1. Studying grammar through
explanation
• No memorization, drills, or fears
What is Grammar? • Approaching grammar from a linguistically
informed explanatory perspective:
– trying to understand how language works and why
it works the way it does (focusing on sentence
structure)
– language/grammar as a state of mind of a language
speaker
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Knowledge of grammar The ‘Wug’ Test
• We form sentences without consciously thinking • This is a wug.
about them. We do this fluently at a very early
age.
• Yet, we naturally cannot analyze our own
sentence structure. • These are two …
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More unconscious grammar What do we know when we know a
knowledge language?
• Another novel word: flub • Sounds
• How sounds are combined to form larger
– [fl] is an acceptable consonant cluster in units
English
• Words (lexicon, idiosyncratic info)
– Flubs eat chocolate. • Word order (in phrases and sentences)
– John flubbed. • Meaning
• How language is used
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2. Components of Grammar Syntax
• Phonetics (sound systems of languages) • Question formation:
• Phonology (how sounds are combined with one
another) – The presidential candidate will give an expensive
• Morphology (lexicon: words idiosyncratic info)
words, dinner in Lee’s honor.
Lee s honor
• Syntax (how words are combined to form larger – Will the presidential candidate give an expensive
units: phrases and sentences) dinner in Lee’s honor?
• Semantics (meaning)
– *Will give the presidential candidate an
• Pragmatics (language use in specific contexts)
expensive dinner in Lee’s honor?
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3 Questions about Knowledge of
Semantics
Grammar
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
[anomaly] • What does this knowledge consist of?
Meaningless boring ideas disappear quickly. • How is it acquired?
• How is it used?
• The fertilizer killed the plant but it didn’t
die.
[contradiction]
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Universal Grammar Hypothesis Arguments for the Universal Grammar
Chomsky (1955): • Universality
• Species-specificity
• Human languages share many important properties. • Complexity
Hypothesis: The universal properties of language
• Productivity
are part of the human make up (part of our
biological endowment). • Translation
• Acquisition
• Language Birth (Nicaraguan Sign Language)
• Brain Impairments
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3. Universality Species-specificity
• Almanacs publish ‘literacy rates’ for different
countries.
No other species
• Why don’t they publish ‘speaking rates’? speak anything that
(percent of people who learn t speak their
( t f l h l to k th i resembles h
bl human
native language) language.
• No cultures, societies or people are known that
do not speak any language.
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Complexity Productivity
• There are no primitive languages. • The ‘wug’ test
• Never heard sentences:
• All languages exhibit complexities of some
sort, though the ki d th t can vary from
t th h th kind that f – The frog jumped off the golden dome
dome.
language to language.
• Never ending sentences (recursion):
– I met a man that was walking with a woman
that was holding a baby that was eating a
banana that…
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Translation Acquisition
• Every child acquires language with the same
• Every human language can be translated speed and proficiency, no matter what his/her
into any other. educational, cultural, and socio-economic
bac g ou d s
background is.
(e.g., English and N
( E li h d Navajo).
j )
• No need for special instruction.
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4. Language Birth Brain Impairments
• POOR language; GOOD other cognitive skills:
• Nicaraguan Sign Language
– Broca’s Aphasia
– Specific Language Impairment (SLI)
• Children, when placed in a group, produce
• GREAT language; POOR other cognitive skills:
l h ii kill
language even without any linguistic input. – William’s Syndrome
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Arguments for the Universal Grammar
(UG)
• Universality • What about language variation?
• Species-specificity
• Complexity
• Productivity
• Translation
• Acquisition
• Language Birth (Nicaraguan Sign Language)
• Brain Impairments
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Particular Grammars &
Universal Grammar (UG)
• Particular Grammar (e.g., grammar of English)
UG + input
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