> >>>>>> On 10/16/07 6:46 AM, "Matthew Saxton" >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> "No-one has stepped forward to defend the competence-performance >>>>>> distinction, or even to offer supportive references." >>>>>> >>>>>> OK- try this-with references too! >>>>>> >>>>>> The basic idea is so widespread in science that it hardly needs >>>>>> defense- frictionless bodies, stimulus generalization, latent >>>>>> learning, stereotype bias.... and linguistic competence all are >>>>>> more or less scientific concepts designed to variously explain >>>>>> conditional performance. >>>>>> >>>>>> Does anyone really doubt that the language one observes is but a >>>>>> subset of the language one might observe under such and such >>>>>> conditions? And that much of that observed language is >>>>>> fragmentary and ill-formed? While every case demands its own >>>>>> explanatory story, to toss out the whole idea of competence or >>>>>> similar concepts sounds like a lame return to behaviorism. >>>>>> >>>>>> Years ago I spent a lot of time on the development of complex >>>>>> sentences (Limber, 1973). There was one gap in the thousands of >>>>>> two to three year old children's utterances I observed -- a lack >>>>>> of relative clauses attached to subject NPs. >>>>>> >>>>>> Did this mean these kids didn't have the potential for those >>>>>> structures in their behavioral repertoire-their linguistic >>>>>> competence? Here's the abstract of my answer (Limber, 1976)-which >>>>>> curiously in connection with this current discussion, involves >>>>>> pragmatics. >>>>>> >>>>>> "Inferences about linguistic competence in children are typically >>>>>> based on spontaneous speech. >>>>>> This poses a problem since we know that other factors are also >>>>>> involved in speech production. >>>>>> Children who may use complex object and adverbial NPs do not use >>>>>> complex subject NPs. Is >>>>>> this a competence deficit, a performance problem, or simply a >>>>>> reflection of pragmatic factors? >>>>>> Evidence presented here suggests that children probably do not >>>>>> need complex subjects. An >>>>>> extensive use of pronouns in subject but not object position >>>>>> indicates that pragmatics may >>>>>> account for the distribution of clauses in their speech. A >>>>>> similar pattern in adult speech indicates there is no warrant to >>>>>> conclude children's lack of subject clauses reflects anything >>>>>> more than the nature of spontaneous speech." >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> In fact, in all my data of several thousand utterances of >>>>>> children and adults, only TWO subject NPs showed up-one shaky >>>>>> example from a three-year old and another from an adult. The >>>>>> probability that a child is exposed to a subject NP is, from my >>>>>> data, less than 1/1000. Here are the two: >>>>>> >>>>>> Adult: " Well these buses that I've had today have been really >>>>>> weird." >>>>>> >>>>>> Child: "I think that the girl ... that's here ... doesn't ... she >>>>>> doesn't want me to open it. " >>>>>> >>>>>> I wonder how the Nuevo-Statistical approaches to language >>>>>> acquisition would handle this? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1973). The genesis of complex sentences. In T. Moore >>>>>> (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. >>>>>> 169-186). New York: Academic Press. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/Genesis_complex_sentences.pdf >>>>>> > >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Limber, J. (1976). Unravelling competence, performance, and >>>>>> pragmatics in the speech of young children. Journal of Child >>>>>> Language, 3, 309-318. >>>>>> http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/JLimber/pragmatics_performance.pdf >>>>>> > >>>>>> >>>>>> John Limber >>>>>> University of New Hampshire >>>>>> Durham NH >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I think that the girl ... that's here ... >>>>>> doesn't ... she doesn't want me to open it. >>>>>> >>>>>> Well these >>>>>> buses that I've had today have been really weird. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 18 05:28:22 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:28:22 -0400 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives Message-ID: We have a study that looked at this question for Mandarin double object constructions and tested whether there was a correlation either within or between semantic subclasses of verbs (basically there was a strong correlation within the semantic subclasses that allow DO constructions but not between classes or within classes that do not allow DO construction). The paper is reported in Chung and Gordon -- 2003 I believe. There is a copy of the paper on my website listed below if you click on the tab that says "Documents and Papers" Peter Gordon Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Henrietta Lempert Sent: Tue 10/16/2007 11:42 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mei.lin at newcastle.ac.uk Thu Oct 18 08:17:46 2007 From: mei.lin at newcastle.ac.uk (Mei Lin) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:17:46 +0100 Subject: Please take my name off the link Message-ID: Please take my name off the link. Thanks Mei From kathrin_schrader at gmx.de Thu Oct 18 09:27:07 2007 From: kathrin_schrader at gmx.de (Kathrin Schrader) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:27:07 +0200 Subject: please remove me from the list Message-ID: Please remove me from the list. Regards K. Schrader -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athena_seraf at hotmail.com Thu Oct 18 09:28:14 2007 From: athena_seraf at hotmail.com (athena serafeimidou) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:28:14 +0000 Subject: please remove me from the list In-Reply-To: <001601c81169$0d8e0a70$657b070a@BRAINWARE> Message-ID: Please, remove me from this list mama Athena baby Lydia http:/bf.lilypie.com/V5oAp3.png From: kathrin_schrader at gmx.deTo: info-childes at mail.talkbank.orgSubject: please remove me from the listDate: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:27:07 +0200 Please remove me from the list. Regards K. Schrader _________________________________________________________________ Explore the seven wonders of the world http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=7+wonders+world&mkt=en-US&form=QBRE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Thu Oct 18 10:27:16 2007 From: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk (r.n.campbell) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:27:16 +0100 Subject: Competence vs. Performance In-Reply-To: Message-ID: While this is moderately amusing to those with a taste for schadenfreude, it is not data which forces adoption of a competence-performance distinction. Rather, this data strongly suggests that language ability is not any sort of uniform trait, and that language learning has fallen badly short here. Robin >I would suggest that anyone who claims there is no >competence/performance distinction in language is being terribly >unfair to Miss Teen USA, South Carolina > >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww > >Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 >Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia >University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: >(212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 -- Dr Robin N Campbell Dept of Psychology University of Stirling STIRLING FK9 4LA Scotland, UK telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From khirshpa at temple.edu Thu Oct 18 12:27:22 2007 From: khirshpa at temple.edu (Kathy Hirsh-Pasek) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:27:22 -0400 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points In-Reply-To: <8CC7F274-6378-4C04-A5DB-96282F3FE7D9@cmu.edu> Message-ID: Brian, I could not agree more and it is among many untested claims in the literature. In 2005, the Kaiser Foundation did a report about the claims made by many products that are simply unfounded in the literature. These claims have, however, fueled a 20 billion dollar educational toy industry so we must all be mindful of how we are represented outside the halls of academe. I was for example horrified by claims from toys suggesting that even 6 mo olds could learn 5 languages by pushing a series of buttons. On baby sign in particular, I have seen a number of tapes in which parents use baby sign with children and I am always heartened by the fact that they not only use sign, but also concurrently speak more to their children. Thus, the results of baby sign that are reported are not for sign alone. Further, parents who are more likely to buy the products and to use baby sign are most likely those who also want to communicate more with children. To the extent that more language input and language content boosts later IQ scores (not necessarily IQ but the scores), we have a potential mediator. I do not know of any definitive published evidence on the IQ difference though I know Linda Acredolo has a number of papers on the effects. Even in those papers, I wonder about selection bias and the fact that sign is accompanied by oral language. A final note, is that I actually like the baby sign approach used by Acredolo and Goodwyn and I think the product is a good one. Other baby sign approaches claim to teach "sign language" and that could not be farther from the truth (unless of course knowing a few signs from ASL is the same as learning the language). More work needs to be done in this area given that it has captured the imagination of parents and teachers. kathy On Oct 17, 2007, at 9:19 PM, Brian MacWhinney wrote: > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was > an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the > radar screen. This message summarized replies to a query about > Baby Signs. I spent some time tracing the various web links > involved and I would like to draw colleagues' attention to one > issue in this research that troubles me. This is the status of a > report by Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at > www.babysigns.com and www.signingtime.com > (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports speaks of a 12 point > "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who are taught Baby > Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, Mechthild's links > also point to an article from the Canadian Language and Literacy > Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andr?e Durieux-Smith, and > Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting > that it provides no description of subject recruitment provedures, > attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any pretesting. They > conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range of baby > signing products is not matched by good quality evidence that would > reinforce manufacturers' claims." > It is worth adding that the groups were already different > when the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not > as evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result > of the initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was > presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been > published in a journal. > I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I > certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am > also quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method > for achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. > However, I find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby > Signs alone could achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several > years of Head Start lead to nothing measurably permanent. > I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims > with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies > supporting these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about > them. > > --Brian MacWhinney, CMU From kohne005 at umn.edu Thu Oct 18 13:00:05 2007 From: kohne005 at umn.edu (Kathryn Kohnert) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:00:05 -0500 Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Henrietta- I forwarded your question to Pui Fong Kan and pasted below is here response. Best, Kathryn FROM PUI FONG KAN: There are two books about Cantonese & Mandarin grammar that you might find useful -- Cantonese : a comprehensive grammar by Stephen Matthews Mandarin Chinese : a functional reference grammar by Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson My thoughts (as a Cantonese & Mandarin speaker) about the questions --- 1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are based on Pinker, 1989), Cantonese: PD? DO? Mandarin: PD? DO? 2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) Cantonese: PD? DO? Mandarin: PD? DO? # 1 & 2 Different datives are used in Cantonese & Mandarin. But basically they are used in the same position in a sentence in both languages. Both PD & DO are possible in both languages. #2 involves a word for the future. 