Author: Peter Siemund
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110238055
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
The volume explores the relationship between linguistic universals and language variation. Its contributions identify the recurrent patterns and principles behind the complex spectrum of observable variation. The volume bridges the gap between cross-linguistic variation, regional variation, diachronic variation, contact-induced variation as well as socially conditioned variation. Moreover, it addresses fundamental methodological and theoretical issues of variation research. The volume brings together internationally renowned specialists of their fields while, at the same time, offering a platform for gifted and highly talented young researchers. The authors come from different theoretical backgrounds and through their work illustrate a rich array of scientific methods. All authors share a strong belief in empirically founded theoretical work. The contributions span a high number of languages and dialects from many parts of the world. They are extremely broad in their empirical coverage addressing an impressive selection of grammatical domains.
Author: Wendy Sandler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521483957
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 580
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Book Description
Sign languages are of great interest to linguists, because while they are the product of the same brain, their physical transmission differs greatly from that of spoken languages. In this pioneering and original study, Wendy Sandler and Diane Lillo-Martin compare sign languages with spoken languages, in order to seek the universal properties they share. Drawing on general linguistic theory, they describe and analyze sign language structure, showing linguistic universals in the phonology, morphology, and syntax of sign language, while also revealing non-universal aspects of its structure that must be attributed to its physical transmission system. No prior background in sign language linguistics is assumed, and numerous pictures are provided to make descriptions of signs and facial expressions accessible to readers. Engaging and informative, Sign Language and Linguistic Universals will be invaluable to linguists, psychologists, and all those interested in sign languages, linguistic theory and the universal properties of human languages.
Author: Jila Ghomeshi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902725530X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
This volume brings together recent work on the formal and interpretational properties of determiners across a variety of typologically and geographically unrelated languages. It seeks to answer the core question of modern linguistic theory: Which properties of languages are universal and which are variable? In recent theorizing, much of language variation is argued to stem from differences in the properties of features associated with functional heads. As such, this volume can be viewed as a case study of one such category: the determiner (D). The contributions all investigate the status of D as a language universal by examining the language-specific syntactic and semantic properties associated with this category. This volume will appeal to researchers and students in syntax and semantics, as well as to those who have more a specific interest in determiners and noun phrases.
Author: William E. Rutherford
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027228698
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
This volume consists of papers presented at the Conference on Language Universals and Second Language Acquisition, University of Southern California, February 1982. Published with the papers are the remarks of the originally assigned discussants. The collection represents an important cross-fertilization between research in grammatical theory and in second language acquisition. Topics dealt with in a number of the papers include word order, markedness, core grammar, accessability hierarchies, and simplified registers. The range of universals discussed embraces phonology, syntax, semantics, and discourse. Universals are also considered with reference to ontology, psychological reality, and evaluation metrics.
Author: Kumiko Tanaka-Ishii
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030593770
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
This volume explores the universal mathematical properties underlying big language data and possible reasons why such properties exist, revealing how we may be unconsciously mathematical in our language use. These properties are statistical and thus different from linguistic universals that contribute to describing the variation of human languages, and they can only be identified over a large accumulation of usages. The book provides an overview of state-of-the art findings on these statistical universals and reconsiders the nature of language accordingly, with Zipf's law as a well-known example. The main focus of the book further lies in explaining the property of long memory, which was discovered and studied more recently by borrowing concepts from complex systems theory. The statistical universals not only possibly lie as the precursor of language system formation, but they also highlight the qualities of language that remain weak points in today's machine learning. In summary, this book provides an overview of language's global properties. It will be of interest to anyone engaged in fields related to language and computing or statistical analysis methods, with an emphasis on researchers and students in computational linguistics and natural language processing. While the book does apply mathematical concepts, all possible effort has been made to speak to a non-mathematical audience as well by communicating mathematical content intuitively, with concise examples taken from real texts.
