Updated September 2016 Janet Dean Fodor CURRICULUM VITAE Address
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THE UPS and DOWNS of CHILD LANGUAGE: Experimental Studies
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF CHILD LANGUAGE: Experimental Studies on Children’s Knowledge of Entailment Relations and Polarity Phenomena By Andrea Gualmini Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2003 Advisory Committee: Professor Stephen Crain, Chair/Advisor Professor Norbert Hornstein Professor Paul M. Pietroski Professor Rosalind Thornton Professor John F. Horty, Dean’s Representative © Copyright by Andrea Gualmini 2003 ABSTRACT Title of the Dissertation: The Ups and Downs of Child Language Andrea Gualmini, Doctor of Philosophy, 2003 Dissertation directed by: Stephen Crain, Professor Department of Linguistics Downward Entailment is a semantic property common to many linguistic expressions across natural languages (Ladusaw, 1979). This dissertation takes downward entailment as a yardstick in assessing children’s semantic competence. First, downward entailment is used as a case study for several alternative models of language acquisition, including those recently proposed by Tomasello (2000) and by Pullum and Scholz (2002). According to these researchers, children are initially conservative, and tend to (re)produce linguistic expressions that they have experienced in the input. Even at later stages, when children form generalizations, children’s linguistic generalizations are directly tied to the input, i based on domain general learning mechanisms. These models are contrasted with one based on the principles and parameters of Universal Grammar. In an experimental study using the Truth Value Judgment task (Crain and Thornton, 1998), these alternative models are put to a test by investigating a phenomenon that displays a mismatch between the data available to the child and the semantic competence the child acquires, namely the interaction between downward entailment and c-command. -
The Growth of Language: Universal Grammar, Experience, and Principles of Computation
G Model NBR-2698; No. of Pages 18 ARTICLE IN PRESS Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews xxx (2017) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neubiorev Review article The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation a,∗ b c d e,f Charles Yang , Stephen Crain , Robert C. Berwick , Noam Chomsky , Johan J. Bolhuis a Department of Linguistics and Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 619 Williams Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19081, USA b Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia c Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA d Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge MA, USA e Cognitive Neurobiology and Helmholtz Institute, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands f Department of Zoology and St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, UK a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Human infants develop language remarkably rapidly and without overt instruction. We argue that the Received 13 September 2016 distinctive ontogenesis of child language arises from the interplay of three factors: domain-specific prin- Received in revised form ciples of language (Universal Grammar), external experience, and properties of non-linguistic domains 10 November 2016 of cognition including general learning mechanisms and principles of efficient computation. We review Accepted 16 December 2016 developmental evidence that children make use of hierarchically composed structures (‘Merge’) from the Available online xxx earliest stages and at all levels of linguistic organization. -
Disjunction and Conditional in Child Mandarin Yi
Disjunction and Conditional in Child Mandarin Yi (Esther) Su and Stephen Crain Macquarie University This study investigates 3-5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children’s interpretation of disjunction word huozhe ‘or’ in ruguo-conditional sentences. Specifically, we assessed children’s knowledge of a semantic principle conforming to first order logic, namely that disjunction licenses a conjunctive entailment when it appears in the antecedent clause of a conditional, but not in the consequent clause. The results reveal young children’s mastery of this semantic principle in Mandarin Chinese. In particular, children demonstrated adult-like knowledge of the different truth conditions of disjunction in the two clauses of conditional sentences. Together with previous psycholinguistic findings (Crain 2008), the data suggest that the interpretation of logical words in child language sometimes conforms to classical logic. This, in turn, provides further evidence for logical nativism (Crain & Khlentzos 2008, 2010), according to which children draw upon an innate knowledge of logical expressions such as disjunction and conditional at the initial stage of language acquisition. 1. Introduction Logical connectives such as and, or, so, because, and if can be used to express logical relationships, upon which formal principles of reasoning and logical systems are based. Over the past four decades, children’s knowledge of these connectives has attracted considerate attention from scholars interested in the logical competence and development of the human mind (see e.g. Piaget 1969, Johnson-Laird & Byrne 2002, Braine & Rumain 1983 among others). It is widely believed, however, young children’s initial interpretations of these expressions are not based on their logical counterparts (see e.g. -
