Jackendoff PATTERNS IN THE MIND Preface XX Century --> Behaviorists = The baby comes into the world knowing

g nothing, the environment determines the patterns of his adult behavior No "mind", no "thoughts". Only objectivity describes the behavior. Late '50s --> Noam Chomsky's book "Syntactic Structures" Human language behaviors can be explained only through the patterns of the speaker's mind, not by simple mechanisms stated by the Behaviorists. From Chomsky's works the Study of the Mind (Cognitive Revolution, Cognitive Psychology, Artificial Intelligence) had a big leap forward. Until modern times, with Cognitive Science and Neuroscience = they see the Mind (Mind/Brain) as a complex information-processing devide (Biological Computer). PART I: THE FUNDAMENTAL ARGUMENTS 1. Finding Our Way Into The Problem: The Nature/Nurture Issue Why are we the way we are? a. Are we born that way? b. Are we the product of the environment? c. Are we a mix of both? Possible criteria to answer those questions: Intelligence, personality, environment Social groups (race, gender, culture,...) Language can be used as a focus to differentiate Nature and Nurture and so understand "who we are" 1. Because possession of language has been regarded as one of the major differences between humans and animals 2. Because within it, there are as many evidences and hints for understanding various areas of the human fields (Neuroscience, Child Development, Philosophy, ...). It is a combination of Biological+Humanistic view Possessiong language gives access to history, technology, rituals,... that can be transferred only because of language; also, it gives control and coordination over a number of people (the actions) Discussion --. Prerequisite of language: What do we need to be like, in order to possess language? - Size of brain? Certain animals have bigger brains than us (whale, elephant) but they are not Noam Chomsky, the creator of the modern linguistic theory, poses two main arguments in order to respond to the prerequisite: a) Mental Grammar --> The variety of language implies that the himan brain contains a set of unconscious grammatical principles b) Innate Knowledge --> The way children learn to talk implies that human brain contains a genetically determined specialization of language

Both arguments combined = the abiliy to speak and understand a human language is a complex combination of nature and nurture. The part coming from nature is a specific human adaptation for language learning and use 2: The Argument For Mental Grammar [fig. 2.1 Communicative Situation] 1. A pattern of light makes an image visible to the human eye (e.g. Tree) 2. Once perceived, the image finds its significance in the word 'Tree" which, in the mind of the observer, corresponds to it (in the English language for an English observer) because it was stored previously in his memory 3. The word "Tree" is spoken to a person listening. The sound through which the word "Tree" travels is perceived by the listener's ears as the word "Tree". His nervous system produces an image of a "Tree" in his mind, so that he is able to imagine what the speaker/observer has seen 4. More complex instances of communication than a single words: a. "There's a bird in the tree" b. "A bird was in the tree yesterday" c. "Are there any birds in that tree?" d. "A bird might be in the tree" How can we distinguish pictures of these four sentences in our mind? e. "Birds like that tree" --> How do you picture the word "like"? f. "That tree looks like a bird" The number of different things we can say by combining words in different ways is called Expressive Variety of Language (both Pictures+Abstracts) Human Language Elements like words that can be combined and recombined in limitless new ways to express new messages Animal Communication It can't convey someone else's desires or feelings, nor draw direct resemblance among different objects

The number of sentences we are capable of using is just too large to store them individually in our brain. The brain seems not to store whole sentences, but rather, words and their meanings + patterns into which words can be placed (this way we can achieve Expressive Variety of Language) Words can be added to sentences, but also patterns can be added, to form infinite long sentences. In order for us to be able to speak and understand novel sentences we have to store in our heads not only words, but patterns of sentences (patterns of words and patterns of patterns) Pattern = Rules of language stored in memory The complete collection of rules are defined in Linguistics as the Mental Grammar of the Language. The notion of a Mental Grammar stored in the brain is the central theoretical construct of modern Linguistics Why some sentences "make sense" and others "don't"? It is because the former correspond to pattern in that language that we know, and recognize. The patterns themselves have a degree of life independent of the words that make them up (patterns stored in the brain couse the "habit" to speak a language in a certain way)

