Lecture 12
Lecture 12: Universal Grammar ADVANCED SYNTAX OVERVIEW OF THE GRAMMAR In looking at English data, we have been building a picture of the grammar that underlies this This grammar is made up of the following components: THE LEXICON The store house of all the idiosyncratic aspects of the language How words are pronounced What words mean What category words belong to What their subcategory is What arguments are associated with predicates What categorial restrictions they place on their arguments X-BAR THEORY The rules which tell us about the basic syntactic arrangements of words into phrases: X’ X YP XP YP X’ Xn Xn, Ym – where m = 1 if n = 1, 2 otherwise THETA THEORY The theta criterion There is a one to one relationship between theta roles assigned by a predicate and arguments that bare them The Universal Theta Assignment Hypothesis Theta roles are assigned to a uniform position in all constructions Theme = specifier of thematic VP Oblique (PP arguments such as locative, instrument, etc.) = complement of thematic verb Agent = specifier of agentive verb MOVEMENT There is a very general movement rule which simply allows movement without further specification Move Move anything anywhere What actually moves and to where in any particular construction is determined by the interaction of all other grammatical principles BOUNDING THEORY One principle that directly limits movement concerns bounding Movements have to be as short as possible There have been several ideas of how to achieve this Subjacency Movement Relativised The allowed over only one bounding node Minimality movement of an element of type X must be to the nearest possible position relevant for X CASE THEORY The Case filter Case is assigned by certain heads All overt DPs must sit in Case positions Finite I nominative Agentive V accusative P accusative ‘for’ complementiser accusative Case is assigned locally To complement position To specifier position To specifier of complement BINDING/REFLEXIVITY THEORY Controls the use of different types of pronoun Principle A Controls the use of reflexive pronouns (anaphors) They must be bound in their smallest binding domain They only appear with reflexive verbs Principle B Controls the use of personal pronouns (pronominals) They must be free in their smallest binding domain They cannot mark a reflexive verb THE ORGANISATION OF THE GRAMMAR These various grammatical components, although they deal with specific phenomena, interact with each other to produce a complex analysis of all of the structures of a language They fit together as follows: THE ORGANISATION OF THE GRAMMAR THE CONCEPT OF UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR So far we have looked at these grammatical principles as though they describe English But they are meant to be able to describe all languages Therefore this is a theory not just of English grammar, but of Universal Grammar WHY WE NEED UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Human languages differ from each other, but not indefinitely There are universal truths about human language which would be unexpected if there were no limits WHY WE NEED UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Human languages are translatable into other human languages If there were no limits to human language we would expect there should be things can could be expressed in one language but not another WHY WE NEED UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Human children learn human languages, no other species does If language acquisition were just a matter of learning complicated rules, we would expect other species to be able to do it Rats can learn complicated rules about travelling a maze It seems that human languages are hard wired into human brains But it is clear that it is not the case the only English is hard wired into English children and Chinese into Chinese children, etc. So what is hard wired must be universal to all languages WHY WE NEED UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Speakers of a language know things that they could not have possibly learned This knowledge must come from somewhere If it isn’t learned, it must be innate Again, innate linguistic knowledge cannot be language specific Innate linguistic knowledge must be of a universal nature WHY WE NEED UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Human children learn human languages easily Far more easily and thoroughly than adults can a foreign language Far more easily and thoroughly than linguists can describe any human language An innate knowledge of Universal Grammar would explain this PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS Clearly, languages (such as English) are not innate There is no one human language Children are not born speaking a language There is some process of acquisition We suppose therefore that Universal Grammar is made up from two parts Principles: general and universal rules common to all languages and so don’t have to be learned Parameters: varying aspects of language which allow individual language to differ and which must be learned E.G. X-BAR THEORY It has been claimed that the rules of X-bar theory restrict all languages In all languages Phrases have heads Heads take complements Phrases have specifiers But languages differ in where these elements are placed HEAD INITIAL / HEAD FINAL The simplest way languages differ is in terms of whether the