Likes & Dislikes

The scene: a darkened theater, Anyone, U. S. A., The music begins, the curtain rises, alight goes up, and a single actor appears on stage. The audience is breathless with anticipation. Do you know what they are waiting for?

They are waiting for... the verbs.

Nothing happens without verbs. Verbs are the action words, the words that get thing going. All the nouns in the world- even the most wonderful, precise, dazzling nouns- remain frozen, helpless, and immobile until you connect them to a verb. Verbs gives lifes; they animate your sentences and conversations by expressing what someone or something does or is or feels.

A- Animals lack human like lgs, which are characteristics of the human species of human societies.

‌‌B- A sign is a relation between a form & a meaning; communication is the use of signs; & lg is a sign system.

C- Animals certainly communicate with signs, & certainly their use of sign is systematic; so, certainly they have lgs which are not lgs of the highly structured & unboundedly expressive nature of human lgs.

D- Most animal communication uses signs of iconic & indexical sort.

E-Vervet monkeys: lg like aspect of vervet calls-symbolic signs- cultural transmission; non lg like aspects of vervet calls- displacement- oppenness- duality.

F- Birds: bird song for marking territory & attracting a mate; lg like aspects of bird songs & calls- cultural  transmission- creativity- dialects- critical period.

F1- The calling bird warns others without giving away its own location. The nonlocalizability of the callss is in natural or indexicall association with its predator warning meaning. 

F2- The bird songs appear to be largely innate, with cultural transmission serving to improve & elaborate the song.

G- Bees; tail wagging dance for food- discovered by Karl von Frisch (1993); lg like aspects of the bees` dance- displacement- limited creativity based on distance, direction, & quality- cultural transmission; non lg like aspects of the bees` dance- arbitrariness.

G1- The dance is perfectly iconc & indexical.

G2- The dance involve little if any cultural transmission & is known mostly by genetic transmission. Reasons: bees raised apart from hive & without experience of the dance, & so without opportunity to learn it, can perform & interpret the dance when they are restored to hive; there`s a different between gray Carniolan & striped Italian bees.

H- Teaching lgs to animals: teaching ASL to chimpanzees and a gorilla. 

I- Signs of ASL consist of combinations of choices among three parameters, termed primes: place, or space in which the sign is made- about 12 place primes can be distinguished; handshape- about 19 possible handshape primes; movement- about 24 possible movement ones.

I1- these primes function somewhat like phones of vocal lg, in that they are meaningless but make up meaningful whole, morphemes, as do phonemes. 

A- Persons over 12= adult.

B- A foreign lg is learned  outside of the community in which it is spoken.

C- A second lg is learned in a community in which it is a commonly used lg.

D- Adults are ordinarily better motivated toward learning a second than a foreign lg.

E- Differences between child & adult lg learnings: rate of success; degree of success; effort & spontaneity.

F- Reasons for superiority of child lg learning: cognative, affective , & biological differences between child & adult. 

G- Cognitive differences have to do with knowledge, & the processing of knowledge.

H- Adults have analytic abilities, & metalinguistic knowledge: ability to talk about lg & how it works.

I- Cognitive differences: transfer; metalinguistic knowledge.

J- Transfer: earlier knowlege influences the acquisition of later knowledge.

J1- Problems of transfer: categories of the first lg may be absent in the second lg- these won`t peresent a problem for learning the second lg; categories of second lg may be new, being absent in the first lg- these present problems for learning, but not for transfer; categories of the first lg may be reinterpreted in the second, being similar in some ways but different in others; these may present persistent problem of transfer. 

J2- Positive transfer results when categories of second or foreign lg are very similar to those of the first lg.

J3- Reinterpreted categories results in negative transfer, also known as interference.

J4- Negative transfer results in error. Foreign accent, which typifies adult lg learning, is largely owed to negative transfer of phonological categories.

K- Adults have metalinguistic knowledge: consscious, analytic, knowledge of their use of lg, & often also formal knowledge of the terminology of grammar.

K1- Adults are also able to monitor their speech- comparing thier utterances with their conscious knowledge, & correctig accordingly.

K2- The learning style of children is more intuitive &, it is reasonable to say, more natural.

