PS 3A

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University Of Connecticut *

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2201

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Linguistics

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Apr 3, 2024

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COGS 2201 'Foundations of Cognitive Science,' Spring 2024 Problem Set #3a: Linguistics, Architecture, Hebbian Learning Some of these problems ask you to interpret or draw syntactic trees, or to just identify parts of speech. These don’t require a lot of accompanying text for full credit. Other problems are more like very short essays; for these, remember that when we ask for definitions, we are looking for paraphrases from your sources; by putting these in your own words we’ll be able to tell that you understand them. Also, when we ask for information about empirical studies, we are looking for inclusion of the ‘4 parts to any study’: participants, methods/stimuli, results/outcome behavior, and conclusions. And when we ask for explanations and/or discussion, we are looking for 3-4 sentences. Finally, it will not help you to use an AI such as ChatGPT, b/c their study summaries are not consistently accurate (we’ve checked!). Studies should come from our class resources or peer-reviewed journals, and if from the latter please give the full citation. 1. Consider the following selection from Jabberwocky , a poem by Lewis Carroll (From Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There , 1872): ’Twas brillig , and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe ; All mimsy were the borogoves , And the mome raths outgrabe . “Beware the Jabberwock , my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch !” He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought – So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock , with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came. For each underlined word, indicate its part of speech (word class: N, V, Adj, Adv, P, Det, Conj), and for Ns, Vs, Adjs, and Advs, explain the distributional criteria by which you came up with that classification. If the item is a closed class part of speech (Det, Prep, Conj) indicate that. Do not try to use a dictionary. Most of these words are nonsense words. You will need to figure out what part of speech they are according to what suffixes and prefixes they take, along with where they appear relative to other words. (10 points) 2. Draw the tree fragments for the following English NPs and PPs, assuming these PSRs, and that all of the words have their correct lexical rules (10 points) S NP VP NP D (Adj) N (PP) PP P NP a) the desk with the wobbly drawer b) in my rubber boots [assume rubber = Adj] c) that notebook with the scribbles in the margin [assume that = Det] d) the pen at the back of the drawer in the desk near the bright painting
3. Draw the tree fragments for the following English VPs, assuming these PSRs and that all of the words have their correct lexical rules (10 points) S NP VP NP D (Adj) N (PP) PP P NP VP (Adv) Vi (Adv) (PP) (Adv) VP Vt NP (PP) a) snores b) eats burgers c) always smokes in the car d) drinks frequently in the car e) smokes in the car frequently f) smokes cigars in the car g) sent Taylor a dirty email on Friday 4. All of the following sentences have been claimed to be ungrammatical or unacceptable by someone at some time. For each sentence, i) indicate whether this unacceptability is due to a prescriptive (i.e., is arbitrary, possibly coming from Latin or language pundits) or a descriptive judgment (i.e., is part of the computational description of English grammar), and ii) for all descriptive judgments indicate whether the ungrammaticality has to do with syntax or semantics (or both). One- or two-word answers are appropriate; consult/discuss with your group b/c at least one member of each group is a native speaker. (10 points) a) Who did you see in Las Vegas? b) You are taller than me. c) My red is refrigerator. d) Who do you think that saw Bill? e) Hopefully, we’ll make it through the winter without snow. f) My friends wanted to quickly leave the party. g) Bunnies carrots eat. h) John’s sister is not his sibling. 5. Chomsky and other researchers have highlighted the following features of the young child’s learning environment: Children are not positively rewarded for language learning. Children are typically only exposed to positive information (i.e., they are not told what counts as ungrammatical). No child encounters more than a tiny fraction of the linguistic information that fixes the grammatical structure of the child’s exposure language. Given these points, how does the ‘head-direction’ (head-final vs. head-initial) contrast help children acquire their language-specific phrase structure rules? For example, English is head-final whereas Turkish (from Language II lecture), or Japanese (below) are head-initial. Japanese: (ZP) X tomodati ni tegami-o okuro friends to letters send NP P NP V First, define what a ‘head’ is in this situation. Second, unpack the Japanese or Turkish examples, describing in words how they are head-initial whereas English (example from Language II lecture) is head-final. Third, describe in 2-3 sentences how the Principles and Parameters framework connects with this head-direction contrast to explain how children learn so many language-specific phrase-structure rules so quickly. (8 points) 6. We have distinguished between learning and acquiring knowledge. Learning is conscious; acquisition is automatic and subconscious. (Note that acquired things are not necessarily innate. They are just subconsciously obtained.) Other than language, are there other things we acquire? What other things do
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