This is our wonderfully ambitious schedule. We'll attempt to keep with it, but it is subject to modification.
| Date | Topic | Readings (to be read by this class) |
Notices & Assignments |
Reference Material (not required reading) |
| 9/22/11 | Introduction to Language Acquisition (pdf) |
(1) Jackendoff 1994: 3-34 [Ch 1, 2, 3] |
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| 9/27/11 | The Mechanism of Language Learning + Some Methods (pdf) |
(1) Marr (1982): Ch.1 (only pp. 24-29 [pp.12-14 of pdf]) |
Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) * Kidd et al. (2010): infant looking time preferences (2) Clark & Sakas (2011): short overview of the utility of comp modeling (3) Pearl (2010): how & when to use comp modeling (4) Perfors et al. (2011): Bayesian tutorial for cognitive development (5) Knight (2009): Tutorial on Bayesian mechanics (Gibbs Sampling, Chinese Restaurant Process, etc.) (6) Kemp, Perfors, & Tenenbaum (2007): hierachical Bayesian overview (7) * Bonawitz et al. (2011): simple sequential algorithm for approximating Bayesian inference (8) Denison et al. (2011): probabilistic reasoning in 6-month-olds (9) * Dewar & Xu (2010): infant formation of overhypotheses (10) Romberg & Saffran (2010): overview of infant statistical learning abilities (11) Hudson Kam & Newport (2009): differences between kids and adults for language learning ~~~ |
| 9/29/11 |
NO CLASS |
Get a start on reading for next session |
~~~ |
|
| 10/4/11 |
Speech Perception I (pdf) |
Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) The Linguistic Genius of Babies (up through 10:15 is a good general overview) (2) Casserly & Pisoni (2010): general overview of speech perception & production (3) Swingley (2009): general overview, plus a section on the sounds of words (4) Werker (1995): background on phoneme perception (5) * Yoshida et al. (2010): 10-month-old infant phoneme discrimination abilities (6) * Maye et al. (2002): infant sensitivity to statistical distributions ~~~ |
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| 10/6/11 |
NO CLASS |
Get a start on reading for next session |
~~~ |
|
| 10/11/11 |
Speech Perception II (pdf) |
Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) * Vallabha et al. (2007): learning phonemic categories using an EM algorithm (2) lecture notes on Vallabha et al. (2007) (3) * Feldman et al. (2011): human learner sensitivity to word context of a sound (4) * Dillon et al. (2011): learning phonetic categories using comp modeling ~~~ |
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| 10/13/11 | Word Segmentation I: Boundaries (pdf) |
(1) * Gambell & Yang (2006) | Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) Saffran, Aslin, & Newport (1996): infant probability (2) Gomez & Gerken (2000): artificial language expts (3) Finn & Hudson Kam (2008): issues with adults in artificial language expts (4) Onnis et al. (2005): issues with adults in artificial language expts (5) * Johnson & Tyler (2010): issues with infant sensitivity to trans prob (6) * Swingley (2005): word seg model using mutual information over syllables (7) * Blanchard et al. (2010): cog plausible inference with phonotactic constraints (8) * Goldwater et al. (2009): ideal learner (9) * Johnson & Goldwater (2009): ideal learner (10) * Willits et al. (2009): morpheme tracking ~~~ |
| 10/18/11 | Word Segmentation II: Lexicon (pdf) |
(1) * Pearl, Goldwater, & Steyvers (2011) | Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) Pearl, Goldwater, & Steyvers (2010): shorter version of 2011 ms |
| 10/20/11 | Word-Meaning Mapping I (pdf) |
(1) * Xu & Tenenbaum (2007) |
Emailed discussion questions due |
~~~ |
| 10/25/11 | Word-Meaning Mapping II (pdf) |
(1) * Frank, Goodman, & Tenenbaum (2009) |
Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) * Yu & Smith (2007): adult cross-situational (2) * Smith & Yu (2008): infant cross-situational (3) * Medina et al. (2011): against cross-situational learning (4) * Ramscar et al. (2011): for cross-situational learning, but with differences between kids and adults ~~~ |
| 10/27/11 | Grammatical Categories (pdf) |
(1) * Mintz (2003) |
Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) * Wang & Mintz (2008): online learning of FFs (2) * Mintz (2006): infant sensitivity to FFs (3) * Chemla et al. (2009): the importance of frames vs. trigrams (4) * Liebbrandt & Powers (2010): Issues with Dutch FFs (5) * Weisleder & Waxman (2010): Spanish FFs (6) Wang et al (2010) presentation: Turkish & German FFs (7) * Wang & Mintz (2010): why FFs work (8) * Syrett & Lidz (2010): learning adjectives from syntactic cues ~~~ |
| 11/1/11 | Poverty of the Stimulus I (pdf) |
First reaction paper should be submitted to instructor no later than 11:59pm 11/1/11 |
(1) Pinker (2004) (2) * Gerken (2006) ~~~ | |
| 11/3/11 |
Poverty of the Stimulus II: Against (pdf) |
(1) Pullum & Scholz (2002) | Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) * Legate & Yang (2002): quantifying the learnability of a particular phenomenon (2) * Hsu & Chater (2010): another way to quantify the learnability of a particular phenomenon ~~~ |
| 11/8/11 |
Poverty of the Stimulus III: Structure dependence (pdf) |
(1) * Perfors, Tenenbaum, & Regier (2011) | Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) Perfors, Tenenbaum, & Regier (2006): shorter version of Perfors et al. (2011) (2) * Reali & Christiansen (2005): statistical learning of structure dependence (3) * Kam et al. (2008): problems with statistical learning of structure dependence (4) Berwick et al. (2011): reply to Perfors, Tenenbaum, & Regier (among others) ~~~ |
| 11/10/11 |
PoS + Syntax IV: Anaphoric one (pdf) |
(1) * Pearl & Mis (2011) | Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) Pearl & Mis (2011) Cog Sci: shorter version of Pearl & Mis (2011) (2) * Lidz, Waxman, & Freedman (2003): 18-month-olds know anaphoric one (3) * Regier & Gahl (2004): Bayesian learning of anaphoric one using ambiguous data (4) * Foraker et al. (2009): Bayesian learning of anaphoric one using linguistic knowledge (5) * Pearl & Lidz (2009): learners can only use some ambiguous data ~~~ |
| 11/15/11 | PoS + Syntax V: Syntactic islands (pdf) |
(1) * Pearl & Sprouse (2011) | Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) Pearl & Sprouse (2011) chapter: shorter version of Pearl & Sprouse (2011) ~~~ |
| 11/17/11 | Complex Systems I (pdf) |
(1) Pearl & Lidz (2010 ms): intro to parameters (particularly sections 1 & 2) |
Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) Baker (2008): macro vs. micro parameters (2) Lasnik & Lohndal (2010): current implementations of principles & parameters (3) Lightfoot (2010): learning about parameters from language change (4) Nevins (2010): constraints on phonological grammars (5) O'Grady (2005) pp.120-142: Some difficult syntactic phenomena (6) Lidz (2010): additional difficult syntactic phenomena (7) * Mitchener & Becker (2011): learning about raising vs. control verbs ~~~ |
| 11/22/11 | Complex Systems II (pdf) |
(1) * Yang (2004) |
Emailed discussion questions due, Final paper meeting with instructor completed no later than 11/22/11 |
(1) Yang (2010): overview of comp modeling for parameter-style acquisition (2) * Legate & Yang (2007): learning morphology & tense markings (3) * Freudenthal et al. (2010): variational learning vs. other learning (4) * Hadley et al. (2011): support for variational learning (5) * Pelham (2011): ambiguity makes learning more difficult ~~~ |
| 11/24/11 | NO CLASS - Happy Thanksgiving! |
~~~ |
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| 11/29/11 | Complex Systems III (pdf) |
(1) * Pearl (2011) | Emailed discussion questions due |
(1) Pearl (2009): shorter version of 2011 paper (2) * Pearl (2008): unambiguous data ~~~ |
| 12/1/11 | Complex Systems IV (pdf) |
(1) * Legate & Yang (2011) |
Emailed discussion questions due, Second reaction paper should be submitted to instructor no later than 11:59pm 12/1/11 |
~~~ |
| 12/8/11 |
Final Paper |
Final paper emailed to instructor no later than 11:59pm 12/8/11 |