Language

Language
• Definition
• Taxonomy
• Perception
• Critical Window & Stages of Development
• Language in Animals
 Definition of Language

• Communication: transfer of information between

individuals
• Arbitrary: no relationship between the symbols
(words) used to represent an object and the object
• Structured: the pattern of the symbols is meaningful.
– Two kinds of patterns to think about
• Morphological structures (e.g., Latin, Arabic)
• Syntax e.g., the boy ran from the angry dog
the boy ran from the dog angry
 Definition of Language

• Generative: The basic units can be used to

build a limitless number of meanings.
• Dynamic: Languages change by word
absorption, and grammar rules shift.
 Definitions of Language
• Critical period
– Developmental stages
– Pattern of cognitive ability
• Recursive or Self-Reflexive
– The dog is chasing its tail
– It’s cold outside, isn’t it?
• Displaced reference: Language can refer to things not
present in the here and now
• The ancient Greeks deduced the size of the Earth, Moon and Sun,
and the distances amongst each, using simple geometry.
• Recursion: automatic self-pointing repetition –
two mirrors reflecting each other
• Self-reference: is about information – using
information in a system for the system.
– Unraveling a hose by running water through it.

• Self-reflexive: is about process – using a

process in a system to fix the same process.
– Using the water in a fire hose to put out the fire on
the hose.
 Language
• Definition
• Taxonomy
• Perception
• Critical Window & Stages of Development
• Language in Animals
 Taxonomy of Language
• Phonemes
– the smallest units of sound that are considered part
of the language

– one letter like /t/ will have several variants the are
aspirant or percussive (or non-aspirant) which are
called allophones.
– Phoneme (phonemic)

− Speech sound represented by a single symbol

− letters
− Contain no meaning
− Phonemic differences do change the meaning of a word
− About 200 phonemes across all known languages
− 44 in English
● Vowels

− Vocal tract is open

◘ Formed by varying placement of the tongue
 Vertical: high – mid – low
 Horizontal: front – central – back
» Perceiving phonemes
Despite coarticulation….
/p/

/p/at /p/et /p/it /p/ot /p/ut

 Categorical Perception
− Tendency to perceive phones within a phoneme
category as the same
− Phonemes are invariant across different contexts
 Taxonomy of Language

• English has 44 phonemes, World average is 31

– 70% of World’s between 20 and 37
– Fewest is 11 (Rotakas, Indo-Pacific L.)
– Most is 141 (!Xu, southern Africa)
– Minimum number of vowels: 3, eg. Arabic
– Some have 24 vowels
– 13 language have more than 16 vowels,
– most languages have about 5 vowels
– English has around 11-12 vowels
 Taxonomy of Language
• Morphemes
– String phonemes together and you get morphemes,
the smallest units of meaning like /dog/ which is one
morpheme or /doggy/ which is two.

– There are plural morphemes like /s/, /z/, /zez/ or

tense morphemes like /t/, /d/. There are irregular
patterns for plurals which any native listener would
be able to recognize when hearing them for the first
time.
 Taxonomy of Language
• Syntax – Word order in sentences – Man-eating Shark
Native speakers know what is not
grammatical even if they have never
heard the sentence before. –
Hierarchical structure
– Subject – Object – Verb (Japanese,
Maninka)
– Subject – Verb – Object (English, Spanish)
– Verb – Subject – Object (Jacaltec, Gaelic)
– Verb – Object – Subject (Malagasy,
Man Eating Shark
Madag.; Huave, Mx)
– Object – Subject – Verb (Xavante)
 Taxonomy of Language
• Suprasegmentals –
– Pitch, amplitude, duration, Cadence of sentences
– Prosody, information conveyed through tone
• Onomatopoeia ,
– eg. Umph, ouch,
– /woof/ in English, /a-wau/ in Arabic
 Language
• Definition
• Taxonomy
• Perception (Bottom-Up / Top-Down)
• Critical Window & Stages of Development
• Language in Animals
 Phonology: The Sounds of Language
– Analysis of the basic speech sounds
− / / represents the sound, apart from spelling
− Acoustic structure can be viewed with the use of a
speech spectrograph, which produces a spectogram
◘ Plots sound waves of differing frequencies that result from
speech
Sound spectrogram
 Formants
Peak in the speech spectrum. With
resonant peaks below.

