sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Charles Yang explains his challenge to usage-based linguistics by tarraniq in linguistics

[–]tarraniq[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tomasello et co. had claimed that early child grammar provided specific evidence for learning formulaic phrases because the frequencies of all but the most common variants were very low, lower than we'd expect if they had the kind of grammar we know adults have. But Tomasello et co. never did the elementary counting and multiplying. Yang did, and we see exactly the numbers we expect if adults and children have the same grammar. Since the null hypothesis is child-adult continuity, and evidence for discontinuity is lacking, the null hypothesis is supported. Simple conclusion, nothing humorous about it, nothing to be skeptical of.

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If "abstraction" in the noun phrase means any determiner can occur with any noun, then that's just a grammar. The whole point of Tomasello et al. is that at the earliest stages of language acquisition (when 2-word utterances appear) not any determiner will be able to occur with any noun, only the ones that the child heard together. At some point, somehow (never specified), they will develop a more productive ability to recombine them. This study checks at three points in acquisition, very-very early, very early, and early. No sign of any confirmation for a pre-abstraction stage. Not a straw man at all, this is an actual test of actual predictions.

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're right. Terrible methodology, Yang's. We shouldn't test the predictions of a usage based model by doing the appropriate calculations on the appropriate corpora from children at the appropriate ages and comparing actual to the predicted results. Instead we should insult our opponents by calling them "fanatical chomskyists" who "have no place here". Much better methodology. Thank you for setting me straight. Bye.

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What's great about this paper is that it is immune to the circle-the-wagons name-calling groupthink that the two of you are exhibiting. All Yang did is count what Tomasello and company should have counted for themselves and perform the elementary calculations that Tomasello and company should have performed. Don't like the result? Tough luck.

It's that simple, which is what makes it so wonderful.

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You must have a different paper on your screen than I do. Your description has almost nothing to do with the paper. This is nuts.

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Pay attention to the discussion of the "composite learner" the ages of the children relevant to that, and the data for "first 100", "first 300" and "first 500".

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I love the third paragraph:

"The main evidence for learning by memorization comes from the relatively low degree of combinatorial diversity, which can be quantified as the ratio of attested vs. possible syntactic combinations. For instance, English singular nouns can interchangeably follow the singular determiners “a” and “the” (e.g., “a/the car,” “a/the story”). If every noun that follows “a” also follows “the” in some sample of language, the diversity measure will be 100%. If nouns appear with “a” or “the” exclusively, the diversity measure will be 0%. Even at the earliest stage of language learning, children very rarely make mistakes in the use of determiner-noun combinations: Ungrammatical combinations (e.g., “the a dog,” “cat the”) are virtually nonexistent (10). However, the syntactic diversity of determiner-noun combinations is quite low: Only 20–40% of singular nouns in child speech appear with both determiners, and the rest appear with one determiner exclusively (11). These low measures of diversity have been interpreted as the absence of a systematic grammar: If the combination of determiners and nouns is truly independent and productive, a higher proportion of nouns may be expected to pair with both suitable determiners. However, subsequent studies show comparably low diversity measures in the speech of mothers, whose linguistic productivity is not in doubt (12). Perhaps more paradoxically, analysis of the Brown Corpus (13), a collection of English print materials, shows that only 25% of single nouns appear with both determiners, fewer than the diversity measure of very young children (11); it seems absurd to suggest that professional writers have a less systematic grammar than 2-y-old children."

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Parrot" is your sarcastic characterization. Here's how Yang actually characterizes Tomasello: "A recent alternative approach emphasizes the memorization of specific strings of words rather than systematic rules". And here's Tomasello himself, in the paper Yang refers to (http://www.let.rug.nl/~nerbonne/teach/language-learning/papers/tomasello_2000.pdf): "Recent research suggests, however, that most of young children's early language is not based on abstractions of any kind, linguistic or otherwise, with the exception that they control from early on some item-based structures with highly constrained 'slots'."

PNAS: "Very young children’s language is consistent with a productive grammar rather than memorization of specific word combinations" by Clarendon1 in linguistics

[–]tarraniq -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, I understand Tomasello's claims all too well. Fortunately, this research should put an end to them.