Author: Peter W. Culicover
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198865392
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 335
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Book Description
This volume explores how human languages become what they are, why they differ from one another in certain ways but not in others, and why they change in the ways that they do. Given that language is a universal creation of the human mind, the puzzle is why there are different languages at all: why do we not all speak the same language? Moreover, while there is considerable variation, in some ways grammars do show consistent patterns: why are languages similar in those respects, and why are those particular patterns preferred? Peter Culicover proposes that the solution to these puzzles is a constructional one. Grammars consist of constructions that carry out the function of expressing universal conceptual structure. While there are in principle many different ways of accomplishing this task, languages are under press to reduce constructional complexity. The result is that there is constructional change in the direction of less complexity, and grammatical patterns emerge that more efficiently reflect conceptual universals. The volume is divided into three parts: the first establishes the theoretical foundations; the second explores variation in argument structure, grammatical functions, and A-bar constructions, drawing on data from a variety of languages including English and Plains Cree; and the third examines constructional change, focusing primarily on Germanic. The study ends with observations and speculations on parameter theory, analogy, the origins of typological patterns, and Greenbergian 'universals'.
Author: Douglas Biber
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521473314
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
Douglas Biber's new book extends and refines the research and methodology reported in his ground breaking Variation Across Speech and Writing (CUP 1988). In Dimensions of Register Variation he gives a linguistic analysis of register in four widely differing languages: English, Nukulaelae Tuvaluan, Korean, and Somali. Using the multi-dimensional analytical framework employed in his earlier work, Biber carries out a principled comparison of both synchronic and diachronic patterns of variation across the four languages. Striking similarities as well as differences emerge, allowing Biber to predict for the first time cross-linguistic universals of register variation. This major new work will provide the foundation for the further investigation of cross-linguistic universals governing the pattern of discourse variation across registers, and will be of wide interest to any scholar interested in style, register and literacy.
Author: Petra M. Vogel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110806126
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 529
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Book Description
The series is a platform for contributions of all kinds to this rapidly developing field. General problems are studied from the perspective of individual languages, language families, language groups, or language samples. Conclusions are the result of a deepened study of empirical data. Special emphasis is given to little-known languages, whose analysis may shed new light on long-standing problems in general linguistics.
Author: Lyle Jenkins
Publisher: Brill
ISBN:
Category : Biolinguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 456
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Book Description
Offers an overview of work on the biology of language - what is sometimes called the "biolinguistic approach." This book focuses on the interplay between variation and the universal properties of language. It provides case studies from the areas of syntactic variation, genetic variation, neurological variation and historical variation.
Author: Karsten Schmidtke-Bode
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961101477
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
This volume provides an up-to-date discussion of a foundational issue that has recently taken centre stage in linguistic typology and which is relevant to the language sciences more generally: To what extent can cross-linguistic generalizations, i.e. statistical universals of linguistic structure, be explained by the diachronic sources of these structures? Everyone agrees that typological distributions are the result of complex histories, as “languages evolve into the variation states to which synchronic universals pertain” (Hawkins 1988). However, an increasingly popular line of argumentation holds that many, perhaps most, typological regularities are long-term reflections of their diachronic sources, rather than being ‘target-driven’ by overarching functional-adaptive motivations. On this view, recurrent pathways of reanalysis and grammaticalization can lead to uniform synchronic results, obviating the need to postulate global forces like ambiguity avoidance, processing efficiency or iconicity, especially if there is no evidence for such motivations in the genesis of the respective constructions. On the other hand, the recent typological literature is equally ripe with talk of "complex adaptive systems", "attractor states" and "cross-linguistic convergence". One may wonder, therefore, how much room is left for traditional functional-adaptive forces and how exactly they influence the diachronic trajectories that shape universal distributions. The papers in the present volume are intended to provide an accessible introduction to this debate. Covering theoretical, methodological and empirical facets of the issue at hand, they represent current ways of thinking about the role of diachronic sources in explaining grammatical universals, articulated by seasoned and budding linguists alike.
