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Noam Chomsky's first book on syntactic structures is one of the
first serious attempts on the part of a linguist to construct
within the tradition of scientific theory-construction a
comprehensive theory of language which may be understood in the
same sense that a chemical, biological theory is understood by
experts in those fields. It is not a mere reorganization of the
data into a new kind of library catalogue, nor another specualtive
philosophy about the nature of man and language, but rather a
rigorus explication of our intuitions about our language in terms
of an overt axiom system, the theorems derivable from it, explicit
results which may be compared with new data and other intuitions,
all based plainly on an overt theory of the internal structure of
languages; and it may well provide an opportunity for the
application of explicity measures of simplicity to decide
preference of one form over another form of grammar.
This edited volume, based on papers presented at the 2017
Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics
(GURT), approaches the study of language variation from a variety
of angles. Language variation research asks broad questions such
as, "Why are languages' grammatical structures different from one
another?" as well as more specific word-level questions such as,
"Why are words that are pronounced differently still recognized to
be the same words?" Too often, research on variation has been
siloed based on the particular question-sociolinguists do not talk
to historical linguists, who do not talk to phoneticians, and so
on. This edited volume seeks to bring discussions from different
subfields of linguistics together to explore language variation in
a broader sense and acknowledge the complexity and interwoven
nature of variation itself.
This study treats human language as the manifestation of a faculty of the mind, which is seen as a mental organ whose nature is determined by human biology and whose functional properties should be explored as physiology explores the functional properties of physical organs. The book surveys the nature of the language faculty in its various aspects: the systems of sounds, words, and syntax, the development of language in the child and historically, what is known about its relation to the brain.
This book presents the latest thinking on the nature and causes of language change. The authors consider how far changes in morphology (e.g. inflectional word endings) cause changes in syntax (e.g. word order). They examine such phenomena from the perspective of current syntactic and psycholinguistic theory, in particular addressing the issues raised by the hypothesis that grammatical change is driven by how children acquire language. Theoretical questions are discussed in the context of change in a wide variety of languages over a range of periods. The authors are distinguished scholars from the USA, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the UK.
This edited volume, based on papers presented at the 2017
Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics
(GURT), approaches the study of language variation from a variety
of angles. Language variation research asks broad questions such
as, "Why are languages' grammatical structures different from one
another?" as well as more specific word-level questions such as,
"Why are words that are pronounced differently still recognized to
be the same words?" Too often, research on variation has been
siloed based on the particular question-sociolinguists do not talk
to historical linguists, who do not talk to phoneticians, and so
on. This edited volume seeks to bring discussions from different
subfields of linguistics together to explore language variation in
a broader sense and acknowledge the complexity and interwoven
nature of variation itself.
Over the past decade, generative grammarians have viewed
language acquisition as a process of fixing option points or
parameters defined in Universal Grammar. Here David Lightfoot
addresses the crucial question of what it takes to set a parameter
- of what kind of experience is needed to trigger the emergence of
a natural kind of grammar.Lightfoot asserts that parameter setting
is not sensitive to embedded material, and that it is triggered
only by robust elements that are structurally simple. He observes
that morphological properties play a significant role in setting
parameters which have widespread syntactic effects. Using evidence
from data on diachronic changes and from current work in syntactic
theory, Lightfoot makes precise claims about the triggering
experience that can explain a number of historical puzzles. He
argues that the changes could have taken place in the way they did
only if language acquisition proceeds on the basis of simple,
unembedded experiences.David Lightfoot is Professor and Chairman of
the Linguistics Department at the University of Maryland.
This study treats human language as the manifestation of a faculty of the mind, which is seen as a mental organ whose nature is determined by human biology and whose functional properties should be explored as physiology explores the functional properties of physical organs. The book surveys the nature of the language faculty in its various aspects: the systems of sounds, words, and syntax, the development of language in the child and historically, what is known about its relation to the brain.
This book presents the latest thinking on the nature and causes of language change. The authors consider how far changes in morphology (e.g. inflectional word endings) cause changes in syntax (e.g. word order). They examine such phenomena from the perspective of current syntactic and psycholinguistic theory, in particular addressing the issues raised by the hypothesis that grammatical change is driven by how children acquire language. Theoretical questions are discussed in the context of change in a wide variety of languages over a range of periods. The authors are distinguished scholars from the USA, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the UK.
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