Vowels have distances between the

highest peak frequency and the
lower peak frequencies. Vowel Main formant region

u 200 to 400 Hz
Labeled by number, from lowest to
o 400 to 600 Hz
highest (F1, F2, F3)
a 800 to 1200 Hz
e 400 to 600 and 2200 to 2600 Hz
Different Vowels have different
i 200 to 400 and 3000 to 3500 Hz
(proportional) distances
 Formants
Peak in the speech spectrum. With
resonant peaks below.

Vowels have distances between the

highest peak frequency and the
lower peak frequencies.

Labeled by number, from lowest to

highest (F1, F2, F3)

Different Vowels have different

(proportional) distances
● Phonemes also differ by suprasegmental factors
− Rate, stress, and intonation

● Coarticulation
− A given phoneme sounds different depending on
neighboring phonemes
◘ Phonemes are articulated simultaneously
Bottom-Up / Top-Down
 Bottom-Up: McGurk Effect
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=73LE1vKGfy4&feature=related
 Bottom-Up: McGurk Effect
• Lip movements to one sound “ga”
• Soundtrack indicates “ba”
• What do you hear?
• McGurk & MacDonald (1976) found that
people make a comprised sound “da”
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73LE1vKGfy4&feature=related
 Bottom-Up Uses Bayesian Integration
• Bayesian probability uses prior likelihoods
• Wave patterns (formants) /Ba/ /Da/ & /Ga/
exist on a continuous spectrum
• But we perceive abrupt boundaries between
formants. How?
• Partially, by experience within one modality.
Spectrogram
Spectrogram
of vowels
of pure
that sound
vowel
differently
sounds
due to
surrounding
sounds
 Bottom-Up Uses Bayesian Integration
• But we perceive abrupt boundaries between
formants. How?
• Partially, by Bayesian integration across
modalities
Prob of detecting Ba

Hi: Aud Ba+ VisBa

Med: AudBa only

Low: AudGa +VisBa

 Top-Down: Phoneme Restoration
Effect
• Warren & Warren (1970)
– It was found that the *eel was on the axle
– It was found that the *eel was on the shoe
– It was found that the *eel was on the orange
– It was found that the *eel was on the table
• * was a cough but it was heard as the missing
phoneme implied by the context
Top-Down: Word Superiority Effect
 Demonstration
Based on Reicher (1969)

• On the next several slides, a row of six letters will

appear.
• You will then see two letters, one above and one
below a letter that appeared
• Guess which of the two letters actually appeared in
the appropriate location
XXXXXX
JBDVLM
----B-
XXXXXX
----L-
XXXXXX
SOKDHR
--K---
XXXXXX
--R---
XXXXXX
FATHER
---T--
XXXXXX
---H--
XXXXXX
CGZIFW
----F-
XXXXXX
----G-
XXXXXX
POSTER
--R---
XXXXXX
--S---
XXXXXX
RCHUQV
--H---
XXXXXX
--U---
XXXXXX
STRIPE
----K-
XXXXXX
----P-
XXXXXX
CRATES
-----S
XXXXXX
-----R
end
 Word Superiority Effect
• Letters are more easily recognized in the
context of a word than alone
• Words are also more easily recognized after
processing a sentence
• This demonstrates the importance of the
interaction between top-down and bottom-up
processing
• fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny
55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I
was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid,
aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it
dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the
ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht
the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset
can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a
pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh
and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
 Language
• Definition
• Taxonomy
• Perception
• Critical Window & Stages of Development
• Language in Animals
 Animals
Got Language?
• Story of Clever Hans
• Honeybees
• Songbirds
• Parrots
• Vervet Monkeys
• Dolphins
• Monkeys & Apes
 Hi Honey! I’m Home!

