Uncovering Child Language Learning

1. How we know what they know

2. Where are we … • Coming attraction: experiments, results, etc. • But: these need to be placed in perspective, to see what is needed to understand child language learning • We want to understand what inferences children must make in order to arrive at mature language state • Evidence from cross-language typology • Evidence from observations/guesses about learner’s experience • Evidence from stages of child development – do children ‘overgenerate’ or ‘undergenerate’

3. Asking children about grammar You can’t ask a child: “What interpretations do you accept for …?” “Some animal ate every piece of food” OR “He thinks that John is the winner” Clever strategies can be used Simple/indirect dependent measures carry risks Stephen Crain, Macquarie U, Sydney

4. Crain & Thornton, 1998

5. Truth Value Judgment Task “I know what happened in this story…”

6. Principle C a. While John was reading the book, he ate an apple b. While he was reading the book, John ate an apple c. John ate an apple while he was reading the book d. *He ate an apple while John was reading the book

7. Truth Value Judgment Task Principle C in children: English - Crain & McKee (1985)Russian - Kazanina & Phillips (2001), etc.

8. “Hello, Eeyore! I see that you’re reading a book.”

9. “What a fine-looking apple.”

10. “No, Pooh. You can’t eat the apple - that’s my apple.”

11. “Ok, I’ll have to eat a banana instead.”

12. “Ok, Pooh. I’ve finished reading. Now you can read the book.”

13. “Great. Now that Pooh is reading the book, I can eat this delicious apple.”

14. “I shouldn’t be such a greedy donkey - I should let Pooh eat the apple.”

15. “I suppose I have to eat a banana instead.”

16. “Here you are, Pooh. You can have the apple.”

17. “Oh, I’m such a lucky bear! I can read the book, and I can eat the apple, at the same time.”

18. Apple is eaten up.

19. OK, that was a story about Eeyore and Winnie-the-Pooh. First Eeyore was reading the book and then Winnie-the-Pooh was reading the book. I know one thing that happened... While Pooh was reading the book, he ate the apple.

20. OK, that was a story about Eeyore and Winnie-the-Pooh. First Eeyore was reading the book and then Winnie-the-Pooh was reading the book. I know one thing that happened... While he was reading the book, Pooh ate the apple.

21. OK, that was a story about Eeyore and Winnie-the-Pooh. First Eeyore was reading the book and then Winnie-the-Pooh was reading the book. I know one thing that happened... Pooh ate the apple while he was reading the book.

22. OK, that was a story about Eeyore and Winnie-the-Pooh. First Eeyore was reading the book and then Winnie-the-Pooh was reading the book. I know one thing that happened... He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book.

23. How 3-4 Year Olds Perform yes! a. While Pooh was reading the book, he ate an apple b. While he was reading the book, Pooh ate an apple c. Pooh ate an apple while he was reading the book d. *He ate an apple while Pooh was reading the book yes! yes! no! Works for English, Italian, Russian etc.

25. How the Task Works • Child is not being judged • Identical story for all test sentences • Avoids child’s ‘yes’ bias - child shows knowledge by answering “no” • Story favors the ungrammatical meaning • Story is set up to make “no” answer felicitous

26. How the Task Works • Child is not being judged • Identical story for all test sentences • Avoids child’s ‘yes’ bias - child shows knowledge by answering “no” • Story favors the ungrammatical meaning • Story is set up to make “no” answer felicitous

27. How the Task Works • Child is not being judged • child understands that (s)he is helping the experimenter to test a puppet (e.g. Kermit) • child does not feel that (s)he is being tested, and so feels under less pressure • child’s response is very simple yes/no • the simplicity of the dependent measure is both a strength and a danger

28. How the Task Works • Child is not being judged • Identical story for all test sentences • Avoids child’s ‘yes’ bias - child shows knowledge by answering “no” • Story favors the ungrammatical meaning • Story is set up to make “no” answer felicitous

29. How the Task Works • Identical story for all test sentences • only difference is in the final sentence that Kermit utters • if children respond differently to the different test sentences, this can’t be due to any differences in the stories

30. How the Task Works • Child is not being judged • Identical story for all test sentences • Avoids child’s ‘yes’ bias - child shows knowledge by answering “no” • Story favors the ungrammatical meaning • Story is set up to make “no” answer felicitous

31. OK, that was a story about Eeyore and Winnie-the-Pooh. First Eeyore was reading the book and then Winnie-the-Pooh was reading the book. I know one thing that happened... He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book.