3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. Cantonese: PD? DO? Mandarin: PD? DO? # 3 Differences in Cantonese & Mandarin Mandarin -- both PD & DO Cantonese -- PD (It would be awkward using DO.) 4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and Mandarin? Chinese versus English? #4 Basically the agentive passives are very similar in Cantonese & Mandarin. Passive constructions are quite different between Chinese and English. For more information about the differences between the passive constructions in Chinese and in English, see http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/corplang/LCMC/ www.lancs.ac.uk/postgrad/xiaoz/papers/passive%20paper.doc Pui Fong Kan (kanx0004 at umn.edu) Doctoral Candidate Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences University of Minnesota www.ccsl.umn.edu -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Henrietta Lempert Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 4:42 PM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Cantonese & Mandarin datives I have three students who hope to do a project on L2 acquisition >of English datives and passives by L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. > They have received conflicting information from Chinese first >language informants as to which sub-classes of English alternating >datives can also alternate in Cantonese and Mandarin; which ones can >only occur as prepositional datives (PDs), and which ones can only >occur as double object datives (DO). They would be grateful for any >information regarding the following: > >1. Punctual action involving unaccompanied transfer of an object from >agent to recipient such as throw, toss, and kick (the subclasses are >based on Pinker, 1989), > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >2. Verbs of future possession (e.g., offer, promise, bequeath, award) > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > >3. Verbs of communication such as tell, write, e-mail, fax, telephone. > >Cantonese: PD? DO? >Mandarin: PD? DO? > > >4. With respect to agentive passives (i.e., passives with a by-phrase >in English), are there are salient differences between Cantonese and >Mandarin? Chinese versus English? > >Many thanks, > >Henrietta lempert From aananda at stanford.edu Thu Oct 18 15:23:12 2007 From: aananda at stanford.edu (Bruno Estigarribia) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:23:12 -0700 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: <9E14A75D6404DC4F9233140F10AC44AA0168C49E@M1.ioead> Message-ID: Hello all, Of necessity a short contribution: I am abroad (still have to read tom?s reference on Superiority to have an opinion on that too... does the day have 25 hours anywhere on the globe?) > > > > As usual, we find signs of Wheel Reinvention, starting with the well > known >fact that competence-performance was inspired by Saussure's > (1916/1974) >notions of langue and parole. Misinspired if anything, and still often misquoted. For Saussure, LANGUE is a social phenomenon that does not reside in the individual but as a set/network of conventions. He explicitly said (or his students, rather) that no individual possesses LANGUE. So it CANNOT be competence, which fully resides, in Chomskyan linguistics, in the brain of the individual. Competence, in my view, has little to do with langue. The only thing that Chomsky maintained from Saussure was that some dichotomy might be useful... Bruno From wexler at MIT.EDU Thu Oct 18 16:06:27 2007 From: wexler at MIT.EDU (Ken Wexler) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:06:27 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance: Summary In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Friends, Sigh. Every bone in my body says to not reply to this discussion, generated in emotion, and so often (certainly not uniformly) lacking factual basis and reasoned discourse, especially whenever people start discussing Noam Chomsky. The question of the current influence and legacy of Noam Chomsky, the man whose influence is felt in every corner of the scientific study of language today (and much of cognitive science more generally), is just silly, and that issue doesn't need me to comment on it. But the attack on the field of language acquisition, while equally without basis, equally non-factual and non-reasoned, might confuse students. I know that those around in the 1970's, who reacted strongly to the approach of generative (i.e. scientific) grammar, who are still making the same false or irrelevant claims today, will not be convinced by empirical reality and logical argumentation. But I worry about the students, or the younger researchers and professors. Are they confused by all this? Do they really think that it's true that the field of language acquisition is so bad? That it hasn't achieved significant results? That its methodology is mostly bad? That is hasn't made inroads and helped to influence the course of the study of language disabilities? That it ignores pragmatics and processing? It wasn't my impression that anybody could possibly believe these false claims. It's true that most of the responders (like me) don't seem particularly young. Nevertheless, it might be worth a reply for the young people. Finally, reading John Limber's rational, common-sensical and calm reply tipped the balance for me. (Since then there have been other reasonable responses, including Carson Schutze's and Gary Marcus.") It might be useful to say something. So this is for the young people who don't know the field. Welcome to the field. I apologize that this will have to go on at some length. I'll only mention a few of the responses, and touch on a few of the issues. Mostly I'd like to defend the field of language acquisition and to discuss its current status. I'll also take a shot at trying to figure out why all the emotion and false beliefs. On the competence/performance distinction, as John and some others point out, it is inescapable, if one is to do serious scientific work. A summary of the discussion said there were no defenders of the distinction. (Since I wrote most of this, others have come forth). That can only be because the assumption is so wide-spread and basic, so crucial to advancements in the field, that by far most actual workers in the field find it inconceivable for the most part to question it and just find the question non-productive (I'll discuss exceptions soon). We should look at questions like this in a wider scientific context. The competence/performance distinction isn't just something used in the study of language. It is basic to modern cognitive science. Possibly the clearest general statement of the foundational view on this is in the work of the great late vision scientist David Marr (for whom the Marr Prize for best student paper in the (US) Cognitive Science Society is named.) I suggest the first chapter of his book for background reading on this issue, with his very clear analogy to a cash register. Marr argued that to study completely any cognitive system, 4 levels of analysis were necessary. The theory of the computation, the representational level, the algorithmic level and the implementational (for humans, this is the biological) level. The theory of the computation was a necessary part. Marr explicitly (in other papers, too, in a somewhat detailed manner) pointed out that the theory of the computation was like linguistic theory. The representational theory is obvious - what are the types of representations? A given computational theory might have different representational types. The algorithmic level is similar to what we usually call the "processing" theory, and the implementational level is the biological, physical instantiation (for a computer silicon, etc.). Both linguistic theory and the sub-field called language acquisition are constantly discussing all of these levels. If more progress has been made on the higher levels, so that less (but not nothing) is known about biological implementation, this is probably due to the difficulty of the field, especially the experimental difficulty given that we are working with humans. We can't for good ethical reason do the obvious experiments. But it was inconceivable to Marr and to much of modern cognitive science that there would be no theory of the computation. One might think of the competence/performance distinction, in these somewhat more detailed terms, as Marr's distinction between the computational level and the algorithmic level. So it's true that most of the contemporary field of language acquisition works within such a framework, and major advances have been made, in my opinion. (I'll return to this). O.k., so let's consider alternatives. What actually occurring approach has denied this distinction, and how has that approach fared? Well, behaviorism denies the approach. For, say, Skinner, there was no such distinction. How has Skinner fared in explaining acquisition phenomena, in generating empirical research on language acquisition, etc.? Surely no answer from me is required. In a more contemporary manner, an approach that's often called "Connectionism" also usually (not always, I think) denies the distinction. So that, for example, theories of "Distributed Learning" attempt to explain phenomena by a model that is supposed to be somewhat related to a model of neurons working together (though with serious deviations from the real biology very often) and "learning" different weights, and this was supposed to explain phenomena without appealing to a competence/performance distinction. This approach was quite active in cognitive science for, what, 25 years? It attempted to replace the original cognitive science approach that was consistent with Marr's analysis. Obviously this isn't the place to summarize the achievements of this approach, and I am not expert enough to do that anyway. But let me give my impressions. First, is this the approach that the critics of language acquisition, Dan Slobin, Robin Campbell, have in mind? Is this what they're pushing? I don't THINK it is, but if it isn't, what approach do they actually have in mind? What serious progress has been made using an approach that doesn't include the distinction? Second, and this is only impressionistic and anecdotal, but I do have the impression that Connectionism in this strong form is pretty much dying away. Because it didn't work well enough. (I'll return to what might be replacing it). I have the impression that many major figures in Psychology who adopted this approach to learning for a long time, are feeling it hasn't succeeded well enough, and are looking for an alternative (I think I know what that alternative is, and will discuss it soon). Please remember that I am trained (as a grad student) in experimental psychology and mathematical psychology, work in Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT where there are many cognitive scientists, and know many of the senior figures, in some cases having gone to grad school with them. On the basis of this experience, I see a less active push for replacing representational approaches completely by connectionist modeling. I could be wrong, and it's not a necessary point, but that's my impression. In fact, what is replacing the hope of the learning theorists, as opposed to Connectionism? It seems to be Bayesian inference. Most of the learning theory energy, including "statistical" learning theory seems to be focused around that type of model. But, of course, Bayesian inference is completely compatible with Marr's analysis, it in fact finds it necessary. There must be a set of "hypotheses" that are considered and selected via the learning mechanism (Bayes' Rule, in some computational form). Thus the work of my colleague Josh Tennenbaum is completely compatible with these notions. I can't imagine how such an approach would attempt to get rid of the distinction between performance/processing and competence. Or consider the statistical approach of Charles Yang, PHD computer science at MIT, now at Yale, who uses a kind of statistical learning theory to help to explain how grammars are selected. Obviously such an approach uses the competence/performance distinction. It goes without saying that the classic mathematical learning/learnability theory for language, what's been called "learnability theory", a field I played some role in, e.g. my (w/ Hamburger and Culicover) "Degree-2 Theory") assumes the approach. It too used some statistical considerations. Its culminating Theory 9 of chapter 4 proved learnability in the limit with probability 1. But it didn't deny the crucial distinction between competence and performance. Or how about computational approaches to parameter-setting? Gibson and Wexler (was it in Language? I think Linguistic Inquiry). The distinction was there. But then how about some of the responses that argued against their approach and for other ways of learning, think Elan Dresher on cue theory or Janet Fodor on her version of cue theory. Ditto, they would use the competence/performance distinction. The point being that serious computational/mathematical approaches to language acquisition use this distinction, it's natural for them. And hard to find much that doesn't. A few attempts at small problems in connectionism, yes, but not a serious sustained attack on learnability. My point is not to argue for any particular approach, rather to show the great usefulness of the distinction for those who have serious interests in learning. Language is the cognitive system par excellence in which to study learning because there are so obviously events of learning; there is cross-linguistic variation, so there must be these effects of experience. It is harder to maintain for sure in other cognitive systems that they have any serious learning component, at least it is a more subtle question. In language it is obvious. That is why we have such serious attempts to study learning. There are lots of reasons to say that to date the attempts are inadequate, but I know of no reason to think that the distinction of competence and performance is a problem rather than a help. These are the kinds of learning theories that people actually work on and produce results with (not good enough yet, it should go without saying). In summary, actual computational theories of learning, using statistical and other information, have traditionally assumed the competence/performance distinction and seem to be mostly doing so today. The attempt to do without such a distinction led to limited results that seem to not really be useful for the underlying problem. (Note that this is not to say that neural models couldn't be useful; they might in principle be quite useful for helping to explain one level of the puzzle). I suspect that these arguments about what actually happens in computational learning theory might miss the point of what's bothering some of the critics. They don't actually work in learning theory and probably don't much like computational/formal considerations, so I suspect that actually bringing up real models under discussion won't convince them. But if anybody is interested in a clear analysis of the actual problem of language learning, and wants to know how learning theory works, real models should be under discussion. I note a resurgence in attempts at computational models of learning grammar, for those parts that must be learned. This is welcome. The competence/performance distinction is fundamental to these approaches. Third, most approaches that didn't assume the competence/performance distinction didn't actually explain any real empirical phenomena in development. It is amazing how many papers have been published arguing that there was only one level, more or less the neural-network level, and that all of language was "learned" and provided as the only empirical basis some experiment on adults. The crucial empirical data of , say, grammatical development weren't discussed. It's not as if there aren't quite a few quite significant, quite reliable and general data (I'll return to this). But these were simply roundly ignored and mostly the claims were made on the basis of a few studies with college sophomores. Those of you interested in language development, are you satisfied with this? Possibly the largest exception was the well-known debate on what explains past tense overregularization by young children, did one need a representational theory or was connectionism enough? Some empirical developmental data came under discussion, even by the connectionist camp. I won't get into the details of this difficult discussion, and one that I'm not an expert on, but only point out that it's a terribly small and non-representative part of the language acquisition problem. It just doesn't cut it, with the wide range of general phenomena that are understood, to discuss a very small part of the problem and believe that that provides a general answer. Nevertheless, at least in this discussion, some developmental data were actually used by the connectionists. But the harder problems, the ones that are more obviously difficult to account for via "frequency" arguments, weren't touched. In summary, connectionist approaches didn't take over the field, didn't make contact with most of the problems, didn't make contact with most of the important empirical results concerning linguistic development and possibly are of waning interest today even to the practitioners. (All of this independent of the question of whether neural models are useful. Why shouldn't they be?) But I must admit, I don't THINK this is what people like Dan Slobin and Robin Campbell have in mind, anyway. But since there was a very active movement to pursue this line of thought, denying the competence/performance distinction, and since it was the most active field that I know of working on learning and pursuing the lack of a distinction and where it went, I thought it deserved some attention. Joe Stemberger writes "that the exact division between what is competence and what is performance, as well as the criteria that distinguish them, are largely unknown after more than 40 years". Of course, the "exact division" is not known ahead of time, and "criteria" aren't something that's completely given. What is competence and what is performance is an empirical matter, a matter that can and should be studied empirically. That's how it works in cognitive science; why shouldn't it work that way in the sub-branch called language acquisition? Criteria are "known" as a question of theory and experiment, and we do have a good idea about them, without a lot of disagreement. Thus "memory" considerations are called "performance" and "knowledge" considerations are called "competence." Of course, which phenomena are which is a matter for the field to decide empirically. That's the way science works, that's the way it's done in the study of vision, or of cognitive development, etc. that's what Marr of course would have envisioned. Let's take a real example of how empirical issues can be used to argue for competence versus performance, an example well known in the field, even classic. (John Limber has already given one, here's another one). On the basis of empirical studies of child speech, Nina Hyams proposed that children mis-set the null-subject parameter, thus explaining the frequent lack of subjects in child speech in English. Her theory thus was a matter of knowledge; she hypothesized that children (some age before 3) had the wrong (i.e. non-adult) knowledge about English. This is competence, all agree, I would think. (This doesn't imply that the reason for the lack of knowledge isn't performance, it might be, but that's another issue). Now, in the first language acquisition class I taught at MIT, Paul Bloom heard me lecture on this, and thought it was wrong. He thought that it was more likely that kids omitted subjects because of some kind of memory bottleneck. Paul thought, and all agreed, so far as I know, that if the productions with missing null subjects were explained as a production problem due to a certain kind of memory bottleneck, the explanation would be that kids at this age had a performance limitation. So far as I know, there is no dispute that memory bottlenecks are performance and parameter values are competence. Both sides in the controversy over which is correct agreed on this. The issue was, what is the true, empirically true, explanation of the missing subjects? It wasn't a dispute over whether there is such a thing as competence and performance; both sides agreed with this rational foundation for the field. To his great credit, Paul didn't just say oh, it must be performance, it must be memory. Rather he developed a model that would explain the subject omission as a matter of memory, and made predictions from that model, relating VP size to rate of subject omission and use of pronominal versus lexical subjects. He argued that his memory bottleneck model could predict this data and that the missing competence theory in this case couldn't predict the data. Thus he made an empirical argument that missing subjects in children were a matter of performance. I wasn't convinced by this argument. And it wasn't because I thought all explanations of child behavior must involve competence; after all, it was a traditional argument for many non-adult phenomena that it was a performance limitation that explained them. That's one of the motivations, presumably, for Paul's analysis. He wanted to maintain that kids had the correct knowledge, thus it had to be performance that explained the facts. But I didn't simply state that we know it's competence, how could one state that? So I kept thinking about it, as did Nina Hyams, and we realized that the memory model that Paul came up with actually gave the wrong predictions, especially if one expanded the data base and looked at the pronominal/empty subject trade-off and how it changed as kids grew older. We also made an attempt to explain Paul's observations. On the basis of these empirical data, Nina and I wrote a paper arguing that in fact the subject omissions were due to a grammatical process, that it was indeed competence. I've left out all the interesting details. The interested reader can find both papers in Linguistic Inquiry, as well as another reply from Paul. I also believe that further research has pretty clearly demonstrated that null-subjects in non-null-subject languages in kids are due to a grammatical process, although not Hyams' original analysis (something to which she agrees). Thus the great prevalence of null subjects in other child languages with Optional Infinitives as opposed to finite utterances (though not exclusively, a fact that must be explained) argues in favor of the null subjects being allowed because infinitivals typically take null subjects. This was the hypothesis I came up with on the basis of much research on Optional Infinitives and null subjects. Both Hyams' original assumption about a mis-set parameter and my proposal that most null-subjects are due to the infinitival nature of the verb (given the fact that infinitivals typically take null-subjects) are claims that it is competence that is predicting the null-subjects in kids. My point here is not to argue for a particular model; there is a huge and fascinating array of work on the topic, and although it's pretty clear that the consensus among most of those who actually work on the topic is that it is a grammatical phenomenon, based on all this empirical data, my point is simply to point out that it's an empirical issue, to which all who actually work on the topic agree. The empirical point of view works. In general empirical results should rule, I'm a great empiricist in this regard, and believe that all the complaining people do isn't based on empirical reasoning. Just look at Robin's original complain or Dan's response.. They are simply ignoring the empirical results and telling us what they'd like to see. Think of what several of the critics have said, that work should