ACQUIRING LINGUISTIC CUES TO IDENTIFY AGENT

Case, Word Order, and Language Learnability: Insights from Connectionist Modeling Gary Lupyan (il24@cornell.edu) Morten H. Christiansen (mhc27@cornell.edu) Department of Psychology Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 USA Abstract How does the existence of case systems, and strict word order patterns a↵ect the learnability of a given language? We present a series of connectionist sim- ulations, suggesting that both case and strict word order may facilitate syntactic acquisition by a se- quential learning device. Our results are consis- tent with typological data concerning the frequen- cies with which di↵erent type of word order pat- terns occur across the languages of the world. Our model also accommodates patterns of syntactic de- velopment across several di↵erent languages. We conclude that non-linguistic constraints on general sequential-learning devices may help explain the re- lationship between case, word order, and learnabil- ity of individual languages. Introduction In language acquisition, children are faced with many formidable tasks, yet they normally acquire most of their native language within the first five years of life. One of the most difficult of these tasks involves mapping a sequence of words onto some sort of interpretation of what that sequence is supposed to mean. That is, in order for the child to under- stand a sentence, she needs to determine the gram- matical roles of the individual words so that she can work out who did what to whom. Although the chil- dren appear to bring powerful statistical learning mechanisms to bear on the acquisition tasks (e.g., Sa↵ran, Aslin, & Newport 1996), the existence of linguistic universals common across radically di↵er- ent languages (Greenberg 1963) points to the pres- ence of innate constraints on such learning. Without such constraints, it becomes difficult to explain why there are few, if any, Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) languages (van Everbroeck, 1999) even though in principle such a language appears to be as good as any other. In this paper, we propose that these con- straints may arise from non-linguistic limitations on the sequential learning of statistical structure, and examine how this perspective may shed light on how children learn to map the words in sentences onto their appropriate grammatical roles. There are two major ways in which languages signal syntactic rela- tionships and grammatical roles—word order (WO), and case markings. In a strict WO language like En- glish, declarative sentences follow a Subject-Verb- Object (SVO) pattern. It is the occurrence of the subject in the first position, and the object in the second, that allows the hearer to comprehend who did what to whom. In contrast, languages such as Russian or Japanese allow multiple word orders and rely on case markings to disambiguate subjects from objects. For instance, Masha lubit Petyoo (SVO), Petyoo lubit Masha (OVS), and Lubit Petyoo Masha (VOS) are all grammatical in Russian and all mean Mary loves Peter (albeit with di↵erent emphases on the constituents), due to the nominative -a, and ac- cusative -u case markers. While long-standing theories describe acquisition of language through an innate language acquisition device (e.g., Pinker, 1995), an alternative approach that is gaining ground is the adaptation of linguistic structures to the human brain rather than vice versa (e.g., Christiansen, 1994; Kirby, 1998). On this ac- count, language universals may reflect non-linguistic cognitive constraints on learning and processing of sequential structure, rather than constraints pre- scribed by an innate universal grammar. Previ- ous work has shown that sequential-learning devices with no language-specific biases are better able to learn more universal aspects of language as com- pared to aspects encountered in rare languages (e.g., Ellefson & Christiansen, 2000; Christiansen & De- vlin, 1997; Van Everbroeck, 1999, 2001). Here, we examine the ways in which case markings and word order may function as cues for a sequen- tial learning device acquiring syntactic structure. In simulation 1, we model di↵erent word orders, and hypothesize that typologically common languages should be easier to learn by a sequential-learning device than the more rare ones. We expand on this idea in simulation 2 by studying the performance of networks trained on languages of varying degrees of case markings and flexibility. Finally, in simulation 3, we establish that our trained networks are able to mimic syntactic performance of children learn- ing English, Italian, Turkish, and Serbo-Croatian (Slobin and Bever, 1982).

