This book offers insights on the study of natural language as a complex adaptive system. It discusses a new way to tackle the problem of language modeling, and provides clues on how the close relation between natural language and some biological structures can be very fruitful for science. The book examines the theoretical framework and then applies its main principles to various areas of linguistics. It discusses applications in language contact, language change, diachronic linguistics, and the potential enhancement of classical approaches to historical linguistics by means of new methodologies used in physics, biology, and agent systems theory. It shows how studying language evolution and change using computational simulations enables to integrate social structures in the evolution of language, and how this can give rise to a new way to approach sociolinguistics. Finally, it explores applications for discourse analysis, semantics and cognition.

The theory of formal languages is widely accepted as the backbone of t- oretical computer science. It mainly originated from mathematics (com- natorics, algebra, mathematical logic) and generative linguistics. Later, new specializations emerged from areas ofeither computer science(concurrent and distributed systems, computer graphics, arti?cial life), biology (plant devel- ment, molecular genetics), linguistics (parsing, text searching), or mathem- ics (cryptography). All human problem solving capabilities can be considered, in a certain sense, as a manipulation of symbols and structures composed by symbols, which is actually the stem of formal language theory. Language - in its two basic forms, natural and arti?cial - is a particular case of a symbol system. This wide range of motivations and inspirations explains the diverse - plicability of formal language theory ? and all these together explain the very large number of monographs and collective volumes dealing with formal language theory. In 2004 Springer-Verlag published the volume Formal Languages and - plications, edited by C. Martin-Vide, V. Mitrana and G. P?un in the series Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing 148, which was aimed at serving as an overall course-aid and self-study material especially for PhD students in formal language theory and applications. Actually, the volume emerged in such a context: it contains the core information from many of the lectures - livered to the students of the International PhD School in Formal Languages and Applications organized since 2002 by the Research Group on Mathem- ical Linguistics from Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain."

The book collects contributions from well-established researchers at the interface between language and cognition. It provides an overview of the latest insights into this interdisciplinary field from the perspectives of natural language processing, computer science, psycholinguistics and cognitive science. One of the pioneers in cognitive natural language processing is Michael Zock, to whom this volume is dedicated. The structure of the book reflects his main research interests: lexicon and lexical analysis, semantics, language and speech generation, reading and writing technologies, language resources and language engineering. The book is a valuable reference work and authoritative information source, giving an overview on the field and describing the state of the art as well as future developments. It is intended for researchers and advanced students interested in the subject. One of the pioneers in cognitive natural language processing is Michael Zock, to whom this volume is dedicated. The structure of the book reflects his main research interests: Lexicon and lexical analysis, semantics, language and speech generation, reading and writing technologies, language resources and language engineering. The book is a valuable reference work and authoritative information source, giving an overview on the field and describing the state of the art as well as future developments. It is intended for researchers and advanced students interested in the subject. One of the pioneers in cognitive natural language processing is Michael Zock, to whom this volume is dedicated. The structure of the book reflects his main research interests: Lexicon and lexical analysis, semantics, language and speech generation, reading and writing technologies, language resources and language engineering. The book is a valuable reference work and authoritative information source, giving an overview on the field and describing the state of the art as well as future developments. It is intended for researchers and advanced students interested in the subject.

The book collects contributions from well-established researchers at the interface between language and cognition. It provides an overview of the latest insights into this interdisciplinary field from the perspectives of natural language processing, computer science, psycholinguistics and cognitive science. One of the pioneers in cognitive natural language processing is Michael Zock, to whom this volume is dedicated. The structure of the book reflects his main research interests: lexicon and lexical analysis, semantics, language and speech generation, reading and writing technologies, language resources and language engineering. The book is a valuable reference work and authoritative information source, giving an overview on the field and describing the state of the art as well as future developments. It is intended for researchers and advanced students interested in the subject. One of the pioneers in cognitive natural language processing is Michael Zock, to whom this volume is dedicated. The structure of the book reflects his main research interests: Lexicon and lexical analysis, semantics, language and speech generation, reading and writing technologies, language resources and language engineering. The book is a valuable reference work and authoritative information source, giving an overview on the field and describing the state of the art as well as future developments. It is intended for researchers and advanced students interested in the subject. One of the pioneers in cognitive natural language processing is Michael Zock, to whom this volume is dedicated. The structure of the book reflects his main research interests: Lexicon and lexical analysis, semantics, language and speech generation, reading and writing technologies, language resources and language engineering. The book is a valuable reference work and authoritative information source, giving an overview on the field and describing the state of the art as well as future developments. It is intended for researchers and advanced students interested in the subject.

The theory of formal languages is widely accepted as the backbone of t- oretical computer science. It mainly originated from mathematics (com- natorics, algebra, mathematical logic) and generative linguistics. Later, new specializations emerged from areas ofeither computer science(concurrent and distributed systems, computer graphics, arti?cial life), biology (plant devel- ment, molecular genetics), linguistics (parsing, text searching), or mathem- ics (cryptography). All human problem solving capabilities can be considered, in a certain sense, as a manipulation of symbols and structures composed by symbols, which is actually the stem of formal language theory. Language - in its two basic forms, natural and arti?cial - is a particular case of a symbol system. This wide range of motivations and inspirations explains the diverse - plicability of formal language theory ? and all these together explain the very large number of monographs and collective volumes dealing with formal language theory. In 2004 Springer-Verlag published the volume Formal Languages and - plications, edited by C. Martin-Vide, V. Mitrana and G. P?un in the series Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing 148, which was aimed at serving as an overall course-aid and self-study material especially for PhD students in formal language theory and applications. Actually, the volume emerged in such a context: it contains the core information from many of the lectures - livered to the students of the International PhD School in Formal Languages and Applications organized since 2002 by the Research Group on Mathem- ical Linguistics from Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain."