1. What are the two parts of Gleitman’s argument for how children do and do not learn verb meanings? P377 Gleitman states that children cannot learn verb meanings only from observing the situations in which they are used. That argument addresses only some situations in which the child is sensitive to the features of the spoken verb. According to Gleitman, her concerns should be reduced if the child can hypothesize structured semantic images matching to what their parents are usually discussing. And in fact, Gleitman’s theory requires such a learning process despite her doubts about it. Also, Gleitman proposes that there is enough information in a verb’s subcategorization frames, so that the child can guess accurately its meaning.
2. How …show more content…
She claims that positive imperatives are the biggest challenge to any system that works by building word-to-word parings. Pinker’s response to this assertion is that the use of imperatives in a situation where the child is not performing the act that the parent is naming, is possible and does not affect the word pairings.

9. What is the classical associationist theory of semantic learning and what is one situational example supporting the theory and one situational example refuting the theory? P394 The classical associationist theory of semantic learning claims that the meanings of verbs are learned by observation. An example supporting that theory is the use of the verb open. For example, open is often used when opening is not taking place, and open is not used when opening is taking place. One situational example that refutes the theory is syntax is not going to give the learner the desired information to be able to distinguish between semantically related words like, break, tear, shatter and crumble. 10. How does Pinker’s Figure 1 table on p 396 provide evidence against Gleitman’s syntax