Several studies found cross‐linguistic structural priming with various language combinations. Here, we investigated the role of two important domains of language variation: case marking and word order, for transitive and ditransitive structures. We varied these features in an artificial language learning paradigm, using three different artificial language versions in a between‐subjects design. Priming was assessed between Dutch (no overt case marking, SVO word order) and a) an SVO order version, b) a case marking version, and c) an SOV order version. Similar within‐language and cross‐linguistic priming was found in all versions for transitives, indicating that cross‐linguistic structural priming was not hindered. In contrast, for ditransitives we found similar within‐language priming for all versions, but no cross‐linguistic priming. The finding that cross‐linguistic priming is possible between languages that vary in morphological marking or word order, is compatible with studies showing cross‐linguistic priming between natural languages that differ on these dimensions.

Purpose. This paper reports on an investigation of Arabic word order acquisition by twelve Jordanian children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the reasons for this order of acquisition. This study researched the following questions: (1). Which word order do Jordanian Arabic speaking children with ASD prefer? (2). Why do children with ASD prefer this word order? Methods and Procedure. The study sample consisted of 12 autistic children (mean age of nine, two females, ten males) attending Tawasul Center for Autism, Amman, Jordan. Such a ratio is logical since there are more male than female autistic children, as concluded in multiple studies. In the present study, the participants’ native language is JA, which facilitated communication between the children and researchers since the latter are also JA native speakers. The sample’s ASD severity level was moderate with a nonverbal IQ of around 45. These 12 children were selected because their L1 proficiency was approximately the same and their mental age was around 6, based on an annual test conducted by the center. In addition, none of these children had any specific language impairments, suggesting that the sample was homogenous and heterogeneous regarding language skills. Concerning ethical approval, consent was obtained from the center and the children’s parents to conduct the tests on the children in the center. Participants from the Tawasul Center for Autism in Amman, Jordan, were asked to describe what they saw in ten different pictures and their responses were recorded. These responses can be divided into two types: SV word order and VS word order. Results. The results indicate that SV word order structures were used more often than VS structures. The results of the t-test revealed a statistically significant difference between the two in favor of subject-verb-object (SVO) order. We argue that the SVO word order is used more frequently by children with ASD due to the noun bias principle. Conclusions. Based on the analysis, SVO sentences were used more than VSO sentences for many reasons; namely, the basic word order of the linguistic input in the surrounding community, the noun bias principle, and the type of message being conveyed, i.e., entity-oriented messages. After administering a t-test, statistically significant differences were found between the results of the two word orders in favor of SVO word order.

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This study investigated the role of prosody and word order in identifying the focus of sentences in Japanese. Native Japanese speakers listened to sentences with different types of word order (subject–object–verb (SOV) vs. object–subject–verb (OSV)), prosody (whether the first noun phrase is stressed or not) and preceding contexts (object- vs. subject-wh questions), while processing costs were measured using pupillometry. Although syntactically non-basic OSV was more difficult to process than basic SOV, this processing difficulty was considerably reduced when the supportive context (the subject-wh question) required S to be focused. The time–course analysis of pupillometry revealed that the Japanese speakers immediately used prosodic cues to determine the focus of sentences, but the effect of word order cues for focus was delayed until the sentence-final verb was encountered. This study advances our understanding of the temporal dynamics of focus processing and the interplay between syntactic and information structures in sentence comprehension.

Grammatical encoding has been suggested to be driven by communicative efficiency – a balance between production ease and communicative success. Evidence for this view comes from studies indicating that speakers balance their use of morphosyntactic cues to grammatical functions with respect to animacy. However, these studies have not taken cues in the discourse context into account. In a picture-description task, we investigate the influence of animacy on the morphosyntactic encoding of grammatical functions in Swedish transitive sentences. These sentences are produced in discourse contexts with additional information about grammatical functions. We find various morphosyntactic cues to grammatical functions (e.g. SVO word order and case marking) to more frequently be used when the object referent is animate. Speakers thus balance their use of cues to grammatical functions, even when the discourse context is informative about those functions. These findings provide direct evidence for the view that grammatical encoding is influenced by communicative efficiency.