PUTTING CHILDREN in CONTEXT Luisa Meroni, Doctor of Philosophy
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: PUTTING CHILDREN IN CONTEXT Luisa Meroni, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation directed by: Professor Stephen Crain Department of Linguistics Studies of adult sentence processing have established that the referential context in which sentences are presented plays an immediate role in their interpretation, such that features of the referential context mitigate, and even eliminate, so-called ‘garden-path’ effects. The finding that the context ordinarily obviates garden path effects is compelling evidence for the Referential Theory, advanced originally by Crain and Steedman, (1985) and extended in Altmann and Steedman (1988). Recent work by Trueswell, Sekerina, Hill and Logrip (1999) suggests, however, that children may not be as sensitive as adults to contextual factors in resolving structural ambiguities. This conclusion is not anticipated by the Referential Theory and it also runs counter to the Continuity Assumption, which supposes that children and adults access the same cognitive mechanisms in processing language. The purpose of this work was to reexamine the observations that have led researchers to conclude that children, unlike adults, may lack sensitivity to features of the referential context in comprehension and ambiguity resolution. A series of experiments has been conducted to evaluate this conclusion. The findings show that the performance systems of children and adult differ minimally. Children are sensitive to the same features of the referential context as adults are, and they make use -
Language Acquisition from a Biolinguistic Perspective
Language Acquisition from a Biolinguistic Perspective Stephen Craina*, Loes Koringb and Rosalind Thorntona a Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia b Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia *Corresponding author at: Department of Linguistics, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University NSW 2109, E-mail address: [email protected] 1 Abstract This paper describes the biolinguistic approach to language acquisition. We contrast the biolinguistic approach with a usage-based approach. We argue that the biolinguistic approach is superior because it provides more accurate and more extensive generalizations about the properties of human languages, as well as a better account of how children acquire human languages. To distinguish between these accounts, we focus on how child and adult language differ both in sentence production and in sentence understanding. We argue that the observed differences resist explanation using the cognitive mechanisms that are invoked by the usage-based approach. In contrast, the biolinguistic approach explains the qualitative parametric differences between child and adult language. Explaining how child and adult language differ and demonstrating that children perceive unity despite apparent diversity are two of the hallmarks of the biolinguistic approach to language acquisition. Keywords: Biolinguistics; Language Acquisition; Unification; Universal Grammar; Structure- dependence; Continuity Assumption; Usage-Based Approach 2 1. Introduction There are many ways we could start this chapter, but a good place to start is with the Modularity Hypothesis. The Modularity Hypothesis supposes that the human mind/brain is comprised of "separate systems [i.e., the language faculty, visual system, facial recognition module, etc.] with their own properties" (Chomsky, 1988, p. -
Nature, Nurture and Universal Grammar
Nature, Nurture and Universal Grammar Stephen Crain and Paul Pietroski University of Maryland at College Park ABSTRACT: In just a few years, children achieve a stable state of linguistic competence, making them effectively adults with respect to: understanding novel sentences, discerning relations of paraphrase and entailment, acceptability judgments, etc. One familiar account of the language acquisition process treats it as an induction problem of the sort that arises in any domain where the knowledge achieved is logically underdetermined by experience. This view highlights the 'cues' that are avaiable in the input to children, as well as children's skills in extracting relevant information and forming generalizations on the basis of the data they receive. Nativists, on the other hand, contend that language-learners project beyond their experience in ways that the input does not even suggest. Instead of viewing language acqusition as a special case of theory induction, nativists posit a Universal Grammar, with innately specified linguistic principles of grammar formation. The "nurture versus nature" debate continues, as various "poverty of stimulus" arguments are challenged or supported by developments in linguistic theory and by findings from psycholinguistic investigations of child language. In light of some recent challenges to nativism, we rehearse old poverty-of- stimulus arguments, and supplement them by drawing on more recent work in linguistic theory and studies of child language. 1. Introduction In the normal course of events, children acquire remarkable linguistic capacities in just a few years. After an initial period of rapid linguistic development, children stabilize and henceforth manifest linguistic competence that is equivalent to other members of their community. -
Review of the Year 2014-2015
INSPIRING EXCELLENCE REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2014/15 British Academy Review of the year 2014/15 1 CONTENTS Our Mission: To inspire, recognise and support high achievement in the humanities and social sciences throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value. 02 INTRODUCTION 15 STRENGTHENING POLICYMAKING Providing independent contributions 04 THE YEAR IN NUMBERS to public policy development, enhancing the policymaking process. The following sections reflect the six strategic priorities set 17 ENGAGING WITH THE PUBLIC out in the Academy’s Strategic Stimulating public interest in and Framework 2013–2018: understanding of the humanities and social sciences, and contributing 06 CHAMPIONING THE HUMANITIES to public debate. aND SOCIAL SCIENCES 19 PROMOTING INTERNatiONALISM Taking a lead in representing the Promoting UK research in humanities and social sciences, international arenas, fostering a global promoting their interests and approach across UK research and vigorously upholding their value. providing leadership in developing 08 ADVANCING RESEARCH global research links and expertise. Providing distinctive and 22 ABOUT THE ACADEMY complementary funding opportunities for outstanding people and innovative research. 12 FOSTERING EXCELLENCE Strengthening, extending and diversifying ways of recognising and celebrating high achievement in the humanities and social sciences. British Academy Review of the year 2014/15 1 INTRODUCTION This Review of the Year presents a Exemplifying this are the first three series In its policy activities, the Academy has The second, with the Department for summary of highlights from the past of The British Academy Debates. These took carried out highly regarded work on the International Development, will create a year, showing how the British Academy public discussions of a selected theme – UK’s constitution and on the multiple new body of international research on ways Ageing, then Immigration, then Well-being issues surrounding Scottish devolution. -
The Growth of Language: Universal Grammar, Experience, and Principles of Computation
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 81 (2017) 103–119 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews jou rnal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neubiorev Review article The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation a,∗ b c d e,f Charles Yang , Stephen Crain , Robert C. Berwick , Noam Chomsky , Johan J. Bolhuis a Department of Linguistics and Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 619 Williams Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19081, USA b Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia c Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA d Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge MA, USA e Cognitive Neurobiology and Helmholtz Institute, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands f Department of Zoology and St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, UK a r a t i b s c t l e i n f o r a c t Article history: Human infants develop language remarkably rapidly and without overt instruction. We argue that the Received 13 September 2016 distinctive ontogenesis of child language arises from the interplay of three factors: domain-specific prin- Received in revised form ciples of language (Universal Grammar), external experience, and properties of non-linguistic domains 10 November 2016 of cognition including general learning mechanisms and principles of efficient computation. We review Accepted 16 December 2016 developmental evidence that children make use of hierarchically composed structures (‘Merge’) from the Available online 7 January 2017 earliest stages and at all levels of linguistic organization. -
Remembering Jerry Fodor and His Work
DOI: 10.1111/mila.12206 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Remembering Jerry Fodor and his work1 Georges Rey Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland This is a reminiscence and short biographical sketch of Correspondence the late philosopher and cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor. It Department of Philosophy, University of includes a summary of his main proposals about the mind: Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. his “Language of Thought” hypothesis; his rejection of Email: [email protected] analyticity and conceptual role semantics; his “mad dog nativism”; his proposal of mental modules and—by contrast—his skepticism about a computational theory of central cognition; his anti-reductionist, but still physicalist, views about psychology; and, lastly, his attacks on selec- tionism. I conclude with some discussion of his idiosyn- cratic style and of his aesthetic and other interests. An appendix provides some memorable quotes. KEYWORDS antiselectionism, confirmation holism, language of thought, nativism, referentialism 1 | SOME INTRODUCTORY PERSONAL NOTES After a long illness, the philosopher Jerry Fodor died on November 29, 2017. This was a great loss not only to his family and many friends but also to philosophy and cognitive science. For reasons I hope will emerge in this remembrance, he was indisputably the most important philosopher of psy- chology of his generation.2 I first met Fodor on a wintry evening in February 1974. I had been a graduate student at Harvard for several years, still to some extent under the spell of Wittgenstein and Quine, whose views then dominated the philosophy of mind, there and elsewhere. My entering class had been expressly warned by Quine's close colleague, Burton Dreben, to avoid (in Wittgenstein's famous phrase) “the grip of the picture” of traditional mentalism—which, he claimed, underlay the work of Chomsky and 1 I make no pretense of covering all of Fodor's views, which are far too rich for summary in a journal article. -
