Make-Up Homework #1: Solutions

Chapter 1, #2: Grammaticality judgments.

The following sentences are ungrammatical:

a) * Robin forced the sheriff go.

The word to is missing in front of the verb go. The verb force requires a to infinitive verb in the embedded clause.

f) * He came a large sum of money by.

Particles can occur after their direct object: look the number up; look the data over. True prepositions do not behave this way. He ran up the stairs is correct but he ran the stairs up is not. The by in he came by a large sum of money functions as a preposition and may not occur after the direct object.

g) * Did in a corner little Jack Horner sit?

The preposition phrase may be moved to the front of the sentence for emphasis, as in In a corner did little Jack Horner sit. This sentence form is called Topicalization. However, once a sentence is topicalized, it may not be made into a question.

h) * Elizabeth is resembled by Charles.

The verb resemble does not occur in passive sentences.

k) * It is eager to love a kitten.

Normally, the subject of eager must be animate. However, as some students pointed out, in this sentence, it could be appropriate if, for example, it refers to a dog (however nonsensical the sentence may be).

l) * That birds can fly amazes.

Amaze is a transitive verb; it requires a direct object.

n) * Has the nurse slept the baby yet?

The verb sleep is intransitive; it cannot take a direct object (in this case, the baby).

o) * I was surprised for you to get married.

The clause following the adjective surprised cannot be in the infinitive form (e.g. to get).

p) * I wonder who and Mary went swimming.

Coordinated structures (e.g. Susan and Mary) must be treated as a whole and one part cannot be questioned (e.g. substitute who for Susan).

q) * Myself bit John.

Reflexive pronouns like myself, yourself, himself, themselves, etc. do not occur as subjects of sentences but only as objects, e.g. John hurt himself.

s) * What did Alice eat the toadstool and?

Coordinated structures cannot be questioned. See p) above.

2. Learning.

The first statement (I learned a new free morpheme today) is quite probable. Free morphemes are morphemes that can stand alone, and speakers freely add open-class free morphemes into the language. The second statement (I learned a new bound morpheme today) is not likely. Bound morphemes must be attached to other morphemes to become free-standing. Speakers of a language do not usually consciously break words apart into morphemes and learn affixes. In addition, many bound morphemes belong to the closed-class category, which forms a limited set. It is certainly possible that speakers can learn bound morphemes-- cran in cranberry is an example of a bound morpheme that speakers have given the meaning of "cranberry" and freely use in other compounds, such as crangrape, cranapple, cranmango, etc. However, such examples are limited and it is much more likely that speakers will learn a new free morpheme rather than a new bound morpheme.

Chapter 1, #6. Human and animal communication.

Similarities: Animal sounds and human language share physical characteristics: both are transmitted by sound waves produced in the vocal tract with air from the lungs. Some imitative bird sounds resemble human speech. Both are used as systems of communication.

Differences: Animals can communicate only a small set of messages, while human language is infinitely creative in the kinds of messages transmitted. Animal messages cannot be segmented into meaningful parst as sentences of all human languages can be. Animal messages are stimulus-controlled, while human messages are more than a simple response to stimuli.

4. a) How would each of the nine "design features" of language describe the wolf's language in problem #7?

1-- mode: means by which communication is transmitted; position of tail, ears, lips

2-- semanticity: signals in the communication system have meaning; one particular position of wolf's body means defensiveness

3-- pragmatic function: communication serves a purpose; system communicates various emotions

4-- interchangeability: individual can send and receive messages; wolf can communicate emotions and understand the emotions of other wolves

5-- cultural transmission: some aspect of the communication system is learned through interaction with others; we are not given specific information about this, but we can make an educated guess that most if not all of the wolf's system is innate, so there is no cultural transmission

6-- arbitrariness: meaning is not predictable from form, and form is not predictable from meaning; there may be some iconicity in the wolf's system, such as baring teeth (weapons) to indicate readiness to fight, or tail drooping to mean depression/tiredness, but most of the 1000 emotions would be arbitrarily expressed

7-- discreteness: property of having "internal structure": complex messages are built up of smaller parts; the wolf's communication system does not use linear order and hierarchical structure

8-- displacement: the ability to communicate about things that are not currently present in space/time; the wolf can talk about how it is feeling which is a very abstract concept. However, the wolf can still only express current emotions, which are stimulus-response based, and not talk about how he was feeling last week.

9-- productivity: ability to produce and understand messages that have never been expressed before; the wolf can only express the same 1000 emotions

b) What are two main differences between the wolf's communication system and a human language?

1-- The wolf cannot express the range of meanings available in human languages.

2-- The wolf is not capable of cultural transmission except in perhaps very, very limited ways.

c) What are two main differences between the wolf's communication system and the communication system used by the Italian honeybee?

1-- The wolf can express a lot more meanings than the bee can.

2-- The wolf can express abstract concepts such as emotion.

5.

a) Give definitions for competence and performance.

Competence: our unconscious knowledge of language; our actual language ability; what we know about language

Performance: how we actually produce and understand language; usually performance is not as good as competence

b) Give definitions for UG, LAD, and the Critical Age Hypothesis:

Universal Grammar: the basic, underlying commonalities that all languages share; rules of grammar that all languages share; we are born already having Universal Grammar pre-programmed in our brains

Language Acquisition Device: a structure in the brain that allows us to learn language very quickly; contains rules of Universal Grammar which allows the infant to already know something of whatever language they are exposed to

Critical Age/Period Hypothesis: the idea that a child must be exposed to language between 2-12 years of age in order to be a native speaker of that language; if the child is exposed to language after 12 years of age, the child will never reach native fluency levels

b) Explain one piece of evidence supporting Universal Grammar and two arguments against Universal Grammar:

FOR:

Children learn language so quickly; they must be born already knowing some aspects of language

AGAINST:

Languages around the world are so varied, how can any one theory of grammar account for all the differences?