Contemporary Linguistic Parameters

Contemporary Linguistic Parameters

Author: Antonio Fabregas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 1472525906

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Parameters have lain at the core of linguistic research in the generative tradition for decades. The theoretical questions they have raised are deep and broad: this reference text investigates how contemporary linguistics has best tried to answer them. This book looks at how parameters might be properly defined and what their locus might be :lexical information, functional heads, the computational system, the phonological branch of the grammar. What kind of data forms trigger acquisition of a parameter? Are parameters necessary or can we study languages without making reference to them? The questions looked at are not just theoretical: how can a theory of parameters be used to help understand second language acquisition, and what contributions can it make to the study of language typology? This is the right time to gather all this information, dispersed in many different kinds of publications by single authors and groups, into one comprehensive volume.


Textual Parameters in Older Languages

Textual Parameters in Older Languages

Author: Susan C. Herring

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 9789027237026

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Textual Parameters in Older Languages takes a contemporary approach to the inherent limitations of using older texts as data for linguistic analysis, drawing on methods of text analysis, pragmatics and sociolinguistics to supplement traditional historical and philological methods. The focus of the book is on the importance of controlling for textual parameters-defined by the editors as dimensions of variation associated with texts and their production, including text type, degree of poeticality, orality, and dialect-in the analysis of older language data. Failure to do so can result in invalid generalizations; recognizing the influence of textual parameters, conversely, raises a myriad of issues for the practice and theory of historical linguistics. The 12 essays in this collection apply this approach in analyses of anaphora, non-finite verbal forms, particles, punctuation, word order and other phenomena in a wide range of languages including Ancient Tamil, Sanskrit, Latin, Heian Japanese, Medieval Greek, Old French, Old Russian, Middle English, and Modern Danish. An in-depth introduction by the editors lays out the goals of the textual parameters approach, and considers the methodological and theoretical consequences of the evidence presented in the book as a whole.


Contemporary Linguistic Parameters

Contemporary Linguistic Parameters

Author: Antonio Fabregas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Published: 2019-02-07

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9781350097049

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Parameters have lain at the core of linguistic research in the generative tradition for decades. The theoretical questions they have raised are deep and broad: this reference text investigates how contemporary linguistics has best tried to answer them. This book looks at how parameters might be properly defined and what their locus might be :lexical information, functional heads, the computational system, the phonological branch of the grammar. What kind of data forms trigger acquisition of a parameter? Are parameters necessary or can we study languages without making reference to them? The questions looked at are not just theoretical: how can a theory of parameters be used to help understand second language acquisition, and what contributions can it make to the study of language typology? This is the right time to gather all this information, dispersed in many different kinds of publications by single authors and groups, into one comprehensive volume.


Methods in Contemporary Linguistics

Methods in Contemporary Linguistics

Author: Andrea Ender

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-08-31

Total Pages: 550

ISBN-13: 3110275686

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The present volume is a broad overview of methods and methodologies in linguistics, illustrated with examples from concrete research. It collects insights gained from a broad range of linguistic sub-disciplines, ranging from core disciplines to topics in cross-linguistic and language-internal diversity or to contributions towards language, space and society. Given its critical and innovative nature, the volume is a valuable source for students and researchers of a broad range of linguistic interests.


Key Features and Parameters in Arabic Grammar

Key Features and Parameters in Arabic Grammar

Author: Abdelkader Fassi Fehri

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 9027255652

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In light of recent generative minimalism, and comparative parametric theory of language variation, the book investigates key features and parameters of Arabic grammar. Part I addresses morpho-syntactic and semantic interfaces in temporality, aspectuality, and actionality, including the Past/Perfect/Perfective ambiguity akin to the very synthetic temporal morphology, collocating time adverb construal, and interpretability of verbal Number as pluractional. Part II is dedicated to nominal architecture, the behaviour of bare nouns as true indefinites, the count/mass dichotomy (re-examined in light of general, collective, and singulative DP properties), the mirror image ordering of serialized adjectives, and N-to-D Move in synthetic possession, proper names, and individuated vocatives. Part III examines the role of CP in time and space anchoring, double access reading (in a DAR language such as Arabic), sequence of tense (SOT), silent pronominal categories in consistent null subject languages (including referential and generic pro), and the interpretability of inflection. Semantic and formal parameters are set out, within a mixed macro/micro-parametric model of language variation. The book is of particular interest to students, researchers, and teachers of Arabic, Semitic, comparative, typological, or general linguistics.


Linguistic Ecology and Language Contact

Linguistic Ecology and Language Contact

Author: Ralph Ludwig

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 110704135X

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This book revisits and updates the concept of linguistic ecology, outlining applications to a variety of contact situations worldwide.


Parametric Variation

Parametric Variation

Author: Theresa Biberauer

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 0521886953

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Parametric variation in linguistic theory refers to the systematic grammatical variation permitted by the human language faculty. This book is a defence of the parametric approach to linguistic variation, set within the framework of the Minimalist Program.


The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar

Author: Ian G. Roberts

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 673

ISBN-13: 0199573778

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This handbook provides a critical guide to the most central proposition in modern linguistics: the notion, generally known as Universal Grammar, that a universal set of structural principles underlies the grammatical diversity of the world's languages. Part I considers the implications of Universal Grammar for philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language, and examines the history of the theory. Part II focuses on linguistic theory, looking at topics such as explanatory adequacy and how phonology and semantics fit into Universal Grammar. Parts III and IV look respectively at the insights derived from UG-inspired research on language acquisition, and at comparative syntax and language typology, while part V considers the evidence for Universal Grammar in phenomena such as creoles, language pathology, and sign language. The book will be a vital reference for linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists.


Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar

Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar

Author: Ian G. Roberts

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 730

ISBN-13: 0198804636

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In this book, Ian Roberts argues that the essential insight of the principles-and-parameters approach to variation can be maintained - albeit in a somewhat different guise - in the context of the minimalist programme. The book represents a significant new contribution to the formal study of cross-linguistic morphosyntactic variation.