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Chapter 9: Language

2Language

Structure

Semantics Errors

Phonology

Grice Maxims

SyntaxWhorf

Language & Cognition

Pragmatics

Comprehension & Production

Perception

Neuro

TextSentence

Word Meaning

Modularity

Intro

Morphology

ReadingStory

Grammars

Introduction• What is language?

– Organized system of combining words in order to communicate

– Spoken, written, signed, …

• Communication– Exchange of thoughts and feelings: language +

gestures, glances, handshakes, etc.

• Language universal– Every culture has language– Rules followed (but learning grammar difficult)– Common features across languages: sounds,

meaning, syntax, …– Deaf children invent language

3 Characteristics of Language

• Hockett proposed 14 common characteristics of language, including following:– Semanticity: conveys meaning– Arbitrariness: meaning unrelated to form– Discreteness: no continuous variables (saying

things louder doesn’t change meaning)– Productivity: infinite possibilities (if Martians landed

tomorrow, we could talk about them)– Displacement: can describe things that aren’t there

(situational freedom)– Duality of Patterning: reuse simple meaningless

units to create meaningful utterances

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Structure of Language• Language complex process requires analysis

at multiple levels (F9.1 +1)– Phonemes: sounds of language

– Morphemes: smallest meaningful units

– Syntax: rules for putting sentences together

– Semantics: rules to associate meaning with sentences

– Pragmatics: social assumptions of language

• Many regularities and rules of which most users not even aware– Much Implicit Learning in language

5 A simple English sentence 6

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Phonology

• Two approaches– Phonetics: speech sounds and how produced

– Phonology: way sounds combined & altered

• Phoneme– Smallest unit of sound that makes meaning

different: e.g., beat-seat, coat-coal, fit-fat…

– Combined to create words

– English about 40 phonemes: more than letters

– Table 9.1 shows some (+1)

– Number varies across languages: some sounds not present in some languages (e.g., r/l Japanese)

7 Some English Phonemes 8

Consonants

Vowels

• Speakers control structures in vocal tract

• Vowels: continuous air flow, sustainable

• Consonants, vary in– Place of articulation: /p/

bilabial, /th/ dental– Manner of articulation: air

flow stop total=/t/ or partial=/s/

– Voicing: vocal cord vibration (voiced) or not (voiceless)

/b/ vs. /p/ /v/ vs. /f/ /z/ vs. /s/

9Producing Phonemes Phonological

“Rules”

• Native speakers learn certain implicit rules, such as how to pronounce plural and past phonemes at end of words

• /s/ cats, tips, laughs, …• /z/ dads, bibs, dogs, …• /ez/ churches, kisses,

judges, …

• /t/ kissed, washed, coughed, …

• /d/ loved, jogged, teased, …

• /ed/ patted, waded, seeded, …

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• Experience and Discrimination of Speech Sounds – Hindi has two ts that sound identical to English speakers– All born to recognize speech sounds from any language,

but without support from environment, capacity is lost

100908070

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

%Correct

Hindi-speakingadults

6-8 months

8-10months

10-12months

English-speakingadults

Infants from English-speaking homes

11 Categorical Perception of Phonemes

• Categorical Perception– Perceive phonemes as falling into discrete

categories of sound

– /b/, /d/, /g/: Liberman et al (1957); Lisker & Abramson (1970) used synthetic speech and varied acoustic parameter in continuous way to produce gradual change from /b/ to /g/

– Labeling task: slide 13

– Comparison task: slides 14 & 15

– Both show evidence of categorical perception

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ba - ga

0102030405060708090

100

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

% "

ga

" r

esp

on

ses

13 Categorical Discrimination

0102030405060708090

100

1 vs 2 2 vs 3 3 vs 4 4 vs 5 5 vs 6 6 vs 7 7vs 8Perc

ent

Corr

ect

Dis

crim

inations

Even transition steps, but only reliably perceive 4 vs. 5 as

different

14

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Ba1 vs.

Ba3

Ba2 vs.

Ba4

Ba3 vs.

Pa5

Ba4 vs.

Pa6

Pa5 vs.

Pa7

Pa6 vs.

Pa8

Pa7 vs.