proceed, e.g. Anant Ninio write, "I agree with Joe that we should simply proceed with doing research and collect information on what people actually say." Calls for doing research, in a new paradigm (what is that paradigm?). The field as it exists, the generative-based field, has a large numbers of results, real analysis and real empirical results, and something to learn as one thinks about research. Yes, it's work, but doing science is work. Isn't this the way to begin research in language acquisition? If, 50 years after the modern founding of the field, the anti competence/performance people are calling for rolling up our sleeves and doing some research in the new framework (what is it?), shouldn't it be thought that this framework, whatever it is, doesn't easily allow work to proceed? Let's see some examples first, then we can discuss whether it's possible to have a non-behaviorist formulation of a science without the relevant distinctions, as Anant Ninio claims is possible, without telling us what it is. Gary Marcus rightly points out that this is, be definition, behaviorism, and Carson Schutze points out that sometimes we model the competence/performance distinction by analogy to other distinctions that we agree on. We can't do tremendously better than that until we have better performance models, but it is something the field works on. And very often the distinctions are perfectly clear enough as in the null subject example I have discussed. Performance or competence for any particular phenomenon? An empirical issue. End of story. The rest is in the details. Putting aside the competence/performance distinction, what I was most bothered about in this discussion were the statements that language acquisition is in bad shape, hasn't progressed far enough, has far too small sample sizes (really? Always?). Anybody who actually knows, say, the generative-grammar based field of language acquisition knows that, although sometimes methodological critiques apply, there are also excellent studies, from a methodological point of view. In fact, I think it straightforward to maintain that the increase in generative grammar based studies in acquisition greatly increased the empirical and quantitative sophistication of these studies. Pre-generative studies all too often based their empirical findings on an observed example, with no idea how general it was. Consider, for example, Dan's Slobin important series of edited books on cross-linguistic acquisition. I think this is a valuable contribution, and a work I often turn to when I know nothing about a language and especially, when there are no more detailed studies available. Much of the contributions base their arguments on observations of examples, without serious quantitative study. This is definitely doesn't apply to every page of the books, or every author, and I don't want to tar all the contributions with the same brush. But it's often a frustrating book to read because one doesn't really know what the empirical facts are after reading the book. (Nevertheless, often valuable). Now, let's look at one of the results about early acquisition that has come out of the generative-based literature. Consider the Optional Infinitive stage, say before 3 or so (depends on which language and which phenomenon, the details are studied). Consider the verb second languages like German or Dutch. The empirical generalization is that kids at a young age in this language often produce non-finite main verbs (completely different from what adults typically do; adults do this only occasionally, for special semantic purposes, exhortatives and so on). But in German or Dutch, when the kid produces a finite verb it strongly tends to be in second position; when the kid produces a (ungrammatical for most part, in adult language) non-finite root verb, it strongly tends to be in final position. Care is taken to make sure that we can tell for sure; there must be 3 constituents available for analysis so that we know if it's 2nd or final. When Poeppel and I (Language) published our first (German) study on this, there was one kid's data analyzed. Tremendously small, as we of course knew then. But the data was close to perfect; it wasn't a question of a statistical tendency, rather there were only a small number of observations in the "off-diagonals." So this data is very regular, in all studies, so far as I know. What the data looks like, I argued, is more like psychophysical data. We got a large amount of data on one child (though much smaller than in later studies) and analyzed the heck out of it and showed regular results. This is typically how the field of psychophysics works, 1, or 2 or 3 subjects. It's because of the regularity of the data. Nevertheless, we knew that it wasn't enough, because we had to make sure that we didn't have an unusual kid. The field progressed by studying large numbers of kids and analyzing the heck out of their data. So, Jeannette Schaeffer, Gerard Bol and I produced a study of TD (typically developing) and SLI (Specific Language Impairment) kids in Dutch, at the appropriate ages)published in Syntax a couple of years ago, based on data Bol had collected years ago. If I recall, we had 40 TD kids in the sample, 20 SLI kids. There were thousands of TD utterances over all. And plenty of Optional Infinitives (we measured the rate as a function of age, see the paper). The finiteness/word order correlation (finite in 2nd position, non-finite in final) was almost perfect, something like 1% off-diagonal observations, out of a few thousand TD utterances. (Perhaps 2,000? Doing this from memory; see the paper). Remarkably regular results. For the most part this phenomenon hadn't been studied in pre-generative times and surprised everybody. Certainly the beauty and regularity of the empirical phenomena weren't known. And certainly there were no studies of the quantitative detail of this type of study. (For another example, see Amy Pierce's book (first an MIT dissertation) of the pas ('not') verb versus verb pas correlation depending on finite or non-finite verb. Her work used Patsy Lightbown's data, Patsy having been a student of Lois Bloom. And analyzed the heck out of the data. Lois of course claims that MIT people are only interested in "theory" and not empirical results, a total falsehood, based on ignoring study after study, experiment after experiment, paper after paper. This is another of those 1970's falsehoods, repeated as if it were still then, as I say false even then, way before I was at MIT, ignoring for example, the important early founding book of modern experimental psycholinguistics, including acquisition and processing, by Fodor, Bever and Katz. Urban myths die hard, especially when there are those interested in perpetuating them. (While I am at it, Dan Slobin, surely you know better. This is 2007. You were disappointed in the lack of semantics in generative grammar? You have GOT to be kidding. There is a HUGE and important study of semantics in generative grammar, at MIT and many, many other places. In fact, it's clear that the generative approach is the dominant approach to semantics. There's hardly anything else, so far as I know. How could it be otherwise, since generative mostly means "scientific, explicit"? Dan, what you must be saying is that you must have a hunch there is another approach to semantics, what else could you be saying. But semanticists don't think so, almost completely.). Back to the empirical situation of modern day language acquisition, generative based language acquisition. These results on finiteness versus word order are just the beginning, there are many, many other results, quite regular, quite known in many cases. They are very important to understand and explain and are the basis for some fields of language acquisition. The methodology is excellent, the transcripts and observations are done (in most cases) with care, the amount of data is huge by the standards of many other parts of psychology, and the regularity of the results exceeds almost everything I know in cognitive science (with the exception of some fields of perception), more than anything else in what we call higher level cognition. Brian, you want bigger sample sizes? So provide them. THESE studies often have larger sample sizes, and of course, the bigger the better. But we have regular results. I suspect that what some people who are complaining don't like is that we have been so successful; the empirical data are quantitative and regular, the theories are explicit, the number of people wanting to study this stuff and do it is large. We are thriving. What's the problem? Could it be better? Surely. I'm constantly complaining, because I want us to be better. But evaluate us poorly in comparison to other parts of psychology? Surely you are jesting. (See my "Lenneberg's Dream" where I say that this part, at least, of language acquisition has the "smell of science" and that the data feel more like chemistry than like psychology). Good psychologists, in cognitive development for example, by the way, share my belief in the wondrousness of our field's data; they only wish they had data like that. At least the ones who know about it. There are many, many more things that aren't known than are known. There are major puzzles. There are lots of parts of the field where the data isn't regular and we're puzzled. But the field keeps attempting to increase its empirical knowledge base, doing better and better, while always paying attention to theoretical questions. How else could science work? This is true in the more experimental as well as naturalistic data side, too. We have a much better idea of the time course of development of, oh I don't know, many things, say verbal passive in English in the work of Christopher Hirsch and myself (there are many other examples, I'm just thinking locally for speed). Much of this work started with observations of people who weren't particularly explicitly generative but who used some ideas about language that linguists study. To take one example (besides passive), the development of the semantics of determiners got a major start in the important experiments of Mike Maratsos and Annette Karmiloff-Smith. Neither a friend of generative grammar, but both speaking in a language that is familiar to those who study the semantics of determiners in generative grammar. Are the slow developments, the errors, syntactic or semantic or pragmatic or performance-based? These are important questions, approached in a very active discussion including people who are generative-grammar based. The "egocentric" theory has a place, and there are challenges. But this is just science. Go to the BU meeting, say, and you'll find active debate and new experiments. One of the complaints in the postings is that "generative" approaches somehow exclude pragmatic considerations. How could this possibly be believed by anybody who knows anything of the field? My great semantics/pragmatics colleague Irene Heim has co-taught some seminars in acquisition with me in recent years. Her famous and classic work on reference one might think of as being more pragmatic than semantic (obviously it is both). We (the field) are constantly talking about pragmatic considerations in development. Look back at the Principle B acquisition related to pragmatic deficiency work I spent so many years doing, and its relation to say, pragmatic difficulties in the development of determiners that Sergey Avrutin and I brought forth, and to Sergey's major continuation and expansion of lines of research relating to discourse and pragmatics. Or the debate between Tanya Reinhart and Yossi Grodzinsky on the one hand, versus me (and Rozz Thornton sometimes) on the other hand, on the Principle B pronoun errors. I think it's a pragmatic problem, they think it's a processing problem. Yes, these can be distinguished in principle, though it is hard work trying to find distinct empirical predictions. It is an important thing to work on though. It's not so important as to who is right (though clearly we want to know the answer). But what is crucial is the scientific attempt to find empirical phenomena to distinguish hypotheses. Or consider a paper Jeannette Schaeffer wrote attempting to understand whether a certain SLI phenomenon was pragmatic or syntactic, i.e. where the deficiency was. The point again, was