Transcript Prescriptivism and Descriptivism

Primates and Prescriptivism
January 17, 2012
Some Intellectual History
• During the middle part of the twentieth century, the
school of behaviorism reigned supreme in psychological
circles.
• Chief advocate: B.F. Skinner (1904 - 1990)
• The study of behaviorism focused on how behavior can
be shaped by environmental forces.
• A big idea: operant
conditioning.
• = Desired behaviors can
be brought out in an
organism in small steps,
through rewards.
• Language = “Verbal Behavior”
The Linguist Strikes Back
• Noam Chomsky (1928 - ) published a scathing criticism
(1959) of Skinner’s work on “verbal behavior”.
• Some of Chomsky’s main criticisms:
• Kids learn language with or without reinforcement.
• Language use is not necessarily
functional.
• Language involves creativity.
• not derived from external
influences.
• we’re constantly processing new
linguistic forms
•  Language is innate.
Evidence?
• An example of non-functional language use?
“Each Nutch in a Nitch knows that some other Nutch
Would like to move into his Nitch very much.
So each Nutch in a Nitch has to watch that small Nitch
Or Nutches who haven’t got Nitches will snitch.”
--Dr. Seuss
• Regarding language acquisition:
“We are designed to walk...That we are taught to walk is
impossible. And pretty much the same is true of
language. Nobody is taught language. In fact, you can’t
prevent the child from learning it.” --Noam Chomsky
The Great Debate
• The Skinner/Chomsky debate inspired scientists to
determine if animals could be taught language, using
behaviorist principles.
• Early attempts had met with little success.
• Ex: Gua (chimpanzee, 1930s)
• raised alongside a human baby, in a human family.
• At 16 months, could understand 100+ words
• (more than the child)
• However: she never improved after that…
• And she never understood word order (syntax).
The Great Debate
• A similar experiment with the chimp Viki (1948) was also
disappointing.
• This time, her handlers tried to directly train her how to
speak.
• She only learned how to produce a few words:
• mama, papa, cup, up….
• and only with great difficulty.
• Fundamental problem: the vocal tracts of chimps prevent
them from making the same speech sounds we can.
Vocal Tract Anatomy
• Our vocal tracts are shaped in a way that makes it easier
to speak…
• But more dangerous to eat!
Washoe
• In 1965, Allen and Beatrice Gardner started teaching
sign language (ASL) to a chimp named Washoe.
• This worked out much better.
• Wahoe was taught to use
signs deliberately, in a signing
environment.
• Acquired ~85 signs in four
years…
• and used combinations of
signs:
• BABY MINE, YOU DRINK
• creativity: WATER BIRD
Koko
• Maybe the most famous signing primate is Koko, the
gorilla.
• Koko began to learn ASL in 1972 (and is still going!)
• Has reportedly acquired as many as 2,000 signs.
• Has exhibited some creativity:
• used FINGER BRACELET
for “ring”
• once referred to trainer
Francine Patterson as a
DIRTY TOILET DEVIL
Really?
• Francine Patterson has made some unusual claims
about Koko’s abilities.
1. Koko “rhymes” signs like BEAR and HAIR
• (even though the signs are not visually similar)
2. Koko substitutes homophones like EYE and I, and
KNOW for NO.
• (again, without similarity between the signs)
• Linguists remain skeptical about Koko’s abilities.
Non-Signing Experiments
• Some chimps have been taught to communicate using
arbitrary symbols.
• “lexigrams”
• Sarah: manipulated plastic symbols on a board.
Sarah
• Sarah supposedly understood 130 different symbols.
• including abritrary and abstract concepts.
• E.g., Sarah could make sense of the following:
Nim Chimpsky
• Nim Chimpsky was a chimp who was also taught sign
language.
• Learned through interacting with experimenters.
• Was named to annoy Noam Chomsky.
• Learned 125 signs in about
four years.
• Used combinations of
signs…
• some longer than two
words.
The Trouble with Nim
• Re-analysis of the Nim data showed:
• Nim did not sign spontaneously.
• Nim did not respect turn-taking in conversation.
• 39% of Nim’s “utterances” were repetitions of what had
just been signed (vs. 18% in children).
• Sequences of 3 and 4 signs did not add new
information.
• 71% of Nim’s utterances were interruptions.
• Nim typically used signs to get rewards, not to convey
new information.
Typical Sentences from Nim
• Nim eat Nim eat.
• Drink eat me Nim.
• Me gum me gum.
• Tickle me Nim play.
• Me eat me eat.
• Me banana you banana me you give.
• You me banana me banana you.
• Banana me me me eat.
“Animals can be repetitious to the point of inanity.”
--E.O. Wilson
Current Work with Bonobos
• After Nim Chimpsky, funding for primate language
studies mostly dried up.
• …although a few experiments went on.
• One project involves bonobos, a sub-species of
chimpanzees.
• Bonobos Sherman and
Austin have also been
trained to use lexigrams.
• Kanzi learned just by
watching Sherman and
Austin’s training!
Bonobo Successes
• It is claimed that bonobos:
• Have better comprehension abilities than production
abilities.
• (just like human children)
• Learned to comprehend just through ordinary exposure
(Kanzi)
• Skills include creative extension of signs for humor and
metaphorical expression.
• Some evidence of displacement
• (referring to chimps who are not present)
Bonobo Criticisms
• Kanzi’s use of symbols for purposes other than requesting
is only 4%.
• Longest “utterances” are three signs, with variable word
order.
• For all chimps who are taught language, development
reaches a modest level of success and then stops.
• In children, development keeps going well beyond the
early years of life.
In Conclusion
• The ability of animals to acquire language is limited.
• Works best with primates.
• Generally requires focused training conditions.
• Primate “language” can exhibit some crucial design
features like creativity and displacement…
• However, it also exhibits features not found in human
language.
• It also fails to exhibit other important features like
consistent word order, continual progress, etc.
Moral of the Story
• Ever since Chomksy’s insight into the biological nature of
language,
• Scientists are much more open to the idea that
behavior can be biologically specified.
• Think of the human use of language in the same way that
you think of:
• Spiders spinning webs
• Eagles flying
• Ducks swimming on water
• etc.
Moving On
•
So far, we’ve learned:
1. Language is biological
2. Everyone learns a language as they grow up…
•
•
but no one teaches it to them.
The main points to cover today:
1. All forms of language are very complex.
•
And rule-based. (=systematic)
2. Part of learning a language involves learning these
rules (the grammar).
•
For native speakers, the rules are in their heads!
The Rules?
•
Since kids are not taught the rules of their native
language explicitly…
•
•
they have to figure out the rules on their own.
Our goal, as linguists, is to figure out what they’ve
figured out.
•
(which is not always easy)
•
One basic tool we have: grammaticality judgments
•
Native speakers of a language have a sense of
whether or not particular strings of sounds and words
are acceptable expressions in their language.
•
plab, forch, *fmort, *ptud
Grammaticality Judgments
•
Examples at the sentence level:
Grammatical: People in Calgary are friendly.
Ungrammatical: *Calgary in friendly people are.
•
How do you feel about these?
1. Winter is a very cold time of year.
2. Sad people sing the often blues.
3. Green eggs like I and ham.
4. Each Nutch in a Nitch knows that some other Nutch
would like to move into his Nitch very much.
•
One important point: sentences can be grammatical
without meaning anything.
The Origins of Grammar
•
Another important (technical) distinction:
•
A grammatical sentence is one that can be
generated by the linguistic rules inside of a native
speaker’s head.
•
An ungrammatical sentence cannot.
•
Note: a sentence is not ungrammatical simply because it
has been ruled “bad” by decree.
•
So. How do you feel about these?
1. The Enterprise’s mission is to boldly go where no man
has gone before.
2. Who do you trust?
3. Mick can’t get no satisfaction.
Standards
• The rules of “grammar” that we learn in English class
first emerged in London in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Note: Latin used to be the language that all educated
people had to learn.
• Latin’s supremacy was being challenged by English…
• So the educated classes decided to incorporate the
rules of Latin into “educated” English grammar.
• Examples:
• don’t split infinitives
• don’t end a sentence with a preposition
• no double negatives
Prescriptive vs. Descriptive
• Prescriptive grammar =
• Arbitrary rules imposed upon a language by someone
(or some group of people) who thinks they ought to be
adhered to.
• Descriptive grammar =
• Linguists’ description of the rules of grammar inside
of native speakers’ heads.
• Designed to account for native speaker intuitions
about grammaticality judgments.
• Descriptive = natural grammar
• Prescriptive = artificial grammar
The Problems with Prescription
•
There are problems with applying Latin rules to English
grammar.
1. The rules are not organic.
•
Note: English is not Latin.
•
So: native speakers can get confused about how to
apply them.
2. Language is constantly changing…
•
So the (arbitrary) standards can also change.
3. Prescriptive rules don’t capture most of the
grammatical patterns actually exhibited by language.
4. Most importantly: prescriptive rules are not scientific.
Problem #1: Confusion
• A prescriptive rule: don’t end a sentence with a
preposition.
• A prescriptive fix:
• Natural: That’s the house we lived in.
• “Fixed”: That’s the house in which we lived.
• How well does this work?
• Paul McCartney: “…and in this ever-changing world in
which we live in…”
• Winston Churchill: “This is the sort of English up with
which I will not put!”
Hypercorrection
• Another problem: speakers can sometimes correct forms
that aren’t (prescriptively) wrong to begin with.
• This is known as hypercorrection.
• One example: the case of conjoined pronouns.
• Pronouns in English have two forms:
• Subject: I, he, she, we, they
• Object: me, him, her, us, them
• The object pronouns appear in the following frames:
• Bob annoys me.
(*Bob annoys I.)
• Karen wants to come with us. (*with we.)
Unforeseen Consequences
• Conjoined pronouns:
• Bob and I, Karen and you, etc.
• A prescriptive rule: for conjoined pronouns, use the form
that ought to be used when the pronoun stands on its own.
• Examples:
Good:
John and I went to the movies.
(Because: I went to the movies.)
• However:
“Bad”:
John and me went to the movies.
“Bad”:
Me and John went to the movies.
(Because: *Me went to the movies.)
Unforeseen Consequences
• In the objective case:
Good:
Larry was talking to John and me.
(Because: Larry was talking to me.)
• However, you often hear people say:
“Bad”:
Larry was talking to John and I.
• Or Bill Clinton: “Give Al Gore and I a chance to bring
America back.”
• What’s going on here?
• People have interpreted the rule as:
• “and me” is bad; “and I” is good (regardless of case)
Problem #2: Shifting Standards
• “Ain’t” is prescriptively bad.
• “Ain’t ain’t a word, because it ain’t in the dictionary.”
• However, “ain’t” used to be popular among the British
upper class (about 100 years ago).
• Another example: runnin’ vs. running, walkin’ vs. walking
• And yet another: double negation (or multiple negation)
• From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (late 14th century):
He nevere yet no villeynye ne sayde.
Translation: He never yet no villany not said.
Double Negatives
• Prescriptivists currently frown upon double negatives.
• The argument against them is based on logic:
• The negation of a negation is a positive.
• Q: Why would a native speaker of a language say the
exact opposite of what they mean?
• (and why are listeners never be confused by the
meaning of a double negative?)
• A: There’s more going on in double negatives than it at
first appears.
• Q: How would a prescriptivist fix the following
sentence?
• I can’t get no satisfaction.
Double Negatives
•
Possible solutions:
1. I can get no satisfaction.
2. I can’t get any satisfaction.
•
What does the word any mean in that sentence?
•
How about: I can get any satisfaction. (?)
•
“any” does not negate the sentence on its own.
•
(technical term: negative polarity item)
•
“no” is the non-standard translation of “any” in
sentences like: We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.
•
Moral: natural language does not necessarily follow
the same rules as formal logic.
Problem #3: Missing Patterns
• Prescriptivist rules do a poor job of accounting for many
of the patterns we find in natural language.
• Here’s one prescriptive rule which misses a consistent
pattern:
• “Incorrect”: I feel bad (about the accident).
• “Correct”: I feel badly (about the accident).
• Why? The verb “feel” should be modified by an adverb
(“badly”), not an adjective (“bad”).
• But is bad/badly modifying the verb or the subject of the
sentence?
Linking Verbs
• How about these examples?
• Bob is happy.
(*Bob is happily.)
• Susie looks hot.
(*Susie looks hotly.)
• The water seems fine.
(*The water seems finely.)
• I feel sleepy.
(*I feel sleepily.)
• James Brown feels good. (*James Brown feels well.)
• The verbs in these sentences are known as linking
verbs.
• They connect the subject to some property
describing the subject.
• (They do not modify the verb itself.)
Different Standards
• Rules for a standard form of a language…
• Normally describe the variety of language used by
the group in power.
• Other forms of the language are non-standard.
• And are often identified with social, regional or ethnic
groups.
• Linguists have discovered that all forms of language
(standard or not) are rule-based and orderly.
•  Non-standard forms of the language are not simply
mistake-ridden versions of the standard form.
•  There is no linguistic reason to consider one variety of
language superior to another.
Quick Write:
Appalachian English
• Appalachian English is a
variety of English
traditionally spoken in the
Appalachian mountains.
• Developed (and
maintained) unique
features due to isolation
from outside communities.
• One interesting feature:
• a-prefixing…
“a” prefixing, part 1
1. a. The man likes sailing.
b. The man went sailing.
Correct answer: (b)
5. a. William thinks fishing is silly.
b. William goes fishing every Sunday.
Correct answer: (b)
Rule: [a-] form cannot be a noun.
“a” prefixing, part 2
2. a. The woman was coming down the stairs.
b. The movie was shocking.
Correct answer: (a)
6. a. The movie was fascinating.
b. The movie kept jumping up and down.
Correct answer: (b)
Rule: [a-] form cannot be an adjective.
“a” prefixing, part 3
3. a. He makes money by building houses.
b. He makes money building houses.
Correct answer: (b)
7. a. Sally got sick cooking chicken.
b. Sally got sick from cooking chicken.
Correct answer: (a)
Rule: [a-] form cannot be preceded by a preposition.
“a” prefixing, part 4
4. a. Sam was following the trail.
b. Sam was discovering the cave.
Correct answer: (a)
8. a. The man was hollering at the hunters.
b. The man was recalling what happened that night.
Correct answer: (a)
Rule: first syllable of [a-] form must be stressed.
“a” Prefixing Summary
• [a-] form cannot be a noun (#1 and #5)
• [a-] form cannot be an adjective (#2 and #6)
• [a-] form cannot be preceded by a preposition
(#3 and #7)
• first syllable of [a-] form must be stressed (#4 and #8)
• Note: people often consider speakers of Appalachian
English to be unsophisticated
• …but the proper use of the [a-] prefix involves a
relatively complex set of conditions.
AAVE
• Another variety of English that has (traditionally) been
low on the prestige scale is African-American Vernacular
English (AAVE).
• a.k.a. Black Vernacular English (BVE), Ebonics
• Predominantly spoken by African-Americans
• but not all African-Americans…
• and some others, as well.
• AAVE has a variety of interesting features...
• some familiar: multiple negation, ain’t as an auxiliary
• others are less familiar…
AAVE Verbs
• Verb conjugation: third personal singular verbs lack an [-s]
marker.
• Ex: He look, it do, she have
• “Paradigm leveling”
• = making a set of related forms more uniform
• (similar to “he don’t”/”she don’t”)
• Under certain conditions, the verb “to be” can be deleted.
• Ex: you so crazy, she workin’, he lucky
• In the same conditions, “to be” can be contracted in
standard English:
• You’re so crazy, she’s working, he’s lucky…
To Be Deletion
• What are the right conditions for deletion/contraction?
AAVE
You so crazy.
I gonna do it.
Standard English
You’re so crazy.
I’m gonna do it.
*He as nice as he say he. *He’s as nice as he says he’s.
*Here I.
*Here I’m.
They mine.
They’re mine.
*How beautiful you.
*How beautiful you’re.
• The verb needs to link the subject to something after it.
AAVE: Habitual Be
• AAVE also has a form of “to be” that standard English
does not.
• “habitual” be
• Habitual be expresses something that the subject does
on a regular basis.
• Examples:
• He be working at Tim Horton’s.
• She be late. (= She is usually late.)
• She late. (= She’s late (right now).)
• Do you be tired? (=Are you often tired?)
Descriptive Benefits
• Language tends to operate in patterns, even if they are:
• non-standard
• pathological
• Descriptive linguistics enables us to understand how
those patterns work.
• Even if you want to change the world, you’re better off
understanding how it works to begin with.
• History of economics analogy.
To Be Fair
• Standards are useful because they provide a single form
of the language to teach to non-native speakers.
• They help establish uniformity in the written language.
• They can help clear up confusions.
• for instance: supposably
• They also help to distinguish those who have mastered
the arbitrary rules from those who haven’t.
• (for better or worse)
• Otherwise:
• They are not useful for (scientific) linguistic analysis.