Pa9

# “

Sa

me

” r

esp

on

ses

Results for another 2600 Class

“Ba”= 1,2,3,4“Pa”= 5,6,7,8,9

15 Theories of Speech Perception• Two views

– Speech special– Speech just another form of auditory perception

• Motor Theory (speech special)– Hearing speech sound � activates representation of

how sound produced– Specialized module– Perceive categorically because produced that way

• Auditory Theory– Regular auditory processes– Match speech to closest prototype: various /b/ sounds

still sound like /b/ more than /g/

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Morphology• Morphemes– Composed of phonemes– Smallest unit of language that

has meaning• dog, table, bake• -ed, -ing, • but not: /p/, /st/, cats

• Free morphemes: morphemes that stand alone– sleep, blue, at, the

• Bound morphemes: need to be combined with other morphemes– -s, -ful, -ness

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Morpheme practiceUnbreakable

Free: break

Bound: un-, -able

Mary unlocked her car.

Free: Mary, lock, car

Bound: un-, -ed

Inflectional Morphology• Changes usage without

altering basic meaning• Usually small grammatical

changes• Tense

– bake → baked, run →running

– English (usually) signals past tense using rule that adds -d, -t, or -Id

– raised /rezd/, baked /bekt/, tasted /testId/

• Number: add -s, -z, -Iz– cats /kaets/, dogs /dagz/,

horses /horsIz/

18Derivational Morphology• Morphemes change word’s

meaning• Usually changes

grammatical class• e.g., -ly creates adverbs

from adjectives– quick (adj) � quick-ly

(adv)– absolute (adj) �

absolute-ly (adv)• -able creates adjectives

from verbs– use (v) � use-able (adj)

• -ness…– happy (adj) � happi-

ness (n)

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Productivity of Morphology• Speakers can create huge words using morphology

– antidisestablishmentarianism

• easier example: uncomfortable• [un [comfort[able]]]

– comfort (n)– comfort-able (adj)– un-comfortable (adj)

• Note speakers always process morphemes in pairs– i.e., add one morpheme at a time

• Iterative process – Morphology can apply repeatedly

19 Learning English Morphology

• Order of acquisition relatively fixed across children– -ing “mommy is

running”– plural -s “two cats”– possessive –s “daddy’s

socks”– third person -s “the girl

laughs”– irregular past “the girl

took the ball”– regular past –ed “the

dolly danced with me”

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• Some interesting anomalies– Stage 1: correct past

tense for frequent but irregular verbs

– Stage 2: start to use rule and applied (wrongly) to irregular verbs (comed, camed)

– Stage 3: correct, including exceptions

Children & Productivity?• Morphology: Appears

rule-based– walk-ed, talk-ed…– talk-ing, break-ing…– table-s, cat-s…

• Productive– emails, blogging,

unfriended• Do children learn

productive rules?– Or just memorize?

• How to test this? Berko(1958) wug test

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This is a wug.

Here is another one.There are two _____.

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What WugStudy Shows

• Children produce plurals for new words

• Not memorization– Learned morpheme

for plurality

• Evidence for productivity – As early as 3 years

• Order (�)– Not due just to

frequency in parent speech (italic #s), but other qualities (+1)

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1

2

4

3

5

6

7

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Syntax• Syntax or Grammar

– Concerns structure of sentences• Sentences have structure, more than words stuck together

haphazardly

• Sentences consist of constituents (parts) and syntax concerns rules about ordering constituents

– Two requirements• Valid for legal sentences AND invalid for illegal sentences

– Many speakers not aware of rules of syntax

• What makes these sentences different?– Bob chases Mary vs. Mary chases Bob– The intern who the president liked left vs. The intern

who liked the president left

25 Syntax Example

• Native speakers appreciate which of following are valid utterances• 1. She’s a red-haired student of physics

• 2. She’s a physics student with red hair

• 3. She’s a red-haired physics student

• 4. She’s a physics red-haired student

• 5. She’s a student of physics with red hair

• 6. She’s a student with red hair of physics

• What kind of syntactical rules do we “know” that allows for such discrimination?

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Phrase Structure Rules• Sentences are made up of phrases

– In English, Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase, in that order

– Sentence � NP + VP

• Phrases consist of words and phrases

– NP � (DET) + (ADJ) + N

• A noun phrase is made up of an optional determiner, an optional adjective, and a noun

– VP � (AUX) + V + (NP) + (ADV)

• At least one verb and whatever the verb acts on (if anything)

• Phrase structure rules that underly a sentence can be conceptualized as Phrase Structure Tree (+1)

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S�NP+VP

VP�(AUX)+V+(NP)+(ADV)NP�(DET)+(ADJ)+N

Psychological Reality of PS Rules

• Sentence memory studies– Transition Error Probability: in learning sentences,

people make more errors or stop at boundary between NP and VP

• Reading Pauses– Pauses longer and more distinct at phrase

structure boundaries

• Reaction Time– RT to initiate saying memorized sentence depends

on syntactic complexity of sentence (+1)

29 • RT to initiate saying memorized sentences varying in syntactic complexity– S-The river …– LL-The large and

raging river …

– LM-The river near their city …

– LH-The river that stopped flooding …

– …empties into the bay that borders the little town

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Transformational Grammar • Sometimes sentences are ambiguous

– Syntactic ambiguity• The kids saw the man with the telescope• Visiting relatives can be boring• The shooting of the hunters was terrible

• Transformational Grammar (Chomsky)– Two levels of structure

• Surface Structure: order of words in sentence• Deep Structure: tree diagram depicts abstract

grammatical relationships underlying sentence

• Transformational Rules: convert different phrase structures (e.g., active � passive)

– Ambiguous sentences have multiple possible deep structures (+1)

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Semantics• How can theories explain following?– Anomaly: Why can’t we

say “Chocolate ice cream can drive a car”?

– Self-contradiction: Why can’t we say “My cat is not an animal”?

– Synonymy: Why does “John is not old enough” mean the same as “John is too young”?

– Entailment: Why does “Pat is my aunt” mean that Pat is female?

• Explained partly by Semantic Memory and Concepts & Categories

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• Syntax also important for understanding– Syntax & Meaning

• The professor failed the student vs.

• The student failed the professor

• More in Language Comprehension & Production

Pragmatics• Social rules of language

– Do not interrupt, Stay on Topic, …– Language Conventions, such as Greetings (“hello”)

• Context matters– What you’re talking about – Who you are– Who you’re talking to

• Searle’s Speech Act Theory: different types of utterances entail different responses– Assertives: It’s cold today.– Directives: Open the window. (It’s hot in here.)– Commissives: I promise to study tonight.– Expressives: I thank you for helping me.– Declarations: You’re fired.

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• Pragmatics may vary across cultures– How close to stand to other

person

– Nonverbal cues: tone, facial expression, …

• Develop early in childhood, for typical children (, +1)

35• Pragmatics includes non-literal (i.e., figurative)

aspects of meaning– “Sally dropped the ball on that one”

• After a baseball game vs. After a job interview– Metaphor, Irony, Sarcasm, …

• Pragmatics often exploited in advertising– Implications: ads may not explicitly say that their product

will cure your problems, but certainly implied (“Are you tired of feeling run-down?”)

• Pragmatic Language Observation Scale ()

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• Pragmatic Rating Scale (�)– Autism Spectrum

Disorder, Fragile X, Down Syndrome, Typical

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Language Comprehension & Production

• Speech Perception– Complexities of auditory perception of speech

• Speech Errors in Production– Spoonerisms and other speech errors

• Retrieving Meaning of Single Words– Direct and Indirect Access

• Sentence Comprehension• Comprehending Text

• Gricean Maxims of Cooperative Conversation

37 Speech Perception• Complex perceptual task

– Speech is continuous. No clear pause or break in sound between words. (F9.4 +1)

– Phoneme sound depends on context (F9.5 +1)

• How do we do it?– Categorical perception: pa / da as function of VOT– Visual cues help identify sounds

• Talking face-to-face easier than phone• McGurk Effect: mouth movements affect perception of

sound demo: Auditory ba paired with visual ba/va/tha/gaproduces perception of ba/va/tha/da

– Use speech context• Phoneme Restoration Effect (+2)

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No clear break between phonemes ()

Phonemes depend on surrounding context (�)

Phonemic Restoration Effect• Replace phoneme with cough (*)

– It was found that the *eel was on the axle.

– It was found that the *eel was on the axle.

– It was found that the *eel was on the shoe.

– It was found that the *eel was on the orange.

– It was found that the *eel was on the table.

– People “hear” w, h, p, and m sounds without realizing they were missing.

– Context is very helpful!

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Speech Production Errors• Sound Substitutions and

Movements– Sue keeps food in her vesk. d�v

– Keep your hands off my weet speas. s shifts

– We need to wash the pons and pats. Exchange sounds

• Meaning-Related Errors– I stubbed my finger.

