. 6 sentences demonstrating syntactic phenomena inducing abstract structure from surface comparisons. The nativist acquisition syllogism children must create language from scanty data.
Noam Chomsky the early years 1955 1965 .the evidence of things unseen.
the circularity of behaviorism Behaviorist associa=onism dominance 1910 1960. If it can t be learned, it isn t in the mind Learning = S=mulus->Response/reinforcement B.F. Skinner s S-R learning theory of Language Chomsky s review of Skinner s book Showed the circularity of the S->R/reinf. Paradigm: It is impossible to determine any of the terms independently Ergo, S-R behaviorism is not science
Death by analysis
Deep Structures can span sentences The ducks were anxious to eat The ducks want to eat something! The ducks were easy to eat Some(thing) was easily eating the ducks! So, specific deep structure relations can be far apart in the surface (duckseat)! The ducks were ready to eat A single surface form can have different underlying relations at a distance !
The ducks were hungrier than the sh were ac=ve The ducks were hungrier than the sh were *hungry So, identical surface comparative adjective must be deleted by.rule. transformation ! The ducks were hungrier for fresh food than the sh were hungry for fresh food. Transformations: STRUCTURE SENSITIVE they apply to phrases, not just words
Competence
vs.
Performance
Structure vs. Complexity
octopus
chased
a]acked
a
duck
some
lobsters
one
swam away Is this ungrammatical? a duck some lobsters a]acked swam away some lobsters one octopus chased a]acked a duck No, it is just hard to understand! So we study grammaticality competence , not processing ease.! Performance is a separate study, what makes sentences hard and easy.
The analysis of Stimulus-Response associationism its general failure as a science of behavior. 6 sentences demonstrating syntactic phenomena inducing abstract structure from surface comparisons. The nativist acquisition syllogism children must create language from scanty data.
Noam Chomsky the early years 1955 1965 .the evidence of things unseen.
A progressive climbing!
Linguistics once was supposed to be: the study of a class of overt behaviors In the best case it was: the study of the causes of those behaviors Chomsky suggested that it must rather be: The study of an internally represented knowledge of language
Linguistic expressions are neither caused by external circumstances, nor independent of them. The crux of the matter is: They are appropriate to the circumstances Without being determined by them. The shift is, therefore Away from stimulus-response To factors internal to the mind of the speaker/ hearer
Finite State Languages also called Regular Languages Example: Instructions in a software manual Historically important example: statistical grammars Shown by Chomsky to be radically insufficient to model human natural languages
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. What about the following? Furiously sleep ideas colorless green. A statistical grammar treats both sentences exactly equally Contrary to our most basic intuitions In fact: The probability, in any corpus, that green follows colorless is zero Same for furiously following sleep, or the converse
Context-Free Languages Pushdown Automata (Chomsky s discovery) A finite memory tape Last in first out Computation may stop and restart after a check Basically: do such and such whenever you encounter symbol X Also radically insufficient to model human natural languages
Context-Sensitive Languages Content-addressable memory tape Basically: do such and such whenever you encounter symbol X If, an only if, X is flanked by Z on its left and/or by Y on its right This is the right class of grammars
BUT, BUT!
A purely mathematical analysis of language Does not go very far We must take into account The obvious intuitions shared by every native speaker/hearer
Deep commonalities!
No statistical analysis can capture these commonalities No classical rule of grammar can either. Phrase Structure Grammars are out
They saw that he was trying to escape. They saw him trying to escape. (OK) They suspected that he was trying to escape. *They suspected him trying to escape (BAD) One can t sit down and think about the concepts of see and suspect Don t even try to make movies or click snapshots of those kinds of actions
See bands with catch, find, spot etc. Suspect bands with know, denounce, dissuade etc. In essence: the difference lies in the different potentials that those classes of verbs have To combine with other elements in the sentence Lexical considerations enter into syntax
I saw the man standing at the bar. This sentence somehow contains the sentence The man was standing at the bar. No traditional grammar ever contemplated such phenomena Silent (physically empty) parts of a sentence are treated exactly like their manifest counterparts
John wants to win. John wants that John (he himself) wins Everyone wants to win. NOT everyone wants that everyone wins The key: an unpronounced pronoun (called PRO) The silent subject of the infinitival to win With different powers of referring to what precedes And the peculiar properties of quantifiers, like everyone
In essence:!
The theory of syntax is about the tacit knowledge of language possessed (largely innately) by the native speaker/hearer It s essential to dig below the surface form of expressions In-expressed, silent, elements are a crucial part of syntax It s not really the business of syntax to prescribe word-order in the sentence This is the automatic consequence of much deeper principles
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Energetic, growing community &
Huge growth in what was known about
qwidely differing languages, English vs. Warlpiri vs. Hungarian vs. Japanese
outlining the boundaries of the hypothesis space permitted by UG
qclosely related languages, e.g., English vs. Italian
brought into focus the quanta of grammar: the minimal shifts between grammars permitted by UG
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Massive Shift in the Learner s Problem Earlier: Child as little linguist, finding data, formulating grammars, etc. Presently: Pre-determined system, with a few limited parameters left open, triggered by simple data
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Italian
35
English
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English
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English
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language in the absence of adequate data) has carried the greatest light throughout the history of the generative grammar till Minimalism. established, there was an opening for other evaluating factors: simplicity, parsimony, naturalness.
Chomsky:
Well-designed systems should have simple, sensible properties.
LF Logical Form
Phonological Form
MP Model
" Language: Sound and Meaning. " DS and SS can be eliminated without empirical loss. " " "
"
PF Phonological Form
"
LF Logical Form
Locality
" Many locality constraints in P&P theory. " Subjacency: " (1)
"
Locality
" Superiority " (3) a. "
b.
" Superraising " (4) a. It seems that John was believed e to be rich. "
Target * * X Y Z
Who did John give the book to? *John gave the book to whom?
b.
" Korean (From Jaehoon Choi, Ph.D. Candidate) " " " "
(6) a. John-i
ku-chayk-ul
Optionality
" Turkish (From Deniz Tat, Ph.D. Candidate) " (7) " " "
a.
b.
Optionality
" Persian " (8) a. " " "
Kimea ketb-ro
be ki
dd?
a sentences:
" (9) Who did you give the book to? " "
b sentences: focused (cleft constructions in English) (10) Who was it that you gave the book to difference between a and b sentences in Korean, Turkish and Persian, on the one hand, and English, on the other.
Feature selection
" " " "
XP . YEF Z YP ZP WP
Major properties of MP
" Universal Grammar is reduced to the Principle of Economy
(Locality), the Principle of Full Interpretation, and The Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA) .
" Narrow Syntax (the input to the Logical Form which is itself