Term
| Arbitrariness of the sign |
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Definition
| conventional pairing of a sound with a meaning |
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Term
| Discrete combinatorial system |
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Definition
| Finite number of discrete elements (words) are sampled, combined, and permuted to create larger structures (sentences) with properties distinct from those of their elements |
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| Grammar, autonomous from cognition |
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| A grammar is a certain set of rules that tells you how words may combine to express meanings. But this set of rules is independent for the particular meanings that people convey to each other. |
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| Finite systems vs. infinite combinations |
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Definition
| Grammar as a discrete combinatorial system can generate an infinite number of sentences. However, the size of our brain is limited. We cannot simply memorize all the sentences available. |
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| each person's brain contains a lexicon of words and the concepts they stand for (a mental dictionary) and a set of rules that combine the words to convey relationships among concepts (a mental grammar). |
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| Intuitions about grammatically |
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Definition
| ungrammatically is simply a consequence of our having a fixed code for interpreting sentences. Native speakers of English recognize strings that are interpretable, but are not grammatical and also strings that are grammatical but are not interpretable (also see autonomy) |
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| A non-answer (Memorization of a huge number of sentences), a possible but wrong answer (sentences are generated through word-chain device) and phrase structure grammar |
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| Speakers would simply memorize some (mysterious) relationship between sentences and meaning based on the look-up table. |
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| Finite State Automaton - Word Chain Device, think of a sentence as a chain of words and a speaker as a device which consists of a finite number of mental predisposition (state) Each state is associated with a rule that allows the speaker to produce a word and move to a new mental predisposition. |
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Definition
| (1) Grammatical Category (POS) we do not learn which word follows which other word. Rather, we learn which grammatical category (parts of speech: noun, verb...) follows which other category. (2)Has no real memory and it cannot process long distance dependency (e.g. either or, if then), too much redundancy and we need unlimited number of states to handle all these long distance dependencies with FSA, but these number of states won't fit in our finite brain. |
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Definition
| A sentence is not a chain but a tree. |
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| Grouping of words into phrases / a mental symbol (in the text) |
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Term
| Phrase structure rules generate... |
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Definition
| Constituents - speakers learn a finite set of phrase structure rules (phrase structure grammar) which can generate infinite set of sentences. |
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Term
| Evidence for Constituency (1) |
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Definition
| Yes-no Question formation rule - we move the auxiliary verb of the sentence in front of the subject NP, we have to identify a group of words that belong together as the subject of the sentence. We can't do this without knowing how the pieces of the sentence are grouped together - constituency. |
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Term
| Evidence for Constituency (2) |
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Definition
| Ambiguity - Lexical and structural ambiguity. Lexical (the meaning of a sentence may be ambiguous due to the words in the sentence is ambiguous) and structural (the individual words are not ambiguous but the source of the ambiguity is structural - e.g. i shot an elephant in my pajamas) |
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| V + NP (sentence) or VP + PP (preposition) |
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| have one instance of a symbol in the left side of the arrow, and another instance of the same symbol in the right side of the arrow, allowing the generation of an infinite number of sentences. (e.g. NP -> NP + PP) |
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| Nested long distance dependencies |
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Definition
| Handled with recursive rules, deals with either or and if then, if we put another sentence in a sentence |
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| common grammatical properties shared by all languages, e.g. basic principles of phrase structure grammar |
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| Study concerned with the biological and neural foundations of language |
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| The most complicated organ of the body lying under the skull and consist of approximately ten billion nerve cells and billions of fibres that interconnect them |
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| Neurons/grey matter, surface of the brain, and is the decision-making organ of the body, it receives messages from all the sensory organs and it initiates all voluntary actions. (the seat of all which is exclusively human in the mind and storehouse of memory) |
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| consists primarily of connecting fibres |
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| connecting the hemispheres right down the middle, consists of two million fibres connecting the cells of the left and right hemispheres |
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| Left hemisphere – controls the movements of the right side of the body and Right hemisphere – controls the movements of the left side |
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| theory by Franz Joseph Gall that different human abilities and behaviors were traceable to specific parts of the brain and suggested that the frontal lobes of the brain and the locations of language |
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| Also known as organology – practice of determining personality traits, intellectual capacities, and other matters by examination of the “bumps” on the skull |
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| with the brain divided into distinct anatomical faculties (referred to as cortical organs) that are directly responsible for specific cognitive functions, including language |
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| front part of the left hemisphere |
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| damage in the Broca’s area resulted in loss of speech |
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| Speech output of Broca’s Aphasia |
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Definition
| characterized by labored speech, word-finding pause, disturbed word order and difficulties with function words |
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| Refer to any cognitive function that is primarily localized to one side of the brain or the other |
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| Refer to language disorders that follow brain lesions caused by strokes, tumors, wounds, and other traumas |
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| back portion of the left hemisphere |
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| spoke fluently with good intonation and pronunciation but with numerous instances of lexical errors (word substitutions), often producing jargon and nonsense words. They also had difficulties in comprehending speech. |
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| Magnetic resonance imaging makes it possible to see where the sites of lesions are in the living brain |
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| Positron emission tomography scans makes it possible to detect changes in the brain activities and related these changes to focal brain damage and cognitive tasks, experimenters can see the living normal brain and which areas are affected when different stimuli are involved |
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| individuals suffering from serious epilepsy treated by cutting corpus callosum (split pathway) resulted no communication between 2 brains and depending which hemisphere receives the message, messages sent to the two sides of the brain result in different responses (c 457 & 458) |
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| Differences in hemispheres |
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Definition
| Right brain does better than the left in pattern-matching tasks, recognizing faces, and in spatial orientation. The left hemisphere is superior for language, for rhythmic perception, for temporal-order judgments, and for mathematical thinking (telling why) |
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| Subjects hear 2 different sound signals simultaneously through earphones, when asked to state what they heard in each ear, subjects are more correct reporting linguistic stimuli delivered to the right ear, but more correct in reporting nonverbal stimuli to left ear |
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| words, nonsense syllables |
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| musical chords, environmental sounds |
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| Event-related brain potentials – researchers were taping electrodes to different areas of the skull and investigating the electrical activity of the brain (e.g. showing electrical differences when subject hears speech sounds vs. nonspeech sounds) |
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| Showed that neuronal activity in different locations varies with different stimuli and different tasks and gain reveal a left hemisphere specialization for grammar |
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| Japanese people with left hemisphere damage are impaired in their ability to read kana (sound), while people with right hemisphere damage are impaired in their ability to read kanji (word), experiments show also that right h. is better than left h. at reading kanji |
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| can produce sound and hear sound but they suffer has to do only with the production or comprehension of language (or specific parts of grammar) |
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| The substitution of phonologically similar sounds |
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| Specific language impairment, children who have difficulties acquiring language or are much slower than the average child, show that language may be impaired while general intelligence remains intact |
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| intellectually handicapped individuals who show remarkable talents but cannot take care of themselves |
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