that it was an empirical issue. There is so much else in pragmatic development that has been done and is being done. How about the very nice beginning (at least) literature on scalar implicature? The contributions from Penn, lots of on-going work, including theoretical considerations from Danny Fox about pragmatic versus syntactic contributions. Or how about Stephen Crain's pretty current experiments showing that kids at a certain age know what is usually taken to be the "semantic" definition of "or" (inclusionary) and understand the usual exclusionary interpretation as a scalar implicature, a pragmatic effect? One can go on and on. Probably there is less so far in pragmatics than in syntax in development, but it just needs people to work on it. No issue in principle, hard to see what it could be. Somebody claimed the field was missing an opportunity to say something about language impairment. Are you kidding? Do you know about the field of language impairment and how work has proceeded? Do you know about the generative-based papers in the major journal (American, at any rate) in the field, the Journal of Speech, Hearing and Language Impairment? Do you knot know about the major role of Rice and my Extended Optional Infinitive phenomenon (based on the TD work I've briefly described) in this journal and this field. (Rice is a Professor of Speech, an expert on SLI). Of course, some people might want to question that hypothesis, and you find other experts on SLI, professors of speech, e.g. Larry Leonard, who argue that the OI phenomenon isn't enough, perhaps in some cases wrong, though more of what he says agrees with it than disagrees with it. I think it's still right as a major phenomenon in English, the data mostly corroborate it, and Leonard misses the wonderful explanations that the field has produced for e.g. why English has more OI's than Dutch does (see the paper in Syntax by Schaeffer, Bol and me that I referred to previously). Leonard, too, uses some aspects of generative grammar. Thus the most important move in the study of SLI, in my opinion, is the large extent to which generative grammar based developmental results are under discussion; this is not the place to argue for a particular theory, though I have in many papers in the impairment literature. Or consider Alex Perovic and my paper that just appeared in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics on certain grammatical phenomena in Williams syndrome (raising and binding). Generative grammar based empirical language development results have had a major impact on the study of language impairment, and many people in the speech community welcome these results. At the same time, what has been discovered in the speech/impairment community has greatly helped us in our attempt to study TD language development in the generative framework. What has really happened over the last 15 years or so is the way we're cooperating, across fields. One other exciting example. Bishop, Adams and Norbury recently published in a genetics journal an exciting behavioral genetic study. They looked at various measures of language impairment in a large sample of identical and fraternal children with language impairment, identified at age 4, tested at 6. They used standardized tests, test of phonological working memory (non-word repetition (NWR), vocabulary, and a pre-publication version of the standard test on finiteness (based on all those years of research I and the field did on the optional infinitive stage plus our own impairment research) that Rice and I have now published (TEGI). Results? Amazing. Finiteness, measured by TEGI, had, if I recall, the largest heritability component, mostly inherited. NWR was also very much inherited. Vocabulary very little inherited, as makes sense. Furthermore, in a major move, they did a DeFries-Fulker analysis that shows that the genetic source of finiteness was mostly independent of the genetic source of phonological working memory (NWR). Conclusion; most likely there are separate genetic systems for these 2 disabilities. This very much helps to explain why some scientists get different results. There are probably at least 2 (not necessarily a huge number) of types of language impairment, one due to limited phonological working memory, one due to grammatical deficiency. This helps to explain a mystery, how could phonological working memory deficiency explain the detailed grammatical phenomena we know to occur in SLI? E.g. lots of OI's with, for the most part, correct agreement, correct setting of parameters (as in SLI in Dutch, see e.g. the paper from Syntax above). To Bishop's great credit she published these results and drew, albeit reluctantly, the correct empirical conclusions. Reluctantly because she has mostly thought that one general purpose psychological mechanism, like phonological working memory, could explain SLI. These results make it look as if some grammatical phenomena independent of this could explain parts of SLI. Bishop has not identified herself as part of the generative tradition and probably feels skeptical. But the empirical results point in that direction. Remarkable results. We should always be aware of the possibility that the finiteness results depend on something else, but we don't know what, and there are no proposals. (More precisely, there are computational level proposals, in particular my Unique Checking Constraint). We know that they DON'T depend on phonological working memory, both from earlier TD work and from this genetic research. Wow! Doesn't that excite you? We are moving in on a genetics of language, some of which is related to linguistic structures. Look at the history of how this happened and what it says about how serious cooperation between fields and approaches, taking the issues seriously, can lead to results. I was lecturing in my first grad class at MIT around 1988 or 1989. I had described how some kinds of movement relations (A-chains) appear to be late (Borer and my hypothesis) in acquisition. Recently some work had appeared in syntax by Jean-Yves Pollack in French, building on earlier observations of Joe Emonds, concerning verb movement. This was not A-movement. I knew of no related acquisition research, and openly speculated on the question of whether young kids knew this type of movement, verb movement, giving the example of French verb finiteness and the order of pas, basing this suggestion on Pollack's papers. I guessed we wouldn't easily be able to observe the relevant phenomena, because (as John Limber and others have noted), subordinate clauses aren't there at the beginning. Amy Pierce, then a grad student, was in the class, as was Juergen Weissenborn, who was visiting MIT from Germany. They both went out and looked at data on French they had, and they both confirmed early knowledge of verb movement, the relation w/ pas. How could this be, I asked? Where were they observing infinitives? Well, Amy said, they're actually giving non-finite verbs in root position. So empirical results in acquisition (about passives and so-on), developmental theory (Borer and my work) and a new syntactic idea (Pollack) led to all this new work, up to then only in TD. Then, of course, we expanded out to all sorts of language in my lab, and the OI stage was born. Others joined in, and we found some hints in earlier research too. Mabel Rice asked me what I thought of SLI, and how that could exist, hearing me talk, came to spend a semester in the lab, and we decided to investigate SLI together. Ultimately we developed a standardized test. Dorothy Bishop, students and colleagues used this in behavioral genetic research, presumably not caring much about syntax, but syntax, empirical developmental work on TD, and many other fields went into the background for all this. This is how science works, by cooperation, by keeping an open mind, a rational mind, by not simply expressing emotion about how the field MUST be, but by calmly doing experiment and theory, making errors, correcting them. We are on the road to a genetics of language and hopefully much more, and the competence/performance distinction and the scientific (generative) approach is one of the crucial elements in all this. If your ideology says no, o.k. say no. If you are more interested, as apparently Robin Campbell is, in what we have to say about literature, well, perhaps you should study literature. Robin writes: "it's important to take stock, and the right question to ask is 'Where are the good outcomes?'. Have the sick been healed? Are children better educated? Are there benefits to art or literature? " (Though there ARE generative based things that have been said about literature. Still, if you have humanistic rather than scientific tendencies completely, then perhaps you should think about literature. Though I would argue we've learned much about the human species from the kind of work I've discussed). It's true that we haven't healed kids, but I submit that the results of the field might be useful in helping to work with impaired children. Surely there is reason to believe that a genetics of language impairment would possibly help us in healing. That's how science works, slowly. Will we get there soon? Don't know, but we are making rather clear progress. What has another approach done? Will we do imaging research? Will we attempt to understand what the brain is doing in all this. Yes, of course. Will we succeed? I don't know, but what else can you do? In summary, language acquisition has made major progress, the scientific, (generative approach, including the competence/performance distinction) has been crucial to this, the field is thriving, and we go on and on and on. So what is bothering all the critics? Clearly it isn't the state of the field, which is doing well. (For students out there who never heard of any of this, there is a good textbook for some of it at any rate, Teresa Guasti's. Ignore what your professors tell you about the field, especially if they try to argue against fundamental distinctions like competence and performance. Read this book and the papers). In my Plenary talk at the BU conference a few years ago, I tried to ask how we were doing as a field, basing my comments on Roger Brown's fond hope for the field to do well, given his disappointing experience in other fields of psychology that he worked in (see the preface or introduction to A First Language). I concluded that the field was doing pretty well, thank you, with major contributions both from linguistic theory and clear empirical methodology. People from various viewpoints, arguing from different sides of a hypothesis, were making progress by providing arguments and data. I argued that theory and experiment were obvious and necessary features of the field, how could it be otherwise in science? My impression is that people felt drawn together, both those who identified themselves as generativists and those who didn't. We are all in this together, trying to understand. One fundamental assumption is that we want to be scientists. Of course, if this isn't shared, all bets are off. So how come there is such hostility? Here's what might be happening, though now we're talking about sociological issues, and I feel on less certain grounds. The field of generative-based acquisition is thriving. Is it the mainstream approach? It's very hard to say when one is so active and involved in the field. A field has friends and enemies. But let me refer to what others say. Many who are against the generative approach have complained because this approach seems dominant, e.g. many complain about Chomsky's influence; we see it in the remarks that initiated this discussion. Liz Bates, may she rest in peace, made a career out of saying the generative-based approach was dominant, and complaining about it and trying to do something else. So our enemies think we're dominant, we're mainstream. How about our friends? As I say, it's very hard to tell. But I'll note that Teun Hoekstra and Bonnie Schwartz, in their 1993 edited book with the papers from the first acquisition workshop at GLOW (the major biannual generative linguistic theory conference in Europe) wrote that perhaps the "theoretical" [i.e. generative] approach finally, after all these years is dominant. And that was 1993; the generative approach has only grown since then. So PERHAPS (I admit that it's