L- The conscious & analytic approach of adults has been termed lg learning, & the unconscious & spontaneous approach of children lg acquistion.

M- Affective differences, having to do with attitudes, emotions & personality, distinguish children & adult as lg learners.

N- Affective differences: motivation; acculturation.

O-The spontaneity of  children lg learning is evidence for the innateness of lg.

P- For adults, two sorts of motivation can provide a sudstitue for spontaneity or drive: integrative motivation; instrumental motivation.  

P1- Integrative motivation: the desire to integrate into society of speakers of the lg one attempt to learn; characteristic of successful foreign lg learning, as of French by American university students.

P2- Instrumental motivation: the desire to get sth practical or concrete from lg learning, typically a job, higher pay, or higher social status; characteristic of second lg learning; UK & US immigrants` strong instrumental motivation to learn Eng.

Q- First lg learning is an aspect of enculturation: becoming a member of one`s culture group. In first lg learning, lg learning is premeated with learning about family, society, & the world. 

R- Adult lg learning may have an aspect of acculturation: adding a culture, or at least becoming identified with a new social group. 

S- Culture shock: a result of which is profound longing for homeland & for things of the homeland. Later, with success in learning the second lg, they may feel anomie, alienation from even their own culture, &, eventually, a resulting feeling of cultureness & isolation.

T- Adults learning Eng. as a second lg never master the use of slang & fast speech variants in our casual lg.

U- Biological differences: critical period.

U1- in birds: learning to sing & nest building.

U2- in humans: certain vision problems of children if not treated early.

V- Evidence of a critical period for first lg learning: aphasias after age 11 or so often results in permanent loss of some lg ability; persons who do not acquire their first lg before 11 often appear to be unable to do so with success later.

W- Versions of critical periods: maturation version- after the critical period we lose the biological basis to learn in spontaneous & effortless way of children; exercise version- there`s a critical period for lg learning, but this is valid only for the first lg.

X- The experience of learning a first lg stimulates & sufficiently establishes the biological basis for subsequent learning of other lgs.

Y- According to the exercise version, adults should be as able as children, at least biologically, to learn lgs. The maturation versions, by contrast, provides an explanation of the seeming difficulty of adult lg learning.

Z- Evidence that adults cannot learn like children: variable success; significance of motivation; fossilizations; fearal children.

Aa- Even adults who acquire fluent command of a second lg are typically percieved to make persistent & seemingly uncorrectable erros of usage of sorts unnoticed in child lg learning. Such persistent errors have been called fossilizations. 

Bb- Fearal (wild) children: abandoned & isolated children who grow up without the normal conditions for lg learning, & so without lg.

Cc- Adult lg learning= post critical lg learning.

Dd- Evidence that adults can learn like children: creative construction; natural orders; successful adult learners.

Ee- Creative costructions: like children, adult learners are observed to test hypotheses about the lg, which results in novel & creative utterances.

Ff- Natural orders: patterns of development of grammar which occure in learners without or despite instruction. Children & adults are si,ilar in their patterns of mastery of grammatical morphology.

Gg- Successful adult learner: Joseph Condrad (1857- 1924); Eng. lg with a prominent Polish accent

Hh- Lg is a complex & often abstract system of knowledge, while an accent may reflect nothing more than one`s command of the medium of lg, speech.

A- Contralateral control of body: the left & right hemispheres control their oppsite sides of the body.

B- Cortex: The outer layer of the brain; about 1/4 inch thick; multipy fissured or enfolded; paked with nerves aboy 10 billion.

C- Major visible parts of brain: temporal lobes- thumb like shapes; frontal lobes- above & in front of the temporal lobes; occipital lobes- behind the temporal lobes; parital lobes- above & behind the temporal lobes.

D- Separating the two hemispheres is the corpus collosum, a dense layer of tissue with relatively little nerve structure.

E- Quarters of brain: sylvian fissure seperates the temporal lobes; longitudinal fissure runs from front to back on the sureface of the brain along the line of the corpus callosum; central fissure seperates the frontal & parietal lobes; motor strip (motor cortex) is the location of motor or muscle control.

F- About 90% of right handers have left hemispher lg centers, only about 65% of left handers do. About 10% of us are more/ less left handed & about 88% of population as a whole tends to be left hemisphere dominant for lg. 

