Language learning can be put under three broad perspectives. Some believe language is pairing of lexicon and syntax i.e. of words and the set of rules that defines how we can combine those words most fundamental of these rules are innate i.e. they are already there in the human mind before it is exposed to society. This means there is perhaps an innate Language Faculty. Still others believe that General Cognitive Abilities that account for other kinds of learning can also account for language. There are many others who strongly believe that language is essentially socially embedded and that all learning takes place through social interactions. This course will briefly account for the most convincing position and will argue for it from generative perspective and biological foundations of language. Throughout the course we will try to be familiar with relationship between language and human mind; to understand language as a special purpose cognitive ability; and to understand underlying mental computation for natural language processing.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Anyone interested in the topic.
What is the relationship between language and mind?
How do children acquire language?
Nature of learning language
Generative foundation of language acquisition
Biological foundation of Language
Language acquisition device
Universal grammar
Week 2: Language in Mind
Acquisition and/or learning
I-language and Innateness
Patterns – Universal Grammar
Human Brain
Language deficit/ loss
Week 3: Patterns in sounds and words
Sounds
Vowels/Consonants
Places and manners of articulation
Features of sounds
Week 4: Words and sentences
Words
Constraints of patterns in words
Cluster as constraints
Syllables
Week 5: Grammar
Parts of sentences
Subjects/ Predicates
Lexical categories
Functional categories
Nature of verbs
Week 6: Advanced Grammar
Complement/ adjunct
Restrictions
Semantic relations
Case
Movement
Week 7: Levels of representation and principles of grammar
Movement/displacement
Motivation for the movement
Complementizer phrase
Case assignment
Passive morphology and NP movement
D structure
Binding theory
Indices and antecedents
Co-indexing
Constraints
Week 8: Language and cognition
Compound verb
Negation
Language and Cognition
Goal of cognitive sciences
Computational linguistics- goals, breakthroughs and challenges
Language and mind
SUGGESTED READING:
Chomsky, N. (2006). Language and Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Harris, C.L. (2003). ‘Language and cognition’. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. London: MacMillan.
Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N., and Fitch, W.T. (2002). ‘Faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?’ Science, 298, 1569-1579.
Jackendoff, R. (1993). Patterns in human mind. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Jackendoff, R. (2014). ‘How did language begin?’ Retrieved from http://www.linguisticsociety.org/files/LanguageBegin.pdf
Pinker, S. and Jackendoff, R. (2004). ‘The faculty of language: What’s special about it?’ Cognition, 95, 201-236.
Pool, G. (2011). Syntactic theory (2 ed). London/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
CERTIFICATION EXAM:
The exam is optional for a fee.
Date and Time of Exams: April 28 (Saturday) and April 29 (Sunday) : Morning session 9am to 12 noon;
Exam for this course will be available in one session on both 28 and 29 April.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published.
CERTIFICATION :
Final score will be calculated as : 25% assignment score + 75% final exam score
25% assignment score is calculated as 25% of average of Best 6 out of 8 assignments
E-Certificate will be given to those who register and write the exam and score greater than or equal to 40% final score. Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IITM It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.