• Honeybees
• • When a forager bee locates food it returns to the hive and
performs a dance.
• • The number of repetitions of the dance communicates the
quality of the food.
• • Distance is communicated by the form of the dance.
• – Round Dance: < 20 ft
• – Sickle Dance: 20 – 60 ft.
• – Tail-Wagging Dance: > 60 ft, coded by rate
• • Direction is also communicated in the sickle and tail-
wagging dances.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NtegAOQpSs&NR=1
 Alex the Parrot
Irene Pepperberg has spent 25 years teaching Grey Parrots
“meaningful use of English speech”.
Model/Rival Training
• Trainer + Model/Rival + Parrot
• Trainer presents objects to the model/rival and queries them
about it.
– Correct: Get the item.
– Incorrect: Get corrective feedback.
• The only reward is the object talked about, but after a correct
response the parrot can
request something it wants (e.g., a nut).
 Alex the Parrot
• “Alex exhibits cognitive capacities comparable to those of
marine mammals,apes, and sometimes 4-year-old children.”
• Alex correctly labels
– 50+ objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities up to 6
• He correctly uses
– “No.”
– “Come here.”
– “Wanna go X.”
– “Want Y.”
• He combines labels to correctly identify more than 100
objects in his environment.
• He surfs the internet
• http://www.pbs.org/saf/1201/video/watchonline.htm
 The Great Apes
• Larynx in nasal cavity in most
animals except during vocalizing,
when it moves to oral cavity
• Same true for human infants, but
around 3 months moves to throat
• Lower larynx makes an animal
sound larger, it also happens to
help vocalization and formant
(vowel) production
• Humans have it permanently low,
and it grows even lower in human
male adolescents
 Great Primate
• Sarah (Primack, 1971): vocabulary of more than 100 words of various parts of
speech. Showed rudimentary linguistic skills. She modeled her trainer and was able
to use the instructions she received to construct what appeared to be a rudimentary
language of her own.

• Nim Chimpsky (Terrace, 1981): two-words combination

– "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange
give me eat orange give me you.“

– Most of the utterances were repetitions of what Nim had seen

and didn’t show rudiment of syntactical expression (no preference for the
grammatically correct form)

– “Nim give banana” or “banana give Nim” or “banana

Nim give”
 Kanzi the Bonobo Chimp

• Kanzi is the star of animal language studies today (Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker &
Taylor, 1998).
• He uses a keyboard language called Yerkish.
– Kanzi was not formally introduced to Yerkish.
– He sat on his adopted mother’s back while she received lessons in Yerkish.
– Mom never learned, but Kanzi started using the keyboard spontaneously.
– Since then his “training” has consisted of walks in the woods.
– Kanzi understands over 200 symbols.
 Kanzi the Bonobo Chimp
• Kanzi was faced with 310 sentences of various types
• action-object sentences (e.g. "Would you please carry the straw"),
• action-object-location sentences (e.g. "Put the tomato in the
refrigerator")
• action-object-recipient sentences (e.g., "Carry the cooler to
Penny").

• Of the 310 sentences tested, Kanzi got 298 correct.

• Savage-Rumbaugh concludes…. Kanzi’s sentence comprehension
appears to be syntactically based in that he responds differently to
the same word depending upon its function in the sentence
• but..many nouns are pragmatically constrained i.e. “refridgerator
in the tomato?” etc.
 Kanzi the Bonobo Chimp
• Seems to understands the importance of word order (I.e.
therefore has some limited syntax):
• PUT JELLY IN MILK versus PUT MILK IN JELLY
• He seems to understand rudimentary features of sentence
structure such as who does what to whom:
• LIZ IS GOING TO TICKLE KANZI versus YOU
TICKLE LIZ
 People Growing up Without Language