hard to know) the generative approach is dominant, is mainstream. That doesn't make it correct. God knows, there have been dominant approaches that were dead wrong. But perhaps that counts for the emotion among those who haven't accepted it. PERHAPS (I agree I don't know) they don't like the results, the beautiful results, that generative based acquisition studies have attained, studies that go against their grain. Perhaps they don't like that so many students want to study generative based work. Perhaps they don't like the fact that the applications, to language impairment, to genetics, to many other fields, have been coming thick and fast, though still far too slow. Perhaps they just have the feeling that all this is wrong, and don't know what to do about it. I know most of the people who have responded, have interacted with them. I have always wondered why they feel this way, so at odds with the facts. I don't know why the emotion is so hard. Perhaps I just feel lucky and happy that things have worked. Who knew all those years ago that it would work out? I for one only knew that it was science or nothing; we had to try. Perhaps others aren't happy with science coming into a cozy field that could be approached humanisitically or in some other way. Fair enough. I take it for granted that everybody is a good person. We have different interests, perhaps. You could say, Ken, why science? Is that ALL there is in the world? The answer is no. There is much, much else. I have no doubt I (and others who think in more or less the same way about the field) are lacking in much understanding that can be appreciated in other ways. I am happy for them to study things the way they want to. Why are they so unhappy that we do what we do? Young people, again. If you want to be scientists and help to increase understanding of language development, please think about all this. If it doesn't excite you, o.k. My apologies for this lengthy tome; its only saving grace, perhaps, is that it could have been 100 times longer. From exlua at yahoo.com Thu Oct 18 17:34:03 2007 From: exlua at yahoo.com (Daniel Santos) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:34:03 -0700 Subject: Remove me from your list, please!! Message-ID: Thank you! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu Thu Oct 18 18:41:54 2007 From: pgordon at exchange.tc.columbia.edu (Gordon, Peter) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:41:54 -0400 Subject: Competence vs. Performance Message-ID: Robin, Miss South Carolina was perfectly coherent the next day on talk shows after her embarrassing moment was broadcast over YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQKNvPn3V-8&mode=related&search= My slightly less than serious point was that to not make a distinction between competence and performance is to say that her "performance" at the beauty pageant should not be distinguished from her actual knowledge of language, which seems to be your implication when you say that "language learning has fallen badly short here." This is precisely the conclusion that you would have to draw if you do not make allowances for impaired performance under stressful conditions. The claim about competence/performance is simply that the whole spectrum of everyday speech contains minor to major stresses and often fails to fully reveal the underlying knowledge of language (i.e., the natural language exemplified by the local dialect of one's culture). Peter Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 ________________________________ From: r.n.campbell [mailto:r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk] Sent: Thu 10/18/2007 12:27 AM To: Gordon, Peter; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: RE: Competence vs. Performance While this is moderately amusing to those with a taste for schadenfreude, it is not data which forces adoption of a competence-performance distinction. Rather, this data strongly suggests that language ability is not any sort of uniform trait, and that language learning has fallen badly short here. Robin I would suggest that anyone who claims there is no competence/performance distinction in language is being terribly unfair to Miss Teen USA, South Carolina http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww Peter Gordon, Associate Professor 525 W 120th St. Box 180 Biobehavioral Sciences Department Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Office Phone: (212) 678-8162 FAX: (212) 678-8233 Web Page: www.tc.edu/faculty/index.htm?facid=pg328 -- Dr Robin N Campbell Dept of Psychology University of Stirling STIRLING FK9 4LA Scotland, UK telephone: 01786-467649 facsimile: 01786-467641 email: r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk Website: http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/rcampbell/index.php -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adele at crl.ucsd.edu Fri Oct 19 02:56:21 2007 From: adele at crl.ucsd.edu (Adele Abrahamsen) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:56:21 -0700 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points In-Reply-To: <8CC7F274-6378-4C04-A5DB-96282F3FE7D9@cmu.edu> Message-ID: The claim of later IQ effects unfortunately distracts from the most important impact of Acredolo and Goodwyn's work. It was long assumed that manual symbols would compete, and hence interfere, with spoken words. In my own research on what is now called baby sign, initially I could offer potential participants nothing more than indirect evidence and reasoning to the contrary. So I was delighted when Goodwyn and Acredolo (1993) provided compelling direct evidence that baby signs do not interfere with acquisition of spoken words. Moreover, regardless of whether baby signs facilitate spoken words, clearly a baby who acquires them has more symbols available for use. (E.g., a reanalysis of G&A's data in Abrahamsen 2000 showed a median of 5.8 gestures when the median number of words was 5.9; for those toddlers with no overlap, that doubled the number of meanings that could be expressed through symbols at that time.) There also is a hard-to-predict subgroup of toddlers for whom baby signs carry much more than half the communicative burden for several months, which would seem to be advantageous. It is much more challenging to determine the extent to which, if at all, baby signing results in facilitation of spoken language or general development. To their credit Acredolo and Goodwyn included longitudinal comparison groups in their design, but as Brian and Kathy noted, the results raised more questions than they answered. Ideally someone would step up and do a replication study with a larger number of randomly assigned or closely-matched participants. Meanwhile, it would be sensible to base the decision to enhance gestural input to a baby on practical considerations (e.g., is there a caretaker who would enjoy doing it?) and on those outcomes for which there is ample evidence (e.g., a modest, possibly temporary increase in the number of symbols when both gestures and words are counted). There is no need to reach beyond this to apparent effects that are large or of long duration and for which there is no obvious mechanism, such as the claim of a 12-point IQ boost at 8 years. (Evidence and plausibility of verbal facilitation lies between these extremes.) Isabelle Barriere made the interesting point that, even as parents of hearing toddlers buy videos and take baby sign classes, the old worries about interference live on recommendations to parents of children with cochlear implants. I would add that the issues and relevant studies extend far beyond the baby sign literature, especially with respect to syntactically structured language. > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was > an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the radar screen. This message summarized replies to a query about Baby Signs. I spent some time tracing the various web links involved and I would like to draw colleagues' attention to one issue in this > research that troubles me. This is the status of a report by > Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at www.babysigns.com and www.signingtime.com (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports > speaks of a 12 point "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who are taught Baby Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, Mechthild's links also point to an article from the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andr?e Durieux- Smith, and Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting that it provides no description of subject recruitment > provedures, attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any > pretesting. They conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range of baby signing products is not matched by good quality > evidence that would reinforce manufacturers' claims." > It is worth adding that the groups were already different when > the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not as > evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result of the initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was > presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been published in a journal. > I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I > certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am also quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method for achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. However, I find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby Signs alone could achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several years of Head Start lead to nothing measurably permanent. > I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims > with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies supporting these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about them. > > --Brian MacWhinney, CMU > From boyatzis at bucknell.edu Fri Oct 19 15:36:46 2007 From: boyatzis at bucknell.edu (Chris Boyatzis) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:36:46 -0400 Subject: Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points In-Reply-To: <62309.132.239.1.232.1192762581.squirrel@crl.ucsd.edu> Message-ID: I have enjoyed the recent discussion about baby signs and wish to underscore the point of Adele Abrahamsen's message: that the debate over IQ effects overlooks the really important aspects of Acredolo and Goodwyn's work, which spoke more to the debate on whether early signing and/or gesturing in oral/aural children would somehow impede their spoken language development. I organized and edited a special issue on children and gesture for the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, published in 2000 (summer issue, vol. 24). The Acredolo and Goodwyn team have two papers in that issue, the most pertinent to the discussion here an experimental design (co-authored by Catherine Brown) of 11-month-old infants randomly assigned to three different conditions of varying levels of parental (signed and spoken) input. An excerpt from their Discussion: "The results...particularly the comparisons between the Sign Training group and the Non-intervention Control group, strongly support the hypothesis that symbolic gesturing facilitates the early stages of verbal language development.... infants who augmented their fledgling vocabularies with symbolic gestures outperformed those who did not. The fact that no such advantage was found for the infants in the Verbal Training group provides reassuring evidence that the superior performance of the ST infants was not simply a function of their families being involved in a language-centered intervention program. The explanation seems to lie instead within the gesturing experience itself." I have no dog in this fight, not even a puppy in the scuffle, but I write simply to encourage interested parties to read this fine paper and return to, as Adele suggested, the real points of their work. In this 2000 paper there is no measurement or discussion of IQ but the measurement of many language indices longitudinally at 15, 19, 24, 30, and 36 months. (Would that our field featured more longitudinal and experimental designs, of any developmental phenomena!) Chris Boyatzis At 10:56 PM 10/18/2007, Adele Abrahamsen wrote: >The claim of later IQ effects unfortunately