Experience, variation and generalization : learning a first language / edited by Inbal Arnon, Eve V. Clark.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Arnon, Inbal.

Clark, Eve V.

Series:

Trends in language acquisition research; v. 7

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language acquisition.

Physical Description:

x, 300 p.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Theories of language acquisition must address the role of constraints in children's learning. Are they language-specific or domain-general? Do they come from the learner or are do they result from external factors like the nature of the data? In this chapter we describe how Bayesian modeling may be used to explore this issue. The Bayesian framework has been useful for determining what an ideal learner might be able to learn given a certain set of specific constraints and a certain type of input. It also provides a natural way to compare the effect of different constraints, and to grow towards increasingly cognitively natural models by altering those constraints. Keywords: Learning constraints; Bayesian modeling.

Contents:

Experience, Variation and Generalization

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

References

PART I. Extracting regularities

Toward a theory of gradual morphosyntactic learning

1. Introduction

2. A brief history of research on tense and agreement

3. Gradual morphosyntactic learning: The framework

4. Evidence for gradual morphosyntactic learning

5. Conclusion and future directions

Cues to form and function in the acquisition of german number and case inflection

2. German noun inflection

3. Research questions and method

3.1 The acquisition and overgeneralization of the -n plural

4. The acquisition of -n as dative plural marker

5. Conclusions

Developing first contrasts in Spanish verb inflection: Usage and Interaction

2. Method

2.1 Focus and scope

2.2 The data

2.3 Inflectional forms in Spanish

3. Analysis

3.1 Inflectional inventory

3.2 Developing a verb paradigm

3.3 Ways to develop a paradigm: First inflectional contrasts

3.4 Emergent verb classes

3.5 Verb inflection models in maternal usage

4. Final considerations

Abbreviations

PART II. Multiple cues in learning to communicate

A new look at redundancy in children's gesture and word combinations

2. Some background

2.1 Early gesture communications

2.2 Redundancy in gesture and word combinations

3. The data

4. Findings

4.1 Caregiver responses to children's early gestures

4.2 Frequency of caregiver response to communications

4.3 Caregiver responses to child communications

5. Concluding remarks

Learning the Meaning of "Um"

1. Introduction: Learning and cue use

2. Disfluencies as a cue to speaker intention.

3. How fluent is speech to young children?

3.1 Evidence from CHILDES of disfluencies in child-directed speech

3.2 General knowledge of speaker difficulty from lexically specific examples in the input

4. Experimental evidence of young children's use of disfluencies in comprehension

5. Discussion

5.1 An alternative possibility: Learning by doing?

5.2 The nature of the knowledge

Acknowledgments

PART III. Discovering units

From first words to segments

2. Methods

3. Results

3.1 The palatal template

3.2 Consonant harmony

3.3 The move to segmental representation

4. Discussion and conclusion

Analysis and Generalization Across Verbs and Constructions

1.1 Generalization across verbs

1.2 Generalization across constructions

1.3 Form and function of complement-clause and transitive constructions

1.4 Analyzability of complement-clause and transitive constructions

2. Input analysis

2.1 Predictions

3. Elicitation

4. Results

4.1 Error analysis

5.1 Generalization across verbs

5.2 Frequency of co-occurrence, chunking, and analyzability

5.3 Generalization across constructions

Two- and three-year-olds' linguistic generalizations are prudent adaptations to the language they hear

4. Discussion

Units of Learning in Language Acquisition

2. Gestalt processes in learning

3. The current findings

4. Implications

5. Conclusion

PART IV. Individual differences

Causes and consequences of variability in early language learning

2. Research on variability in children's verbal abilities: An historical perspective.

3. Using real-time measures to assess the development of fluency in understanding

4. Using real-time processing measures to study individual differences in fluency of understanding by infants and young children

5. Early language experience influences processing efficiency as well as vocabulary learning

Individual differences in measures of linguistic experience account for variability in the sentence processing skill of five-year-olds

2. A new methodology for use with children

3. The current experiment

4. Method

5. Results

6. Discussion

Genetic variation and individual differences in language

1.1 Behavioral genetics and aspects of language development

1.2 The Nature of Nature': Emergentism

2. Genes and behavior

3. Molecular genetic studies in language and cognition

4. Towards an endophenotype approach

4.1 Concept

4.2 Merits

5. Possible language endophenotypes

5.1 Neuroimaging techniques

5.2 Process measures and learning-based tasks

5.3 Incorporating developmental change and other challenges

6. Conclusion

PART V. Mechanisms for learning

Language as a process

2. Language as joint action: Pragmatic and semantic foundations

3. Language as replication: Stability, variation and change in language use

4. Language as verbalization: Semantic and grammatical structure

5. Conclusion: The process of language and the process of language acquisition

Memory, sleep and generalization in language acquisition

2. Prior learning

3. How pressures from the input can alter learning over developmental time

4. Sleep and memory consolidation

5. Summary

References.

Bayesian modeling of sources of constraint in language acquisition

2. Basics of Bayesian modeling

3. Constraints caused by mutual learning

4. Constraints due to different assumptions about how data is sampled

5. Constraints imposed by learning abstract knowledge

6. Constraints imposed by imperfect approximations to the ideal

7. Limitations of Bayesian models

8. Summary

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613174796

9781283174794

1283174790

9789027285041

9027285047

OCLC:

741492711