'learning paths' instead of parameters
mariateresa.guasti at unimib.it
mariateresa.guasti at unimib.it
Sat Sep 27 08:19:05 UTC 2014
Hi,
one comment on Brian about the pathway: if the
child assumes 1., she can move to 2. when she
listen to head-initial NPs (and this is positive
evidence). It is like the past tense
(regularization and then learn the specific forms
based on what one hears). Am I wrong?
About the specific examples of head-initial/head
final, there are proposals in the literature that
infants can decide about directionality based on
prosody. In one of the two papers, it is
discussed the case of German and Dutch (languages that have a mixed situation)
Emacs!
Emacs!
Two more papers on the same issues:
Emacs!
Emacs!
Maria Teresa Guasti
At 06.04 27/09/2014, Brian MacWhinney wrote:
>Fritz and John,
>
> The general idea that children follow
> learning pathways seems like a reasonable
> one. However, the question is whether these
> pathways arise from preexisting universals or
> from the actual encounter of children with the
> specifics of language. The example of a
> pathway that Fritz provided involved a gradual
> retreat from overgeneralization. It had these four steps:
>1. First s/he will assume that ALL phrases are head-final, even noun phrases.
>2. Next s/he will assume that ALL NPs are head-initial
>3. Next s/he will learn the class of exceptions to 2.
>4. Finally, s/he will learn the purely idiosyncratic exceptions.
>
>A pathway of this type is not in accord with the
>Subset Principle, because that principle is
>fundamentally conservative, always favoring the
>most narrow grammar. In the pathway Fritz
>describes, the child starts out with a huge
>generalization and then has to retreat, possibly
>relying on negative evidence.
>
>The idea that the child is fundamentally
>conservative crops up in many accounts. For
>example, in my "Mechanisms of Language
>Acquisition" book from 1987, Fodor and Crain
>argued for conservatism in the form of the
>Subset Principle. I argued for it in terms of
>my theory of item-based learning, and Berwick
>assumed it in his learning on error
>analysis. The literature is full of evidence
>for conservatism from older work by Maratsos and
>Kuczaj to newer work by Lieven, Rowland,
>Ambridge, and colleagues. In the area of
>lexical overgeneralization, there is similarly
>strong evidence for conservatism.
>
>Of course, children are not always
>conservative. Often they are missing forms and
>have to resort to overextension. However, I
>can't think of any evidence for the type of raw
>overextension from the very beginning suggested
>by the learning pathway you propose. Is there any empirical evidence for this?
>
>Underspecification, as illustrated by the
>initial collective interpretation of
>distributive quantifiers such as "each" would
>seem to be a counterexample. However, the
>conflict between distributive and collective
>interpretations is often a bit opaque in actual communicative contexts.
>
>- Brian MacWhinney
>
>On Sep 25, 2014, at 2:09 PM, Grinstead, John
><<mailto:grinstead.11 at osu.edu>grinstead.11 at osu.edu> wrote:
>
>>Hi Fritz,
>>
>>It's interesting to think about an alternative
>>to parameters, so thank you for starting a conversation.
>>
>>That said, I can't really think of any
>>syntactic phenomena that have the properties
>>you have mentioned. That is, starting with one
>>look and then completely switching to the
>>opposite is pretty well unattested, as far as I
>>can remember, at least in morphology, syntax,
>>semantics (subjects, DO clitics, articles,
>>mass-count, double objects, subject case,
>>subject-aux inversion). All of these
>>constructions get studied because there are
>>variations from the adult patterns, but most of them are relatively subtle.
>>
>>So, child English speakers start using
>>accusative case pronouns in subject position
>>for a while (e.g. Him cry.), but don't switch
>>to a completely Ergative-Absolutive system (not
>>really sure what that would look like, anyway,
>>but it would probably involve some interesting
>>forms in object position that we don't ever
>>see). Subject-verb agreement can take a while
>>to develop in Spanish, but kids don't start
>>marking direct object agreement (as in Swahili
>>or Georgian) or indirect object agreement on
>>verbs (as in Euskera) all of a sudden.
