scholarly journals Which Input Abstraction is Better for a Robot Syntax Acquisition Model? Phonemes, Words or Grammatical Constructions?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Hinaut
Keyword(s):  
Syntax Acquisition

Neurophysiological preconditions of syntax acquisition

2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela D. Friederici ◽  
Regine Oberecker ◽  
Jens Brauer
Keyword(s):  
Syntax Acquisition

scholarly journals Auditory statistical learning in children: Novel insights from an online measure

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
IMME LAMMERTINK ◽  
MEREL VAN WITTELOOSTUIJN ◽  
PAUL BOERSMA ◽  
FRANK WIJNEN ◽  
JUDITH RISPENS
Keyword(s):  
Response Times ◽  
Learning Trajectory ◽  
Online Measurement ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Grammaticality Judgments ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
Nonadjacent Dependencies ◽  
Child Friendly

AbstractNonadjacent dependency learning is thought to be a fundamental skill for syntax acquisition and often assessed via an offline grammaticality judgment measure. Asking judgments of children is problematic, and an offline task is suboptimal as it reflects only the outcome of the learning process, disregarding information on the learning trajectory. Therefore, and following up on recent methodological advancements in the online measurement of nonadjacent dependency learning in adults, the current study investigates if the recording of response times can be used to establish nonadjacent dependency learning in children. Forty-six children (mean age: 7.3 years) participated in a child-friendly adaptation of a nonadjacent dependency learning experiment (López-Barroso, Cucurell, Rodríguez-Fornells, & de Diego-Balaguer, 2016). They were exposed to an artificial language containing items with and without nonadjacent dependencies while their response times (online measure) were measured. After exposure, grammaticality judgments (offline measure) were collected. The results show that children are sensitive to nonadjacent dependencies, when using the online measure (the results of our offline measure did not provide evidence of learning). We therefore conclude that future studies can use online response time measures (perhaps in addition to the offline grammaticality judgments) to further investigate nonadjacent dependency learning in children.

Syntax, Acquisition of

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Crain ◽  
Rosalind Thornton
Keyword(s):  
Syntax Acquisition

scholarly journals Facilitation and practice in verb acquisition

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
TAMAR KEREN-PORTNOY
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Inverse Correlation ◽  
Early Learning ◽  
Common Word ◽  
Syntactic Knowledge ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Subsequent Learning ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
Intensive Use ◽  
Verb Acquisition

This paper presents a model of syntax acquisition, whose main points are as follows: Syntax is acquired in an item-based manner; early learning facilitates subsequent learning – as evidenced by the accelerating rate of new verbs entering a given structure; and mastery of syntactic knowledge is typically achieved through practice – as evidenced by intensive use and common word order errors – and this slows down learning during the early stages of acquiring a structure.The facilitation and practice hypotheses were tested on naturalistic production samples of six Hebrew-acquiring children ranging from ages 1;1 to 2;7 (average ages 1;6 to 2;4 months). Results show that most structures did in fact accelerate; the notion of ‘practice’ is supported by the inverse correlation found between number of verbs and number of errors in the earliest productions in a given structure; and the absence of acceleration in a minority of the structures is due to the fact that they involve relatively less practice.

Prosodic differences between declaratives and interrogatives in infant-directed speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 968-994 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN GEFFEN ◽  
TOBEN H. MINTZ
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
American English ◽  
Standard American English ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Maternal Speech

AbstractIn many languages, declaratives and interrogatives differ in word order properties, and in syntactic organization more broadly. Thus, in order to learn the distinct syntactic properties of the two sentence types, learners must first be able to distinguish them using non-syntactic information. Prosodic information is often assumed to be a useful basis for this type of discrimination, although no systematic studies of the prosodic cues available to infants have been reported. Analysis of maternal speech in three Standard American English-speaking mother–infant dyads found that polar interrogatives differed from declaratives on the patterning of pitch and duration on the final two syllables, butwh-questions did not. Thus, while prosody is unlikely to aid discrimination of declaratives fromwh-questions, infant-directed speech provides prosodic information that infants could use to distinguish declaratives and polar interrogatives. We discuss how learners could leverage this information to identify all question forms, in the context of syntax acquisition.

Syntax Acquisition: Impact of Experimental Variation in Adult Verbal Interaction with the Child

1973 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith E. Nelson ◽  
Gaye Carskaddon ◽  
John D. Bonvillian
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Interaction ◽  
Experimental Variation ◽  
Syntax Acquisition

scholarly journals The dynamics of syntax acquisition: facilitation between syntactic structures

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
TAMAR KEREN-PORTNOY ◽  
MICHAEL KEREN
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Learning Curve ◽  
First Language ◽  
Learning Curves ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
Over Time

ABSTRACTThis paper sets out to show how facilitation between different clause structures operates over time in syntax acquisition. The phenomenon of facilitation within given structures has been widely documented, yet inter-structure facilitation has rarely been reported so far. Our findings are based on the naturalistic production corpora of six toddlers learning Hebrew as their first language. We use regression analysis, a method that has not been used to study this phenomenon. We find that the proportion of errors among the earliest produced clauses in a structure is related to the degree of acceleration of that structure's learning curve; that with the accretion of structures the proportion of errors among the first clauses of new structures declines, as does the acceleration of their learning curves. We interpret our findings as showing that learning new syntactic structures is made easier, or facilitated, by previously acquired ones.

Developmental Sentence Scoring: A Clinical Procedure for Estimating Syntactic Development in Children’s Spontaneous Speech

1971 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura L. Lee ◽  
Susan M. Canter
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Clinical Procedure ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
The Status ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Developmental Scale ◽  
The Mean

Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) is a clinical procedure for estimating the status and progress of children enrolled for language training in a clinic. It is based upon a developmental scale of syntax acquisition. By analyzing a child’s spontaneous, tape-recorded speech sample, a clinician can estimate to what extent the child has generalized the grammatical rules sufficiently to use them in verbal performance. With such a guide the clinician can plan lessons which present these structures in a presumably developmental sequence, thereby introducing grammatical complexity in systematically graded steps. The DSS procedure gives weighted scores to a developmental order of pronouns, verbs, negatives, conjunctions, yes-no questions, and wh-questions. The mean score per sentence estimates the child’s ability to formulate sentences with a high grammatical “load.” The DSS procedure was carried out on 80 boys and 80 girls, ages 3 years, 0 months, to 6 years, 11 months, equally distributed within six-month age groups, all coming from middle-income, standard dialect homes, and all scoring between 85 and 115 on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Percentiles of DSS scores for these 160 normal children provide guidelines for estimating the status and rate of progress of children treated in a clinic.

Two Distinct Sequence Learning Mechanisms for Syntax Acquisition and Word Learning

2013 ◽  
pp. 350-369
Author(s):  
Anne McClure Walk ◽  
Christopher M. Conway
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Sequential Processing ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Syntax Acquisition ◽  
Distinct Sequence ◽  
Hearing Children

The ability to acquire spoken language depends in part on a sensitivity to the sequential regularities contained within linguistic input. In this chapter, the authors propose that language learning operates via two distinct sequence-learning processes: probabilistic sequence learning, which supports the acquisition of syntax and other structured linguistic patterns, and repetition sequence learning, which supports word learning. First, the authors review work from their lab and others illustrating that performance on tasks that require participants to learn non-linguistic sequential patterns is empirically associated with different measures of language processing. Second, they present recent work from their lab specifically highlighting the role played by probabilistic sequence learning for acquiring syntax in a sample of deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Finally, the authors demonstrate that the learning of repeating sequences is related to vocabulary development in these children. These findings suggest that there may be at least two relatively distinct domain-general sequential processing skills, with each supporting a different aspect of language acquisition.

Connectionist Explorations of Multiple-Cue Integration in Syntax Acquisition

2009 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Morten H. Christiansen ◽  
Rick Dale ◽  
Florencia Reali
Keyword(s):  
Cue Integration ◽  
Syntax Acquisition
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document