This is our wonderful schedule. We usually keep to it, but it is subject to modification.

Date Topic Notices &
Assignments
Reference Material
9/28/18 Introduction to
Language Acquisition I

(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar rules


Review questions available for intro

HW1 available
10/1/18 Introduction to
Language Acquisition II

(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Recasts
(2) Computational modeling in more detail


10/3/18 Introduction to
Language Acquisition III

(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Poverty of the stimulus & induction problems
(2) Theoretical viewpoint comparison



10/5/18 Biological Bases of Language Acquisition I
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) APICS demo
(2) Nicaraguan Sign Language: individual differences


HW1 due

HW2 available

Review questions available for biological bases of language acquisition
10/8/18 Biological Bases of Language Acquisition II
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Late acquisition of sign language
(2) Henner et al. 2016
(3) Investigating the critical vs. sensitive period using second language learning
(4) Hartshorne et al. 2018
(5) Critical vs. sensitive period
(6) The "Less is More" hypothesis
(7) Finn et al. 2014 & the "Less is More" hypothesis


10/10/18 Biological Bases of Language Acquisition III
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Chimpanzee vocal tract
(2) Nim Chimpsky's combinations
(3) Teaching bonobos
(4) FLB vs. FLN




10/12/18 Biological Bases of Language Acquisition IV
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Titi monkey pragmatics
(2) State diagrams
(3) Bird communication vs. human language: similarities
(4) Bird communication vs. human language: differences




Extras:
10/15/18 Exam 1 Review
Come with questions to class

HW2 due



10/17/18 Exam 1
Locations available:
HSLH 100A
& anywhere you have internet access


Make sure to have your coursebooks and notes available during the exam
10/19/18 Phonological Development I
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Affricates
HW3 available

Review questions available for phonological development

10/22/18 Phonological Development II
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Feature combinations
(2) World Phonotactics Database demo
(3) Language & music developmental linking
(4) Baby babbling is language-specific
(5) Social component to phonological development
(6) The importance of babies hearing their own output
(7) Infant speech perception link to speech production



10/24/18 Phonological Development III
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Deletion processes
(2) Substitution processes
(3) Multiple process examples


Have IPA reference charts accessible during class
10/26/18 Phonological Development IV
Guest lecture: Katie Turner
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Categorical perception decision tasks
(2) Infant categorical perception evidence
(3) Categorical perception non-humans
(4) The lack of invariance problem


10/29/18 Lexical Development I
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Compositional semantics
(2) Prototype theory and feature weights
(3) Tense
(4) Aspect
(5) Natural relationships between tense and aspect




HW3 due

HW4 available

Review questions available for lexical development

10/31/18 Lexical Development II
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Fast mapping
(2) Lexical biases in humans vs. collies
(3) Underextension & overextension errors
(4) Lexical biases in young children
(5) Social cues to word learning



11/2/18 Lexical Development III
Guest lecture: Galia Bar-Sever
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Noun bias in early vocabularies + why
(2) Snedeker et al. 1999
(3) Manner of motion vs. Direction of motion verbs
(4) Cross-linguistic variation in noun bias
(5) Snedeker & Gleitman 2002: Cues to verb learning
(6) Clues from the input: Ferguson et al. 2014, 2018
(7) Clues from syntactic structure
(8) Paquette-Smith & Johnson 2016
(9) Syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis
(10) Fisher, Klingler, & Song 2006
(11) Braginsky et al. 2016
(12) Syntactic bootstrapping demo: But'n'Ben A-Go-Go



  • child input: videos 1-2 = why learning from non-linguistic context is hard, videos 3-10 = sample experimental stimuli from human simulation paradigm in Snedeker et al. 1999
  • Mobile App: What's that word?
  • Sedivy 2014, pp.168-169: why learning verbs is hard from non-linguistic contexts
  • Human Simulation Paradigm reference: Gleitman et al. 2005
  • Sedivy 2014, pp.505-506: manner-of-motion vs. direction-of-motion verbs
  • Sedivy 2014, pp.169-170: syntactic bootstrapping
  • Wagner 2010: syntactic bootstrapping & argument structure
  • Fisher et al. 2010: syntactic bootstrapping
  • He & Arunchalam 2017: linguistic cues
11/5/18 Lexical Development IV
Guest lecture: Galia Bar-Sever
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Word spurts
(2) Identifying a word spurt
(3) Leveraging known words & causes of the word spurt
(4) Production lags behind comprehension
(5) Phonological memory
(6) Motherese & word learning (quantity & quality)
(7) Differences across SES
(8) Differences within SES
(9) Interactive input & social cues
(10) Links to statistical learning
(11) Effects of having siblings on input quality

11/7/18 Exam 2 Review

Come with questions to class

HW4 due



11/9/18 Exam 2
Locations available:
HSLH 100A
& anywhere you have internet access


Make sure to have your coursebooks and notes available during the exam
11/12/18 NO CLASS:
Happy Veterans Day!


11/14/18 Development of Morphology
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Morpheme types
(2) English morphological development
(3) Cross-linguistic morphological development


HW5 available

Review questions available for development of morphology & syntax
11/16/18 Development of Syntax I
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Recursion overview
(2) Recursion with some syntactic rules
(3) Building trees: Top-down
(4) Building syntactic trees: Bottom-up


11/19/18 Development of Syntax II
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Yes/no vs. wh-question development
(2) Order-of-mention sentence comprehension strategy
(3) World knowledge sentence comprehension strategy
(4) De Villers 1995
(5) Zipfian distributions in language


11/21/18 NO CLASS

Relax! :)
11/23/18 NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Break

Relax! :)
11/26/18 Development of Syntax III
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Reversible passives & semantic features
(2) Silent things
(3) Multiple potential silent subjects
(4) Silent subjects and objects
(5) Becker et al. 2012, 2015


11/28/18 Development of Syntax IV
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Pronoun types
(2) Children interpreting pronouns
(3) Quantifier scope with every-n't
(4) Quantifier scope with every-a
(5) Roeper & de Villiers 1991
(6) Children's quantifier interpretations
(7) Pragmatic factors and scope

11/30/18 Language & Cognition
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Sentential complements and order of acquisition
(2) Standard false belief tasks
(3) Using syntactic bootstrapping to learn mental states (4) Indirect false belief tasks
(5) Parenthetical endorsements

HW5 due

HW6 available

Review questions available for language & cognition
12/3/18 Language Development in Special Populations I
Guest lecture: Galia Bar-Sever
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) Signers and categorical perception
(2) Simultaneous articulation
(3) Developmental errors in ASL
(4) Cochlear implants and language development


Review questions available for language development in special populations

12/5/18 Language Development in Special Populations II
(pdf)

Podcasts
(1) "Form is easy, meaning is hard" hypothesis
(2) Williams Syndrome and the Developmental Arrest Hypothesis
(3) Williams Syndrome vs. Down Syndrome


12/7/18 Final Exam Review
HW6 due

Come with questions to class
12/14/18 Final Exam
1:30pm-3:30pm
Locations available:
HSLH 100A
&
anywhere you have internet access
Make sure to have your coursebooks and notes available during the exam.