What is language?
•Not all forms of communication constitute
true “language” use
•Language must be
–Regular (governed by rules)
–Productive (expresses an infinite number of ideas)
–Arbitrary
–Discrete
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Understanding Language: Phonemes, Morphemes, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics, Slides of Brain and Cognitive Science
An introduction to the fundamental concepts of language, including phonemes and morphemes, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. It covers the structure of language, the role of rules, productivity, and arbitrariness, and discusses examples of syntax, phrase structure rules, and transformation rules. The document also touches upon issues of semantics and pragmatics, and explores the question of language in other species.
Typology: Slides
2011/2012
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What is language?
- Not all forms of communication constitute true “language” use
- Language must be
- Regular (governed by rules)
- Productive (expresses an infinite number of ideas)
- Arbitrary
- Discrete
Language structure
- Phonemes = basic units of sound in a language
- Morphemes = smallest meaningful units of sound in a language
- Syntax: rules for legal sentence structure in a given language
- Semantics: meaning
- Pragmatics: practical aspects
What is syntax?
- Part of grammar that mediates the pairing of symbol and meaning - Involves rules for combining words into meaningful phrases, sentences - Word order rules add meaning by assigning roles such as subject, object to words The boy hit the girl. The girl hit the boy.
A simple set of phrase
structure rules:
• S NP TENSE VP
• NP (DET) N
• TENSE {PRESENT, PAST, FUTURE}
• VP V (NP) (AP)
Transformation rules allow
us to transform a basic
sentence into alternative
forms:
- Did the girl break the toy?
- The toy was broken by the girl.
- The hikers climbed up the mountain.
- Up the mountain the hikers climbed.
Issues of Semantics
- Why can’t we say “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”?
- How can ambiguities exist? (1 sentence meaning two different things)
- Why does “Paula is my aunt” imply that Paula is female?
“Language” in other species?
Early attempts to teach chimpanzees to speak:
•Kellogg and Kellogg, “Gua,” 1933
•Hayes and Hayes, “Viki,” 1951
Breakthrough: Gardener & Gardener, “Washoe,” 1966
Washoe
- Learned 132 signs in first 51 months of training
- Combined signs to make new words
- Mostly simple phrases, “telegraphic” speech
- Some pragmatics shown
Other “language users”
- “Sarah” - trained by the Premacks - used a colored shape language
- “Lana” - trained by the Rumbaughs - used a computer console and special language called “Yerkish”
Is this really language?
Characteristics of true language:
- Abstract/arbitrary symbols
- Example: English word “dog”
- Sign language examples:
water bird
“Nim Chimpsky”
New Developments
- Roger Fouts (1984) -
- Let Washoe adopt a foster son, “Loulis”
- Loulis never trained by humans, only by Washoe
- Imitated Washoe’s signs after only a few days
- Quickly developed a vocabulary of 55 signs
- Irene Pepperberg and “Alex”
Alex’s understanding of language:
- “What color is corn?”
- Alex’s answer = “yellow” - “What’s the same?” - Alex’s answer = “color”