Research on subject-verb agreement production in SVO languages has shown that objects moved pre-verbally sometimes trigger attraction, i.e., erroneous agreement of the verb with the object rather than the subject. Moreover, objects c-commanding one of the agreement positions in the hierarchical structure were found to generate stronger attraction than those linearly preceding them. Evidence for the role of c-command comes from the observation that the accusative clitic in French triggers stronger attraction than the preverbal dative pronoun and the PP modifier (Franck et al. 2006; 2010). In this study, we report the results of an experiment in Persian (an SOV language) in which subject–verb agreement was elicited by presenting sentences in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation procedure (RSVP) followed by verb selection (Staub 2009; 2010). We compared attraction errors induced by pre-verbal accusatives versus datives in the canonical SOV word order as well as the OSV word order. Corroborating Franck et al. (2006; 2010), we found stronger attraction when the pre-verbal object occupies a c-commanding position in the hierarchical structure than when it simply precedes one of the agreement positions in the linear string. We also found stronger attraction in the OSV word order as compared to the canonical SOV word order. This finding is attributed to the real-time processes of erroneous structure building and/or erroneous controller selection during subject-verb agreement computation.

ABSTRACTCase marking is the major cue to sentence interpretation in Japanese, whereas animacy and word order are much weaker. However, when subjects and their cases markers are omitted, Japanese honorific and humble verbs can provide information that compensates for the missing case role markers. This study examined the usage of honorific and humble verbs as cues to case role assignment by Japanese native speakers and second-language learners of Japanese. The results for native speakers replicated earlier findings regarding the predominant strength of case marking. However, when case marking was missing, native speakers relied more on honorific marking than word order. In these sentences, the processing that relied on the honorific cue was delayed by about 100 ms in comparison to processing that relied on the case-marking cue. Learners made extensive use of the honorific agreement cue, but their use of the cue was much less accurate than that of native speakers. In particular, they failed to systematically invoke the agreement cue when case marking was missing. Overall, the findings support the predictions of the model and extend its coverage to a new type of culturally determined cue.

The purpose of a Machine Translation (MT) system is to decode one language into another. Every language has its own different lexical and syntactic structure. A hybrid language does not have its own structure; it is an amalgamation of two or more languages in a sentence. To understand the structure and to decode a hybrid language into a formal language, hybrid parsing techniques are required. Hindi and English have Subject Object Verb (SOV) and Subject Verb Object (SVO) word orders, respectively. The basic requirement of parsers is to transform a SOV word order to a SVO word order and vice versa and Part of Speech (POS) tagging is essential for word grouping. The purpose of this paper is to bring out the concepts of parsers and POS tagging techniques to which hybrid translation can takes place to a formal language.

Effects of case marking and word order on syntactic parsing in Finnish were examined by registering readers’ eye fixation patterns while they read single sentences for comprehension. Target nouns appearing towards the beginning of the sentence took one of three grammatical roles: subject, object, or adverbial. The subject phrase in the sentence-initial position is the canonical order in Finnish, but the two other word orders are less frequent. In one experimental condition, the grammatical role of the target noun was signalled by a case inflection attached to the preceding adjective modifier; in the second condition this was not the case. The results showed a facilitation effect in sentence parsing due to case marking. Similarly, there was an effect of word order, where the canonical SVO order was associated with greater processing ease than were non-canonical word orders. The two factors interacted so that there was no effect of case marking for the SVO order, but a significant case marking effect for the two marked word orders. The same pattern of results showed up as both immediate and delayed effects. The results speak against the notion of head licensing proposed by Abney (1989) and Prichett (1991).

It has often been claimed that certain verb-subject configurations can convey a specificational meaning, but it has not been previously shown that they can also have the same syntactico-semantic and discourse properties as other types of sentences which mainly have a specificational meaning, such as clefts and pseudoclefts. In this article I examine Verb – Object – Subject (VOS) word order in Romance, and show that it shares the syntactic and semantic properties of specificational sentences. I also provide a description of the discourse functions of VOS in French, Spanish and Italian, and conclude that these differ significantly in each of the three languages. I argue that such differences follow naturally from the specificational nature of VOS clauses, and reflect the different functional types of specificational sentences attested cross-linguistically.

