Variable Properties in Language
Variable Properties in Language

Author: David W. Lightfoot

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2019-07-01

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 162616665X

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This edited volume, based on papers presented at the 2017 Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics (GURT), approaches the study of language variation from a variety of angles. Language variation research asks broad questions such as, "Why are languages' grammatical structures different from one another?" as well as more specific word-level questions such as, "Why are words that are pronounced differently still recognized to be the same words?" Too often, research on variation has been siloed based on the particular question—sociolinguists do not talk to historical linguists, who do not talk to phoneticians, and so on. This edited volume seeks to bring discussions from different subfields of linguistics together to explore language variation in a broader sense and acknowledge the complexity and interwoven nature of variation itself.

Linguistic Variables
Linguistic Variables

Author: Hans-Heinrich Lieb

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9027236119

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This book for the first time reconstructs in a single theoretical framework the more important approaches to linguistic variation found in areas as different as historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, stylistics, contrastive linguistics, language typology, so-called evaluation grammar, and current Chomskyan generative grammar (generally with an emphasis on syntax). The book concentrates on language-internal variation but also analyses typological research and considers the question of how linguistic descriptions may account for variation both within and between languages. The book's first and primary aim is adequate conceptualization in the area of linguistic variation. Its second aim is a practical one: to contribute, from a theoretical point of view, to the vast descriptive effort that is demanded in linguistics in documenting endangered languages. Its third aim is, simply, orientation. Using a non-Labovian notion of linguistic variable, the author distinguishes a holistic and a component approach to linguistic variation. A precise version of the former is developed by formulating a theory of language varieties based on the concept of variety structure of a language; it is then shown how the proposals made by major representatives of the component approach can be integrated into this framework. The theory is extended to interlanguage variation and applied, in particular, to typology. It is further extended to establish the properties of linguistic descriptions that account for variation in a unified way.

Linguistic Variation in the Minimalist Framework
Linguistic Variation in the Minimalist Framework

Author: M. Carme Picallo

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-07-24

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0191007390

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In this book, leading scholars consider the ways in which syntactic variation can be accounted for in a minimalist framework. They explore the theoretical significance, content, and role of parameters; whether or not variation should be strongly or weakly accounted for by syntactic factors; and the explicitness - or lack thereof - that should be assumed with respect to the conditions imposed by narrow syntax. The book is divided into two parts. The first part contains chapters that consider the term 'parameter' to be a relevant theoretical notion under minimalist tenets. In the second part, on the other hand, chapters either argue that the term parameter amounts to no more than a label to describe variation, or assign it a less prominent role. Instead, language variation is attributed to sociolinguistic factors, language contact, frequency of use, or simply to options in the externalization of abstract syntactic relations. The book offers a valuable overview of the different approaches adopted in the study of language variation phenomena, and will appeal to theoretical linguists of all persuasions from graduate level upwards.

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar
The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar

Author: Ian Roberts

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-01-12

Total Pages: 673

ISBN-13: 0191643688

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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 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.

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable
Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Author: Geoffrey Sampson

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2009-02-26

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0191567663

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This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.

Language Acquisition and Learnability
Language Acquisition and Learnability

Author: Stefano Bertolo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-05-14

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780521646208

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An accessible introduction to learnability theory and its interactions with linguistic theories.

Language, Biology and Cognition
Language, Biology and Cognition

Author: Prakash Mondal

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-07-17

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 303023715X

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This book examines the relationship between human language and biology in order to determine whether the biological foundations of language can offer deep insights into the nature and form of language and linguistic cognition. Challenging the assumption in biolinguistics and neurolinguistics that natural language and linguistic cognition can be reconciled with neurobiology, the author argues that reducing representation to cognitive systems and cognitive systems to neural populations is reductive, leading to inferences about the cognitive basis of linguistic performance based on assuming (false) dependencies. Instead, he finds that biological implementations of cognitive rather than the biological structures themselves, are the driver behind linguistic structures. In particular, this book argues that the biological roots of language are useful only for an understanding of the emergence of linguistic capacity as a whole, but ultimately irrelevant to understanding the character of language. Offering an antidote to the current thinking embracing ‘biologism’ in linguistic sciences, it will be of interest to readers in linguistics, the cognitive and brain sciences, and the points at which these disciplines converge with the computer sciences.

Born to Parse
Born to Parse

Author: David W. Lightfoot

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0262358875

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An argument that children are born to assign structures to their ambient language, which feeds a view of language variation not based on parameters defined at UG. In this book, David Lightfoot argues that just as some birds are born to chirp, humans are born to parse--predisposed to assign linguistic structures to their ambient external language. This approach to language acquisition makes two contributions to the development of Minimalist thinking.

Computer Aided Verification
Computer Aided Verification

Author: Thomas Ball

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-08-08

Total Pages: 577

ISBN-13: 354037406X

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This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV 2006, held in Seattle, WA, USA in August 2006 as part of the 4th Federated Logic Conference, FLoC 2006. The 35 revised full papers presented together with 10 tool papers and 4 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 144 submissions adressing all current issues in computer aided verification and model checking - from foundational and methodological issues ranging to the evaluation of major tools and systems. The papers are organized in topical sections on automata, arithmetic, SAT and bounded model checking, abstraction/refinement, symbolic trajectory evaluation, property specification and verification, time, concurrency, trees, pushdown systems and boolean programs, termination, abstract interpretation, memory consistency, and shape analysis.