Speaking ungrammatically does not mean to violate Mental Grammar. It only violates the "norm" of the proper language taught in school, but it implies that the brain of the person speaking ungrammatically possesses some patterns of "incorrect English" The rules of language are not conscious = Freud's notion that parts of the mind are not accessible to consciousness challenges the Cartesian way of the mind with consciousness. There is more in the mind that we are aware of. "Unconscious" Mental Grammar means that it is not available to the conscious mind under any conditions. Mental Grammar doesn't have dangerous effects (like other behavioral areas triggered by the Unconscious). We simply could not speak without it. Human nature based on the nature of language = there must be a Mental Grammar into the speaker's mind which enables him to speak and understand novel sentences. Since Mental Grammar is not directly accessible, we must admit the possibility that some essential parts of our abilities are completely unconscious. 3. The Argument For Innate Knowledge The character of language acquisition Assuming we have Mental Grammars in our heads Question: how did they get there? Observation: human children learn to speak any language is spoken in the community where they grow up. How do they do it? a. Not just parents teaching b. Not just school teaching (Since Mental Grammar patterns are for most part unavailable to conscious analysis, how adults could teach it to children? Adults can supply children with examples of the patterns, that is, sentences) Children's learning, the same as the adults, is backed up by unconscious principles that are inaccessible for conscious introspection. On the basis of what the child hears in the environment, and in the near-absence of teaching, and of conscious awareness of what is being learned, the child manages to acquire a command of the grammatical patterns of the language that is, learning to construct a Mental Grammar. We can acquire unconscious patterns unconsciously, with little or no deliberate training. The Argument for Innate Knowledge = the way children learn to talk implies that the human brain contains a genetically determined specialization for the language Paradox of Language Acquisition = No adult has even been able to duplicate the feat that every normal child accomplishes, that is to possess a full Mental Grammar patterns for any language. 1.Child's mental patterns are unconscious, thus inaccessible to adults 2. A lot of language-learning process is also unconscious 3. Children have a "catalyst" for language-learning which adults don't have anymore Innate Knowledge is sufficient to construct a Mental Grammar for any of the languages of the world (the concept of Universal Grammar or UG) Questions: What is a UG? How do children use it to construct Mental Grammar? How do they acquire UG?

UG is not learned --> Innate Knowledge's mechanisms (Genetic Hypothesis proposed by Noam Chomsky). Two components must be involved for this Hypothesis: 1) Substantial aspects of the organization of the language are genetic 2) Physical structures of the brain are determined by genetic structures The child starts to acquire that mechanism at the age of 2, that's why component 1) alone would not be enough to explain the genetic hypothesis. Even though the Genetic Hypothesis is far from being proven in full, it seems to be a plausible way of providing the child with Innate Knowledge. How did UG come into place? Genetic evolution of the language is the only answer (almost completely unknown since there are no records of the origins of the language). Conclusions: Mental Grammar = Innate Part (UG) + Learned Part How the two parts are distributed in the brain? Picking up differences in language (Innate) Some aspects of different languages (Innate) Aspects of language which can't be heard from the environment (Innate) Innate Part of Language = special inclination for language + general properties of the mind PART II: THE ORGANIZATION OF MENTAL GRAMMAR 4. Overview Language as a conversion between thought and sound (see fig. 4.1. pag. 45 Speech Event) - Something in the brain forms as a "thought" - The thought passes through the mouth, lungs, vocal cords, tongue, jaw, and lips in the form of a sound. - The sound is captured by the Listener's ears which results in forming the same "thought" as that of the Speaker (in the Listener's brain) What allows the passage of the patterns is the neural system which triggers the movement of the body --> but it is NOT the creator of the thoughts 1. Because it must be neutral between spoken and heard language, then it can't pertain to the speaker's or listener's neural firings 2. The thought may exist without speaking, therefore without involving neural system 3. Thought must be independent from what language is spoken Example: Le chien est mort Der hund ist tot The neural firings which cause the thought to form sounds, are all The dog is dead different because the patterns (vocal and auditory) are different Yet the thought which evokes in the minds of French, German, and English subjects are pretty much the same = so we need to find a pattern for the thought which is distinct from both vocal and auditory patterns. The brain has to have a way to convert the patterns of neural firings of the thought into the vocal and auditory patterns.

