The Evolution of Grammar
The Evolution of Grammar

Author: Joan Bybee

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994-11-15

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0226086658

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Joan Bybee and her colleagues present a new theory of the evolution of grammar that links structure and meaning in a way that directly challenges most contemporary versions of generative grammar. This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect, and modality and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories. The authors demonstrate that the semantic content of these categories evolves gradually and that this process of evolution is strikingly similar across unrelated languages. Through a survey of seventy-six languages in twenty-five different phyla, the authors show that the same paths of change occur universally and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. This analysis reveals that lexical substance evolves into grammatical substance through various mechanisms of change, such as metaphorical extension and the conventionalization of implicature. Grammaticization is always accompanied by an increase in frequency of the grammatical marker, providing clear evidence that language use is a major factor in the evolution of synchronic language states. The Evolution of Grammar has important implications for the development of language and for the study of cognitive processes in general.

The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language
The Evolution of Language Out of Pre-language

Author: Talmy Givón

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2002-01-01

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 9789027229595

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The contributors to this volume are linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists, primatologists, and anthropologists who share the assumption that language, just as mind and brain, are products of biological evolution. The rise of human language is not viewed as a serendipitous mutation that gave birth to a unique linguistic organ, but as a gradual, adaptive extension of pre-existing mental capacities and brain structures. The contributors carefully study brain mechanisms, diachronic change, language acquisition, and the parallels between cognitive and linguistic structures to weave a web of hypotheses and suggestive empirical findings on the origins of language and the connections of language to other human capacities. The chapters discuss brain pathways that support linguistic processing; origins of specific linguistic features in temporal and hierarchical structures of the mind; the possible co-evolution of language and the reasoning about mental states; and the aspects of language learning that may serve as models of evolutionary change.

Grammatical Evolution
Grammatical Evolution

Author: Michael O'Neill

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 1461504473

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Grammatical Evolution: Evolutionary Automatic Programming in an Arbitrary Language provides the first comprehensive introduction to Grammatical Evolution, a novel approach to Genetic Programming that adopts principles from molecular biology in a simple and useful manner, coupled with the use of grammars to specify legal structures in a search. Grammatical Evolution's rich modularity gives a unique flexibility, making it possible to use alternative search strategies - whether evolutionary, deterministic or some other approach - and to even radically change its behavior by merely changing the grammar supplied. This approach to Genetic Programming represents a powerful new weapon in the Machine Learning toolkit that can be applied to a diverse set of problem domains.

The Evolution of Case Grammar
The Evolution of Case Grammar

Author: Remi Van Trijp

Publisher:

Published: 2017-06-26

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9783944675848

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There are few linguistic phenomena that have seduced linguists so skillfully as grammatical case has done. Ever since Panini (4th Century BC), case has claimed a central role in linguistic theory and continues to do so today. However, despite centuries worth of research, case has yet to reveal its most important secrets. This book offers breakthrough explanations for the understanding of case through agent-based experiments in cultural language evolution. The experiments demonstrate that case systems may emerge because they have a selective advantage for communication: they reduce the cognitive effort that listeners need for semantic interpretation, while at the same time limiting the cognitive resources required for doing so.

The Evolution of Language
The Evolution of Language

Author: W. Tecumseh Fitch

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-04

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 052185993X

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This book brings together the most important insights from the vast amount of literature on the origin of language.

Foundations of Language
Foundations of Language

Author: Ray Jackendoff

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2002-01-24

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0191574015

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How does human language work? How do we put ideas into words that others can understand? Can linguistics shed light on the way the brain operates? Foundations of Language puts linguistics back at the centre of the search to understand human consciousness. Ray Jackendoff begins by surveying the developments in linguistics over the years since Noam Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. He goes on to propose a radical re-conception of how the brain processes language. This opens up vivid new perspectives on every major aspect of language and communication, including grammar, vocabulary, learning, the origins of human language, and how language relates to the real world. Foundations of Language makes important connections with other disciplines which have been isolated from linguistics for many years. It sets a new agenda for close cooperation between the study of language, mind, the brain, behaviour, and evolution.

The History of Modern Chinese Grammar Studies
The History of Modern Chinese Grammar Studies

Author: Peter Peverelli

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-03-23

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 3662465043

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This book discusses the way Chinese scholars developed a national grammar. Chinese didn’t develop grammar until China’s contact with Western grammar books in the 19th Century. The first indigenous grammar was published in 1889. It included some traditional notions, but mainly imitated European grammar. It was followed by a number of other similar works. To move away from this imitation, a group of grammarians started to look into the Chinese tradition of commenting on classics. This led to a variety of alternative grammars. After the war, Western linguistics started to gain influence in China. With the establishment of the PRC in 1949, efforts began to have a standard grammar adopted nationwide. The first attempt at such a grammar was published in 1956. This book spans the period 1898 – 1956.This book combines historiography and linguistics to distinguish different periods in the timespan covered. It shows how the development of a national grammar cannot be studied separately from language policies and discussions on the national language. The description of each period includes a general introduction of the relevant events in that period and a treatment of the major works of grammar.

The Unfolding of Language
The Unfolding of Language

Author: Guy Deutscher

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2006-05-02

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 1466837837

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Blending the spirit of Eats, Shoots & Leaves with the science of The Language Instinct, an original inquiry into the development of that most essential-and mysterious-of human creations: Language "Language is mankind's greatest invention-except, of course, that it was never invented." So begins linguist Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the genesis and evolution of language. If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of "man throw spear," how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced degrees of meaning? Drawing on recent groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication, giving us fresh insight into how language emerges, evolves, and decays. He traces the evolution of linguistic complexity from an early "Me Tarzan" stage to such elaborate single-word constructions as the Turkish sehirlilestiremediklerimizdensiniz ("you are one of those whom we couldn't turn into a town dweller"). Arguing that destruction and creation in language are intimately entwined, Deutscher shows how these processes are continuously in operation, generating new words, new structures, and new meanings. As entertaining as it is erudite, The Unfolding of Language moves nimbly from ancient Babylonian to American idiom, from the central role of metaphor to the staggering triumph of design that is the Semitic verb, to tell the dramatic story and explain the genius behind a uniquely human faculty.

Generative Grammar
Generative Grammar

Author: Robert Freidin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-05-07

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1134322119

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This book represents a substantial contribution to the field of linguistics in drawing together the author's most significant work on the theory of generative grammar.