G- Areas of the lg dominant hemisphere of the brain known to be involved in lg processing: Broca`s area, on the lg dominant frontal lobe above forward part of the temporal lobe, is named for the French physician Paul Broca who identified it as a lg center in 1861. Wernicke`s area, on the lg dominant hemisphere in the area where the upper temporal lobe joins the partietal lobe, named for the German physician Carl Wernicke who identified it as a lg center in 1872.

H- Evidence for lg centers of the brain: aphasias; clinical procedures- sodium amytal injection- computer assisted tomography (CAT or CT); dichotic listening. 

I- aphasia: loss of linguistic abilities.

I1- Person with injury in Broca`s area are able to comprehend lg well, but have difficulty speaking with fluency, especially showing limited ability to use grammatical morphemes.

I2- Persons with injury in Wernicke`s area often have difficult comprehending lg, but talk fluently if incomprehensibly, especially showing poor access to lexical morphemes.

J- Positron Emission Tomography (PET); Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

K- Dichotic listening: a test in a phonetics laboratory as evidence of a person`s hemisphere dominance for lg.

K1- For most subjects, dichotic listening reveals a right ear advantage.

K2- Dichotic listening in children shows that hemisphere dominance for lg is typically well established by about 5 years of age.

L- Types of aphasia: Broca`s- effortful speech & absence of grammatical morphemes (agrammatism), wenicke`s- verbal fluency without coherence- corresponding difficulty in accessing lexical morphemes & so creating coherent sentences- difficulty in comprehending lg, anomic- in persons with injuru in occipital lobe- inability to name things seen, conduction- in persons with injury in area between Wernicke`s & motor strip- inability to pronouce words (difficulty conducting info. from Wernicke`s area to the motor strip to implement pronouciation), alexia or acqured dyslexia- inability specifically to read (acquired dyslexia is distinct from dyslexia genetically acquired) & results from injury behind Wernicke`s, injury to right brain, in persons with general left hemisphere dominance for lg, has been reported to result in inability to undrstand intonation & the emotional tone of utterances, & inability to understand non literal lg, such as kick the buket..

M- The aphasias of left handers (or non right handers) are often not so severe or long lasting as those of right handers.

N- As a negative effect of bilateral distribution of lg functions in left handers, they are more likely to suffer aphasia from either right or left brain injury.

O- Aphasia in children: up to about 4 years of age, an injury to either left or right brain is unlikely to result in long losting aphasia; from 4 to 11, aphasia resulting from injury to either hemispher can be overcome with time & practice; after about 11, some permanent effect may result from injury to the lg dominant hemisphere.

P- Stages of development of lg hemisphere dominance: birth to 4, both hemispheres are equally engaged in lg learning; 4 to about 11, the left hemisphere becomes progressively dominant; after 11, the non dominanat hemisphere loses full capability for lg learning (crital period).

Q- Critical period: a time after which lg learning becomes difficult or, some would argue, even impossible.

R- Left hemisphere, typically better at: analytic & temporal activities such as mathematics, jigsaw type puzzles, music in muisicians, alphabetic reading.

S- Right hemisphere, typically better at: intuitive & holistic activities such as recognizing faces, guessing games, music in non musicians, logographic reading.

T- Lg is analytically & temporally organized knowledge or behavior. => Left brain. 

 U- From birth, babeis tend to favor their right ear for speech sounds. 

V- After about 4 the left brain become dominant. This is consist with the initial intuitiveness but increasing analyticness of our knowledeg of lg.

W- In conterast to child first lg learning, in typical classroom foreign lg learning left hemisphere dominance may be present in learners from the beginning.

X- Aphasias which often result in thorough or complete loss of second & foreign lgs may less thoroughly affect the first lg, knowledge of which has been registered & retained in the non dominant, usually right, hemisphere. 

A- General ideas about how children learn lgs: conditioned- response learning, imitation, hypothesis testing, innateness.

B-In conditioned- response learning, some naturally occuring stimulus(unconditioned stimulus, US) produces a natural, uncnditioned response (UR), aspects of which may receive positive reinforcement by some conditioned aspects of the stimulus (CS), with which these then become associated as a conditioned respect (CR).

