Theory and Experiment in Syntax

Theory and Experiment in Syntax

Author: Grant Goodall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-30

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1000516512

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This book reflects on key questions of enduring interest on the nature of syntax, bringing together Grant Goodall’s previous publications and new work exploring how syntactic representations are structured and the affordances of experimental techniques in studying them. The volume sheds light on central issues in the theory of syntax while also elucidating the methods of data collection which inform them. Featuring Goodall’s previous studies of linguistic phenomena in English, Spanish, and Chinese, and complemented by a new introduction and material specific to this volume, the book is divided into four sections around fundamental strands of syntactic theory. The four parts explore the dimensionality of syntactic representations; the relationship between syntactic structure and predicate-argument structure; interactions between subjects and wh-phrases in questions; and more detailed investigations of wh-dependencies but from a more overtly experimental perspective. Taken together, the volume reinforces the connections between these different aspects of syntax by highlighting their respective roles in defining what syntactic objects look like and how the grammar operates on them. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars in linguistics, particularly those with an interest in syntax, psycholinguistics, and Romance linguistics.


The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax

The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax

Author: Grant Goodall

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-12-09

Total Pages: 787

ISBN-13: 1316998606

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Experimental syntax is an area that is rapidly growing as linguistic research becomes increasingly focused on replicable language data, in both fieldwork and laboratory environments. The first of its kind, this handbook provides an in-depth overview of current issues and trends in this field, with contributions from leading international scholars. It pays special attention to sentence acceptability experiments, outlining current best practices in conducting tests, and pointing out promising new avenues for future research. Separate sections review research results from the past 20 years, covering specific syntactic phenomena and language types. The handbook also outlines other common psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic methods for studying syntax, comparing and contrasting them with acceptability experiments, and giving useful perspectives on the interplay between theoretical and experimental linguistics. Providing an up-to-date reference on this exciting field, it is essential reading for students and researchers in linguistics interested in using experimental methods to conduct syntactic research.


Investigations in Universal Grammar

Investigations in Universal Grammar

Author: Stephen Crain

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 9780262531801

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This introductory guide to language acquisition research is presented within the framework of Universal Grammar, a theory of the human faculty for language. The authors focus on two experimental techniques for assessing children's linguistic competence: the Elicited Production task, a production task, and the Truth Value Judgment task, a comprehension task. Their methodologies are designed to overcome the numerous obstacles to empirical investigation of children's language competence. They produce research results that are more reproducible and less likely to be dismissed as an artifact of improper experimental procedure. In the first section of the book, the authors examine the fundamental assumptions that guide research in this area; they present both a theory of linguistic competence and a model of language processing. In the following two sections, they discuss in detail their two experimental techniques.


Language Description Informed by Theory

Language Description Informed by Theory

Author: Rob Pensalfini

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2014-01-15

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 9027270910

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This volume explores how linguistic theories inform the ways in which languages are described. Theories, as representations of linguistic categories, guide the field linguist to look for various phenomena without presupposing their necessary existence and provide the tools to account for various sets of data across different languages. A goal of linguistic description is to represent the full range of language structures for any given language. The chapters in this book cover various sub-disciplines of linguistics including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, language acquisition, and anthropological linguistics, drawing upon theoretical approaches such as prosodic Phonology, Enhancement theory, Distributed Morphology, Minimalist syntax, Lexical Functional Grammar, and Kinship theory. The languages described in this book include Australian languages (Pama-Nyungan and non-Pama-Nyungan), Romance languages as well as English. This volume will be of interest to researchers in both descriptive and theoretical linguistics.


Syntactic Structures

Syntactic Structures

Author: Noam Chomsky

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-05-18

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 3112316002

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No detailed description available for "Syntactic Structures".


Experimental Syntax

Experimental Syntax

Author: Wayne Cowart

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 1997-01-23

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 0761900438

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This book provides a concise yet thorough introduction to methods that linguists can use to study patterns of sentence acceptability in speech. Experimental Syntax shows how to design, execute and analyze an appropriate survey experiment for a well-formed question about a matter of fact relative to sentence acceptability. The book also examines variability and demonstrates a method by which an investigator can make principled decisions as to whether two or more informants who use atypical dialects are using the same atypical dialect.


An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory

An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory

Author: Dominique Sportiche

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-09-30

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 1118470478

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An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory offers beginning students a comprehensive overview of and introduction to our current understanding of the rules and principles that govern the syntax of natural languages. Includes numerous pedagogical features such as 'practice' boxes and sidebars, designed to facilitate understanding of both the 'hows' and the 'whys' of sentence structure Guides readers through syntactic and morphological structures in a progressive manner Takes the mystery out of one of the most crucial aspects of the workings of language – the principles and processes behind the structure of sentences Ideal for students with minimal knowledge of current syntactic research, it progresses in theoretical difficulty from basic ideas and theories to more complex and advanced, up to date concepts in syntactic theory


Aspects of the Theory of Syntax

Aspects of the Theory of Syntax

Author: Noam Chomsky

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1969-03-15

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780262260503

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Chomsky proposes a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes recent developments in the descriptive analysis of particular languages into account. Beginning in the mid-fifties and emanating largely form MIT, an approach was developed to linguistic theory and to the study of the structure of particular languages that diverges in many respects from modern linguistics. Although this approach is connected to the traditional study of languages, it differs enough in its specific conclusions about the structure and in its specific conclusions about the structure of language to warrant a name, "generative grammar." Various deficiencies have been discovered in the first attempts to formulate a theory of transformational generative grammar and in the descriptive analysis of particular languages that motivated these formulations. At the same time, it has become apparent that these formulations can be extended and deepened.The major purpose of this book is to review these developments and to propose a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes them into account. The emphasis in this study is syntax; semantic and phonological aspects of the language structure are discussed only insofar as they bear on syntactic theory.


The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax

The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax

Author: Grant Goodall

Publisher: Cambridge Handbooks in Languag

Published: 2021-12-09

Total Pages: 787

ISBN-13: 1108474802

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The first of its kind, this Handbook provides an in-depth overview of all current issues and trends in experimental syntax.


The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Syntax

The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Syntax

Author: Jon Sprouse

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-01-15

Total Pages: 705

ISBN-13: 0198797729

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This volume showcases the contributions that formal experimental methods can make to syntactic research in the 21st century. Syntactic theory is both a domain of study in its own right, and one component of an integrated theory of the cognitive neuroscience of language. It provides a theory of the mediation between sound and meaning, a theory of the representations constructed during sentence processing, and a theory of the end-state for language acquisition. Given the highly interactive nature of the theory of syntax, this volume defines "experimental syntax" in the broadest possible terms, exploring both formal experimental methods that have been part of the domain of syntax since its inception (i.e., acceptability judgment methods) and formal experimental methods that have arisen through the interaction of syntactic theory with the domains of acquisition, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Syntax brings these methods together into a single experimental syntax volume for the first time, providing high-level reviews of major experimental work, offering guidance for researchers looking to incorporate these diverse methods into their own work, and inspiring new research that will push the boundaries of the theory of syntax. It will appeal to students and scholars from the advanced undergraduate level upwards in a range of fields including syntax, acquisition, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and computational linguistics.