pragmatic bootstrapping

Fri Apr 15 09:19:17 UTC 2011

Yes--but these terms are much too broad.  If you are about to hit a child
and your hand is coming
at them---they may I suspect perceive that moment of pragmatics.  Pragmatics
surely has 50
layers---some of which any living thing has---and some of which only
literary critics seem to have.
The use of terms like "lacks pragmatic sensitivity" seems to me to obscure
the question not
highlight it.  In the 19th centry they looked for the "life force" but the
idea was dropped when
the intricacy of microbiology was discovered.  We have to do the same.

Tom

On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 4:46 AM, parisa Daftarifard
<pdaftaryfard at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear Tom,
> Thank you for your comment. I agree that "Determining Common Ground is a
> semantic term" and "a huge mystery".  But concerning what you say...
>
> " can fairly safely infer that it is about the food (which actually may no
> longer be visible) and an autistic child may not."
>
> a sever Autistic child may not but what we can infer from a sever autistic
> child's condition is that he or she *lacks sensitivity* to tasting food,
> although high functioning children may not have the same problem; they can
> taste food as we do. What t*hey lack for sure is pragmatic sensitivity*
> ...
>
> What makes a normal child different from an AsD child (i mean high
> functioning one) is that of perceiving intention and pragmatic information.
> They simply don't understand yes and no question or alternative questions.
> They cannot understand gestures. When they learned many of the
> same things they would be able to acquire language.
>
> I dont say that syntactic information does not have mental
> Pre-representation but I think syntactic bootstrapping cannot be the
> starting point.
>
> Best,
> Parisa
>
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 11:17 AM, Tom Roeper <roeper at linguist.umass.edu>wrote:
>
>> DEar Parisa---
>>
>>    We share a lot of Common Ground with other human beings.  If I see you
>> eating---which
>> a half blind person might---and you say "delicious" or just "good"---I can
>> fairly safely
>> infer that it is about the food (which actually may no longer be visible)
>> and an autistic
>> child may not.  This has a lot to do with whole situations and not just
>> seeing I think.
>>    Determining Cmmon Ground is a semantic term, but still a huge mystery.
>>
>>
>> Tom
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 6:40 PM, parisa Daftarifard <
>> pdaftaryfard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Tom,
>>>
>>> You Wrote
>>> "YOur eyes don't choose the light that they take in, but they choose to
>>> form extremely complex objects.  How to
>>> connect the object with a sound involves many pre-existing mental
>>> assumptions.  Suppose you associate a word with an object in motion.  Why do
>>> that?  It is not inevitable, it is a mental bias."
>>>
>>> I am not against mental assumption but would this explain why a semi
>>> blind person can perceive what a normal person can see but an Autistic child
>>> cannot perceive what a normal child can do as far as pragmatic competence
>>> and language development are concerned.
>>>
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Parisa
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 5:23 AM, Tom Roeper <roeper at linguist.umass.edu>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi---
>>>>     yes the name of the game is to specify the mechanism.  I think there
>>>> will be what I call "strict interfaces"
>>>> that link many of these things.  For instance: imperatives involve a
>>>> mapping between speaker and hearer,
>>>> situation, syntax of subject deletion, intonation and the mapping seems
>>>> automatic.   Social and distributional
>>>> factors are a part of the situation.  I am not sure about Bayseian
>>>> information.  Frequency is not a meaningful
>>>> notion if it is not frequency of something, as soon as it is a
>>>> something, a phonetic or phonologial object, it already
>>>> has a representation--so you cannot "get" the representation through
>>>> frequency, although it might seem that way
>>>> because in fact you get many subparts of the representation one by
>>>> one.   LIke the phonology of the beginning middle
>>>> and end of a word might have separate learning events before you ever
>>>> say the word.
>>>>      The challenge is to specify the mapping---pragmatics, phonetics,
>>>> intonation, phonology, syntax, semantics---
>>>> bootstrapping is a very misleading term because it makes things seem one
>>>> way when they never are.
>>>> YOur eyes don't choose the light that they take in, but they choose to
>>>> form extremely complex objects.  How to
>>>> connect the object with a sound involves many pre-existing mental
>>>> assumptions.  Suppose you associate a word
>>>> with an object in motion.  Why do that?  It is not inevitable, it is a
>>>> mental bias.
>>>>
>>>> Tom
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Mohinish <mohinish.s at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> if I may jump in - I think (specially in early formulations) it was
>>>>> left somewhat unspecified what the various, *sufficient* sources of
>>>>> information that lead to acquisition are; the strong claim was that they
>>>>> lead to the induction of *linguistic* structures. So, if the baby sees
>>>>> that a hypothesized, projected linguistic structure leads to an inference
>>>>> that is wrong for pragmatic reasons, this should lead to the baby projecting
>>>>> a new hypothesis about the linguistic structure. Tom's argument is that this
>>>>> is an important source for the child to understand what kind of structures
>>>>> might contain transformations.
>>>>>
>>>>> More generally, one can replace 'pragmatic reason' with any of the
>>>>> other cognitive factors, like 'distributional reason' or 'social reason' or
>>>>> 'Bayesian reason' - in every case, however, what these must do is inform the
>>>>> learner about the hypotheses regarding possible linguistic structures. -
>>>>> i.e., confirm or disconfirm the hypotheses about the underlying linguistic
>>>>> structure. I think in this sense, it is simultaneous syntactic and pragmatic
>>>>> in what Tom writes. Nothing stops it being simultaneously  syntactic and
>>>>> distributional and pragmatic, or any other combination. Maybe *all* of
>>>>> them are necessary...
>>>>>
>>>>> Mo
>>>>>
>>>>>  On Mar 22, 2011, at 3:22 PM, parisa Daftarifard wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  Dear Tom, you wrote
>>>>> "That means a simultaneous syntactic and pragmatic information.  "
>>>>> I think pragmatic information should be followed by syntactic. babies
>>>>> learn pragmatics well sooner than syntax when they respond their parents
>>>>> smile with smile. What Chomsky states, I believe, is that syntactic
>>>>> bootstrapping is what actually happened through triggering the UG system,
>>>>> not pragmatic one. I mean first language learning / acquisition is triggered
>>>>> then other things happen. I think Anat , please correct me if I am wrong,
>>>>> believes that pragmatic bootstrapping is the starting point for the kids?
>>>>>
>>>>> Autistic children have problem in processing pragmatics and have
>>>>> language delay. through ABA program what they learn, besides many things,
>>>>> even in high functioning autism, is how to respond different discourses and
>>>>> learn to respond pragmatically. Some of them, when learn to be pragmatic,
>>>>> turn into creative language user.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Parisa
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 4:06 PM, Tom Roeper <roeper at linguist.umass.edu
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Anat---
>>>>>>     in the paper I wrote in 1981 for the Wanner Gleitman volume, I
>>>>>> argued that children needed pragmatic
>>>>>> mapping onto syntax to justify transformations.  That means a
>>>>>> simultaneous syntactic and pragmatic
>>>>>> information.  It is in my book as well---and actually embedded in
>>>>>> Chomsky's remark in 1076 Reflections
>>>>>> on Language, that acqusition must be consistent with "trigtering
>>>>>> experience" I said to him that must include
>>>>>> pragmatics and he agreed.
>>>>>>    It is obvious that it is hard to understand:
>>>>>>        the cat was chased by the dog.
>>>>>> but the chld has a big semantic.pragmatic  advantage when they hear:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> the milk was drunk by the boy
>>>>>>
>>>>>> because they know that milk cannot drink boy.  If there is syntax is
>>>>>> ready to project a transformation,
>>>>>> then they use that information and visual support to say "milk has to
>>>>>> get into the object position somehow,
>>>>>> do I have a mental operation to do it".
>>>>>>       Once acquired, it will be autonomous and apply without
>>>>>> pragmatics, so if I tell a 3yr old:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>       the cheese ate the mouse
>>>>>>
>>>>>> they laugh, because they know, anti-pragmatically, that it is true.
>>>>>> An anti-pragmatic ability is the
>>>>>> sign of true acquisition.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> best, Tom  Roeper
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 6:17 PM, parisa Daftarifard <
>>>>>> pdaftaryfard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dear Anat,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Very interesting topic.....I am not sure but lack of language
>>>>>>> development or language development delay can occur because of problems in