distracts from the most >important impact of Acredolo and Goodwyn's work. > >It was long assumed that manual symbols would compete, and hence >interfere, with spoken words. In my own research on what is now called >baby sign, initially I could offer potential participants nothing more >than indirect evidence and reasoning to the contrary. So I was delighted >when Goodwyn and Acredolo (1993) provided compelling direct evidence that >baby signs do not interfere with acquisition of spoken words. Moreover, >regardless of whether baby signs facilitate spoken words, clearly a baby >who acquires them has more symbols available for use. (E.g., a reanalysis >of G&A's data in Abrahamsen 2000 showed a median of 5.8 gestures when the >median number of words was 5.9; for those toddlers with no overlap, that >doubled the number of meanings that could be expressed through symbols at >that time.) There also is a hard-to-predict subgroup of toddlers for whom >baby signs carry much more than half the communicative burden for several >months, which would seem to be advantageous. > >It is much more challenging to determine the extent to which, if at all, >baby signing results in facilitation of spoken language or general >development. To their credit Acredolo and Goodwyn included longitudinal >comparison groups in their design, but as Brian and Kathy noted, the >results raised more questions than they answered. Ideally someone would >step up and do a replication study with a larger number of randomly >assigned or closely-matched participants. > >Meanwhile, it would be sensible to base the decision to enhance gestural >input to a baby on practical considerations (e.g., is there a caretaker >who would enjoy doing it?) and on those outcomes for which there is ample >evidence (e.g., a modest, possibly temporary increase in the number of >symbols when both gestures and words are counted). There is no need to >reach beyond this to apparent effects that are large or of long duration >and for which there is no obvious mechanism, such as the claim of a >12-point IQ boost at 8 years. (Evidence and plausibility of verbal >facilitation lies between these extremes.) > >Isabelle Barriere made the interesting point that, even as parents of >hearing toddlers buy videos and take baby sign classes, the old worries >about interference live on recommendations to parents of children with >cochlear implants. I would add that the issues and relevant studies extend >far beyond the baby sign literature, especially with respect to >syntactically structured language. > > > Dear Info-CHILDES, > > > > During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was > > an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the radar >screen. This message summarized replies to a query about Baby Signs. I >spent some time tracing the various web links involved and I would like to >draw colleagues' attention to one issue in this > > research that troubles me. This is the status of a report by > > Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at www.babysigns.com >and www.signingtime.com (STResearch_Summary.pdf). This reports > > speaks of a 12 point "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who >are taught Baby Signs when they are toddlers. Interestingly, >Mechthild's links also point to an article from the Canadian Language and >Literacy Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andr??e Durieux- Smith, and >Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting that it >provides no description of subject recruitment > > provedures, attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any > > pretesting. They conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range >of baby signing products is not matched by good quality > > evidence that would reinforce manufacturers' claims." > > It is worth adding that the groups were already different when > > the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not as > > evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result of the >initial effects of the treatment. The relevant study was > > presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been >published in a journal. > > I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result. I > > certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given. I am also >quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method for >achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers. However, I >find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby Signs alone could >achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several years of Head Start lead to >nothing measurably permanent. > > I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims > > with a healthy grain of salt. If there are newer studies supporting >these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about them. > > > > --Brian MacWhinney, CMU > > Chris J. Boyatzis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology Bucknell University Lewisburg PA 17837 Office phone: 570.577.1696 FAX 570.577.7007 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 19 20:30:51 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:30:51 -0400 Subject: moving info-childes to Google Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, For a variety of technical reasons, I would like to move the info-childes at mail.talkbank.org mailing list to Google. The address of the new list is info-childes at googlegroups.com. Google Groups provides many advantages, including the ability to change your address by yourself, and the ability to upload files. You can also create a profile describing yourself and your research. Once my request for the move is approved at Google, you will receive a message asking you to subscribe. If you respond and confirm, you will be subscribed. After that you can control your change or delete your subscription directly through the Google interface. This works best if you have a Google account, which is easy to set up. However, if you want to avoid having a Google account, it is still pretty easy to modify your subscription through email. Please remember that you need to confirm using the mail account to which Google sends you a message. If you want a different mail account, you can just ignore the invitation and go to Google and subscribe directly. If you have any problems with any of this, please just send me a message to macw at cmu.edu. Many thanks. From macw at cmu.edu Fri Oct 19 21:45:10 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:45:10 -0400 Subject: moving mailing list Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, For a variety of technical reasons, I would like to move the info-childes at mail.talkbank.org mailing list to Google. The address of the new list is info-childes at googlegroups.com. Google Groups provides many advantages, including the ability to change your address by yourself, and the ability to upload files. You can also create a profile describing yourself and your research. Once my request for the move is approved at Google, you will receive a message asking you to subscribe. If you respond and confirm, you will be subscribed. After that you can control your change or delete your subscription directly through the Google interface. Using the Google interface also allows you to create a profile and add and monitor other groups easily. To subscribe using the Google interface, go to groups.google.com and get an account. You do not need a Gmail account and you don't need to use email for googlegroups mail. To subscribe without the web interface, just send a message to info-childes-subscribe at googlegroups.com. Please remember that you need to confirm using the mail account to which Google sends you a message. If you want a different mail account, you can just ignore the invitation and go to Google and subscribe directly. If you have any problems with any of this, please just send me a message to macw at cmu.edu. Many thanks. -- Brian MacWhinney From k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk Tue Oct 23 15:32:40 2007 From: k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk (Katie Alcock) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:32:40 +0100 Subject: The latest in recording technology (is this the first message?) Message-ID: I've usually used minidisk recorders up till now both for recording children in the field and for creating language stimuli. We've had some success recently with MP3 recorders (solid-state) for field recordings but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about: How good quality these are for creating sound files to link to transcriptions How good the recorders are in the long term - do they die easily? and also Are they any good for creating clean, high quality sound files to use as laboratory stimuli? If they are good, do people have specific recommendations of recorders? We have a few in our department that people have used for recording testing/interview sessions but to create some new stimuli I think I'm going to need to get either a new minidisk recorder or something slightly more modern. Thanks Katie Alccok Katie Alcock, DPhil, CPsychol Lecturer Department of Psychology University of Lancaster Fylde College Lancaster LA1 4YF Tel 01524 593833 Fax 01524 593744 Web http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/KatieAlcock.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From alaakso at indiana.edu Tue Oct 23 18:08:29 2007 From: alaakso at indiana.edu (Aarre Laakso) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:08:29 -0400 Subject: The latest in recording technology (is this the first message?) Message-ID: Hi Katie, I recommend you read http://talkbank.org/da/ and the following previous posts: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0701C&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R512&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0601E&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R499&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0601E&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R199&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0611A&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R2&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0611A&L=INFO-CHILDES&P=R27&I=-3 Regards, Aarre Laakso Katie Alcock wrote: > I've usually used minidisk recorders up till now both for recording children > in the field and for creating language stimuli. We've had some success > recently with MP3 recorders (solid-state) for field recordings but I'm > wondering if anyone has any ideas about: > > How good quality these are for creating sound files to link to > transcriptions > How good the recorders are in the long term - do they die easily? > and also > Are they any good for creating clean, high quality sound files to use as > laboratory stimuli? > > If they are good, do people have specific recommendations of recorders? We > have a few in our department that people have used for recording > testing/interview sessions but to create some new stimuli I think I'm going > to need to get either a new minidisk recorder or something slightly more > modern. > > Thanks > > Katie Alccok > > > Katie Alcock, DPhil, CPsychol > Lecturer > Department of Psychology > University of Lancaster > Fylde College > Lancaster LA1 4YF > Tel 01524 593833 > Fax 01524 593744 > Web http://www.psych.lancs.ac.uk/people/KatieAlcock.html > > >> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From yasshiraijp at gmail.com Thu Oct 25 15:31:19 2007 From: yasshiraijp at gmail.com (Yasuhiro Shirai) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:31:19 +0900 Subject: Tenure track position: Rank Open, U of Pittsburgh, Syntax/Spanish Linguistics Message-ID: The University of Pittsburgh Department of Linguistics (http://www.linguistics.pitt.edu/index.htm) invites applications for a tenure stream faculty position, open rank, beginning September 1, 2008, pending budgetary approval. Applicants must have a primary research program in Syntax and Spanish Linguistics; teaching experience in these areas is also desirable. Applicants with secondary specializations in any of the following areas will be given highest consideration: semantics, first language acquisition, and second language acquisition. Preference will be given to candidates that have experience in fieldwork-based