• Rarely both, which suggests different stages of production

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toe

finger

body part

“I stubbed my” …. TOE idea

Meaning & Single Words• How do we recognize individual words?• Have already discussed some relevant

theories and findings• Priming Effects in Lexical Decision Task (LDT)

– Related Prime � Target

– Faster than Unrelated Prime � Target

– Neely (+1) proposed two processes

• Two general models (+2)– Direct-Access: Word�Semantic Representation

– Indirect-Access (Phonological): Word�Phonology�Semantic Representation

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Neely & Semantic Priming

• Two processes– Spreading activation: fast

– Expectancy-driven process: slow

– Instructed subjects to expect DIFFERENT category (switch instructions)

– Varied Prime to Target delay: 250ms or 750ms

– Results below: 0 no effect, + faster, - slower

Target

Prime Expect foot, … window, …

Building Body 250ms 0 +

750ms + -

43 Direct vs. Indirect access

• Evidence that phonology activated?• Homophones

– Word pairs with same sounds but different spellings & meanings: reed & read; buy & bye

– Lexical Decision Time (word vs non-word judgment) slower for homophones, especially low frequency words

• Van Orden (1987)– Category verification task: Flower

• Tulip (member of category)

• Rows (homophone of member of category) – MORE ERRORS• Robs (orthography similar to member of category)

• Dual Access Model

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Sentence Comprehension• How do we comprehend sentences?• “Parsing”

– Decompose syntactic structure of sentence– Assign syntactic categories to words– But sentences not just chains of words

• Time course of Sentence comprehension?– On-line: build mental trees as we listen word by word– Off-line: wait for entire sentence, then parse

• Evidence favors On Line processing– People process single phrase or clause, then discard

exact words and retain meaning– Ambiguity (+1)– Garden Path Sentences (+2)

45 Sentence Ambiguity• Various forms of ambiguity

– Syntactic Ambiguity: discussed earlier (deep structure)– Phonetic Ambiguity

• Sounds in sentence activate multiple irrelevant words• Remember a spoken sentence … Ream ember us poke

can cent tense …• Suggests on-line disambiguation (word selection)

– Lexical Ambiguity (homonyms)• They found a bug in the room.• Both meanings initially activated (e.g., insect / spy) even

when preceding context strongly primes one sense (Swinney, 1979), but after a few syllables (750-1000 ms) only relevant meaning remains activated

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Sentence Comprehension

• Garden Path Sentences• The cotton shirts are made from comes from Arizona.• The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.

– People rely on assumptions about underlying structure, but may need to revise given later information (+1)

– Evidence that people build models (interpretations) as words are heard (i.e., on-line)

• Longer fixation time at first word that disambiguates the sentence

• Selective regressions to prior parts of sentence

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NP

S

The girlV

VP

gave

NP

NPthe letter

PP

Pto

The girl gave the letterto her boyfriend to the postman

NP

her boyfriend

PP

Pto

NP

the postman

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Sentence Comprehension

• How do Syntax and Semantics (Meaning) interact?

• Autonomous view– Analyses of syntax and semantics are

Independent and Serial

– Syntactic structure � Semantics

– Traditional explanation for Garden Path Sentences

• Interactionist view– Syntax and Semantics processed simultaneously

– Two views tested using Garden Path Sentences (+1)

49 Interaction of Syntax & Semantics

Same syntax but differ in plausibility of meaning:

As the woman edited the magazine amused all the reporters.

As the woman sailed the magazine amused all the reporters.

plausible

just silly!

Takes longer to comprehend

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• Two garden path sentences (i.e., magazine initially object of verb), but one more difficult

• Shows semantic influence on syntax

Comprehending Text Passages• Research on larger units of language has focused

on written text• Implicates Reading processes• Reading different than spoken language

• Speech evolutionary, universal, fast, on-line, …

– Human creation: about 3500 BC– Not universal: some cultures no written language

(orthography), dyslexics, illiteracy, …– Learned later, effortful, takes years to be fluent, …– Spaces between words, fonts more uniform, …– Reading spread across space, speech over time– Reader controls rate of input of text– More supplemental cues for speech (pragmatics)

51 Reading• Eye Fixations (demo +1)– Possible to monitor eye movements as people are

reading text– Feels continuous, but …– Series of Saccades (jumps) and Fixations

• Saccade: move from one point to another; no information processing

• Fixations: brief pauses to take in information; length depends on task and properties of material

– Regressive saccades• Backtracking (engine contains)

– Good vs. Poor readers• Size of Saccades & Regressions (below), Length of Fixations

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Poor

Good

Eye Fixations (Box 9.2) 53 Eye Fixations• Determinants of Eye Fixation duration

– Content vs. Function words: fixate longer on meaningful, less on function words (the, or, an)

– Only about 65% of words fixated: skip some• Function, High frequency, Shorter• Highly constrained by context

– Familiarity: Word Frequency and Length– Slower to read sentences with higher Propositional

Complexity (units of meaning), not necessarily sentences with more words (F9.6, +1)

– Relations between sentences: “given” vs “new” information; best when “given” still in memory

• Sometimes requires inferences (e.g., Bridging Inferences)

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55 Eye Movements• Eyes always attending ahead in direction of

reading• Perceptual span

– Nearby letters that eyes see when fixated– English: 3 to left, 15 to right– Hebrew: 15 to left, 3 to right– Influenced by difficulty of text

• Parafoveal– Word length determination: fixate or skip?

