Functional Biases in Language Learning: Evidence from Word Order and Case-Marking Interaction
Functional Biases in Language Learning: Evidence from Word Order and Case-Marking Interaction
复制标题
语言学习中的功能偏差：来自词序和格标记交互的证据
DOI：
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发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
E. Newport
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Maryia Fedzechkina;T. Jaeger;E. Newport
Maryia Fedzechkina (mashaf@bcs.rochester.edu)， T. Florian Jaeger (fjaeger@bcs.rochester.edu), Elissa L. Newport （newport@bcs.rochester.edu）罗彻斯特大学脑与认知科学系，纽约州罗彻斯特，NY 14627美国摘要有效信息传递(Cancho, 2006；Piantadosi, ty, & Gibson, 2011)，这些属性反映了增量生产的偏好（Aylett & Turk, 2004; Jaeger, 2010）。为什么语言共享结构属性？功能主义传统认为语言是为了适应使用者的需要而进化的。然而，随着时间的推移，功能压力会以何种方式来塑造语法，这仍是未知的。功能压力会影响成人的生产；或者它们可以在语言学习过程中运作。迄今为止，这些可能性在很大程度上仍未经检验。我们探讨了后一种可能性，即功能压力在语言习得过程中起作用。在一个人工语言学习实验中，我们研究了词序和格之间的权衡。如果没有使用大小写标记（或其他线索）来识别动作的执行者，灵活的词序语言可能会产生歧义。我们探讨了语言学习者是否对形式和意义映射的不确定性存在偏见，在无大小写语言中，他们倾向于将词序作为暗示意图的更强线索。关键词：语言习得；语言共性;习得偏差；词序;功能压力可能限制语言结构的空间，这一观点的进一步证据来自于一些研究，这些研究表明，在某些语言中，语法所明确要求的本体与语法允许选择的其他语言中说话者的梯度偏好之间存在很强的相关性。一个例子来自于动画对词序的影响。在Sesotho （Morolong & Hyman, 1977）和Mayali （Evans, 1997）的及物结构中，语法宾语的活力是词或词的强制性决定因素。同样的因素也影响着说话者在英语变及物交替中对两种可容许的语序的梯度偏好（Bresnan, Cueni, Nikitina, & Baayen, 2007）。简而言之，有证据表明：(a)语法约束反映了梯度加工偏好；(b)与功能压力不随时间影响语言形状的情况相比，语言具有促进语言使用（加工和交流）的特性。然而，功能压力是如何随着时间的推移而形成语法并影响语言代代相传的，这一点尚不清楚。两种广泛的逻辑可能性是，一生中的功能压力影响成年人的语言生产，导致他们微妙地改变提供给下一代的输入，或者功能压力在语言习得过程中起作用，使学习者偏离他们接受的输入。尽管这些说法历史悠久，但对这两种假设的直接测试却很少。尽管存在各种明显的差异，但语言在语言组织的各个层面上都表现出惊人的潜在共性（Dryer, 1992; Greenberg, 1963）。这种规律一直是长期争论的主题（例如，Christiansen & Chater, 2008; Chomsky, 1965; Evans & Levinson, 2009）：观察到的现象是由结构和习得上的语言特定约束形成的，还是由认知和交际动机约束造成的？后一种可能性是有趣的，因为它将减少需要解释的语言特异性和非任意属性的数量，并将导致对跨语言规则的更简洁的解释。长期以来，人们一直假设，减少与语言习得或加工相关的复杂性的语法结构倾向于历时性地持续存在，因此跨语言（例如，Bates & MacWhinney, 1982; Bever, 1970; Hawkins, 2004; Newport, 1981; Slobin, 1973）。有证据表明，现有语言具有相对较低的平均处理成本和较高的信息传递效率，这一假设支持了语言使用压力随着时间的推移会影响语言的语法特性。例如，已知依赖关系长度与处理难度相关。来自英语和德语的证据表明，这些语言的平均依赖长度接近理论最小值，远远低于偶然预期的长度（Gildea & Temperley, 2010）。跨语言的证据也表明，语言具有有利于语言习得的特性。我们解决了后一种可能性，即功能压力影响语言习得，使用人工语言学习范式，我们将学习者暴露在实验设计的微型语言中。人工语言学习研究有几个特性，使它们非常适合当前的目的。一般来说，成人学习者在输入中获取统计模式，并以与输入大致相同的频率再现它们-“概率匹配”（Hudson Kam & Newport, 2009）。然而，一些研究表明，学习者优先习得错字逻辑证明的模式（Finley & Badeker, 2008; Newport & Aslin, 2004; ty, Frank, & Jaeger, 2011）。当学习者偏离他们所接受的人工语言输入时，他们的产物在类型学上反映出更频繁的模式
Functional Biases in Language Learning: Evidence from Word Order and Case-Marking Interaction Maryia Fedzechkina (mashaf@bcs.rochester.edu) , T. Florian Jaeger (fjaeger@bcs.rochester.edu) , Elissa L. Newport (newport@bcs.rochester.edu) Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 USA Abstract efficient information transmission (Cancho, 2006; Piantadosi, Tily, & Gibson, 2011) and that these properties reflect pref- erences of incremental production (Aylett & Turk, 2004; Jaeger, 2010). Why do languages share structural properties? The function- alist tradition has argued that languages have evolved to suit the needs of their users. By what means functional pressures may come to shape grammar over time, however, remains un- known. Functional pressures could affect adults’ production; or they could operate during language learning. To date, these possibilities have remained largely untested. We explore the latter possibility, that functional pressures operate during lan- guage acquisition. In an artificial language learning experi- ment we investigate the trade-off between word order and case. Flexible word order languages are potentially ambiguous if no case-marking (or other cues) are employed to identify the doer of the action. We explore whether language learners are bi- ased against uncertainty in the mapping of form and meaning, showing a tendency to make word order a stronger cue to the intended meaning in no-case languages. Keywords: Language acquisition; language universals; acqui- sition biases; word order; case-marking Further evidence for the idea that functional pressures may constrain the space of possible language structures comes from studies showing a strong correlation between the phe- nomena categorically required by the grammar