• Genie
– Kept in isolation from 20 mo
– Was discovered in 1970 when she was 13+
– Is it possible to learn language at this late age?
– Genie only developed a limited syntax
Applesauce buy store
Man motorcycle have
• Feral Children
– Djuma, “Wolf Boy”
• Found living among wolves
• “Mother dead. Father dead. Brother dead. Sister dead. Mother nice. Father
bad.”
– The Boy from Aveyron
• Within a few months Victor could sit in a chair, express his emotions without
being violent, and he could even speak a few words, like ‘milk’, and ‘Oh
God’, which was something Dr. Itard’s housekeeper, Mme. Guerin, often
said. Victor also came to like Mme. Guerin, who fed and cared for him.
 Creole and Pigdin
• Creole languages develop “out of nothing”
• Speakers of Pigdin use many mother tongues, mixing
up words and syntax, usually without articles or
prepositions.
• Their children develop the Creole language, keeping
the words, adding prepositions, articles.
• The Creole vocabulary is reduced, word-order is
variable, with little grammatical structure, meaning is
context dependent.
 Language Acquisition
• What makes language hard to acquire?
– How do you know when one syllabe starts and
another ends? Coarticulation: Phonemes overlap in
time
– Variability in speech signal
– No one-to-one correspondence between the
acoustic stimuli and the speech sounds we hear
• How do we recognize sounds in a way so a
stable set of phonemes is perceived?
 Language Acquisition
• What newborn and very young infants can
already do
– discriminate human speech from other sounds and
prefer to listen to it
– discriminate their mother’s voice from that of
other adult women
– discriminate their language from another language
– they listen longer to a story that they have heard
read in the womb
Motherese
 Stages of Language Acquisition in Infants

• Cooing – long vowel sounds (ooooooh) or consonant

vowel combinations (gaaaaaah)
– They are capable of generating any sound found in any
language.
• Babbling – (6-10 m.o.) consonant-vowel
combinations and repetitions (dadadada)
• 12-14 mo become selective towards sounds in
mother tongue, by 18 mo has vocabulary of 50 words
• 24 mo starts using two word sentences
 Errors Made by Infants
• Overextension / overgeneralization
– Doggy means all four legged furry animals
daddy means all grown up men who wear beards
• Overregularization
– Fish (pl.) = Fishes; run ~runned; go~goed
• Competence vs. Knowledge
Look at the Fisses
It’s not fisses, it’s fish
That’s what I said, fisses
As a new cognitive ability comes online, the preceding one
shows a temporary deficit
 Stages of Language Acquisition in Infants

• Babies start off by being able to produce any

sound then they become selective towards
mother-tongue phonemes.
• How do they make sense of the blooming
buzzing confusion? How can you measure
their learning…?
• …Habituation Paradigm!
Novel
Old
 In class Activity
• Construct a Table in which each of the 25 rows corresponds to
a phoneme (sound unit) in the English language. List the
consonantal phonemes in the following order (start with # for
“none” then) p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, ng, f, th, s, sh, ch, v, z, zh, j, l,
r, y, w, h. Each of the 25 columns also corresponds to a
phoneme in English (start with V for any vowel, then) p, t, k,
b, d, g, m, n, ng, f, th, s, sh, ch, v, z, zh, j, l, r, y, w, h.
• Reminder: These refer to sounds not letters.
• Now fill in the table with an X to indicate which of the
phonemes in the rows may be followed by which of the
phonemes in the columns, in order to begin an English
syllable. Place an X in each box in the Table that corresponds
to a legal syllable onset in standard English.
Language Acquisition: Statistical Learning

• Questions:
• Which are the privileged / legal phonemes?
• Why are some combinations of phonemes
allowed and others not?
• How is the structure of spoken language
visible in this chart?
» Mother Tongue Word Boundary Acquisition in Infants
» Discerning Word Boundaries
– Weak relationship between breaks in the acoustic speech signal
and breaks between words