Brain 1 Thought --> Motor Instructions

Brain 2

Vocal Tract Ear Auditory Patterns --> Thought <-- Sound Wave --> The highlighted arrows are the location for the Thought Pattern From thought to vocal => Speech Production From auditory to thought => Speech Perception !-> It is possible through two intermediaries which allow the conversion: Intermediary 1: Phonological Structure Intermediary 2: Sybtactic Structure Speech Production Thought --> Syntactic Structure --> Phonological Structure --> Motor Instructions Language Speech Perception Auditory Patterns --> Phonological Structure --> Syntactic Structure --> Thought Language Of course both Speaker and Listener share the same parts if they are able to speak and hear Auditory Patterns \ Phonological Structure <----> Syntactic Structure <---> Thought Language Motor Patterns / Converting Auditory Patterns into Phonological Structures is a different process than converting Phonological Structures into Motor Patterns \-> Each proces has its own characteristics and specialized devices (neural firings) which are accountable for different steps in the conversion process Another component to be added is the written language. In this case the Phonological Structure is linked to the Visual System (reading) rather than the Auditory System (hearing) Difference = Spoken language is not explicitly taught; written language requires extensive instruction and practice, and not everybody can achieve it. We don't know how Phonological and Syntactic Structures are physically encoded in the brain as patterns of neural firings |--> Functionalism = studies of the mental capacities of the brain. Hypothesis = The brain somehow recognizes the structure of a sentence (Mental Grammar) regardless the language we consciously recognize, and put it together to make a correct sentence. Therefore, the brain's language and the human language are somehow related. How can we prove this hypothesis? By experimental evidence, the strategy being that of studying unobservable phenomena by relating them to elements that are observable (linguistic experiment, like any other scientific experiment). We cannot observe the Mental Grammar of a language but we CAN observe the judgments of

grammar and the meanings that are produced by using it (Some examples to check: 4.6, 4.7, 4.8 at pagg. 53-54) These visual judgments have all the same symptoms as judgments about sentences (experimental evidence) Linguistic example of ambiguity (similar to figures 4.7 and 4.8): a) Visiting relatives can be boring b) Relatives who are visiting you can be boring c) Going to visit relatives can be boring a) = "visiting relatives" (as "they visit you") similar to b) a) = "visiting relatives" (as "you go visit them") similar to c) To Sum-up: The Functionalist approach to Mental Grammar is to make experimentally testable hypotheses about the organization of information and knowledge in the brain Modularity Hypothesis => If the production and perception of language require several complex specialized codes, the brain must include complex specialized devices to deal with each of them, and allow the encoding. --> The idea is that the brain is divided into many separate units or modules, each with the capacity to deal with a specialized kind of information It is not just the way the modules are connected up with each others, but the nature of the circuitry inside each module is crucial (because it gives the specialization to each action or process) Genetic Hypothesis <========> Modularity Hypothesis We can't change the basic genetic or functional organizations, but we can strengthen and refine the material we have available. Only EVOLUTION can change the basic structures of our genes and brain Holding on this theory, we can say that children don't build specialized devices for language learning but rather, they "tune up", strengthen, or adjust to devices that are already present in the brain, by virtue of biological structure

5. Phonological Structure --> It is one of the two intermediate steps of conversion between thought and sound, but it is neither and Auditory nor a Motor Pattern. Phonological Structure of language is an encoding of sequence of sounds (words, syllables, letters,...). The sound produced by speech is a function of the vibration of the vocal cords, coupled with the very complicated resonances of the tube. By changing the shape of the mouth, the resonance changes accordingly, therefore producing the different speech sounds of the languages. In normal speaking we do not break down the words into syllables or letters, but we utter them in a smooth and continuous way.