C- Children often give evidence of attention to lg, and appear to comprehend before they start talking.

D- Comprehensions can`t be reinforced.

E- We grow up to speak grammatically but not always truthfully.

F- Imitation: like conditioned- learning is a common sort of learning.

G- Many parents do encourage their children to imitae, often instructing the child to say this & that, & giving models in a simple & silent manner of speech that has been called caregiver talk.

H- Characteristics of Caregiver Talk: exaggerated intonation, slow rate & carefully pronounced words, simple sentences, proper Ns for proNs, high percentage of questions & imperatives, repetitions, expansion.

H1- Caregiver talk characteristics 1- 5 are seen in a typical adult question to a child, not "Are you hungry?", but "Is baby hungry?", said with slow speed, high pitch, and sharply raising question intonation.,

I- Expansions are as where the child says :Baby sleep:, & the parent replies, expanding this utterance, "That`s right; the baby is sleeping".

J- Caregiver talk should be distinguished from babytalk, talking like a baby. Babytalk may be as useful for teaching babies to talk as driving like a 16 year old would be for teaching a 16 year old to drive.

K- Some children appear to imitae a lot, others hardly at all; but all learn.

L- Grammatical morphemes are largely ignored by childern for almost 2 years.

M- Creative aspect of child lg learning: children who don`t hear such utterances cannot be imitating when they are  creat utterances like goed, mans, double negatives, & questions like What I can do? 

N- Hypothesis testing= Terial & error learning: The child seems to be guessing about how the lg works, & testing the guesses (hypotheses) in speech.

O-Innateness: much knowledge of lg is genetically encoded in the child, as a member of the human species.

P- We don`t have knowledge of particular lgs, since we learn perfectly well whichever lg we happen to grow up hearing. => If we have innate knowledge of lg, this must be abstract & universal, underlying all lgs.

Q- Criteria for innateness of some behavior (Lenneberge): absence of history of development in the species, inherited predisposition in the species- typicality- similarities- spontaneousity- creativity, absence of variation in the species, physiological correlates- speech physiology- lg centers of brain.

R- Every normal child learns the lg of its home; concerning the learning process, ther`s remarkable regularities.

T- Speech is produced & processed at a normal rate of about 25 phonemes per second.

S- In humans the larynx is somewhat lowered in the throat. A human child cross section, before 3 months of age, would look a lot like that of the adult chimpanzee, in which the larynx is closer to the back of tongue, which therefore effectively can prevent food & liquids in the month from dropping directly into larynx!

U- There are possible physiological correlates of lg in the brain.

V- In the great majority of humans, the left hemisphere is significantly more involved in lg than right.

W- Wernicke`s area: under the left ear & Broca`s one: at the left front. 

X- Non all the universal aspects of lg are obviously functional.

Y- The brain centers which seem dedicated to lg may be among those generally dedicated to symbolic communicative & analytic cognitive tasks of which lg is a case. 

A- child lg learning is typical, similar from child to child, spontaneous, creative.

B-We say that children learn their lg typically because there are, indeed exceptions, which always involve very exceptional circumstance: either great phycical handicaps of child, or family settings in which adequate input for learning is absent.

C- Similarity of lg learning= Regularly seen stages: babbling- about 6 months, first words- about 1 year, first grammatical morphemes- about 2 years, basic mastery- by about 4 years, continued learning, especially of vocabulary, indeed throughout life.

D- We say children learn lgs spontaneously because there`s obviously a drive, a strong or innate motivation, by children to learn lg, so that instruction in the usual sense is unnecessary. This is evident when we compare the learning of speech and writing by children.

E- As lg is not speech, learning lg is not learning to speak.

F- Deaf children who receive suitable visual input learn lg perfectly- manually signed lg. => Lg exists fully apart from speech.

G- Lg is not speech but sth abstract & mental, underlying speech (a system of signs), & the forms, or medium, of lg can as well be speech, writing, gestures, or, conceivably, some other.

H- Stages in learning of Eng.: lg readiness- cooing- babbling- word recognition, first words- first meaning- intonation- phoneme learning order- phoneme substitutions- word structure- overextension & underextension of meaning- MLU, two word sentences- telegraphic speech- syntax of two word senteces- 200 word vocabulary, basic mastery- vocabulary growth- first grammatical morphemes.

