24.904  Language Acquisition

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24.904  Language Acquisition

Spring 2015

Instructor: Martin Hackl

TA: Athulya Aravind

Lecture:  TR2.30-4  (56-180)
TA section:  tbd  (tbd)      

Information: 

24.904 is an introduction to language acquisition, a subfield of linguistics whose goal is to understand how speakers acquire the ability to speak and understand a language. Even though this ability relies on a highly complex and intricately structured cognitive system represented in the brain competent speakers seem to exercise it seemingly effortlessly. Even more astonishingly, this system is acquired in a very short period of time, without explicit instruction, and, again, seemingly effortlessly by all typically developing children if the acquisition process proceeds within a critical period in development. By contrast, acquiring a second language after the critical period takes a long time and effort, usually requires explicit instruction and correction and typically does not reach a level of competency that native speakers of the language have.

This course focuses on first language acquisition. We will discuss a set of selected topics in all areas of grammatical knowledge - sound structure, word structure, sentence structure, meaning composition, and pragmatics - from the perspective of language acquisition. That is, we will try to develop a characterization of the developmental path children seem to undergo as they acquire a particular property of language and then attempt to formulate a learning/acquisition problem: What is the initial state of knowledge? What is the final state of knowledge? What, if any, are intermediate states? What evidence do children have access to as they proceed through stages? What learning algorithms do children use to make sense of the evidence they encounter?

\vspace{1.5em} \textbf{Rough Course Outline}\\

1. Logistics and foundational issues (week 1)
2. Acquisition of sound structure (week 2-3)
3. Acquisition of words and word structure (week 4-5)
4. Acquisition of sentence structure (week 6-10)
5. Acquisition of semantics and pragmatics (week 11-13)


Note: There is no class on February 17 (Monday Schedule) and April 21 (Patriots Day).

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