Never touch a snake with your bare hands

 Bottom-up factors
● Phonotactic knowledge
− Sensitivity to the rules that govern phoneme
combinations in a given language
◘ Example: jp never occurs in English

● Metrical segmentation
− Phonological regularities of a given language
◘ Example: In English, content words tend to start with
strong syllables and end with weak syllables
 Using Statistical Probabilities to Detect Word Boundaries
● Statistical regularities present in the speech sequence is used to
detect word boundaries

Habituation Paradigm, Saffran, Aslin, and Newport (1996)

 Phase 1
 Presented infants with a two-minute continuous speech stream
composed of 4 different 3-syllable nonsense words strung
together in random order
Bidaku/padoti/golabu/fotavi
 Phase 2
 Two types of test trials
♦ Previously defined “words” heard by infants
♦ New experimenter defined words containing the same
syllables, but in new combinations

Old: bidaku/padoti/golabu/fotavi
New: kupa/dotigola/avibida/bufot

 Infants controlled listening time by staring or not staring

at a blinking light
♦ Infants prefer “novelty”
 Prediction
 If picked up on words from phase 1
♦ Will look at blinking light when new
“words” are heard

 If did not pick up on the “words” from phase 1

♦ Will look at light for old and new
“words”—both are novel

 Results
 Prediction (Hypothesis) 1 wins! Kids stared at
light under type 2 words; they recognized the new
words as new
Language is also Syntax

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
Lewis Carrol
 Mother Tongue Phoneme Acquisition in Infants
Babies can discriminate the sounds of all the world’s languages and adults
cannot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew5-xbc1HMk&feature=em-subs_digest-newavtr-vrecs

Both Hindi and English: /ba/ vs. /da/

6-8 month-old babies and adults could discriminate.

Hindi, not English, easy /Ta/ vs. /ta/

6-8 month-old babies could discriminate.

Adults could not initially but could after 25 trials of training.

Hindi, not English, hard /th/ vs. /dh/

6-8 month-old babies could discriminate.

Adults could not, and never learned.
Werker et al.
 Mother Tongue Syntax Acquisition in Infants
1. Present babies with strings of elements from an artificial grammar:
VOT PEL JIC RUD TAM

2. The artificial grammar has rules as to the order of elements

PEL can occur: 1st position
2nd position
both 2nd and 3rd
not at all

JIC can occur: after VOT, PEL or TAM

but its position depended on whether VOT or TAM was first

3. The babies listen to the strings following these rules for 2 minutes

4. Test with strings of the same sounds but different rules of combination

5. 12-month-old babies listened longer to new strings from the grammar

they had heard before than to strings from the other grammars

Gomez & Gerken

Superficial Dyslexia
• Neural mechanisms underlying
developmental dyslexia:
• single or multiple?
– Phonological representation deficits
– General temporal processing deficits
– Magnocellular deficits
 What Do Verbs that flip or don’t tell us?
(Can Animals do this?)

• Language has a structure that shifts depending

on whether the emphasis is on
– causing-to-change
– causing-to-happen
– causing-to-have
– Language also Makes Metaphors out of
• Time
• Space
• Matter
 How Language Shows ‘Elements’ of
Thought
• Pinker Stuff of Thought, 2007
• Study of verbs
– Content & Container Locatives
– Datives
– Causative alternations, transitive and intransitive
Testing Language: Wug test
 How Language Shows ‘Elements’ of
Thought
• Content & Container Locatives (e.g., load, sprayed)
• Prepositional and Double-Object Datives (e.g., bring, carry)
• Causative alternations, transitive and intransitive (e.g., hit, wrecked)
• For each of these verb classes:
– Their meaning is synonymous
– The alternation can be applied to many verbs
– Children apply the pattern in situations they could not have
learnt, and adults apply it to new terms
– The difference between Monogamous (only one form) and
Alternating verbs is due to how the brain “makes”
meaning.
 Content and Container Locatives
The “Gestalt Shift” in Language

• Container Locative • Content Locative

• The container being changed is the • The moving object is the focus of the
focus of the sentence sentence

• Container Locatives • Content Locatives

• Hal is loading the wagon with hay • Hal is loading hay into the wagon
• Jared sprayed the roses with water • Jared sprayed water on the roses
• Betsy splashed the wall with paint • Betsy splashed paint onto the wall
• Jeremy rubbed the wood with oil • Jeremy rubbed oil into the wood

• You can flip many sentences

into Container or Content
Locatives, and like a Gestalt
Illusion it still makes sense
(Bi-stable).
 Content and Container Locatives
Some Flip, Some Don’t

But
• Container Locatives • Content Locatives
• Tex nailed the board with posters • Tex nailed the posters on the board
• Serena coiled the pole with a rope • Serena coiled the rope around the pole
• Ellie covered the bed with an afghan • Ellie covered an afghan onto the bed
• Jimmy drenched his jacket with • Jimmy drenched beer onto his jacket
beer

• Red sentences test as odd or incorrect in

experiments.
• White sentences tests as normal or correct
• Think about how a child would learn the difference, and
how an adult can tell the difference for new and novel
sentences
Content and Container Locatives: What does the
Flip Mean?
• The physics of the change-in-state matters. Are
they caused or allowed?
• Verbs that can alternate: caused
– Brush, dab, daub, plaster, rub, slather, smear,
smudge, spread
• Verbs that do not alternate: allowed
– Dribble, drip, drop, dump, funnel, ladle, pour, siphon, slop,
slosh
Content and Container Locatives: What does the
Flip Mean?
• Changing entities are treated as moving objects
– A change-in-state = movement.
• “A state is conceived as a location in space of possible states, and
change is equated with movement from one location to another in
the state-space.” Pinker, 2007, pg. 47.
• Pedro slid from 1st base to 2nd
• Pedro slid from health to illness

– “Its reconstrual gets compacted into a single point, its

internal geometry obliterated.” Pinker, 2007, pg 49
• Bees are swarming in the garden
• The garden is swarming with bees
• Juice dripped from the peach
• The peach dripped with juice
Content and Container Locatives: What does the
Flip Mean?
– Alternation reflects the manner of the change-in-
state matters.
– Alternating verbs involve a ballistic force in
multiple directions
• Inject, shower, spatter, splash, spray, sprinkle, spritz
– Non-alternating verbs involve forceful expelling
from inside a volume
• Emit, excrete, expectorate, expel, exude, secrete, spew, spit, vomit
 Datives: Latin to give
The “Gestalt Shift” in Language

• Prepositional Dative • Double-Object Dative

• Contains preposition to • “Di-transitive” contains two objects,
the “indirect” and “direct” objects
• Give a muffin to a moose • Give a moose a muffin
• Lafleur slid the puck to the goalie • Lafleur slid the goalie the puck
• Danielle brought the cat to her vet • Danielle brought her vet the cat
• Adam told the story to the baby • Adam told the baby the story

• You can flip Prepositional

Datives into Double-Object
Datives, and like a Gestalt
Illusion it still makes sense
(Bi-stable).
 Datives
Some Flip, Some Don’t

But
• Prepositional Datives • Double-Object Datives
• Goldie drove her bus to the lake • Goldie drove the lake her bus
• Arnie lifted the box to him • Arnie lifted him the box
• The IRS fined a thousand bucks to me • The IRS fined me a thousand bucks
• Friends, Romans, countrymen: • Friends, Romans, countrymen: Lend
Lend your ears to me! me your ears!

• Red sentences test as odd or incorrect in

experiments.
• White sentences tests as normal or correct
• Think about how a child would learn the difference, and
how an adult can tell the difference for new and novel
sentences
Prepositional and Double-object Datives: What does the
Flip Mean?

• Datives that alternate are ones where causing to give

results in causing to have:
Annette sent the doctor a package
Annette sent the package to the doctor
Annette sent the boarder a package
• Datives that do not alternate are those where causing to
give does not result in causing to have
Goldie drove her bus to the lake
Goldie drove the lake her bus
Annette sent the BORDER the package
You cannot cause a lake to possess a bus; you cannot
alternate the verb
Prepositional and Double-object Datives: What does the
Flip Mean?

• Physics also counts for Datives

– To give all at once alternate, but given over time gradually do not
Bash, bat, bounce, bunt, chuck, flick
Carry, drag, haul, hoist, lift, lower, pull, push
• Manner also counts for datives
– In communication, verbs about the pragmatics alternate but the manner
of asking do not
He asked the President a question
He asked the question to the President
He whispered the question to the President
He whispered the President the question
 Causatives
The “Gestalt Shift” in Language

• Causative Transitive • Causative Intransitive

• A subject causes object to do • The object is doing its thing

• Bobbie boiled the egg • The egg boiled

• Tim bounced the ball • The ball bounced
• Washington marched the • Danielle brought her vet the cat
soldiers across the field • The car was jump-started
• Jack jump-started the car
• You can flip Transitives into
Intransitives, and like a
Gestalt Illusion it still makes
sense (Bi-stable).
 Causatives
Some Flip, Some Don’t

But
• Transitives • Intransitives
• She thumped the log • The log thumped
• He wrecked the car • The car wrecked
• The thunder is crying the baby • The baby is crying
• I came my son home early • My son came home early

• Red sentences test as odd or incorrect in

experiments.
• White sentences tests as normal or correct
• Think about how a child would learn the difference, and
how an adult can tell the difference for new and novel
sentences
Transitives and Intransitives: What does the Flip Mean?

• Causitives can alternate if the causation is direct

The window broke
Darren broke the window
Darren broke the window by startling the carpenter who was
installing it
• Volitional, involuntary actions cannot alternate
The contract was signed; Bob signed the contract
Mary laughed; Bob laughed Mary
 What Do Verbs that flip or don’t tell us?
(Can Animals do this?)

• Language has a structure that shifts depending

on whether the emphasis is on
– causing-to-change
– causing-to-happen
– causing-to-have
– Language also Makes Metaphors out of
• Time
• Space
• Matter
 Errors in Flipping the Frame Made by
Children
• Can I fill some salt into the bear?
• I’m going to cover a screen over me
• Feel your hand to that
• Look, Mom, I’m gonna pour it with water, my belly.
• I hitted this into my neck
Testing Language
 Eventually, Children Flip the Frame

• The Mooping Test (A Wug Test)

– Create a word mooping (to move a sponge to a
purple cloth turning it green)
• The verb describes the manner of moving
(zigzagging) versus moving which results in the cloth
changing colors
– In motion condition, children and adults use
content-locative (mooping the sponge)
– in color-changing condition children and adults
use container-locative (mooping the cloth)
 Think About This
• Each cell has a criteria for firing
• criteria shift
• No one neuron firing is sufficient
information, the meaning is in the average
rate in a given population.
Interactive-Activation Model of
Word Recognition
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works
• How do you get neurons
to represent simple
logical functions?
• By setting the threshold
• This requires pre-wiring
• But cannot pre-wire for
every thing in the world
like mouse or justice.
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works
• Instead of one-
neuron-one-
symbol the brain
uses distributed
representation
• Many categories
combined (e.g.,
crispy, green,
edible) sum up to
create one value
(e.g., celery)
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works
• Turn the network
upside down, and you
can represent the
fuzzy quality of logic
where tokens can be
more or less good
examples of a
category.
• Here the item tomato
only lights up some of
the qualities for fruit
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works

• The neuron at the top is

removed and the correlations
amongst the nodes is preserved.
• The everything-connects-to-
everything is called auto-
associator, and has five features
in common with human pattern
recognition.
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works
• Five features of Auto-associators
1. Reconstructive and content addressable memory
– Specifying an item in memory automatically lights up
a copy or version of that memory anywhere else. If
you light one part of the network, if the weights are
strong enough, the parts will light up.
– State dependent or context dependent memory
– One part of a lyric cues the rest.
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works
• Five features of Auto-
associators
2. Graceful degradation.
Do not discard the
whole percept because
of one faulty piece of
information (e.g.,
PRITN, HELF)
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works
• Five features of Auto-associators
3. Constraint satisfaction.
– Sinned a pin does not make sense.
– But send a pen does even though the sounds are
very similar.
– With logic you have to test each possibility. With
auto-associator the context is intrinsic to the network,
and the most meaningful evaluation emerges.
– Ambiguities are allowed: Necker Cube.
 Thinking Machines
Pinker, How the Mind Works
• Five features of Auto-associators
4. Generalizes automatically.
– E.g., bottom row is distributed pattern for an animal
(parrot). The top row are the features of the category
the animal belongs to (feathers, beak, flies). The
relationship amongst the features of a category have
an intrinsic correlation.
5. Learn from examples, where learning is a change
in the weights.
 The End
• Back Up Slides
• Visual Cliff original footage:
http://vimeo.com/77934
 Language Reflects Deep Structure
• When cause to go  cause to change
• When cause to go  cause to have
• Cause to happen vs happen
• The physics
• The manner
 The Birds and the Monkeys
(Insert avarian-primate joke here)
• Songbirds
• • Male songbirds use their songs to establish a territory.
• • This serves as a warning to other males and as an invitation to
prospective mates.
• • In European Robins, the songs can vary in complicated ways, but the
only aspect of this variation
• that “matters” is the alternation between high and low-pitched notes. This
communicates how
• intensely the robin will defend this territory.
• Vervet Monkeys
• • African Vervet monkeys live in close-knit social groups.
• • They use three distinct “calls” to signal danger.
• – Snake: Troupe stands on hind legs and scans the ground.
• – Leopard: Troupe climbs onto smallest branches of nearby trees.
• – Eagle: Troupe climbs trees but stays close to trunk or dives into dense
bushes.
 What Do Content and Container Locatives Tell us
About Language?
• Verbs that allow both locative shifts (e.g., load hay into the
wagon, and, load the wagon with hay):
Brush, dab, daub, plaster, rub, slather, smear, smudge, spread,
swab

• Verbs that are content-loc. and do not permit a shift (e.g.,

pour water into the glass, but not, pour the glass with water):
Dribble, drip, drop, dump, funnel, ladle, pour, shake, siphon,
slop, slosh, spill

• Verbs that are container-loc and do not permit a shift (e.g.,

drench the shirt with wine, but not, drench wine into the shirt)
Adorn, pollute, block, bind, interlace, cover, inundate
 Children Flip the Frame

• Can I fill some salt into the bear?

• I’m going to cover a screen over me
• Feel your hand to that
• Look, Mom, I’m gonna pour it with water, my belly.
• I hitted this into my neck
• The Mooping Test (A Wug Test)
– Create a word mooping (to move a sponge to a purple cloth
turning it green)
– The verb describes the manner of moving (zigzagging)
versus moving which results in the cloth changing colors
– In motion condition, children and adults use content-
locative (mooping the sponge)
– in color changing condition children and adults use
container-locative (mooping the cloth)
 Content and Container Locatives
The “Gestalt Shift” in Language

• Container Locatives • Content Locatives

• Hal is loading the wagon with hay • Hal is loading hay into the wagon
• Jared sprayed the roses with water • Jared sprayed water on the roses
• Betsy splashed the wall with paint • Betsy splashed paint onto the wall
• Jeremy rubbed the wood with oil • Jeremy rubbed oil into the wood

But
• Container Locatives • Content Locatives
• Tex nailed the board with posters • Tex nailed the posters on the board
• Serena coiled the pole with a rope • Serena coiled the rope around the pole
• Ellie covered the bed with an afghan • Ellie covered an afghan onto the bed
• Jimmy drenched his jacket with • Jimmy drenched beer onto his jacket
beer