Investigations in Universal Grammar

Investigations in Universal Grammar
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 362
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0262531801
ISBN-13 : 9780262531801
Rating : 4/5 (01 Downloads)

Synopsis Investigations in Universal Grammar by : Stephen Crain

This introductory guide to language acquisition research is presented within the framework of Universal Grammar, a theory of the human faculty for language. The authors focus on two experimental techniques for assessing children's linguistic competence: the Elicited Production task, a production task, and the Truth Value Judgment task, a comprehension task. Their methodologies are designed to overcome the numerous obstacles to empirical investigation of children's language competence. They produce research results that are more reproducible and less likely to be dismissed as an artifact of improper experimental procedure. In the first section of the book, the authors examine the fundamental assumptions that guide research in this area; they present both a theory of linguistic competence and a model of language processing. In the following two sections, they discuss in detail their two experimental techniques.

Meaning and Universal Grammar

Meaning and Universal Grammar
Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages : 355
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789027230638
ISBN-13 : 9027230633
Rating : 4/5 (38 Downloads)

Synopsis Meaning and Universal Grammar by : Cliff Goddard

Volume one of a set of studies that is founded on the idea that universal grammar is based on - indeed, inseparable from - meaning. The theoretical framework is the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka and developed in collaboration with Cliff Goddard.

A Companion to Chomsky

A Companion to Chomsky
Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages : 644
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781119598688
ISBN-13 : 1119598680
Rating : 4/5 (88 Downloads)

Synopsis A Companion to Chomsky by : Nicholas Allott

A COMPANION TO CHOMSKY Widely considered to be one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky has revolutionized modern linguistics. His thought has had a profound impact upon the philosophy of language, mind, and science, as well as the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science which his work helped to establish. Now, in this new Companion dedicated to his substantial body of work and the range of its influence, an international assembly of prominent linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists reflect upon the interdisciplinary reach of Chomsky's intellectual contributions. Balancing theoretical rigor with accessibility to the non-specialist, the Companion is organized into eight sections—including the historical development of Chomsky's theories and the current state of the art, comparison with rival usage-based approaches, and the relation of his generative approach to work on linguistic processing, acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language. Later chapters address Chomsky's rationalist critique of behaviorism and related empiricist approaches to psychology, as well as his insistence upon a "Galilean" methodology in cognitive science. Following a brief discussion of the relation of his work in linguistics to his work on political issues, the book concludes with an essay written by Chomsky himself, reflecting on the history and character of his work in his own words. A significant contribution to the study of Chomsky's thought, A Companion to Chomsky is an indispensable resource for philosophers, linguists, psychologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers with interest in Noam Chomsky's intellectual legacy as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century.

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 673
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199573776
ISBN-13 : 0199573778
Rating : 4/5 (76 Downloads)

Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar by : Ian G. Roberts

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 the 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.

Empirical Linguistics

Empirical Linguistics
Author :
Publisher : A&C Black
Total Pages : 238
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781847144317
ISBN-13 : 1847144314
Rating : 4/5 (17 Downloads)

Synopsis Empirical Linguistics by : Geoffrey Sampson

Linguistics has become an empirical science again after several decades when it was preoccupied with speakers' hazy "intuitions" about language structure. With a mixture of English-language case studies and more theoretical analyses, Geoffrey Sampson gives an overview of some of the new findings and insights about the nature of language which are emerging from investigations of real-life speech and writing, often (although not always) using computers and electronic language samples ("corpora"). Concrete evidence is brought to bear to resolve long-standing questions such as "Is there one English language or many Englishes?" and "Do different social groups use characteristically elaborated or restricted language codes?" Sampson shows readers how to use some of the new techniques for themselves, giving a step-by-step "recipe-book" method for applying a quantitative technique that was invented by Alan Turing in the World War II code-breaking work at Bletchley Park and has been rediscovered and widely applied in linguistics fifty years later.

Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar

Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 338
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0521796474
ISBN-13 : 9780521796477
Rating : 4/5 (74 Downloads)

Synopsis Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar by : Lydia White

Table of contents

The Acquisition of Syntax

The Acquisition of Syntax
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 337
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781317881247
ISBN-13 : 1317881249
Rating : 4/5 (47 Downloads)

Synopsis The Acquisition of Syntax by : Marc-Ariel Friedemann

This volume contains a collection of studies that survey recent research in developmental linguistics, illustrating the fruitful interaction between comparative syntax and language acquisition. The contributors each analyse a well defined range of acquisition data, aiming to derive them from primitive differences between child and adult grammar. The book covers cross-linguistic and cross-categorial phenomena, shedding light on major developments in this novel and rapidly growing field. Extensions to second language acquisition and neuropathology are also suggested.

The empirical base of linguistics

The empirical base of linguistics
Author :
Publisher : Language Science Press
Total Pages : 270
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9783946234029
ISBN-13 : 394623402X
Rating : 4/5 (29 Downloads)

Synopsis The empirical base of linguistics by : Carson T. Schütze

Throughout much of the history of linguistics, grammaticality judgments - intuitions about the well-formedness of sentences - have constituted most of the empirical base against which theoretical hypothesis have been tested. Although such judgments often rest on subtle intuitions, there is no systematic methodology for eliciting them, and their apparent instability and unreliability have led many to conclude that they should be abandoned as a source of data. Carson T. Schütze presents here a detailed critical overview of the vast literature on the nature and utility of grammaticality judgments and other linguistic intuitions, and the ways they have been used in linguistic research. He shows how variation in the judgment process can arise from factors such as biological, cognitive, and social differences among subjects, the particular elicitation method used, and extraneous features of the materials being judged. He then assesses the status of judgments as reliable indicators of a speaker's grammar. Integrating substantive and methodological findings, Schütze proposes a model in which grammaticality judgments result from interaction of linguistic competence with general cognitive processes. He argues that this model provides the underpinning for empirical arguments to show that once extragrammatical variance is factored out, universal grammar succumbs to a simpler, more elegant analysis than judgment data initially lead us to expect. Finally, Schütze offers numerous practical suggestions on how to collect better and more useful data. The result is a work of vital importance that will be required reading for linguists, cognitive psychologists, and philosophers of language alike.

Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition

Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition
Author :
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
Total Pages : 15
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9783346161598
ISBN-13 : 3346161595
Rating : 4/5 (98 Downloads)

Synopsis Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition by : Julia Niehaus

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: The topic of this term paper is from high relevance when it comes to the human mind in general, but it has a special importance for those who are trying to start a career as Second Language teachers because Chomsky’s Universal Grammar Theory influenced the whole field of linguistic studies and Language Acquisition tremendously. Future teachers need to be aware of these perceptions to be successful at teaching languages. The beginning of this paper is therefore going to be discussing what Universal Grammar after Chomsky consists of in general and what it describes. This part is going to be functioning as an overview that will help to comprehend the following subchapter, which will be dealing with one part of Chomsky’s Government/ Binding Theory, the principles and parameters. Thereafter, a discourse on First Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar is going to be portrayed, since Universal Grammar is usually linked to First Language Acquisition and will help to understand the coherence of the previously discussed matters of Universal Grammar. The goal of these first few chapters is to create a transition to the main topic of the paper by providing some important background information of Chomsky’s studies and theories.

Meaning and Universal Grammar

Meaning and Universal Grammar
Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages : 352
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789027281869
ISBN-13 : 9027281866
Rating : 4/5 (69 Downloads)

Synopsis Meaning and Universal Grammar by : Cliff Goddard

This book develops a bold new approach to universal grammar, based on research findings of the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) program. The key idea is that universal grammar is constituted by the inherent grammatical properties of some 60 empirically established semantic primes, which appear to have concrete exponents in all languages. For six typologically divergent languages (Mangaaba-Mbula, Mandarin Chinese, Lao, Malay, Spanish and Polish), contributors identify exponents of the primes and work through a substantial set of hypotheses about their combinatorics, valency properties, complementation options, etc. Each study can also be read as a semantically-based typological profile. Four theoretical chapters by the editors describe the NSM approach and its application to grammatical typology. As a study of empirical universals in grammar, this book is unique for its rigorous semantic orientation, its methodological consistency, and its wealth of cross-linguistic detail.