• Perhaps why Dyslexics make smaller saccades

– Also some pre-processing of upcoming words?• Lower fixation time for words viewed parafoveally

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• Context important for reading and understanding text– Ambiguous story (Box 9-

3): “If the balloons popped, the sound wouldn’t be able to carry since everything would be too far away from the correct floor. …”

– Memory much better if picture shown before story, but NOT if after story.

– Helps develop a coherent mental representation.

57 Story Grammar 58• Script for stories• Better memory

for stories that adhere to story grammar

• Stories “revised” in memory to fit script

• Higher level elements recalled better (see Box 9.4)

Maxims of Conversation• Grice proposed four maxims for cooperative

conversation– Quantity: Make contribution just as informative as

it needs to be, no more, no less

– Quality: Be truthful, or at least make it clear when you are being sarcastic!

– Relation: Be relevant

– Manner: Be clear, avoid ambiguity, be brief

• Inferences made about people who violate the maxims

59 Language and Cognition• Modularity hypothesis

(Fodor)– Language module set apart

from other thought processes (at least some aspects of language separate)

– Language domain specific: operates with certain kinds of input and not others

– Informationally encapsulated: operates independent of other cognitive processes (modules)

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Linguistic Relativity (Whorfian) Hypothesis

• In contrast to Modular Hypothesis, Whorf (1956) and others proposed that languages affect how people experience world and behave– Whorf studied North American Indian languages

– Proposed that language affects how people organize information

– Language used to pass knowledge across generations

– No words for concept = no concept• No words for green & blue, cannot talk about difference• No spatial terms, cannot use maps

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ColourStudies

• Much research on colournaming, perception, & memory (Rosch, 1972)– Colours vary continuously

in wavelength of light ()– Languages vary in # colour

names (+1)– Americans many color

names and Dani only 2– Tested colour perception,

discrimination, & memory– NO differences??

• Universal model of colourperception?

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63Color Terms Across Languages More Studies on Colour

• Recent studies report subtle effects• Roberson: study of Berinmo (+1)

– Recognition Memory Task• Shown colour chip and 30 seconds later tried to pick

chip from array of colour chips• Tended to select chips with same name in Berinmo,

rather than English colour “categories”

– Similarity Judgments• Shown 3 colour chips and choose which one least like

others• Excluded chip with different name even if closer to one

of others on colour spectrum: e.g., NOL1, NOL2, WOR

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English (top) & Berinmo (bottom) 65 • Due to verbal encoding?– Study colour

chip

– Interference task: Verbal (colour names) or Visual (colourchips)

– Test colourmemory

– Between-category effect disappears

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Within Category

Between Category

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• Winawer (2007)– Russian speakers distinguish lighter (goluboy?) &

darker (siniy?) blues– Select same colour chip, faster for between-category

– Spatial or Verbal distracting task– Verbal: Between-category effect disappears

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English

Russian

Relativity Conclusions

• Myth: “Eskimo has gazillion words for snow”– Actually Inuktitut

– Not multiple words that mean snow, but multiple ways to describe snow

– Single Inuktitut words vs. English sentence

– Tiiturumavit? Would you like some tea?

• Strong version of Whorfian hypothesis probably not correct

• But more subtle effects of language, perhaps only when language actually used during task

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Neuropsychology & Language• Localization of Language

– What areas of brain contribute to language functioning?

• Evidence from cases of Aphasia– Areas shown on next slide

– Broca’s area: Damage associated with difficulties producing spoken language (expressive aphasia).

– Wernicke’s area: Damage associated1 with difficulties comprehending spoken language (receptive aphasia).

• More specific localization (right)

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Generating

Pronouncing

Listening

Seeing

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• Language often localized in left hemisphere– Varies with handedness– RH: 96% left, 4% right– LH: 70% right, 15% left,

15% both hemispheres

• Kimura– Dichotic listening shows

right ear advantage, but not in people with language in Left Hemisphere

– Language organized somewhat differently for males and females

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RH Language

LH Language

Individual Differences& Applications

• Relevant findings distributed throughout notes

• Individual Differences– Effects of Age, Culture (Language), Psychological

Disorders, …

• Applications– Implications for Education, Clinical

Neuropsychology, …

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