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Starting Big – the Role of Multi-Word Phrases in Language Learning and Use

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Starting Big – the Role of Multi-Word Phrases in Language Learning and Use STARTING BIG – THE ROLE OF MULTI-WORD PHRASES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND USE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Inbal Arnon Dec 2009 © 2010 by Inbal Arnon. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/zs652gt8462 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Eve Clark, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Daniel Jurafsky I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Michael Ramscar I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Meghan Sumner I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Thomas Wasow Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii ABSTRACT Why are children better language learners than adults? Intuitively, there is a difference between the unstructured (yet successful) way a child learns language and the effortful and often frustrating experience of trying to master a new language as an adult. On an empirical level, non-native speakers rarely reach native proficiency in pronunciation, morphological and syntactic processing, or in the use of formulaic language and idioms. How we understand these differences is related to our conception of first language learning, and of the object of learning – what does it mean to know language? What is it that children or second learners have to learn? In this dissertation, I suggest that the answer lies, at least in part, in the linguistic units that children and adults learn from. I propose the Starting Big Hypothesis: children learn from units that are larger and less analyzed than the ones adults learn from. Because they do not know where word-boundaries are (or even that they exist), infants start out with a mix of words, multi-word fragments (e.g. give-it), and short multi-word utterances (e.g. I- don’t-know or It’s-my-turn), and from this early inventory extract linguistic knowledge. This process of using larger units to learn about smaller ones can lead to better learning of certain grammatical and distributional relations between units, especially when the relations are more semantically opaque, as in the case of grammatical gender, or idiom formation. Adults’ prior knowledge and experience with language leads them to ‘break language down’ in a way that might hinder the learning process. The idea that early units can shape subsequent learning, and that larger units may play a crucial role in achieving native-like proficiency, prompted my investigation into the role of compositional multi-word phrases (units that cross word-boundaries and are semantically and syntactically transparent) in language learning and use. Before we can iv argue that L2 learners make insufficient use of larger units in learning, we have to first show that such units are an integral part of the native speaker’s inventory. I first highlight the prominence of multi-word chunks (unanalyzed units) in children’s early language use. I then show that multi-word phrases play a facilitative role in children’s production even after segmentation has taken place: for example, 4;6 year- olds produce irregular plurals better after sentence-frames they often occur with (e.g. Brush your – teeth) that they do in response to questions (What are those?). These findings show that children attend to larger units, and that such units play a role in the process of lexical and morphological development. Multi-word phrases, I argue, are also part of the adult inventory. In a series of studies, I demonstrate that adult speakers are faster to process higher frequency compositional four-word phrases like don’t have to worry compared to lower frequency ones like don’t have to wait. Since the phrases were matched for part frequency (the frequency of all the unigrams, bigrams and trigrams) and plausibility, this effect must reflect speakers’ knowledge of the frequencies of the whole-phrases. That is, on some level adult speakers have memory traces of phrases that could otherwise have been generated. This in turn undermines the claim that ‘atomic’ and ‘derive’ forms are represented in a qualitatively different way. Children’s enhanced word production after familiar frames and adults’ sensitivity to phrase frequency both illustrate the importance of multi-word phrases in native language learning and use. If adult difficulty in learning a second language is related to the more segmented units they learn from, then their learning outcome should improve if they start with larger chunks of language. I test this prediction by looking at adult learning of grammatical gender in an artificial language. Their learning was facilitated when they learned segmentation, semantics (the labels for objects), and grammar (which article a noun appears with) at the same time. These findings demonstrate that (1) early units can influence subsequent learning, and (2) there is an advantage to learning grammar from segmenting larger units v In examining the size and nature of early linguistic units, I’ve offered a novel perspective on the difficulty that adults experience in learning a second language while at the same time endorsing a usage-based and exemplar-driven approach to first language learning where early experience plays such an important role. My focus on compositional phrases also allowed me to contrast single-system and dual-system approaches to language and to present evidence in support of an emergentist view of language where all linguistic experience (be it atomic or complex) is processed by the same cognitive mechanism. Finally, the Starting Big Hypothesis has theoretical implications for theories of L1 and L2 learning, and practical implications for the teaching of second languages. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I landed in California, a bit over 5 years ago, I wasn’t sure I would stay for long. It seemed like a different world: far away from my home and my community, a sharp contrast with the communal and politically charged reality I grew up in. What drew me to Stanford in the first place, and what I’ve benefited so greatly from, is the stimulating mix of people and ideas, the non-hierarchical, non-conformist, and familial group that is the Stanford Linguistics department. Like many of the worthwhile things in life, this dissertation is very much the product of a community. First and foremost my thanks go to my family, my parents Ruth and Arie and my brother Adam whose presence is a constant anchor and inspiration in my life. Your calls and visits made the distance more bearable. Your love and confidence gave me wings to fly. A special thanks to my mom who read multiple drafts and spent many hours helping me find structure and maintain faith in the project. This dissertation grew out of the Stanford community of linguistics, which provided me a wonderfully stimulating environment to learn in. I came into the program (as Eve often reminds me…) thinking I know what I want to work on. I ended up with a much more complex project that was made possible by the people I learned from and with. Eve Clark has been an inspiring mentor, in all matters academic and beyond. I thank her for numerous discussions, for challenging my ideas when they were not clear, for endless editing, for her encouragement and kindness in every step, and for showing how life and academia can be combined. Dan Jurafsky has been an infinite source of stimulating insight and challenging questions: I could always count on Dan to expose ‘holes’ and inconsistencies in my arguments. His compassion (and brilliance) have made him a wonderful teacher, advisor, and friend. Michael Ramscar has challenged my views on language and learning constantly, exposing me to new ideas and making me ferociously defend the old ones I wanted to keep. Meghan Sumner has been supportive about vii everything from designing stimuli to setting up a lab and submitting papers: I love your critical comments! Tom Wasow has patiently read drafts and asked hard questions. The work in this dissertation benefited enormously from my advisors and intellectual cohort. In particular, the work reported in Chapter 4 could not have been completed without Neal Snider who was an instrumental collaborator from beginning to end. The research in Chapter 3 was done thanks to access to the lovely Bing nursery at Stanford. My thinking about language has been influenced by long debates on grammar with Ivan Sag (as has my time at Stanford, Thank you Ivan for also being a real friend), and my ability to study it was facilitated by the tools taught in Joan Bresnan’s classes.
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