Linguistic Attractors

Linguistic Attractors

Author: David L. Cooper

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1999-01-01

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9027223548

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The interdisciplinary linguistic attractor model portrays language processing as linked sequences of fractal sets, and examines the changing dynamics of such sets for individuals as well as the speech community they comprise. Its motivation stems from human anatomic constraints and several artificial neural network approaches. It uses general computation theory to: (1) demonstrate the capacity of Cantor-like fractal sets to perform as Turing Machines; (2) better distinguish between models that simply match outputs (emulation) and models that match both outputs and internal dynamics (simulation); and (3) relate language processing to essential computation steps executed in parallel. Measure and information theory highlight the key variables driving linguistic dynamics, while catastrophe and game theory help predict the possible topologies of language change.It introduces techniques to isolate and measure attractors, and to interpret their stability and relative content within a system. Important results include the capability to distinguish the sequence of related sound changes, and to make point-to-point comparisons of different texts using common metrics. Other techniques allow quantifiable ambiguity landscapes illustrating the forces that propel different languages in different directions.


The Adaptive Value of Languages: Non-Linguistic Causes of Language Diversity

The Adaptive Value of Languages: Non-Linguistic Causes of Language Diversity

Author: Antonio Benítez-Burraco

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2018-11-08

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 2889456315

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The goal of this eBook is to shed light on the non-linguistic causes of language diversity, and in particular, to explore the possibility that some aspects of the structure of languages may result from an adaptation to the natural and/or human-made environment. Traditionally, language diversity has been claimed to result from random, internally-motivated changes in language structure. However, ongoing research suggests instead that different factors that are external to language can promote language change and ultimately account for aspects of language diversity, specifically features of the social and physical environments. The contributions in this eBook discuss whether some aspects of languages are an adaptation to ecological, social, or even technological niches.


Cognitive Modeling in Linguistics

Cognitive Modeling in Linguistics

Author: Vladimir Polyakov

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2012-01-17

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1443836826

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Created as intercultural and interdisciplinary, conferences of the series “Cognitive Modeling in Linguistics” have been successfully held since 1998. Over the years, CML has visited a number of countries, attracting more and more scientists from all over the world and thus broadening the scope of its topics. The conference has worked out its scientific character and now it has a constant core of participants; and the term “cognitive modeling” has become a popular topic of high profile conferences in linguistics and artificial intelligence, which affirms the CML’s direction of movement. The present volume gathers the most outstanding and interesting articles from participants of the XIIIth International Conference “Cognitive Modeling in Linguistics”, whose studies will no doubt be of interest to both scientists who have tied their lives with linguistics, as well as to those people who treat it as a hobby. For information about CML conferences, please visit www.cml.msisa.ru


Non-Canonical Gender Systems

Non-Canonical Gender Systems

Author: Sebastian Fedden

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-03-09

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0192514784

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This book explores the boundaries of the category of gender and their theoretical significance within the framework of Canonical Typology. Grammatical gender is a famously puzzling category: although it has been widely explored from a typological perspective, studies are constantly identifying exciting and unexpected patterns in gender systems, many of which cannot be easily classified or straightforwardly analysed. Some of these patterns stretch or even threaten to cross the largely unexplored outer boundaries of the category. In the canonical approach, morphosyntactic features like gender are established in terms of a canonical ideal: the clearest instance of the phenomenon. The canonical ideal is a clustering of properties that serves as a baseline to measure the actual examples observed. In this volume, international experts use this approach to analyse a range of gender systems that diverge from the canonical ideal, and to determine to what extent each component property of these systems can be considered canonical. Chapters explore a wide range of typologically diverse languages from all over the world, from South America to Melanesia, and from Central Italy to Northern Australia. The book will be of interest to all linguists working in the field of typology, from graduate level upwards, as well as to morphologists and syntacticians of all theoretical stripes who have an interest in grammatical gender.