>>
>>Most constructions just look adult-like.
>>
>>It's like they're not willing to take a stab at
>>a construction until they have a pretty good
>>idea of what's going on and when they do, it
>>looks pretty good. This is Stephen Crain's
>>"conservative learner" (I think that was his
>>phrase) and William Snyder's "Grammatical Conservatism".
>>
>>The exceptions are not that numerous and they
>>are what we spend most of our time thinking about.
>>
>>Starting from something that seems unspecified
>>and moving to something that's specified, on
>>the other hand, is maybe more frequently
>>observed. So Brooks and Syrett and Musolino and
>>Pagliarini have observed in separate studies
>>that children's interpretations of distributive
>>quantifiers like "each" seem to allow them in
>>collective situations. This tolerance gradually
>>goes away and is replaced by a restrictive interpretation.
>>
>>I hope that helps.
>>
>>Best,
>>
>>John
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>John Grinstead
>>Associate Editor
>>Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics
>>Department of Spanish and Portuguese
>>The Ohio State University
>>298 Hagerty Hall - 1775 College Road
>>Columbus, OH 43210
>>
>>Tel. 614.292.8856
>>Fax. 614.292.7726
>><mailto:grinstead.11 at osu.edu>grinstead.11 at osu.edu
>>https://u.osu.edu/langlab/
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>From: Frederick Newmeyer
>><<mailto:fredericknewmeyer at gmail.com>fredericknewmeyer at gmail.com>
>>Reply-To:
>>"<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>info-childes at googlegroups.com"
>><<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>info-childes at googlegroups.com>
>>Date: Thursday, September 25, 2014 1:24 PM
>>To:
>>"<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>info-childes at googlegroups.com"
>><<mailto:info-childes at googlegroups.com>info-childes at googlegroups.com>
>>Subject: 'learning paths' instead of parameters
>>
>>Dear colleagues,
>>
>>I hope that you don't mind a question from an
>>outsider who has a very small mastery of the acquisition literature.
>>
>>There is a recently-developed approach to
>>formal syntax that has abandoned the idea of
>>innate parameters directing the course of
>>acquisition. In their place, it posits
>>universal 'learning paths', determined by
>>'general cognitive optimization strategies',
>>and whose operation to a considerable degree
>>mimics the work once done by parameter
>>hierarchies. In a nutshell, it posits that for
>>any structural (or constructional?) domain, the
>>child makes the most general hypothesis first,
>>and then gradually over time zeros in on the adult grammar.
>>
>>Let me give a concrete example. Let's say that
>>a language is consistently head-final except in
>>NP, where the noun precedes its complements.
>>However, there is a definable class of nouns in
>>this language do follow their complements. And
>>a few nouns in this language behave
>>idiosyncratically in terms of the positioning
>>of their specifiers and complements (much like
>>the English word 'enough', which is one of the
>>few degree modifiers that follows the adjective).
>>
>>According to the theory I am describing, the
>>child will go through the following stages of acquisition:
>>1. First s/he will assume that ALL phrases are head-final, even noun phrases.
>>2. Next s/he will assume that ALL NPs are head-initial
>>3. Next s/he will learn the class of exceptions to 2.
>>4. Finally, s/he will learn the purely idiosyncratic exceptions.
>>
>>Is there any evidence that acquisition actually
>>proceeds in this 'orderly' manner? I remember
>>from years ago some inconclusive discussion
>>about the 'subset principle', but I would very
>>very interested to hear what you have to say
>>about recent work that bears on the scenario that I have described above.
>>
>>Thanks!
>>
>>-fritz
>>
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Prof.ssa Maria Teresa Guasti Ph.D.
Full Professor of Linguistics and Psycholinguistics
University of Milano-Bicocca
Department of Psychology
Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1
20126 Milano
mariateresa.guasti at unimib.it
<http://www.psicologia.unimib.it/03_persone/scheda_personale.php?personId=63>http://www.psicologia.unimib.it/03_persone/scheda_personale.php?personId=63
www.cladproject.eu
<http://www.bilinguismoconta.it>www.bilinguismoconta.it
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