Human and animal language differs in quantity, kind, and existence of grammar.

Lexical Decision Task: Ask people to identify if strings of letters is a real word. Identified average American adult has >42,000 vocabulary.

Digital Infinity / Productivity: Words + Symbols = Grammar/Syntax ⇒ infinite combinations.

Language Acquisition

Behavioralist View: All language is learned by trial and error with reinforcement, and modeling other people’s language behavior (B.F Skinner)

Innate View: Innate capacity to learn language prior to any language exp (Noam Chomsky)

Universal Grammar: Innate, basic scaffolding of syntax (words, syntax, and tense exist) Gene necessary for language development: FOXP2
Poverty of the Stimulus: Grammar rules are often ambiguous based on examples. We never learned strict grammar rules, therefore language must be innate.
Pidgin: Limited form of lang, shown in people who moved countries in adulthood.
Creole: New language created by combining pidgins with other home languages. Children of pidgin speakers combine parents’ pidgin into a new fully expressive lang. (Evidence 1)
Evidence 2: Deaf isolates not exposed to any sign lang often develop their own sign lang.
Evidence 3: Nearly all children learn lang at the same rates and following the same schedule of increasing capability, starting from the womb.

Language Comprehension

Language signals are inherently ambiguous - Top-Down processing.

Phonetic Properties: Sounds that the speaker is making.

Phonemes: Smallest unit of speech that can change the meaning of a word. (e.g. ‘apple’ = ‘a’ + ‘p’ + ‘ə’ + ‘l’)
Morphemes: Smallest meaningful units of speech. (e.g. prefixes, suffixes, and smaller words. ‘apples’ = ‘apple’ + ‘s’)
Evidence of Phonological Ambiguity (Pollack, Pickkett 1964)