Lecture 1
What is cognition?
A faculty for processing information (of any kind), applying knowledge (reasoning) and changing
belief states (learning) or preferences (choosing).
What are domains of cognition?
Attention, memory, language acquisition, interpretation and production, reasoning, problem solving,
and decision making.
Cognitive processes can be?
- Natural or artificial (adaptive, anticipatory, goal-directed behavior).
- Lower (automatical) or higher (intentional)
- Conscious or unconscious
Deductive reasoning starts with ... then ... and ends in ...?
Regularity, fact, fact.
Inductive reasoning starts with ... then ... and ends in ...?
Fact, regularity, regularity.
Deductive reasoning starts with ... then ... and ends in ...?
Regularity, fact, fact.
What part of the brain is responsible for initiating and coordinating motor movements, cognitive
skills, etc?
The frontal lobe.
Current biology shows that the word 'cognition' has its origins in classical terms relating to?
The concept of knowing.
How can the question of whether a particular state or process is cognitive be understood?
In terms of whether in involves representations that are systematically re-combinable and stimulus-
independent.
What do we mean when we say a process is cognitive?
That it handles information in an adaptive way and can be modelled usefully as a farm of computation.
What is cognitive science?
The interdisciplinary scientific study of the mind and its processes.
What does cognitive science examine?
What cognition is, what is does and how it works.
How were linguistic theories in the first half of the 20 th century?
Mainly descriptive and prescriptive (the rules of grammar) and research on language as a sociocultural
phenomenon.
How were linguistic theories in 1950/1960?
In these times, Chomsky did his first attempts to develop a linguistic theory. The theory should explain
how we learn language in a limited time (5 years), and on the basis of unsystematic input.
What did Chomsky think about our linguistic competence?
That it is an isolated faculty.
,What happened with linguistic theories in 1970/1980?
Cognitive linguistics became a growing alternative theory.
What did cognitive linguistics think about our linguistic faculty?
That it is not autonomous. Grammar is conceptualization, linguistic knowledge is emergent.
What became a serious alternative to generative linguistics later?
Cognitive linguistics.
What is syntax?
The core mechanism of language.
What are semantics?
The meaning of language.
How does generative linguistics think the language system should be described?
Apart from its actual use and its cognitive processing.
What does one need to do to study language, according to generative linguistics?
Idealize the object and abstract from 'wild' language.
What does cognitive linguistics think about the language system?
It is a cognitive system that will share its basic architecture with other cognitive systems; the cognitive
language system and the way it operates resembles other (cognitive) systems.
What is linguistic competence, according to cognitive linguistics?
The capacity to extract regularities from the language one is exposed to, similar to how a child needs
to extract regularities from all kinds of input it is exposed to.
According to cognitive linguistics, is language a static system?
No, it moves and changes through time and is (slightly) different between language users.
How can language be approached?
Linguistic (as a product) and psycholinguistic (as a process).
What is interpretation?
A process in which a mental representation is built from the instructions in the utterance.
On what is the above mental representation based?
On all contextual information (via any of the senses) and relevant knowledge and attitudes.
Can the respresentation resulting from interpretation be observed immediately?
No, it is a 'theory' (a model).
How can linguistic modeling be tested?
In experiments.
What are the processes leading to the representations and the representations themselves meant
to be?
Psychologically plausible.
Lecture 2
Linguistic models determine theory of cognition – theory of cognition determine linguistic
models
Which one suits generative grammar, and which one suits cognitive linguistic theory?
, First one suits generative grammar, second one suits cognitive linguistic theory.
What is the goal of Jackendoff 1997?
He tries to unite advantages of Generative Grammar with advantages of Cognitive Linguistics.
What does this mean?
In order to form an adequate linguistic theory (about acquisition, interpretation, production)
Jackendoff takes Chomsky's theory as a basis and as an opponent.
Between competence (I-language) or performance (E-language), how do you explain that
humans are capable of constructing sentences they have never heard before?
Competence must account for that, in the form of a set of combination principles and rules. These
rules must be formalized in order to enable rigorous predictions. Units to be combined are words (a
finite set: lexicon).
What is the paradox of language acquisition?
If the set of principles and rules were easy to discover (since each child is capable of doing so),
scientists would have discovered them by now.
What was Chomsky's solution to this?
Innate Universal Grammar (UG).
What are the advantages of Jackendoffs research?
He demonstrates what (at least) has to be explained about language, without taking a theoretical
stance, at the hand of one simple sentence: the little star's beside a big star.
What are Chomsky's assumptions?
- The language faculty is unique (we are the only animals with real language)
- Universal Grammar is part of (any) language system, that does not have to be learned since it
is innate.
- There is a difference between Competence (I-language) and Performance (E-language).
Grammar is about Competence.
- Syntax is the systematic, structuring component of language, it is central to language.
What are the challenges for a theory about the language system according to Chomsky?
Humans should be able to master it in 5 years, it should enable people to understand and produce
infinitely many sentences, it should enable humans to create sentences they never heard before
(poverty of the stimulus).
S --> __ __?
NP VP
What causes growth points in tree structures?
Recursion.
What are claims of Generative Grammar?
- The relative simplicity of the syntax of generative grammar (and its separation from the
lexicon) explains the fact that humans can master it in 5 years time.
- The syntax in generative grammar (and its separation from the lexicon) warrants the
generation of infinitely many sentences from a restricted set of syntactic basic units.
- The syntax of generative grammar (ands its separation from the lexicon) explains how it can
be that humans can produce sentences that they never heard before (''poverty of the stimulus''
– problem).
What are doubts about generative grammar?
What is cognition?
A faculty for processing information (of any kind), applying knowledge (reasoning) and changing
belief states (learning) or preferences (choosing).
What are domains of cognition?
Attention, memory, language acquisition, interpretation and production, reasoning, problem solving,
and decision making.
Cognitive processes can be?
- Natural or artificial (adaptive, anticipatory, goal-directed behavior).
- Lower (automatical) or higher (intentional)
- Conscious or unconscious
Deductive reasoning starts with ... then ... and ends in ...?
Regularity, fact, fact.
Inductive reasoning starts with ... then ... and ends in ...?
Fact, regularity, regularity.
Deductive reasoning starts with ... then ... and ends in ...?
Regularity, fact, fact.
What part of the brain is responsible for initiating and coordinating motor movements, cognitive
skills, etc?
The frontal lobe.
Current biology shows that the word 'cognition' has its origins in classical terms relating to?
The concept of knowing.
How can the question of whether a particular state or process is cognitive be understood?
In terms of whether in involves representations that are systematically re-combinable and stimulus-
independent.
What do we mean when we say a process is cognitive?
That it handles information in an adaptive way and can be modelled usefully as a farm of computation.
What is cognitive science?
The interdisciplinary scientific study of the mind and its processes.
What does cognitive science examine?
What cognition is, what is does and how it works.
How were linguistic theories in the first half of the 20 th century?
Mainly descriptive and prescriptive (the rules of grammar) and research on language as a sociocultural
phenomenon.
How were linguistic theories in 1950/1960?
In these times, Chomsky did his first attempts to develop a linguistic theory. The theory should explain
how we learn language in a limited time (5 years), and on the basis of unsystematic input.
What did Chomsky think about our linguistic competence?
That it is an isolated faculty.
,What happened with linguistic theories in 1970/1980?
Cognitive linguistics became a growing alternative theory.
What did cognitive linguistics think about our linguistic faculty?
That it is not autonomous. Grammar is conceptualization, linguistic knowledge is emergent.
What became a serious alternative to generative linguistics later?
Cognitive linguistics.
What is syntax?
The core mechanism of language.
What are semantics?
The meaning of language.
How does generative linguistics think the language system should be described?
Apart from its actual use and its cognitive processing.
What does one need to do to study language, according to generative linguistics?
Idealize the object and abstract from 'wild' language.
What does cognitive linguistics think about the language system?
It is a cognitive system that will share its basic architecture with other cognitive systems; the cognitive
language system and the way it operates resembles other (cognitive) systems.
What is linguistic competence, according to cognitive linguistics?
The capacity to extract regularities from the language one is exposed to, similar to how a child needs
to extract regularities from all kinds of input it is exposed to.
According to cognitive linguistics, is language a static system?
No, it moves and changes through time and is (slightly) different between language users.
How can language be approached?
Linguistic (as a product) and psycholinguistic (as a process).
What is interpretation?
A process in which a mental representation is built from the instructions in the utterance.
On what is the above mental representation based?
On all contextual information (via any of the senses) and relevant knowledge and attitudes.
Can the respresentation resulting from interpretation be observed immediately?
No, it is a 'theory' (a model).
How can linguistic modeling be tested?
In experiments.
What are the processes leading to the representations and the representations themselves meant
to be?
Psychologically plausible.
Lecture 2
Linguistic models determine theory of cognition – theory of cognition determine linguistic
models
Which one suits generative grammar, and which one suits cognitive linguistic theory?
, First one suits generative grammar, second one suits cognitive linguistic theory.
What is the goal of Jackendoff 1997?
He tries to unite advantages of Generative Grammar with advantages of Cognitive Linguistics.
What does this mean?
In order to form an adequate linguistic theory (about acquisition, interpretation, production)
Jackendoff takes Chomsky's theory as a basis and as an opponent.
Between competence (I-language) or performance (E-language), how do you explain that
humans are capable of constructing sentences they have never heard before?
Competence must account for that, in the form of a set of combination principles and rules. These
rules must be formalized in order to enable rigorous predictions. Units to be combined are words (a
finite set: lexicon).
What is the paradox of language acquisition?
If the set of principles and rules were easy to discover (since each child is capable of doing so),
scientists would have discovered them by now.
What was Chomsky's solution to this?
Innate Universal Grammar (UG).
What are the advantages of Jackendoffs research?
He demonstrates what (at least) has to be explained about language, without taking a theoretical
stance, at the hand of one simple sentence: the little star's beside a big star.
What are Chomsky's assumptions?
- The language faculty is unique (we are the only animals with real language)
- Universal Grammar is part of (any) language system, that does not have to be learned since it
is innate.
- There is a difference between Competence (I-language) and Performance (E-language).
Grammar is about Competence.
- Syntax is the systematic, structuring component of language, it is central to language.
What are the challenges for a theory about the language system according to Chomsky?
Humans should be able to master it in 5 years, it should enable people to understand and produce
infinitely many sentences, it should enable humans to create sentences they never heard before
(poverty of the stimulus).
S --> __ __?
NP VP
What causes growth points in tree structures?
Recursion.
What are claims of Generative Grammar?
- The relative simplicity of the syntax of generative grammar (and its separation from the
lexicon) explains the fact that humans can master it in 5 years time.
- The syntax in generative grammar (and its separation from the lexicon) warrants the
generation of infinitely many sentences from a restricted set of syntactic basic units.
- The syntax of generative grammar (ands its separation from the lexicon) explains how it can
be that humans can produce sentences that they never heard before (''poverty of the stimulus''
– problem).
What are doubts about generative grammar?