Perhaps the best introduction to the topic of language acquisition and linguistic theory is a look at some of the facts that linguistic theory must account for. The complexity, orderliness and limited variety in human languages convinces linguists that language must be learned through a biological program that puts bounds on the possible grammatical system a child can postulate. The type of system that falls within the bounds of this innate learning ability is the matter of linguistic theory. Some properties of human languages Order and dominance Sentences are strings of words. One of the ways in which languages differ is in the ordering relations and type of hierarchical structure that is imposed on words in sentences. Languages divide into so-called free word order languages and those that impose relatively rigid word orders on sentences, selecting one of the three basic word orders characteristically found in human languages. English has a basic Subject–Verb–Object (hereafter SVO) order ( Ants eat ants etc.). The other two primary orders selected by languages are Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) and Verb–Subject–Object (VSO). The choice of a system with relatively free versus fixed word order determines many important properties of a language's design. In free word order languages the words are concatenated with little superstructure; languages with more or less fixed word order in general permit the embedding of sentences and phrases one within the other, resulting in hierarchical structures of potentially infinite depth.

Word order in Matengo (N13): Topicality and informational roles

This paper examines the relationship between headedness and language processing and considers two strategies that potentially ease language comprehension and production. Both strategies allow a language to minimize the number of arguments in a given clause, either by reducing the number of overtly expressed arguments or by reducing the number of structurally required arguments. The first strategy consists of minimizing the number of overtly expressed arguments by using more pro-drop for two-place predicates (Pro-drop bias). According to the second strategy, a language gives preference to one-place predicates over two-place predicates, thus minimizing the number of structural arguments (Intransitive bias). In order to investigate these strategies, we conducted a series of comparative corpus studies of SVO and SOV languages. Study 1 examined written texts of various genres and children's utterances in English and Japanese, while Study 2 examined narrative stories in English, Spanish, Japanese, and Turkish. The results for these studies showed that pro-drop was uniformly more common with two-place predicates than with one-place predicates, regardless of the OV/VO distinction. Thus the Pro-drop bias emerges as a universal economy principle for making utterances shorter. On the other hand, SOV languages showed a much stronger Intransitive bias than SVO languages. This finding suggests that SOV word order with all the constituents explicitly expressed is potentially harder to process; the dominance of one-place predicates is therefore a compensatory strategy in order to reduce the number of preverbal arguments. The overall pattern of results suggests that human languages utilize both general (Pro-drop bias) and headedness-order-specific (Intransitive bias) strategies to facilitate processing. The results on headedness-order-specific strategies are consistent with other researchers' findings on differential processing in head-final and non-head-final languages, for example, Yamashita & Chang's (2001) ‘long-before-short’ parameterization.

This research paper investigates the syntax of idiomatic expressions consisting of the verb and the object/accompanying adjunct (VP idiomatic expressions, henceforth) in two Arabic varieties: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Jordanian Arabic (JA). It shows that in order for VP idiomatic expressions to obtain their idiomatic reading, the predominate pattern of the word order in each variety (i.e., the VSO word order in MSA, but the SVO word order in JA) should be used; otherwise idiomaticity is not possible (with few exceptional cases discussed in the paper). We offer evidence that this restriction on the idiomaticity of VP idiomatic expressions in Arabic varieties follows from a proposed condition that the subject (even if it is not part of the idiomatic expression) and the verb (in addition to the object) should maintain a structurally local relation with each other in the narrow syntax, i.e. they should be included in the vP phase before the spell-out point. The paper shows that the movement of the verb to T0 in MSA and JA or lack thereof does not break idiomaticity, nor does the movement of the subject to Spec,TP in JA. These facts are taken as an indication that a distinction between narrow-syntax and post-spellout movements should be made. This provides evidence for proposals that distinguish between pre- and post-spellout movements (cf. Chomsky 2001, among others).