Variation and Universals in Biolinguistics

Variation and Universals in Biolinguistics PDF 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.

Variation and Universals in Biolinguistics

Variation and Universals in Biolinguistics PDF 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.

The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics

The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics PDF Author: Cedric Boeckx
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107354536
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 788

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Book Description
Biolinguistics involves the study of language from a broad perspective that embraces natural sciences, helping us better to understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive state-of-the-field survey of the subject available. A team of prominent scholars working in a variety of disciplines is brought together to examine language development, language evolution and neuroscience, as well as providing overviews of the conceptual landscape of the field. The Handbook includes work at the forefront of contemporary research devoted to the evidence for a language instinct, the critical period hypothesis, grammatical maturation, bilingualism, the relation between mind and brain, and the role of natural selection in language evolution. It will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

The Biolinguistic Enterprise

The Biolinguistic Enterprise PDF Author: Anna Maria Di Sciullo
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191624772
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
This book, by leading scholars, represents some of the main work in progress in biolinguistics. It offers fresh perspectives on language evolution and variation, new developments in theoretical linguistics, and insights on the relations between variation in language and variation in biology. The authors address the Darwinian questions on the origin and evolution of language from a minimalist perspective, and provide elegant solutions to the evolutionary gap between human language and communication in all other organisms. They consider language variation in the context of current biological approaches to species diversity - the 'evo-devo revolution' - which bring to light deep homologies between organisms. In dispensing with the classical notion of syntactic parameters, the authors argue that language variation, like biodiversity, is the result of experience and thus not a part of the language faculty in the narrow sense. They also examine the nature of this core language faculty, the primary categories with which it is concerned, the operations it performs, the syntactic constraints it poses on semantic interpretation and the role of phases in bridging the gap between brain and syntax. Written in language accessible to a wide audience, The Biolinguistic Enterprise will appeal to scholars and students of linguistics, cognitive science, biology, and natural language processing.

Advances in Biolinguistics

Advances in Biolinguistics PDF Author: Koji Fujita
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131748620X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Biolinguistics is a highly interdisciplinary field that seeks the rapprochement between linguistics and biology. Linking theoretical linguistics, theoretical biology, genetics, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, this book offers a collection of chapters situating the enterprise conceptually, highlighting both the promises and challenges of the field, and chapters focusing on the challenges and prospects of taking interdisciplinarity seriously. It provides concrete illustrations of some of the cutting-edge research in biolinguistics and piques the interest of undergraduate students looking for a field to major in and inspires graduate students on possible research directions. It is also meant to show to specialists in adjacent fields how a particular strand of theoretical linguistics relates to their concerns, and in so doing, the book intends to foster collaboration across disciplines.

Language Universals

Language Universals PDF Author: Morten H. Christiansen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190294116
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Languages differ from one another in bewildering and seemingly arbitrary ways. For example, in English, the verb precedes the direct object ('understand the proof'), but in Japanese, the direct object comes first. In some languages, such as Mohawk, it is not even possible to establish a basic word order. Nonetheless, languages do share certain regularities in how they are structured and used. The exact nature and extent of these "language universals" has been the focus of much research and is one of the central explanatory goals in the language sciences. During the past 50 years, there has been tremendous progress, a few major conceptual revolutions, and even the emergence of entirely new fields. The wealth of findings and theories offered by the various language-science disciplines has made it more important than ever to work toward an integrated understanding of the nature of human language universals. This book is the first to examine language universals from a cross-disciplinary perspective. It provides new insights into long standing questions such as: What exactly defines the human capacity for language? Are there universal properties of human languages and, if so, what are they? Can all language universals be explained in the same way, or do some universals require different kinds of explanations from others? Language Universals is unique in starting with the assumption that the best way to approach these and related questions is through a dialogue between a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, computer science and biology.

Biolinguistic Investigations and the Formal Language Hierarchy

Biolinguistic Investigations and the Formal Language Hierarchy PDF Author: Juan Uriagereka
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351622250
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This volume collects some of Juan Uriagereka’s previously published pieces and presentations on biolinguistics in recent years in one comprehensive volume. The book’s introduction lays the foundation for the field of biolinguistics, which looks to integrate concepts from the natural sciences in the analysis of natural language, situating the discussion within the minimalist framework. The volume then highlights eight of the author’s key papers from the literature, some co-authored, representative of both the architectural and evolutionary considerations to be taken into account within biolinguistic research. The book culminates in a final chapter showcasing the body of work being done on biolinguistics within the research program at the University of Maryland and their implications for interdisciplinary research and future directions for the field. This volume is essential reading for students and scholars interested in the interface between language and the natural sciences, including linguistics, syntax, biology, archaeology, and anthropology.

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar PDF Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191643688
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
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.

Understanding Interfaces

Understanding Interfaces PDF Author: Laura Domínguez
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027271992
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
By combining theoretical analysis and empirical investigation, this monograph investigates the status of interfaces in Minimalist linguistic theory, second language acquisition and native language attrition. Two major questions are currently under debate: (1) what exactly makes a linguistic phenomenon an ‘interface phenomenon’, and (2) what is the specific role that the interfaces play in explaining language loss and persistent problems in second language acquisition? Answers to these questions are provided by a theoretical examination of the role that economy and computational efficiency play in recent Minimalist models of the language faculty, as well as by evidence obtained in two empirical studies examining the acquisition and attrition of two interface phenomena: Spanish subject realization and word order variation. The result is a new definition of ‘interface phenomena’ which deemphasizes syntactic complexity and focuses on the effect of interface interpretive conditions on syntactic structure. This work also shows that representational deficits cannot be ruled out in the acquisition and attrition of interface structures.

The Primacy of Grammar

The Primacy of Grammar PDF Author: Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262291630
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
A proposal that the biolinguistic approach to human languages may have identified, beyond the study of language, a specific structure of the human mind. The contemporary discipline of biolinguistics is beginning to have the feel of scientific inquiry. Biolinguistics—especially the work of Noam Chomsky—suggests that the design of language may be “perfect”: language is an optimal solution to conditions of sound and meaning. What is the scope of this inquiry? Which aspect of nature does this science investigate? What is its relation to the rest of science? What notions of language and mind are under investigation? This book is a study of such foundational questions. Exploring Chomsky's claims, Nirmalangshu Mukherji argues that the significance of biolinguistic inquiry extends beyond the domain of language. Biolinguistics is primarily concerned with grammars that represent just the computational aspects of the mind/brain. This restriction to grammars, Mukherji argues, opens the possibility that the computational system of human language may be involved in each cognitive system that requires similar computational resources. Deploying analytical argumentation and empirical evidence, Mukherji suggests that a computational system of language consisting of very specific principles and operations is likely to be involved in each articulatory symbol system—such as music—that manifests unboundedness. In that sense, the biolinguistics approach may have identified, after thousands of years of inquiry, a specific structure of the human mind.

Michigan Slavic materials

Michigan Slavic materials PDF Author: Jodi Reich
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780936534077
Category : Slavic languages
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description