Abstract: . . .  psycholinguistics Page 1 Introduction to Language Study 2005 : Psycholinguistics Prof. Heike Tappe Room MTB/ G108 Page 2 Every day you produce and comprehend thousands of totally new sentences without even thinking about it Children learn languages without formal instruction, effortlessly and quite swiftly Some people are impaired in their general cognitive abilities but not in their language use Some . . .
. . .  bilinguals omit verb endings in English and use infinitives in German Page 87 References Bloom, P. (2000). How children learn the meanings of words . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Crain, S., and P. Pietroski, 2001. Nature, Nurture and Universal Grammar. Linguistics and Philosophy , 24, 139-185. Stemmer, N. (1989). Empiricist versus prototype theories of language acquisition. Mind and Language 4 : 201—221.  . . .
. . .  grammar (UG) right from the start UG helps them to avoid many errors and ‘guides them through language acquisition Page 33 The Course of Language Development-Overview-1 Unborn children can discriminate their own language from another language Newborns show a preference for their own mother’s speech can differentiate their mother tongue from other languages Page 34 How do we study linguistic knowledge in very young children? We measure physiological responses Eye gaze (where is the baby looking?) Heart rate (when is the baby exited?) Rate of pacifier sucking (when is the baby exited?) Page 35 The Course of Language Development-Overview-2 Infants discriminate male and female voices distinguish all phonemic contrasts in natural languages. From 6 . . .
. . .  and name’ view How does the child know what exactly a word is referring to? Theoretically, a new word could refer to all kinds of things Page 49 ‘Crazy Hypothesis Problem’ There is an infinity of possible hypothesis that are consistent with any exposure or set of exposures to a new word (Quine 1960) BLACK ? DOMESTIC CAT? SCULLY ? ANIMAL ? CAT NEXT TO FLOWER ? TAIL? CAT IN 2005? CAT? Page 50 The Acquisition of Word Meaning-3 Children do not use all these different hypotheses Rather, they ‘assume’ that reality is made up of distinct entities Objects Actions Furthermore they ‘know’ that words are labels/ names for these entities Page 51 Main Entry: 1horse Pronunciation: 'hors Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural hors·es also horse 1 a (1) : . . .
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