head precedes its complement or follows it: Head initial Head final ENGLISH: HEAD INITIAL All heads precede their complements in English Inflections may [VP precede VP go] Complementisers if [IP precede IP he may go] Determiners the [NP precede NP man] Prepositions through [DP precede DP the tunnel] JAPANESE: HEAD FINAL All heads in Japanese follow their complement: Complementisers [IP follow IP nihongo-ga muzukasii] to Japanese-nom difficult that ‘that Japanese is difficult’ Postpositions [DP densha] de train by ‘by train’ GERMAN: MIXED In German, some heads precede and some heads follow their complements Complementisers precede IP Determiners precede NP die [NP Brücke] the bridge Prepositions dass [IP Hans oft Kürbissuppe isst] that Hans often pumpkin soup eats durch [DP die Stadt] through the city Postpositions [DP meiner Meinung] nach my opinion according to ‘in my opinion’ FREE(R) WORD ORDER Some languages allow more word order variation than others János Marit szereti János szereti Marit Marit János szereti Marit szereti János Szereti János Marit Szereti Marit János This might be a problem for the claim that X-bar theory is universal But such languages might allow more movement than those with stricter word order PRE-VERBAL POSITIONS IN HUNGARIAN The position immediately before the verb in Hungarian is the focus position János elment János ment el Anything that moves to this position is interpreted as focus János leszállt a villamosról János szállt le a villamosról János a villamosról szállt le PRE-VERBAL POSITIONS IN HUNGARIAN The position in front of the focus is the topic Anything which moves to this position is interpreted as topic a villamosról szállt le János János a villamosról szállt le János szállt le a villamosról a villamosról János szállt le PRE-VERBAL POSITIONS IN HUNGARIAN We therefore might assume Hungarian is basically verb initial Things move in front of the verb for specific reasons X-BAR PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS Principles XP X’, YP X’ X, YP Parameters Head parameter a) head is first b) head is last Specifier parameter a) specifier is first b) specifier is last (comma indicates that no order is specified) TRANSLATABILITY Some have argued that the differences in languages mean that there are some things which can be expressed in one language that cannot be in another ESKIMO SNOW Claim Eskimo has over 100 words for snow, so the English sentence ‘snow is falling’ does not translate the differences that Eskimo can make This is nonsense Eskimo actually has only a few words for snow (so does English: snow, sleet, hail, drift) Eskimo is a highly agglutinative language, which means that sentences can often consist of one word But because a one word Eskimo sentence cannot be translated into a one word English sentence does not mean that Eskimo can express things English cannot COLOUR TERMS Languages have different numbers of basic terms for colour Basic term = English Not compound (light blue) Frequent (ultramarine) Not seen as ‘a kind of’ (scarlet is ‘a kind of red) black, white, grey, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, orange, pink, purple = 11 Hungarian Similar number to English, but Not orange (narancs is a kind of sárga) Piros vs. Vörös Dani Mili vs. mola COLOUR TERMS Again, though, just because a language has more or less basic colour terms does not mean to say that the same distinctions cannot be made in one language as opposed to another Hungarian can distinguish between orange and yellow and English can distinguish between piros and vörös COLOUR TERMS The most we can say is that some languages express certain things more economically/elegantly than others Words in one language may have to be translated into more than one word, or even whole sentences Perhaps certain concepts are more evident or prominent in one community than another So a single word can trigger a whole cultural experience which would need to be explained to another community E.G. BREAKERS SPECIES SPECIFICITY Other species do not have the vocal equipment to produce speech But no one ever thought that parrots, which can imitate human speech, can speak Experiments have been carried out to teach Chimpanzees and Gorillas sign language They have been spectacularly unsuccessful, despite popular myths about them The best thing we can conclude from these experiments is that they demonstrate that human language is a uniquely human ability Only the possession of a human mind provides the ability to learn and use human language KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT LEARNING Consider: Who did you think that he saw Who did you think he saw Who did you think saw him * who did you think that saw him All English speakers agree that the last sentence is ungrammatical How do they know this? KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT LEARNING Perhaps someone told them Perhaps they were corrected as children This is not the kind of error children make, so it is unlikely anyone ever corrected them on this Perhaps they worked it out on the basis of similar phenomena Given that most English speakers find it hard to even describe the generalisation these data demonstrate, let alone explain it, it is highly unlikely that anyone ever told them about it It is hard to think of anything similar to these observations, so it is unlikely that they worked it out by analogy It must be