First Language Acquisition

1. First Language Acquisition Ling400

2. First language (L1) acquisition • Crucial questions regarding language acquisition • Theories of language acquisition • The imitation theory • The reinforcement theory • The active-construction-of-a-grammar theory

3. Language acquisition theories • Imitation: Children imitate adults • Reinforcement: Children are negatively reinforced for errors and positively reinforced for correct usage • Active construction of a grammar: Children are genetically programmed to acquire L1 (driven by Universal Grammar according to Chomsky)

4. The Innateness Hypothesis • The process of first language acquisition cannot be fully explained by an imitation or reinforcement theory. (We will see some examples later.) • Almost all people acquire 1st language successfully despite the fact that the data they are exposed to is often defective. • Conclusion: We are born with a Language Acquisition Device (= Universal Grammar).

5. Lenneberg:characteristics of biologically controlled behaviors • Emerges before it is necessary • Not the result of a conscious decision • Not triggered by external events • No training needed • A regular sequence of “milestones” • There is a “critical period”

6. UG and Lg Acquisition • If Chomsky is right, studying first language acquisition is extremely important because this allows us to see “UG in action”.

7. What is wrong with the imitation theory? • Children understand the rule for plural formation because they apply it to nonsense forms. wug [wʌg] wugs [wʌgz] • They produce incorrect “regular forms” instead • of irregular forms: goed, bringed, foots, mouses, • sheeps, childs • This can only be explained by a theory that says • that children posit rules and constantly revise • them until they acquire the adult grammar.

8. Evidence for internalized syntactic/semantic rules • Children seem to know complex syntactic/semantic rules that cannot be taught directly. “When did the boy say he hurt himself?” [ambiguous] “When did the boy say how he hurt himself?” [not ambiguous]

9. Evidence for internalized syntactic/semantic rules • Some errors in syntax made by children are not errors in a different language/dialect • “What do you think what’s in here?” for “What do you think is in here?” • This is a grammatical question in a German dialect.

10. The Innateness Hypothesis • Chomsky argues that a child is born with an innate grammar (Universal Grammar) that has some basic rules and principles. • The only thing that the linguistic input does is to set some parameters. This accounts for the idiosyncracies among the world’s languages.

11. The Innateness Hypothesis • Chomsky also points to the fact that L1 acquisition follows a set of well-defined developmental stages. So he thinks that this is like the ability to walk: we are genetically predisposed to acquire a language just as we are genetically predisposed to walk.

12. Newborn

13. L1 acquisition, stages • Stage Ibabbling (0-9 mos.) • A large variety of sounds are produced many of which are not sounds used in L1.

14. 12 months

15. L1 acquisition, stages • Stage II Linguistic mapping (9-24 mos) • Lexical development: holophrastic (one word) stage • Telegraphic speech: two-three word stage; lexical but not functional categories • Examples: See hole? No eat? Airplane all gone. All done milk.

16. 15 months Mommy What? Go Wa-wa Gimme Ba-ba (grandmother) Na-na (blanket) 18 months More grapejuice Write a paper Mommy head? What doing, Mommy? Right down Drink juice Oh! Drop a celery L1 acquisition, Stage II

17. 24 months

18. L1 acquisition, stages • Stage IIIComplex syntactic analysis (24-36 mos.) • Optional infinitive stage: root infinitives (RIs) alternate with inflected verbs (IVs)

19. L1 acquisition, Stage III • Root infinitives • Open toybox. No Mommy read. • Drink juice. Oh, Horsie stuck! • Pas manger la poupée. ‘Not [to] eat the doll.’ • Michel dormir. ‘Mike to sleep.’

20. L1 acquisition, Stage III • Inflected verbs • Didn’t come out. • We goed to the beach. • Veux pas lolo. ‘I don’t want water.’ • Ça tourne pas. ‘That doesn’t turn.’ • Des geht nicht. ‘This goes not.’ • Mone auch schlaft. ‘Simone also sleeps.’

21. There some cream This is not better Put in you coffee I go get a pencil ‘n’ write Put my pencil in there An’ I want to take off my hat I put them in the refrigerator to freeze That why Jacky comed We’re going to make a blue house How ‘bout another eggnog instead of cheese sandwich? L1 acquisition, 27 mos.

22. Eva, 27 months • Baby lemon. Not work. • Baby lemon not work. • Unuh. • Yeah. • Mommy, seeds in there. • No. Spit it out.

23. Eva, 27 months • [The] Baby lemon [does]not work. • [The] Baby lemon [does]not work. • Unuh. • Yeah. • Mommy, [null] seeds [are] in there. • No. [null] spit it out.

24. Eva, 27 months • JJ play violin. • Mommy, play violin. Play that. • Yeah. Me get big play violin. • Mommy, my hand do it. • Bandaid. Me need bandaid. • Owie. Fall. Fell. • Me huggin’ baby. Me on bottom, me on top.

25. Eva, 27 months • JJ play[s][the] violin. • Mommy, play [the] violin. Play that. • Yeah. Me get big, [null][will] play violin. • Mommy, my hand do[es] it. • Bandaid. Me need [a] bandaid. Owie. • [null] Fall. [null] Fell. Me huggin’ baby. • Me[was] on [the] bottom, me on [the] top.

26. My own children (examples)sound substitution • Substitution of hard stop consonants (like [k]) • baikin (bacteria) --> baichin • mikan (mandarin orange) --> mitan

27. metathesis • kojichuu (under construction) --> kojuchi • aisukuriimu (ice cream) --> aisukuruumi (note that two vowels are switched) • onigiri (rice ball) --> ogini (ri is dropped) sarada (salad) --> sadara (note that two syllables are switched)

28. overextension • neko (‘cat’) --> uma (‘horse’)

29. How adults talk to children • It is obvious that children need utterances in the target language to acquire it. But it is not clear if they need special input. • Is child-directed speech needed for them to acquire a language? • Questions about “Motherese” • Making corrections -- any effect?

30. second language acquisition • It is fair to say that one needs explicit instruction to supplement what one can do “naturally” if one is to learn a new language as an adult (anyone after puberty).