32. How the Task Works • Child is not being judged • Identical story for all test sentences • Avoids child’s ‘yes’ bias - child shows knowledge by answering “no” • Story favors the ungrammatical meaning • Story is set up to make “no” answer felicitous

33. OK, that was a story about Eeyore and Winnie-the-Pooh. First Eeyore was reading the book and then Winnie-the-Pooh was reading the book. I know one thing that happened... He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book.

34. OK, that was a story about Eeyore and Winnie-the-Pooh. First Eeyore was reading the book and then Winnie-the-Pooh was reading the book. I know one thing that happened... He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book.

35. How the Task Works • Child is not being judged • Identical story for all test sentences • Avoids child’s ‘yes’ bias - child shows knowledge by answering “no” • Story favors the ungrammatical meaning • Story is set up to make “no” answer felicitous

36. Making “no” answers possible He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book.

37. Plausible Denial He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book. TRUE - but ungrammatical He ate the apple while Pooh was reading the book. Grammatical - but FALSE clearly FALSE, since it almost happened, but then didn’t Eeyore

38. “Great. Now that Pooh is reading the book, I can eat this delicious apple.”

39. “I shouldn’t be such a greedy donkey - I should let Pooh eat the apple.”

40. “I suppose I have to eat a banana instead.”

41. Tests of interpretations that involve uncertainty • Japanese disjunction • Scope flexibility (we saw this already) Takuya Goro, UMd 2002-7, Asst. Prof. Ibaraki U., Japan

42. English vs. Japanese (1) • John speaks Icelandic or Swahili. (but I’m not sure which language he can actually speak…) • John-wa Icelandic ka Swahili-wo hanas-u. John-TOP or -ACC speak-pres. (but I’m not sure which language he can actually speak…)  The interpretations of disjunctions are more or less same in both languages.

43. English vs. Japanese (2) • John doesn’t speak Icelandic or Swahili.  John doesn’t speak Icelandic AND he doesn’t speak Swahili. • John-wa Icelandic ka Swahili-wo hanasa-na-i John-TOP or -ACC speak-neg-pres. John doesn’t speak Icelandic OR he doesn’t speak Swahili. (I know it is either one of those languages that John cannot speak, but I’m not sure which one…)

44. ‘Neither’ interpretation in Japanese • John-wa Icelandic mo Swahili mo hanas-u. John-TOP also also speak-pres. “John speaks both Icelandic and Swahili” • John-wa Icelandic mo Swahili mo hanase-na-i John-TOP also also speak-neg-pres.  John speaks neither Icelandic nor Swahili.

45. Disjunction and parameter • Let’s say that UG provides the universal disjunction operator OR, associated with a parameter={+PPI, -PPI} • OR(+PPI)  disjunctions in Japanese / Hungarian / Russian / Italian… • OR(-PPI)  disjunctions in English / German / Korean… (cf. Szabolcsi 2002)

46. Question about children • Can Japanese children accept the wide-scope reading of ka in (4)? • John-wa Icelandic ka Swahili-wo hanasa-na-i John-TOP or -ACC speak-neg-pres.  Can they accept (4) in the situation where John cannot speak Icelandic but he can speak Swahili? If they have the –PPI setting, they should say “No”

47. Experimental conditions and the felicity of test sentences • John-wa Icelandic ka Swahili-wo hanasa-na-i John-TOP or -ACC speak-neg-pres. Situation: John cannot speak Icelandic but he can speak Swahili Experimental context should make the sentence perfectly felicitous under AB (adult) interpretation; otherwise, children’s negative responses may not be counted as evidence for children’s conjunctive interpretation of ka.

48. Felicity conditions for AB • The speaker knows that something with affirmative expectation turned out to be false. otherwise, he wouldn’t use negation. • The speaker knows that it is either A or B (but not both) that is false.otherwise, he would say AB. • The speaker doesn’t know which one is false.otherwise, he would simply say A, or B.

49. Creating Uncertainty • Two sub-sessions (1) The “eating-game” 12 animals try to eat 3 kinds of food. Depending of how good they did, they get a particular kind of medal as a prize. (2) Truth Value Judgment Kermit guesses how good each animal did on the basis of the medal the animal has.

50. Participants • Japanese monolingual children in Sumire kindergarden, Totsuka, Yokohama. • N=30, Age: 3;7-6;3, Mean: 5;3