I- Cooing: 6- 8 weeks old; the regular production of velar consonants & back vowles.

J- Babbling: a period of regular production by child of unrecognizable but word like vocalization; begining at about 6 months; non Eng. phones, such as bilabial fricatives, front rounded vowels, & retroflex stops may be produced; children practices the phones of the lg(s) they hear & will grow to speak; deaf children babble too, if they are exposed to signing, but their babbling is with hands.

K- The meaning of first words are concrete.

L- In the child`s early vocabulary, typically: names ( so called proper Ns) are among the first words; Ns are more common than Vs; first Vs are action Vs such as go and eat; and first Adjs concern vivid meaning such as dirty and funny.

M-  The most frequent words of adult lg, grammatical morphemes such as the & of, are at first absent, since they are: abstract in meaning, low in infor. value compared to lexical morphemes, & short & unstressed.

N- Intonation: the first words may be heard as little sentences.

O-There are regularities concerning phneme acqusition: nasals & orals are relatively early, /m, n, p, b , k/; early voiceless stops tend to be unaspirated; early vowels are typically /a/, and/ or /i/, then often /u/; labial consonants /p, b, f, m, w/ will often be masterd earlier than those are at other places of articulation; certain phones, including /l, r, th, th/ of Eng. are relatively late. 

P- When words are pronounced in non- adult ways, certain phoneme substitutions are observed; fronting, stopping, perservance & anticipation.

P1- Fronting: conconants with more forward articulation replace those with less forward articulation.

P2- Stopping: stops replace other manners of articulation.

P3- Perserverance: a preceeding phones replaces the following one.

P4- Anticipation: a following phone replaces a preceding one.

Q- Word structure: the first words of first lg learners takes the form CV, of simple "open" sylables or CVCV; if CVCV, the consonants are often the same because of perserverance and anticipation phonomena; have few closed" sylables"; fricatives may first appear as final consonants.

R- Overextension: dog may be used for cats & other stuffed animals.

S- Underextension: dog may be used for a single & special dog.

T- MLU= Mean Lenght of Utterance; it express the average number of morphemes in one of the child utterances- not always recognizable as sentences. Often no bound morphemes is used early, so each morpheme is a word.

U- Telgraphic Speech: about 18 months; lacking grammatical morphemes.

V- Syntax of two word sentences: Words appear to be classified by the child into two groups: object words= pre nouns, growing & relatively open class, such as  pudding & baby; relation words= pivot words= pre verbs= action words, a more closed class, such as up, there & night night.

V1- An action word followed by an object word, such as there baby, hi juice & night night mommy; the reverse order is less often observed.

W- By age 2, the vocab of most children surpass 200 words, a great majority of which are Ns, especially proper & concret Ns, somewhat fewer Vs & a few Adjs, social words like yes, no, hey, good bye, &, untill late in the second year, no grammatical morphemes.

X- 18 months,100 words- 24m,200w- 30m,400w- 36m 

Y- Sleepy time monologues: 24 months; private practice, before sleep.

Z- First grammatical morphemes: Vs+ing

Aa- The is the most frequent word in Eng., but it goes  unlearned before age 3.

Bb- Negative sentences: about 18 months by no & not; before age 3 by can`t & don`t.

Cc- A 3 year old child often seems to talk like an adult. By age 4, many children are so accomplished linguistically that they often seem to have  fully learned lg.

Dd- Continued Learning: a mid teenager may begin to use complex tense sequences. 

A- The basic possibilies of the structure of basic sentences of lgs may be represented by Phrase Strycture Rules.

B- A sentence is a relationshoip between a subject & a predicate.

C- In less than 20% of lgs of the world, Vs typically precede subjects in sentences.

D- If a sentence is generated by PSRs, it is grammatical; if not, it is ungrammatical.

E- The head of a phrase, maybe a specifier & maybe one or more modifiers.

F- Unboundness of Phrase Structure: Recursion.

G- Recursion: when a phrase appears within a phrase.

H- Sentences are open- ended: Recursion.

I- Coordination: Another sort of Recursion, also found in all lgs.

J- Eng. Coordinators: And or Or.