linguistic description, experimental methods, and corpus-based studies. Candidates should send a CV (including a list of funded research if applicable), a statement of research and teaching interests, copies of two reprints or other written work, teaching evaluations (required), and the names, email addresses, and postal addresses of at least three references (the applicant should notify these potential referees of their application). Send materials to: Linguistics Search Committee, Department of Linguistics, 2816 CL, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; (412) 524-5900; Fax (412) 624-6130. Email enquiries should be directed to Scott Kiesling, Chair: kiesling at pitt.edu. To ensure full consideration completed applications must be received by November 9, 2007. Preliminary interviews may be held at the LSA meeting in Chicago in January 2008. The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. Women and members of minority groups under-represented in academia are especially encouraged to apply. -- Yasuhiro Shirai Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics 2806 Cathedral of Learning University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Tel: 412-624-5933 URL: http://www.linguistics.pitt.edu/people/faculty/shirai.htm JSLS: http://www.cyber.sist.chukyo-u.ac.jp/JSLS/index.html Handbook: http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521833345 (on leave in Japan till December 2007) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sarae at post.tau.ac.il Sat Oct 27 18:57:08 2007 From: sarae at post.tau.ac.il (sara eyal) Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 20:57:08 +0200 Subject: subscribtion Message-ID: As I have not received yet any message to subscribe to the Google list of the childes mailing list, I am asking hereby to subscribe to the Google list. Sara Eyal sarae at post.tau.ac.il --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Sun Oct 28 00:27:41 2007 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 20:27:41 -0400 Subject: subscribtion In-Reply-To: <001401c818cb$2d009620$0500000a@user> Message-ID: Dear Sara, Actually, your message posted fine and you are subscribed. Strangely enough, Google says that you have not verified your account properly by either responding to the message from Google or else logging on directly. And it says that you are not allowed to post, but in fact you can post fine. If you really want to clear this up you should log into your Google account yourself, since there is nothing more that I can do. However, everything actually seems to be working. --Brian On Oct 27, 2007, at 2:57 PM, sara eyal wrote: > As I have not received yet any message to subscribe to the Google > list of the childes mailing list, I am asking hereby to subscribe > to the Google list. > Sara Eyal > sarae at post.tau.ac.il > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Mon Oct 29 16:30:21 2007 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Gathercole) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:30:21 +0000 Subject: Call, Visiting Researchers, Ctr for Bilingualism Message-ID: CALL FOR APPLICATIONS VISITING RESEARCHER PROGRAMME ESRC CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON BILINGUALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE The new ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice at Bangor University, in North Wales, seeks applications from researchers around the world for its Visiting Researcher programme. The Centre has as its main focus the promotion of research into all aspects of bilingualism, from a variety of perspectives and in a variety of contexts. There are four research groups in the Centre, focusing on four strands of theoretical and practical issues related to bilingualism. You can obtain information on these groups and on the Centre in general in our leaflet and at our website, at http://bilingualism.bangor.ac.uk/. The purpose of the Visiting Researcher programme is to encourage and foster high quality research in bilingualism, to provide a sabbatical or temporary 'home' for bilingualism researchers who wish to interact with other researchers at the Centre, and to encourage interaction and collaboration among researchers from both outside and inside the Centre. Visiting Researchers will be provided with office space and will have full access to the facilities of the Centre. Research Visits at the Centre would normally cover periods of a few days up to a year. Applicants may apply for support to cover travel expenses to and from the Centre and living expenses while staying in Bangor. In some cases, the Centre may be able to provide income support for a researcher who is on unpaid leave from his/her home institution. Applications will be accepted for costs normally ranging from ?1,000 to ?10,000, but awards will be allotted according to the funds available and the perceived needs. Interested parties should fill out the application form, outlining their proposed plans for research and estimated costs, and attach a short c.v. Deadline for application for a visit any time from spring 2008 through summer 2009, is December 10, 2007. For further information, please email the Centre at r.a.ieuan at bangor.ac.uk, or write to Prof. V. Mueller Gathercole, Co-Director, ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, and Head of Centre's Visiting Researcher Programme, Bangor University: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk. APPLICATION FORM Visiting Researcher Programme ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice Name: Date: Address: Expected dates for Centre visit: Affiliation: I. Please outline the type of project you wish to conduct or collaborate on while you are at the Centre. Please include the following in your description [maximum 1000 words]: a. Title of Project, b. Theoretical question/issue, c. Proposed methodology, d. Bilingual population(s) of interest, e. Import of the research, f. Expected outputs. II. Please provide an estimate of expenses related to your visit. Please include information on the following: a. Travel costs, b. Housing costs, c. Other research costs, if any. III. Equipment: a. Please specify if you will have any special research needs (e.g., use of general research equipment, access to specialised research equipment [e.g., ERP, MEG], need for laboratory space, etc.). b. If so, please indicate which of these needs you will be providing from your own resources, and which you are requesting through the Centre. If the latter, please indicate the level of need, e.g., in time. -- Mae'r e-bost yma'n amodol ar delerau ac amodau ymwadiad e-bost Prifysgol Bangor. Gellir darllen testun llawn yr ymwadiad yma: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer This email is subject to the terms and conditions of the Bangor University email disclaimer. The full text of the disclaimer can be read here: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4272 bytes Desc: not available URL: From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Mon Oct 29 17:16:15 2007 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Gathercole) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:16:15 +0000 Subject: Call for abstracts Bilingualism conference Oct 2008 Message-ID: Call for Papers INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MODELS OF INTERACTION IN BILINGUALS ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom October 24 - 26, 2008 The ESRC Centre for Bilingualism in Theory and Practice invites submissions for talks and posters on the topic of "Models of Interaction in Bilinguals", broadly defined to include, e.g., interaction between the bilingual's two languages, interaction between language and cognition, interaction between bilinguals' writing systems/literacy, and any other relevant topic. INVITED SPEAKERS Ellen Bialystok, York University and Rotman Research Institute of the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto Ton Dijkstra, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, The Netherlands David Green, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Dept. of Psychology, University College London, UK Judith Kroll, Pennsylvania State University, USA Ping Li, University of Richmond, Virginia, USA N?ria Sebasti?n Gall?s, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain Oral Presentations will be half hour talks. ?N.B.: All invited and accepted speakers must submit a short version of their talk prior to the conference, for circulation to other presenters and for availability through our website to other participants. Posters should be 80 x 120 cm (A0) or less. The word limit for abstracts for oral presentations and posters is 200 words, excluding references, title, and author information. [Note: A selection of papers from the conference will be submitted to a peer-review process for possible inclusion in a special issue of International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism on "Models of Interaction in Bilinguals", with Virginia Gathercole as Guest Editor. We will invite all oral presenters to submit more complete copies of their papers for consideration, and all poster presenters will be invited to similarly submit papers for possible inclusion. A separate call will also go out for possible submissions from outside the conference. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Please note that paper submission will not guarantee acceptance, however.] Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 1, 2007 Abstracts will be submitted and processed electronically, at www.bilingualism.bangor.ac.uk For further information, please see our website or contact the ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, r.a.ieuan at bangor.ac.uk, or Prof. Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, at bilconf at bangor.ac.uk. Forthcoming Conferences to be sponsored by the Centre: 2009/2010 - Neurobilingualism [contact: Guillaume Thierry] 2010/2011 - Bilingual/Multi-lingual Education [contact: Colin Baker] 2011/2012 - Social Aspects of Bilingualism [contact: Eddie Williams] -- Mae'r e-bost yma'n amodol ar delerau ac amodau ymwadiad e-bost Prifysgol Bangor. Gellir darllen testun llawn yr ymwadiad yma: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer This email is subject to the terms and conditions of the Bangor University email disclaimer. The full text of the disclaimer can be read here: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 5078 bytes Desc: not available URL: From angelchan at arts.cuhk.edu.hk Mon Oct 29 07:26:35 2007 From: angelchan at arts.cuhk.edu.hk (Angel Chan (LIN)) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:26:35 +0800 Subject: new audiovisual materials for the promotion of CHILDES Message-ID: Dear all, We are happy to announce the following new audiovisual materials for the promotion of CHILDES: 1. A 12-minute video clip "CHILDES and bilingual corpora" produced by Uta Lam and our team at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where Brian MacWhinney and Virginia Yip discussed the origin and evolution of CHILDES in the last two decades. The dialogue took place in June 2007 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It also covers a number of milestones (innovative technology, multimedia features, diversity of languages and automatic morphosyntactic analysis) and the construction of bilingual corpora. The video is now posted on the following websites: http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/intro/ http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/book/bilingualchild/Chapter1.html http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/brian+macWhinney/video/x37r50_20 0706brianyipinterview_people A slightly shorter version is posted on Youtube. 2. A 26-minute audio clip with the extended version of the interview is available at the CHILDES and CUHK websites. Cheers, Angel Angel Chan Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre Coordinator Childhood Bilingualism Research Centre Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages The Chinese University of Hong Kong Mobile: (852) 9132 8401 Tel: (852) 2609 7019 Fax: (852) 2603 7755 Homepage: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/people/angelchan/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group. To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: