Ling 425/709

Methods and Theory

The Language Sample

1. Give three reasons for collecting a spontaneous language sample.

2. What are two weaknesses of the spontaneous language sample method?

3. What is a strength of the parental diary method?

4. What is a weakness of the parental diary method?

5. What is a strength of the experimental approach?

6. What is a weakness of the experimental approach?

7. Discuss how specific kinds of materials affect the language obtained from the child.

Description and Explanation

1. What are the three major historical periods in the study of first language acquisition, and their dates?

2. Was the major goal of diary studies descriptive or explanatory? Explain.

3. Give two reasons why the diary studies are of value to present day investigators.

4. What are two criticisms of diary studies?

5. What three major areas were studied in large sample studies?

6. Give two major weaknesses of the large sample studies and explain why these weaknesses are

not sufficient to reject these studies outright.

7. Point out the major innovations in longitudinal language samples from the two earlier methods used.

8. What does Brainerd (1978) require to separate explanation from description?

9. Describe the basic differences between the Child Language and Language Acquisition perspectives.

10. What is negative evidence?

11. What is the difference between direct and indirect forms of negative evidence?

12. Give three arguments against the claim that children acquire grammar through direct negative evidence.

13. Define the Competence Assumption and provide an example of its use. Is it sufficient to conclude that a child’s utterance is produced by a rule of grammar? Explain.

14. Define the Productivity Assumption and provide an example of its use.

15. What is the Strong Inclusion Hypothesis?

16. What is the Weak Inclusion Hypothesis?

17. What is an argument in favor of taking a Constructionist view rather than either one of the Maturationists’ views?

18. What are three advantages of parameters versus rules?

19. What argument does Newmeyer make against the idea that parameters define clusters of morphosyntactic properties?

20. What arguments does Newmeyer use to show that parameters are not easier to acquire than rules?

21. What is “the logical problem of learnability”?

22. How does the logical problem of learnability support Universal Grammar?

23. Give an example of a logical problem of learnability argument.

24. What problem does language variation create for a logical problem of learnability argument?