Biological and Behavioral Determinants of Language Development

Biological and Behavioral Determinants of Language Development

Author: Norman A. Krasnegor

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2014-02-25

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 1317783891

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This book presents a current, interdisciplinary perspective on language requisites from both a biological/comparative perspective and from a developmental/learning perspective. Perspectives regarding language and language acquisition are advanced by scientists of various backgrounds -- speech, hearing, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and language intervention. This unique volume searches for a rational interface between findings and perspectives generated by language studies with humans and with chimpanzees. Intended to render a reconsideration as to the essence of language and the requisites to its acquisition, it also provides readers with perspectives defined by various revisionists who hold that language might be other than the consequence of a mutation unique to humans and might, fundamentally, not be limited to speech.


The Handbook of Language Emergence

The Handbook of Language Emergence

Author: Brian MacWhinney

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 651

ISBN-13: 1119075386

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This authoritative handbook explores the latest integrated theory for understanding human language, offering the most inclusive text yet published on the rapidly evolving emergentist paradigm. Brings together an international team of contributors, including the most prominent advocates of linguistic emergentism Focuses on the ways in which the learning, processing, and structure of language emerge from a competing set of cognitive, communicative, and biological constraints Examines forces on widely divergent timescales, from instantaneous neurolinguistic processing to historical changes and language evolution Addresses key theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues, making this handbook the most rigorous examination of emergentist linguistic theory ever


Identity, Motivation and Autonomy in Language Learning

Identity, Motivation and Autonomy in Language Learning

Author: Garold Murray

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1847693725

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"Through the use of qualitative research methods, the authors explore the complex, contingent and dynamic nature of motivation, identity and autonomy --- both for language learners and teachers --- in many different parts of the world. Importantly, they also look for relationships among the three constructs. This is precisely the integrative approach that should be encouraged as we seek to understand the lived experience of individuals."---Diane Larsen-Freeman, University of Michigan, USA --


Second Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition

Author: Kees De Bot

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780415338691

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Second Language Acquisition : introduces the key areas in the field, including: multilingualism, the role of teaching, the mental processing of multiple languages, and patterns of growth and decline explores the key theories and debates and elucidates areas of controversy gathers together influential readings from key names in the discipline, including: Vivian Cook, William E. Dunn and James P. Lantolf, S.P. Corder, and Nina Spada and Patsy Lightbown. Written by experienced teachers and researchers in the field, Second Language Acquisition is an essential resource for students and researchers of applied linguistics.


Complexity Perspectives on Language, Communication and Society

Complexity Perspectives on Language, Communication and Society

Author: Àngels Massip-Bonet

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-10-13

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 3642328172

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The “language-communication-society” triangle defies traditional scientific approaches. Rather, it is a phenomenon that calls for an integration of complex, transdisciplinary perspectives, if we are to make any progress in understanding how it works. The highly diverse agents in play are not merely cognitive and/or cultural, but also emotional and behavioural in their specificity. Indeed, the effort may require building a theoretical and methodological body of knowledge that can effectively convey the characteristic properties of phenomena in human terms. New complexity approaches allow us to rethink our limited and mechanistic images of human societies and create more appropriate emo-cognitive dynamic and holistic models. We have to enter into dialogue with the complexity views coming out of other more ‘material’ sciences, but we also need to take steps in the linguistic and psycho-sociological fields towards creating perspectives and concepts better fitted to human characteristics. Our understanding of complexity is different – but not opposed – to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more ‘human’ or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society. Our understanding of complexity is different – but not opposed – to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more ‘human’ or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society.


Methods and Applications in Language Sciences: Recent Trends in Linguistics

Methods and Applications in Language Sciences: Recent Trends in Linguistics

Author: Marcel Pikhart

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2023-10-23

Total Pages: 115

ISBN-13: 283253628X

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This Research Topic is part of the Methods and Applications in Language Sciences series. It aims at bringing novel methodologies and applications in a wider perspective of linguistics, i.e. in the context of various current approaches of psychology, communication technology, artificial intelligence, big data, cognitive science, sociology, etc.