K- PSRs are representations of linguistic knowledge, part of a formal grammar.

L- Formal Grammar provides structures whithin which the types of syntactic function including grammatical relations, parts of speech, & head- modifier relations are well defined.

M-Gramatical Relations: Subject & Direct Object.

N- Parts of Speech: Terminal Nodes at the bottom of trees.

O- The subject of a sentence is the highest NP of that sentence,  and the head of that NP.

P- Types of V Complements= Syntactic Categories of Vs: N Complements- see, Adj Complements- look, Sen Complements- say, No Complements- smile.

Q- Many Vs exists in more than one type; like eat.

R-Subcategorization Features of Vs: Transitive- see, Intransitive- go, Linking- be, Vs of Communication- say- promise, Psychological-imagine- think- believe.

S- PSRs & Subcatwgorization features of Vs reflect our knowledge of grammaticality of our lg.

A- Every lg. has a certain number of phonemes, an inventori of morphemes (a mental dic.), but there can be no inventory of sentences.

B- The number of sentences of a lg. & even the length of sentences are unbounded.

 C- Unboundness of syntax= Unbounness of number & length of sentences= Creativity.

D- Syntax concerns sentences structures.

E- Sentence structures have 3 aspects: Grouping, Function, Word order.

F- Grouping: The grouping of words into meaningful & functional phrases, which are members, or constituents, of larger phrases.

G- Function: the relationship of the NPs to the Vs & to otherwords & word groups in the sentences.

H- 3 different kinds of Functions: Grammatical relations, Parts of speech, Heads & modifires.

I- Ns & Vs are in all lgs.

J- Determiner & Adj are not always  clearly recognized in lgs.

K- Instead of Prepositions some lgs have Postpositions.

L- Word order: The temporal or liner sequence of words & sentences.

M- Kinds of recursion: Sen within Sen, NP within NP, VP within VP, PP within NP within PP.

N- Coordination: A sort of recursion according to which groups like Sens, NPs, VPs, & PPs may be expanded as a pair of such phrases joined by a coordinating conjuction such as and or or.

O- Kinds of coordination in Eng.: Coordinated Sens, Coordinated NPs, Coordinated VPs, Coordinated PPs, Coordinated AdjPs.

P- Abstractness of Syntax: Not only are the sentences of lgs an unbounded numbers, but the constituents & functions of sentences are not ordinarily concretely marked- not in speaking by pauses or other signals of pronunciation, nor in writing by punctuation.

 Nevertheless, syntactic groupings & functions must be real, since users of lg give concrete evidence that their knowledge of syntax concerns constituents & functions, & not just knowledge of words & how to order words in sentences.

Q- Knowledge of Constituents= Kinds of Evidence for Grouping & Their Constituents: Replacement, Movement, Grouping Ambiguty.

R- Replacement: A group may be replaced by a single word.

R1- A sentence may be replaced by a N or ProN.

R2- A NP may be replaced by a ProN.

R3- A VP may be replaced by a form of the V do.

R4- A PP may be replaced by an Adv.

S- Perhaps not all phrases can be replaced, but certainly no non- phrase can be replaced.

T- There may be movement of phrases, in the sense that these may appear in different places in different versions of a sentence.

U- If we think of one of the sentences as basic & the others as derived from this, then we will think of the phrase as having moved from basic to the derived position.

V- Ambiguity: When a word, phrase, or sentence has two distinct meanings.

W- Grouping Ambiguity: When the same string of words may have two meanings based upon different possible groupings of the words.

X- Grouping Ambiguity: The third sort of evidence for grouping in syntactic structure.

Y- We acqure our knowledge of abstract functions (Grammatical Relations, Parts of Speech, Head & Modifire) as a necessary part of learning our lg, long before we go to school.

Z- Our kowledge of function is sometimes apparent in our recognition of function ambiguity.

Aa- Function Ambuguity: There are cases in which an ambiguity is based not on an ambiguos word (lexical ambiguity) or an ambiguous grouping of words (grouping ambiguity), but strictly on an ambiguity of Function.

It means there are two meanings but word group &, in asens, word meanings are the same in both- the two meanings are distinct only by the function, or grammatical function, of some word.

Bb- Function Ambiguity= Grammatical Ambiguity.