>>>>>>> pragmatic bootstrapping in some children. Kids with low possibility of being
>>>>>>> involved in interaction-- when mothers or fathers are busy or when kids live
>>>>>>> in a poor-interaction environment-- showed to have language delay. This is
>>>>>>> especially interesting when we consider that TVs are always on and they can
>>>>>>> get enough input in a unilateral way.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best.
>>>>>>> Parisa Daftarifard
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Anat Ninio <
>>>>>>> msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Dear List,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sorry to have sent this to the whole list by mistake, but actually
>>>>>>>> I'd love to hear from anybody who knows of studies that can be said to test
>>>>>>>> the hypothesis that children learn syntax by "pragmatic bootstrapping".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Anat Ninio
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 17-03-11 06:01, Anat Ninio wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi Nameera,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks a lot!  Absolutely coincidentally this very minute I'm
>>>>>>>> reading your 2008 (or is it 2009?) encyclopedia entry
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Akhtar, N., & Herold, K. (2008). Pragmatic development. In M. M.
>>>>>>>> Haith & J. B. Benson (Eds.), *Encyclopedia of infant and early
>>>>>>>> childhood development,* Vol. *2* (pp. 572-581). San Diego, CA:
>>>>>>>> Academic Press.
>>>>>>>> which I want to cite for a research proposal for an European grant.
>>>>>>>> First, is it 2008 or 2009? Second, you say
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "We know of no empirical research, however, that has directly
>>>>>>>> addressed the question of whether children learn syntactic constructions in
>>>>>>>> the same way as they learn words; that is,  through "pragmatic
>>>>>>>> bootstrapping" or attention to speakers' intentions." (p.319)
>>>>>>>> Would you still say so? Or is there some new study that you know of
>>>>>>>> that I should mention? Any newer publication of yours on this
>>>>>>>> point?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks a lot and see you in SRCD for sure,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Anat
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 17-03-11 05:14, nameera akhtar wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> congratulations, anat!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> hope to see you at srcd,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> nameera
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Anat Ninio <
>>>>>>>> msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Dear Friends and Colleagues,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I'm very happy to be able to announce the publication of my new
>>>>>>>>> book by Oxford University Press.  It is entitled   "Syntactic
>>>>>>>>> development, its input and output" and a description of it, as
>>>>>>>>> well as a link to the Introduction, can be found on the publisher's on-line
>>>>>>>>> catalogue at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199565962.do
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I hope you'll like it!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Anat Ninio
>>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Parisa Daftarifard
>>>>>>> Phd Student of TEFL
>>>>>>> Islamic Azad University of Science and Research
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Tom Roeper
>>>>>> Dept of Lingiustics
>>>>>> UMass South College
>>>>>> Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA
>>>>>> 413 256 0390
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Parisa Daftarifard
>>>>> Phd Student of TEFL
>>>>> Islamic Azad University of Science and Research
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Tom Roeper
>>>> Dept of Lingiustics
>>>> UMass South College
>>>> Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA
>>>> 413 256 0390
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Parisa Daftarifard
>>> Phd Student of TEFL
>>> Islamic Azad University of Science and Research
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Tom Roeper
>> Dept of Lingiustics
>> UMass South College
>> Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA
>> 413 256 0390
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Parisa Daftarifard
> Phd Student of TEFL
> Islamic Azad University of Science and Research
>
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-- 
Tom Roeper
Dept of Lingiustics
UMass South College
Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA
413 256 0390

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