Ling 1010 Study guide mid term

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School

University Of Connecticut *

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Course

1010

Subject

Linguistics

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

pdf

Pages

Uploaded by MajorRain11209

Ling 1010 (Language and Mind) – Fall 2022 - Study guide for the mid-term exam Use this study guide as a ‘work sheet’. Open it in Word and ADD information to it, based on the lectures (and the notes you made on the slide prints), discussion sections. Some of these bullet points merely pose a question or mention a topic, term or name which means that you have to identify what the answer is or what these topics, terms or names stand for in the slides . Topic 1: The nature/nurture debate in daily life ● The central theme of the course: the nature-nurture debate ● What do we mean by nature and nurture? Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception, e.g., the product of exposure, life experiences and learning on an individual. ● What do we mean by ‘Plato’s problem’? Plato's Problem is the problem of finding an explanation for how a child acquires language though the child does not receive explicit instruction and the primary linguistic data a child does receive is limited. ● Give some daily examples of the nature/nurture issue that were discussed in the lectures Behavior , mental illness ● Why is language a good case study for the N/N debate? ● Define what we mean by ‘knowledge’ ● Is all knowledge conscious knowledge? Awareness is having knowledge of something. On the other hand, consciousness is the state of being aware of something and this can be regarded as more spiritual kind of definition. When a person is aware of something, he/she may feel it or just sense it without exactly knowing what it is.

● Who proposed the ‘innateness hypothesis for language’ (IH)? This term innateness hypothesis was coined by Hilary Putnam . Putnam used the expression "the innateness hypothesis" to target linguistic nativism and specifically the views of Noam Chomsky. 3. Putnam v/s Chomsky • Putnam supported Chomsky's theory of “Universal Grammar” in “innateness hypothesis”. ● What is meant by ‘The Innateness Hypothesis for language? In linguistics, the innateness hypothesis is a hypothesis which holds that humans are born with at least some knowledge of linguistic structure. On this hypothesis, language acquisition involves filling in the details of an innate blueprint rather than being an entirely inductive process. ● Why is the IH controversial? ● What is the lesson of the Joan/John case? For 25 years, the case of John/Joan was called a medical triumph — proof that a child's gender identity could be changed — and thousands of "sex reassignments" were performed based on this example. Topic 2: Nature and Nurture across disciplines ● Familiarize yourself various fields in which the nature/nurture debate is relevant ● Specifically: Sociobiology / Evolutionary Psychology Sociobiologists believe the answer to that question is 'yes'. Sociobiologists believe that to understand human nature, we must view it as part of nature as a whole. Therefore our social behaviour is subject to the same laws of evolution and heredity as all of nature. ● Specifically: Behavior Genetics Two decades of research make it increasingly clear that both nature and nurture always play a role—that is, the extent to which genetic factors affect behavior depends on the social environment in which people live, work, and play. ● Why are monozygotic twins that are reared apart especially interesting for the nature/nurture debate? Twins reared apart help identify genetic and environmental influences on behavioral development (Segal, 2012). Monozygotic twins reared apart (MZA) allow direct

estimates of genetic effects on behavior and health, because they share all their genes, but differ in their environments. ● What was the goal of the eugenics movement? The purpose of the eugenics movement was to: rid society of people considered to be unfit. ● Explain why all sciences that study human behavior face the nature/nurture debate The traditional way of studying nature versus nurture relies on twins . Because identical twins share the same genetic code, comparing the health of twins can help determine whether genetic or environmental factors play more of a role in their health. Topic 3: Philosophical background of the Nature/Nurture Debate ● Philosophical background of the debate ● What are some of the areas that Philosophers of Mind cover Philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology cover topics such as the mind-body problem, consciousness, mental states, perceptions, concepts, reasons as causes, rationality, emotions, freedom of will ● Why is thinking about your own mind relevant? ● Define the philosophical notions Empiricism all ideas come from experience and Rationalism all or most of human knowledge is innate ● And epistemology study of knowledge rationalism vs empiricism ● Mention some proponents of rationalism and empiricism philosopher René Descartes, John Locke ● What is Plato’s theory of ‘innate knowlegde’? Its two pillars are the immortality and divinity of the rational soul, and the real existence of the objects of its knowledge-a world of intelligible Forms' separate from the things our senses perceive.

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● What are the four laws of Aristotle’s theory of associationism? Aristotle's analysis of learning memory includes four laws of association: the laws of continguity, contrast, frequency and similarity. Accounting for learning and memory in terms of such laws of association is called associationism. What is meant by ‘categorization’? ● There are different views on how the mind relates to the body ● Explain what is meant by Mind-Body Dualism ● Who proposed it? ● Explain the most common responses to Mind-Body Dualism ● Such as idealism (it’s all in the mind) ● And materialism (there is no such thing as mind) which comes in two types: physicalism (the mind is what the brain does) and behaviorism (we can only study observable behavior) ● Representatives of behaviorism: J. B. Watson and B. F. Skinner ● What are the main principles of behaviorism? ● What were some responses to behaviorism? Topic 4: Cognitive Science ● Learn what is meant by Cognitive Science and which fields it brings together ● What is cybernetics? Communication is theorized as information processing, with the goal of getting the most information across with the least amount of interference . ● What is information theory? ● What is ‘redundancy’? ● Central idea: The mind is an information processing system ● Familiarize yourself with the Tri-level Hypothesis and be able to describe the three levels of analysis ● What is the view of Fodor’s functionalism on the study of the mind? ● What causes a so-called visual illusion ? ● Define two different approaches within Cognitive Science (serial, parallel) Topic 5: Modularity ● Define the notion Modularity ● What is phrenology; what was good about and what not?

● Who advocated it? ● Explain Jerry Fodor's criteria for modules ● Define the notion Structural Analogy Make sure you have watched the two Pinker videos and the Ryan Rhodes video if you did not see them in class. Topic 6: Words ● Words: Identify the three levels of information in a word (form, meaning, category label [=part of speech)) ● Phonology is the study of the form of words and sentences ● Semantics is the study of the meaning of words and sentences ● Syntax is the study of the category structure of words and sentences ● We use tree diagrams to represent the hierarchical structure that occurs at each of the three levels of words and sentences ● Why is a word like unlockable ambiguous? ● The primary function of a tree structure is to encode grouping, rather than linear order; this is what we can call the tree ‘as a mobile’. ● Given that tree structures have to represented on a 2-dimensional medium (such as a piece of paper or s screen), they can be taken to represent the linear order of nodes. ● At each layer of words, we find basic units. ● Phonology: phonemes ● Semantics: sememes ● Syntax: syntactemes (aka part of speech or category labels) ● Phonological structure building rules specify restrictions on how phonemes combine ● Actual, possible and impossible words ● Phonemes group into syllables which group into the phonological word (i.e. the phonological layer of a word) ● To motivate that we need structure changing rules in word phonology we need to understand the notion complex word ● Two kinds of words: simplex words and complex words; what’s the difference? ● Establish the notion morpheme as the smallest form-meaning unit ● What is the difference between a free morpheme and a bound morpheme? ● Morphemes are stored in the lexicon (but there is more in the lexicon) ● Making words is called morphology ● Knowing what a complex word is, we can then return to the idea that we need structure changing rules: complex words need to be checked for their wellformedness at all three levels. If ill-formedness is detected, certain rules, called repair rules can remove them.

These repair rules are this structure changing rules and when they apply at the phonological level we call them allomorphy rules . ● Understand the phoneme – allophone distinction ● Realization rules spell out the allophones for each phoneme.

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