The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert
The chapters in this volume, all written by experts in the field, present an array of new research on second language acquisition (SLA) that touches on several current theoretical debates in the field and present a rich range of new empirical data and a number of innovative findings. The studies address questions relating to ultimate attainment, first language transfer, universal properties of SLA, processing and second language (L2) grammar, and explore a number of grammatical features of the L2: tense, aspect, modality, specificity, definiteness, gender, number, anaphora. These themes are complemented by the study of pragmatic competence in sociocultural aspects of register use. The students investigated in the studies range from heritage speakers to naturalistic learners, to instructed learners and immigrants. Another distinctive feature of this book is the inclusion of pedagogical recommendations based on L2 research, making the book relevant for both SLA researchers and language teachers.
The contributions of this thematic collection center around the typology of pronominal paradigms, the generation of syntactic and semantic representations for constructions containing pronouns, and the neurological underpinnings for linguistic distinctions that are relevant for the production and interpretation of these constructions. They come from different theoretical approaches and methodological backgrounds and take into account data from a wide range of Indoeuropean and non-Indoeuropean languages. Bringing together a cross-section of recent research on the grammar and representation of pronouns, the volume offers a kaleidoscope of studies united by the common topic of pronouns as a domain of language that exemplarily shows the interaction of different components responsible for computational (syntactic and semantic), lexical, and discourse-pragmatic processes.
The chapters in this volume, all written by experts in the field, present an array of new research on second language acquisition (SLA) that touches on several current theoretical debates in the field and present a rich range of new empirical data and a number of innovative findings. The studies address questions relating to ultimate attainment, first language transfer, universal properties of SLA, processing and second language (L2) grammar, and explore a number of grammatical features of the L2: tense, aspect, modality, specificity, definiteness, gender, number, anaphora. These themes are complemented by the study of pragmatic competence in sociocultural aspects of register use. The students investigated in the studies range from heritage speakers to naturalistic learners, to instructed learners and immigrants. Another distinctive feature of this book is the inclusion of pedagogical recommendations based on L2 research, making the book relevant for both SLA researchers and language teachers.
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic the- orizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Gram- mar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective the- ory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothe- sis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are dis- cussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured. “With this critical yet fair reflection on various grammatical theories, Müller fills what has been a major gap in the literature.” Karen Lehmann, Zeitschrift für Rezensionen zur germanistischen Sprachwissenschaft, 2012 “Stefan Müller’ s recent introductory textbook, “Grammatiktheorie”, is an astonishingly comprehensive and insightful survey of the present state of syntactic theory for beginning students.” Wolfgang Sternefeld und Frank Richter, Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 2012 “This is the kind of work that has been sought after for a while. [...] The impartial and objective discussion offered by the author is particularly refreshing.” Werner Abraham, Germanistik, 2012
A detailed study of Gilchrist’s grammatical praxis which presents a picture of the complex relationship between grammatical inquiry and the politics of colonial discourse in the early years of the Indian Empire. Develops a method of reading colonial grammars that acknowledges both the technical and the political dimensions of the text Explores the political consequences of the choices that grammarians made that could easily elicit reactions of fear, confusion, and even contempt in colonial observers Presents a picture of the complex relationship between grammatical inquiry and the politics of colonial discourse in the early years of the Indian Empire
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured. The book is a translation of the German book Grammatiktheorie, which was published by Stauffenburg in 2010. This book is a new edition of http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/25, http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/195 and http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/255.
This handbook offers a comprehensive treatise on Grammatical Evolution (GE), a grammar-based Evolutionary Algorithm that employs a function to map binary strings into higher-level structures such as programs. GE's simplicity and modular nature make it a very flexible tool. Since its introduction almost twenty years ago, researchers have applied it to a vast range of problem domains, including financial modelling, parallel programming and genetics. Similarly, much work has been conducted to exploit and understand the nature of its mapping scheme, triggering additional research on everything from different grammars to alternative mappers to initialization. The book first introduces GE to the novice, providing a thorough description of GE along with historical key advances. Two sections follow, each composed of chapters from international leading researchers in the field. The first section concentrates on analysis of GE and its operation, giving valuable insight into set up and deployment. The second section consists of seven chapters describing radically different applications of GE. The contributions in this volume are beneficial to both novices and experts alike, as they detail the results and researcher experiences of applying GE to large scale and difficult problems. Topics include: • Grammar design • Bias in GE • Mapping in GE • Theory of disruption in GE · Structured GE · Geometric semantic GE · GE and semantics · Multi- and Many-core heterogeneous parallel GE · Comparing methods to creating constants in GE · Financial modelling with GE · Synthesis of parallel programs on multi-cores · Design, architecture and engineering with GE · Computational creativity and GE · GE in the prediction of glucose for diabetes · GE approaches to bioinformatics and system genomics · GE with coevolutionary algorithms in cybersecurity · Evolving behaviour trees with GE for platform games · Business analytics and GE for the prediction of patient recruitment in multicentre clinical trials