in some lan- guages and speakers’ gradient preferences in other languages where the grammar allows choices. One example comes from the effects of animacy on word order. The animacy of the grammatical object is an obligatory determinant of word or- der in the ditransitive construction in Sesotho (Morolong & Hyman, 1977) and Mayali (Evans, 1997). The same factor influences speakers’ gradient preference between the two per- missible orders in ditransitive alternation in English (Bresnan, Cueni, Nikitina, & Baayen, 2007). Introduction In short, there is evidence (a) that grammatical constraints reflect gradient processing preferences and (b) that languages have properties that facilitate language use (processing and communication) compared to what would be expected if functional pressures did not affect the shape of languages over time. What remains unknown, however, is by what means functional pressures come to shape grammar over time and affect the transmission of language from generation to gener- ation. The two broad logical possibilities are that functional pressures throughout life affect language production in adults, causing them to subtly change the input provided to the next generation, or that functional pressures operate during lan- guage acquisition itself, biasing learners to deviate slightly from the input they receive. Despite the long history of these claims, direct tests of these two hypotheses have been rare. Despite a variety of obvious differences, languages show striking underlying commonalities at all levels of linguistic organization (Dryer, 1992; Greenberg, 1963). Such regular- ities have been the subject of a long-standing debate (e.g., Christiansen & Chater, 2008; Chomsky, 1965; Evans & Levinson, 2009): Are the observed phenomena shaped by linguistic-specific constraints on structure and acquisition, or do they result from cognitively and communicatively moti- vated constraints? The latter possibility is intriguing as it would reduce the number of linguistic-specific and hence ar- bitrary properties that need to be accounted for and would result in a more parsimonious explanation of cross-linguistic regularities. It has long been hypothesized that grammatical structures that reduce the complexity associated with acquisition or pro- cessing of language tend to persist diachronically and hence cross-linguistically (e.g., Bates & MacWhinney, 1982; Bever, 1970; Hawkins, 2004; Newport, 1981; Slobin, 1973). The hypothesis that pressures on language use over time affect what grammatical properties of a language survive is sup- ported by evidence that existing languages have properties that have relatively low average processing cost and high ef- ficiency of information transfer. For example, dependency length is known to correlate with processing difficulty. Evi- dence from English and German suggests that the average de- pendency length in these languages is close to the theoretical minimum and far below what would be expected by chance (Gildea & Temperley, 2010). Cross-linguistic evidence also suggests that languages have properties that are beneficial for We address the latter possibility, that functional pressures affect language acquisition, using an artificial language learn- ing paradigm in which we expose learners to experimen- tally designed miniature languages. Artificial language learn- ing studies have several properties that make them ideally suited for the current purpose. Generally, adult learners ac- quire the statistical patterns in the input and reproduce them with roughly the same frequency as the input – ‘probability- matching’ (Hudson Kam & Newport, 2009). However, some studies have shown that learners preferentially acquire typo- logically attested patterns (Finley & Badeker, 2008; Newport & Aslin, 2004; Tily, Frank, & Jaeger, 2011). When learn- ers deviate from the artificial language input they receive, their productions reflect typologically more frequent patterns
DOI：
10.1037/0278-7393.19.3.528
发表时间：
1993-05-01
影响因子：
2.6
作者：
TRUESWELL, JC;TANENHAUS, MK;KELLO, C
通讯作者：
KELLO, C
影响因子：
4.3
作者：
Jaeger, T. Florian
通讯作者：
Jaeger, T. Florian