something that follows from our linguistic knowledge – which was not learned LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Children learn the majority of their language by about the age of 5 They spend the first year not leaning much language, so it takes about 4 years This is not a lot of time, considering what else they are doing CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Children learn language despite what their parents do rather than because of it Parents vary radically in what they do to ‘teach’ language Parents are unaware of their own grammar and so don’t make ideal teachers They are apt to tell children rather inaccurate prescriptive things (“there ain’t no such word as ‘ain’t!”) They tend to correct factual errors rather than grammatical ones Child: “daddy gone” Mother: “no he hasn’t, he’s in the kitchen” CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Children tend to disregard corrections parents provide Child: “nobody don’t like me” Father: no, it’s “nobody likes me” Child: “nobody don’t like me” ... Several repetitions Father: “no, listen! – nobody LIKES me” Child: “oh! Nobody don’t LIKES me” CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This indicates that children learn from positive data only They work out the grammar of their language from hearing grammatical sentences and not from being told what is ungrammatical Moreover, parents don’t always speak grammatically We all make mistakes How do children know which sentences to attend to and which to ignore? CONDITIONS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION From this, it seems obvious that children should not be able to learn language from scratch The data they have access to is too problematic Yet they do learn language THE UNIFORMITY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Not every child learns language in the same order But not every child grows teeth in the same order, and no one thinks that that is not an innate process However there is a good deal of regularity Children go through distinct phases which happen at certain ages (±2 months) 1ST STAGE (FROM 6 TO 12 MONTHS) Babbling Production of random sounds, usually CV Reduplicative (6 to 9 months) Repetitive CV sequences with monotonous intonation Non-reduplicative ( jargon 9 to 12 months) Bababababa, dadadadad, etc. Varied sequences with varied intonation Even deaf babies babble Babies with tracheotomies (so they can’t babble) still develop normal language after the tracheotomy is reversed So it isn’t clear what the function of babbling is FIRST WORDS (12 – 18 MONTHS) First words start at about 1 year and the list grows slowly at first (until about 50 words) Mostly nouns, some verbs Child uses ‘one word sentences’ Suddenly (about 18 months) the child goes through a ‘vocabulary spurt’ and the next stage begins TWO WORD SENTENCES (18 – 24 MONTHS) Children’s first combinations of words start at about the same time as the vocabulary spurt Number of verbs and adjectives increase Two word utterances can look like subject-predicate structures But can also be other relations Daddy gone Mummy sock Big ball Give ball Towards the end of this stage three and four word sentences may be produced THE SYNTAX SPURT (24 MONTHS) The syntax spurt happens when different kinds of sentences suddenly appear Passives, interrogatives, subordinate clauses, etc. At the same time functional categories start to appear (determiners, auxiliaries, complementisers) After this, the system is refined for the next 3 years and is virtually in place by 5 years of age PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS AS A THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION If Universal Grammar is an innate human capacity, it allows us to explain how children appear to do the impossible Moreover, if Universal Grammar is made up of principles and parameters, it also provides us with a detailed theory of how language acquisition should take place Only parameter settings need to be learned E.g. Is the language head initial or head final? ACCOUNTING FOR THE SYNTAX SPURT Principles and Parameters theory does not tell us why children seem to suddenly undergo rapid development at the age of 2 This development links two things Diverse syntactic structures The use of functional categories Some have suggested that this link is not random Functional categories are the main syntactic words without which many syntactic processes cannot take place MATURATION One theory of language acquisition which can account for the syntax spurt is that certain linguistic concepts mature in the brain, similar to how physical things mature in the body E.g teeth, puberty One idea is that the notion of a functional category undergoes maturation It is not available before 2 years When it becomes available, the child undergoes the syntax spurt CONCLUSION The notion of Universal Grammar helps us to explain a number of mysterious facts about language It assumes that the general structure of the linguistic system is innate and basic to all languages UG + parameter settings = specific languages CONCLUSION Therefore: Language is specific to humans All languages share a common basis and demonstrate universal phenomena Language acquisition is a matter of setting parameters There may be certain parts of the innate system which mature and therefore set the time for certain aspects of language acquisition
© Copyright 2024