Language production and comprehension

Language, Mind and Brain Week 9

Brief re-cap
1. 2.

3.

4. 5.

Name and explain 5 of Hocketts design features. Which of those are unique to human language? What are the 2 main theories regarding language organisation in the mind? What evidence exists for both of them? Identify and explain 2 ways of investigating where language is located in the brain. Identify and explain 2 types of aphasia. Developed Brocas areas in casts of skulls from H. habilis and H. erectus are a clear evidence that they could speak. Discuss.

Speech production first ideas

Based on what you know from the module so far, but also as a language user, try and develop a framework/schema of speech production. What steps would need to be involved? What empirical evidence exists to develop such a model?

Production basic issues

Online, real-time process Processing speed of ~15 phonemes per second Testing perception is easier, as stimuli can be controlled ( experiments) Difficult (impossible?) to test the beginning of the production process ( ideas) Speakers are constantly monitoring themselves makes correction possible before/during/ after the utterance

But: delays in hearing own utterance can cause irritation and stuttering

Basic issues contd

Mental information must be brought into serial order

Link between mental lexicon and concepts Sentence plan, appropriate word order (context!!) Appropriate stress pattern Style, register etc

Speech production: evidence

evidence scarce Available evidence:

Pauses Speech errors

Evidence 1: Pauses

Breathing pauses:

Usually at grammatical boundaries. Few. Dont tell us much.

Frequent, little overt purpose (like breathing) Usually occur within clauses/grammatical units

Hesitation pauses:

Pauses contd
Plan Clause Utter Clause A A
or

Plan clause B

Utter Clause B

Plan Plan Clause A Clause B

Utter Utter Clause A Clause B

overlap in planning and speaking process

Speech production errors: slips of the tongue

Lots of competition during speech production ( co-activation) Separate involvement of meaning and form ( different networks??) Large distances are covered ahead Internal representation must be there before slip happens

Slips of the tongue

Constraint-based

Usually at onsets (of some kind): well made mell wade (but not *wem llade) Only some positions are switched

Homework!

Collect as many slips of the tongue and/or other speech production errors you come across until next weeks session. Bring your collection to next weeks seminar. Try and categorise the errors. What do they tell us about speech production?

Tip of the tongue phenomenon

You know what you want to say ( concept) but you cant remember its form Very often bathtub effect: beginning and end are known, as well as number of syllables ----\_____/----

A little experiment

Write down the first word that comes into mind as soon as you see the stimulus word appearing on the slide. Do not discuss with anyone. Do not go back to a previous slide/word. Slides are timed at 5 seconds.

Book

Child

Happy

Super

Desire

<end of experiment>

Previous findings
Book See Read Pages Literature Child Tim Mother Toys Play Lovely Baby Mum Adults Parents Happy Sun Sunshine Birthday Feeling Glad Smiley Sad Super Good Party Great Fantastic Bad Man Desire Man Journey Dream Wish Streetcar Passion

The mental lexicon

dictionary in our minds Contains lexicalised expressions:

(simple) words fixed multiword expressions, i.e. idioms As whole entities/items? I.e. cat and cats As roots and inflections? I.e. cat and -s{plural}

How are words stored:

Mental lexicon: entries

Contain information about

Phonological form: give /giv/ Word class Argument structure: V 1 give the book V NP

2 to Mary PP

Meaning: transfer something which in ones possession to the possession of someone else

Word meaning: 2 approaches

Semantic decomposition:

atoms of meaning , semantic primitives (cant be divided into smaller units of meaning) mother: +human +female +adult(?) +given birth to child Familiar procedure (see dictionaries); definitions can stop after some features But: how many features? Which components are primitives? No empirical evidence that semantic primitives exist

to die: [become [dead]] to kill: [cause [become [dead]]]

Word meaning: network theories

Strong links between individual words (see also experiment)

Coordinates, synonyms, hyponyms/hypernyms

How are words stored?

As morphemes? or ready made forms? Different types of affixes seem to be have differently:

Inflectional affixes:

Regular forms: added during speech Irregular: fully listed/independent form evidence: word recognition tasks
Con-type prefixes: glued to their bases: confer, consume, deduct, detain; slips never *desume, *dedamn t-type suffixes: also glued to base; can change base radically: sane > sanity

Derivational:

Mental lexicon: suggested parts

Main lexicon/lexicon proper

Whole words, default cases Dartmouth, Plymouth Words disassembled into morphemes Dart-; Ply-; -mouth Procedures for making new words RIVER-mouth

Back-up store:

Lexical tool-kit:

Sentence production: steps involved

1.

2.

3.

4.

Conceive message (proposition, idea) Select words: concepts and phonological shapes Formulate structured sentence: right grammatical classes in right order (like SVO) Articulate the sentence.