In order to structure the speech, it is necessary for the brain to code the sequence of speech sounds and their combinations into words and sentences. Information Flow of Language Auditory Patterns Phonological Structure Vocal Instructions When speaking, then, we have a Phonological Structure in mind, which specifies a sequence of vocal tract configurations, and the brain must convert this sequence into instructions that tell the muscles of the vocal tract how to move. When hearing speech, the brain must convert the continuous, smeary information coming from the Auditory nerve into such a sequence of vocal tract positions, reconstructing configurations of the Speaker's vocal tract - The boundaries (spaces) between words, though part of Phonological Structure, are NOT present in either the Motor Instructions (speaking) or the Auditory Information (hearing). Only in writing we do make those separations. Of course you have to know the language in order to be able to perceive the word boundaries The internal structure of speech sounds ==> How does the brain specify different vocal tract configurations, and how are they stored in memory? Phonological Theory (developed during the 20s and the 30s) says that speech sounds are encoded in the brain in terms of more primitive specifications called the distinctive features of speech sounds Examples of Distinctive Features: a) Construction of the vocal tract (consonants) VS vocal tract unconstructed (vowels) b) Vocal cords tensed and vibrating (b,g,d,z, vowels) VS vocal cords relaxed and still (p,t,k,ch,...) c) Air flow through mouth completely blocked (p,b,m,t) VS air flow through mouth unblocked Each speech sound can be described in terms of a combination of the distinctive features (mouth, lips, jaw, throat, cords,...) The conscious awareness of the sound patterns of language extends as far down as individual speech sounds, but it does NOT include the further analysis of the speech sounds themselves. Nor do we have any conscious awareness of the principles governing the pronounciation of the plural. There is more than distinctive features, like tones, inherent rhythm (especially in the Oriental and African languages). The Paradox again = If the system of distinctive features is such a great scientific discovery, what does this say about the child's learning of language? Thought

1. Describing a multiplicity of objects is correlated with changes in the way that names of the objects are pronounced (e.g. Cats, Apples, Clouds have in common their multiplicity). It has to do with some noise tacked onto the different names for objects 2. There must be some relation among the noises tacked onto different names of the objects. Children try to find regularities in everything. 3. The regularity in use of the sounds t,s, to denote multiplicity has to do with the last sound of the words they are attacked to, and here comes Universal Grammar again. In order to understand that the pronounciation is dependent on distinctive features, the child must either figure out the distinctive features OR else know them in advance.

Naturally children have access to distinctive feature analysis of sounds in order to be able to learn to speak. - We can think of distinctive features as a part of Universal Grammar that provides a "menu" of speech sounds, plus the relationships among these sounds that come from shared features. - In learning a language the child selects certain speech sounds from this menu, to match those in the environment. And the child knows intuitively (unconsciously) how to sort them out. What else beside speech is in the Auditory Signal? Speech is encoded in the brain as a sequence of distinctive feature configurations. We don't know in what part of the brain the neurons encode. The process of Auditory Perception analyzes the acoustic signal into three separate but simultaneous factors: 1. Who is speaking (voice recognition) 2. What the speaker is saying (language perception) 3. How it is being said (speaker's tone of voice or emotional affect).

Each of these factors are picked out by a separate modules of the brain The Auditory Signal feeds language and two other specialized processors Voice Recognition Auditory Patterns Tone of Voice Recognition Conversion Phonological Structure Conversion Vocal Tract Instructions LANGUAGE Thought

What we have found here is that out of a unified, smeary acoustic signal (spoken language), the brain derives three distinct kinds of information, at leasst one of which speech is discrete and highly complex (the other two could be as complex as the speech, but are for the most part unknown). 6. Syntactic Structure It is distinct from Phonological Structure