Minimal supervision for language learning: bootstrapping global patterns from local knowledge

A fundamental step in sentence comprehension involves assigning semantic roles to sentence constituents. To accomplish this, the listener must parse the sentence, find constituents that are candidate arguments, and assign semantic roles to those constituents. Each step depends on prior lexical and syntactic knowledge. Where do children begin in solving this problem when learning their first languages? To experiment with different representations that children may use to begin understanding language, we have built a computational model for this early point in language acquisition. This system, BabySRL, learns from transcriptions of natural child-directed speech and makes use of psycholinguistically plausible background knowledge and realistically noisy semantic feedback to begin to classify sentences at the level of ``who does what to whom.'' Starting with simple, psycholinguistically-motivated representations of sentence structure, the BabySRL is able to learn from full semantic feedback, as well as a supervision signal derived from partial semantic background knowledge. In addition we combine the BabySRL with an unsupervised Hidden Markov Model part-of-speech tagger, linking clusters with syntactic categories using background noun knowledge so that they can be used to parse input for the SRL system. The results show that proposed shallow representations of sentence structure are robust to reductions in parsing accuracy, and that the contribution of alternative representations of sentence structure to successful semantic role labeling varies with the integrity of the parsing and argument-identification stages. Finally, we enable the BabySRL to improve both an intermediate syntactic representation and its final semantic role classification. Using this system we show that it is possible for a simple learner in a plausible (noisy) setup to begin comprehending simple semantics when initialized with a small amount of concrete noun knowledge and some simple syntax-semantics mapping biases, before acquiring any specific verb knowledge

USING NEW MEASURES OF IMPLICIT L2 KNOWLEDGE TO STUDY THE INTERFACE OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

Second language acquisition (SLA) becomes extremely difficult for late second language (L2) learners, who are assumed to have passed the sensitive or critical period for L2 learning. As one of the major accounts of the post-critical period L2 learning processes, a fundamental distinction between explicit and implicit learning and knowledge was proposed over three decades ago. The first goal of the current study was to develop fine-grained measures for implicit knowledge to distinguish it from automatized explicit knowledge. The second goal was to use these validated measures to explore the interface issue of explicit and implicit knowledge by correlating these measures with several cognitive aptitudes. One hundred advanced L2 Japanese speakers whose first language was Chinese were recruited; they were given tests for both automatized explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge, along with three cognitive aptitude measures. The present study developed three psycholinguistic tasks that can reliably assess implicit knowledge (the eye-tracking-while-listening task, the word-monitoring task, and the self-paced reading task) and compared them with the existing tasks that have been claimed to measure implicit knowledge (time-pressured form-focused tasks like grammaticality judgment tasks), but which we hypothesized tap into automatized explicit knowledge. The aptitude test battery consisted of LLAMA F, a measure of explicit learning aptitude, the Serial-Reaction Time (SRT) task, a measure of implicit learning aptitude, and the letter-span task, a measure of phonological short-term memory. In order to validate the measures for automatized explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge, a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA), multi-trait multi-method (MTMM) analyses, and structural equation model (SEM) analyses were conducted. Results confirmed that the existing tasks purported to measure implicit knowledge in fact tap into automatized explicit knowledge, whereas the new psycholinguistic measures tap into implicit knowledge. For the participants as a whole, the convergent validity for implicit knowledge measures was less than ideal. When the results were analyzed separately by length of residence, however, acceptable convergent validity for implicit knowledge was obtained for those with longer length of residence but not for those with shorter length of residence. In order to address the interface issue, SEM analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship between automatized explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge. Results showed that automatized explicit knowledge significantly predicted the acquisition of implicit knowledge. Furthermore, the aptitude for explicit learning was the only significant predictor of the acquisition of automatized explicit knowledge, not for the acquisition of implicit knowledge. The effects of implicit learning aptitude and phonological short-term memory on the acquisition of both types of linguistic knowledge were limited. In conclusion, the study demonstrated that the newer measures for implicit knowledge are more sensitive and opens up promising directions for developing additional fine-grained measures for implicit knowledge. The current findings provide the first empirical evidence at the latent construct level that automatized explicit knowledge, which develops through explicit learning mechanisms, impacts the acquisition of implicit knowledge

An index of syntactic development for Cantonese-Chinese preschool children

This research study aimed to develop an index of syntactic development for Cantonese-speaking children. Language samples taken from 14 normal children aged from 4;1 to 5;0, 16 normal children aged from 5;1 to 6;5 and 15 SLI children aged from 5;1 to 6;4 were analyzed and credited according to the framework developed. Normal children aged from 4;1 to 5;0 performed poorer on the index than those aged from 5;1 to 6;5 with the same clinical status. Children with language difficulty performed poorer than their normal age peers on the index as well. The index was validated against MLU and the two indices moderately correlated with each other. A linear combination of age, D and the index was entered into discriminant analysis, yielding a classification accuracy of 86.7% of all the children. The index was found to be a potentially useful clinical marker of SLI yet replication is needed to confirm the findings. Further modification of the index was discussed. The age and language growth sensitivity of MLU was discussed as well.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

Syntax inside the grammar

This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions on the relation of syntax to other aspects of grammar and linguistics more generally, including studies on language acquisition, variation and change, and syntactic interfaces. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in synchronic and diachronic comparative syntax ranging from the core verbal domain to higher, propositional domains

Worrorra: a language of the north-west Kimberley coast

The Kimberley Arafuran language Worrorra was spoken traditionally on the remote coastline and precipitously beautiful hinterland between the Walcott Inlet and the Prince Regent River. The language described here is that attested by its last full speakers, Patsy Lulpunda, Amy Peters and Daisy Utemorrah. Patsy Lulpunda was a child when Europeans first entered her country in 1912, and Amy Peters and Daisy Utemorrah both grew up on the Kunmunya mission. This comprehensive and detailed grammar provides as well an historical and cultural context for a society now drastically altered. In the 1950s Worrorra people left their traditional land and from the 1970s the number of people speaking Worrorra as their first language declined dramatically. Worrorra is a highly polysynthetic language, characterised by overarching concord and a high degree of morphological fusion. Verbal semantics involve a voicing opposition and an extensive system of evidentiality-marking. Worrorra has elaborate systems of pragmatic reference, a derivational morphology that projects agreement-class concord across most lexical categories and complex predicates that incorporate one verb within another. Nouns are distributed among five genders, the intensional properties of which define dynamic oppositions between men and women on the one hand, and earth and sky on the other. This volume will be of interest to morphologists, syntacticians, semanticists, anthropologists, typologists, and readers interested in Australian language and culture generally

Syntactic architecture and its consequences I

This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions on the relation of syntax to other aspects of grammar and linguistics more generally, including studies on language acquisition, variation and change, and syntactic interfaces. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in synchronic and diachronic comparative syntax ranging from the core verbal domain to higher, propositional domains. This book is complemented by volume II available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/276 and volume III available at https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/277