Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 8th International Conference (Evolang8)

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 8th International Conference (Evolang8) PDF Author: Andrew D M Smith
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814465682
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts of the 8th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG8), held in Utrecht on 14-17 April 2010. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterized by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many subject areas, including anthropology, archaeology, biology, cognitive science, computer science, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, palaeontology, primatology and psychology.The latest theoretical, experimental and modelling research on language evolution is presented in this collection, including contributions from many leading scientists in the field.

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 8th International Conference (Evolang8)

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 8th International Conference (Evolang8) PDF Author: Andrew D M Smith
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814465682
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 553

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts of the 8th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG8), held in Utrecht on 14-17 April 2010. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterized by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many subject areas, including anthropology, archaeology, biology, cognitive science, computer science, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, palaeontology, primatology and psychology.The latest theoretical, experimental and modelling research on language evolution is presented in this collection, including contributions from many leading scientists in the field.

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 10th International Conference (Evolang X)

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 10th International Conference (Evolang X) PDF Author: Erica A Cartmill
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814603643
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 591

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Book Description
This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts of the 10th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANGX), held in Vienna on 14-17th April 2014. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterised by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many subject areas, including anthropology, archaeology, biology, cognitive science, computer science, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, palaeontology, primatology and psychology.For this 10th conference, the proceedings will include a special perspectives section featuring prominent researchers reflecting on the history of the conference and its impact on the field of language evolution since the inaugural EVOLANG conference in 1996.

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 9th International Conference (Evolang9)

Evolution Of Language, The - Proceedings Of The 9th International Conference (Evolang9) PDF Author: Erica A Cartmill
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 981440151X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 599

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Book Description
Proceedings of Evolang IX, the 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language.The Evolang conferences are the leading international conferences for new findings in the study of the origins and evolution of language. They attract a multidisciplinary audience. The proceedings are an important resource for researchers in the field.

Adaptive Languages

Adaptive Languages PDF Author: Christian Bentz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110557770
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Languages carry information. To fulfil this purpose, they employ a multitude of coding strategies. This book explores a core property of linguistic coding – called lexical diversity. Parallel text corpora of overall more than 1800 texts written in more than 1200 languages are the basis for computational analyses. Different measures of lexical diversity are discussed and tested, and Shannon’s measure of uncertainty – the entropy – is chosen to assess differences in the distributions of words. To further explain this variation, a range of descriptive, explanatory, and grouping factors are considered in a series of statistical models. The first category includes writing systems, word-formation patterns, registers and styles. The second category includes population size, non-native speaker proportions and language status. Grouping factors further elicit whether the results extrapolate across – or are limited to – specific language families and areas. This account marries information-theoretic methods with a complex systems framework, illustrating how languages adapt to the varying needs of their users. It sheds light on the puzzling diversity of human languages in a quantitative, data driven and reproducible manner.

Complexity in Language

Complexity in Language PDF Author: Salikoko S. Mufwene
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316942996
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The question of complexity, as in what makes one language more 'complex' than another, is a long-established topic of debate amongst linguists. Recently, this issue has been complemented with the view that languages are complex adaptive systems, in which emergence and self-organization play major roles. However, few students of the phenomenon have gone beyond the basic assessment of the number of units and rules in a language (what has been characterized as 'bit complexity') or shown some familiarity with the science of complexity. This book reveals how much can be learned by overcoming these limitations, especially by adopting developmental and evolutionary perspectives. The contributors include specialists of language acquisition, evolution and ecology, grammaticization, phonology, and modeling, all of whom approach languages as dynamical, emergent, and adaptive complex systems.

Dimensions of Iconicity

Dimensions of Iconicity PDF Author: Angelika Zirker
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027265186
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
This volume addresses five different Dimensions of Iconicity. While some contributions examine the phonic dimensions of iconicity that are based on empirical, diachronic and theoretical work, others explore the function of similarity from a cognitive point of view. The section on multimodal dimensions takes into account philosophical, linguistic and literary perspectives in order to analyse, for example, the diagrammatic interplay of written texts and images. Contributions on performative dimensions of iconicity focus on Buddhist mantras, Hollywood films, and the dynamics of rhetorical structures in Shakespeare. Last but not least, the volume also addresses new ways of considering iconicity, including notational iconicity, the interplay of iconicity, ambiguity, interpretability, and the iconicity of literary analysis from a formal semanticist point of view.

Eastward Flows the Great River

Eastward Flows the Great River PDF Author: Gang PENG
Publisher: City University of HK Press
ISBN: 9629372169
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 572

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Book Description
This Festschrift shows the achievements of modern linguistics, reflecting Professor Wang's academic philosophy. It is not only a great reference for seasoned language researchers; it can also help broaden knowledge in Chinese linguistics for students interested in languages. Readers who wish to know Chinese culture will also expand their understanding of it through these studies of the languages in China. Published by City University of Hong Kong Press. 香港城市大學出版社出版。

Language in Prehistory

Language in Prehistory PDF Author: Alan Barnard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107041120
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
Taking an anthropological perspective, Alan Barnard explores the evolution of language by investigating the lives and languages of modern hunter-gatherers.

Morphological Diversity and Linguistic Cognition

Morphological Diversity and Linguistic Cognition PDF Author: Andrea D. Sims
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108846254
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
Morphological structures interact dynamically with lexical processing and storage, with the parameters of morphological typology being partly dependent on cognitive pathways for processing, storage and generalization of word structure, and vice versa. Bringing together a team of well-known scholars, this book examines the relationship between linguistic cognition and the morphological diversity found in the world's languages. It includes research from across linguistic and cognitive science sub-disciplines that looks at the nature of typological diversity and its relationship to cognition, touching on concepts such as complexity, interconnectedness within systems, and emergent organization. Chapters employ experimental, computational, corpus-based and theoretical methods to examine specific morphological phenomena, and an overview chapter provides a synthesis of major research trends, contextualizing work from different methodological and philosophical perspectives. Offering a novel perspective on how cognition contributes to our understanding of word structure, it is essential reading for psycholinguists, theoreticians, typologists, computational modelers and cognitive scientists.

Genesis of Symbolic Thought

Genesis of Symbolic Thought PDF Author: Alan Barnard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139511009
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Symbolic thought is what makes us human. Claude Lévi-Strauss stated that we can never know the genesis of symbolic thought, but in this powerful new study Alan Barnard argues that we can. Continuing the line of analysis initiated in Social Anthropology and Human Origins (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Genesis of Symbolic Thought applies ideas from social anthropology, old and new, to understand some of the areas also being explored in fields as diverse as archaeology, linguistics, genetics and neuroscience. Barnard aims to answer questions including: when and why did language come into being? What was the earliest religion? And what form did social organization take before humanity dispersed from the African continent? Rejecting the notion of hunter-gatherers as 'primitive', Barnard hails the great sophistication of the complex means of their linguistic and symbolic expression and places the possible origin of symbolic thought at as early as 130,000 years ago.