Language Acquisition
Hewlett Project in Cognitive Science, Pomona College Language Acquisition Stephen Crain and Rosalind Thornton Macquarie University Every normal child acquires a language in just a few years. By four or five, children have effectively become adults in their abilities to produce and understand endlessly many sentences in a variety of conversational contexts. There are two alternative accounts of the course of children's language development. These different perspectives can be traced back to the NATURE VERSUS NURTURE debate about how knowledge is acquired in any cognitive domain. One perspective dates back to Plato’s dialogue “The Meno”. In this dialogue, the protagonist, Socrates, demonstrates to Meno, an Aristocrat in Ancient Greece, that a young slave knows more about geometry than he could have learned from experience. By extension, PLATO’S PROBLEM refers to any gap between experience and knowledge. How children fill in the gap in the case of language continues to be the subject of much controversy in cognitive science. Any model of language acquisition must address three factors, inter alia: (1) the knowledge children accrue (2) the input children receive (often called the PRIMARY LINGUISTIC DATA) (3) the nonlinguistic capacities of children to form and test generalizations based on the input According to the famous linguist Noam Chomsky, the main task of linguistics is to explain how children bridge the gap – Chomsky calls it a ‘chasm’ -- between what children ultimately know, and what they could have learned from experience, even given optimistic assumptions about their cognitive abilities. Proponents of the alternative 'nurture' approach accuse nativists like Chomsky of overestimating the complexity of what children learn, underestimating the data they have to work with, and undue pessimism about their abilities to extract information based on the input. -
Curriculum Vitae Diane C. Lillo-Martin
May 19, 2017 Curriculum Vitae Diane C. Lillo-Martin Office Address Home Address University of Connecticut 1057 Storrs Road Department of Linguistics Storrs, CT 06268 365 Fairfield Way, Unit-1145 Storrs, CT 06269-1145 Phone: 860-486-0155 Cell: 860-455-5174 Fax: 860-486-0197 Email: [email protected] Webpage: http://linguistics.uconn.edu/profile/lillo-martin.html Education 1981 BA, California State University, Northridge Major: Linguistics; Minor: Anthropology 1983 MA, Linguistics, University of California, San Diego 1983 Student, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, UCLA 1985 Visitor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1986 Ph.D., Linguistics, University of California, San Diego Dissertation: Parameter Setting: Evidence from Use, Acquisition, and Breakdown in American Sign Language Supervisor: Edward S. Klima Professional Experience 1980-1981 Tutor, Linguistics Program; California State University, Northridge 1983-1985 Teaching Assistant, Department of Linguistics; University of California, San Diego 1982-1986 Research Assistant, Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Studies; The Salk Institute; La Jolla, CA 1986-1993 Assistant Professor, Linguistics Department; University of Connecticut 1986-present Research Associate; Senior Research Scientist; Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 1993-1998 Associate Professor, Linguistics Department; University of Connecticut 1995-2007 Department Head, Linguistics Department; University of Connecticut 1998-2009 Professor, Linguistics Department; University of Connecticut 2007-present -
Principles and Parameters Theory and Language Acquisition
Text of an entry to appear in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language Sciences , edited by Patrick Hogan. Cambridge University Press. PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS THEORY AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION William Snyder and Diane Lillo-Martin University of Connecticut Nativism The basic idea in PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS THEORY is to distinguish the invariants of human language (the principles ) from the major points of cross- linguistic variation (the parameters ). Both principles and parameters are taken to reflect innately determined, biological characteristics of the human brain (see UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR ). In the course of normal child development, however, the two diverge: The principles come to operate in much the same way in every child, with minimal sensitivity to the child’s environment, while the parameters take on distinct values as a function of the child’s linguistic input. The term parameter is normally reserved for points of narrowly restricted variation. The Principles and Parameters (P&P) framework also acknowledges that languages vary in ways that are relatively unconstrained by Universal Grammar, such as the exact form of vocabulary items. These latter points of variation are usually treated as arbitrary idiosyncrasies, to be listed in the LEXICON . The P&P framework has its origins in the two foundational questions of modern linguistics (Chomsky 1981): What exactly do you know, when you know your native language? And how did you come to know it? A satisfactory answer to these questions must address the POVERTY OF THE STIMULUS , including the fact that children are not reliably corrected when they make a grammatical error (Brown and Hanlon 1970; Marcus 1993).