Download or read book Grammar Without Grammaticality written by Geoffrey Sampson and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linguists have standardly assumed that grammar is about identifying all and only the 'good' sentences of a language, which implies that there must be other, 'bad' sentences - but in practice most linguists know that it is hard to pin those down. The standard assumption is no more than an assumption. A century ago, grammarians did not think about their subject that way, and our book shows that the older idea was right: linguists can and should dispense with the concept 'starred sentence'. We draw on corpus data in order to support a different model of grammar, in which individuals refine positive grammatical habits to greater or lesser extents in diverse and unpredictable directions, but nothing is ever ruled out. Languages are not merely alternative methods of verbalizing universal logical forms. We use empirical evidence to shed light on the routes by which school-age children gradually expand their battery of grammatical resources, which turn out to be sometimes counter-intuitive. Our rejection of the 'starred sentence' concept has attracted considerable discussion, and we summarize the reactions and respond to our critics. The contrasting models of grammar described in this book entail contrasting pictures of human nature; our closing chapter shows that grammatical theory is not value-neutral but has an ethical dimension.

Download or read book Grammar Without Grammaticality written by Geoffrey Sampson and published by ISSN. This book was released on 2016-06-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grammar is said to be about defining all and only the 'good' sentences of a language, implying that there are other, 'bad' sentences - but it is hard to pin those down. A century ago, grammarians did not think that way, and they were right: linguists can and should dispense with 'starred sentences'. Corpus data support a different model: individuals develop positive grammatical habits of growing refinement, but nothing is ever ruled out. The contrasting models entail contrasting pictures of human nature; our final chapter shows that grammatical theory is not value-neutral but has an ethical dimension.--Résumé de l'éditeur.

Download or read book The Empirical Base of Linguistics written by Carson T. Schutze and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-05-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He then assesses the status of judgments as reliable indicators of a speaker's grammar.

Download or read book What are Un Acceptability and Un Grammaticality How do They Relate to One Another and to Interpretation written by Susagna Tubau and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Grammars and Grammaticality written by Michael B. Kac and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1992-02-06 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outset, the goal of generative grammar was the explication of an intuitive concept grammaticality (Chomsky 1957:13). But psychological goals have become primary, referred to as “linguistic competence”, “language faculty”, or, more recently, “I-language”. Kac argues for the validity of the earlier goal of grammaticality and for a specific view of the relationship between the abstract, nonpsychological study of grammar and the investigation of the language faculty. The method of the book involves a formalization of traditional grammar, with emphasis on etiological analysis, that is, providing a “diagnosis” for any ungrammatical string of the type of ungrammaticality involved. Part I justifies this view and makes the logical foundations of etiological analysis explicit. Part II applies the theory to a diverse body of typically generativist data, among which are aspects of the English complement system and some problematic phenomena in coordinate structures. The volume includes pedagogical exercises and especially intriguing is a large analysis problem, originally constructed by Gerlad Sanders using data from Nama Hottentot, which exposes the reader to a syntax of extraordinary beauty.

Download or read book Grammatical Theory written by Frederick J. Newmeyer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1983-09-15 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newmeyer persuasively defends the controversial theory of transformational generative grammar. Grammatical Theory is for every linguist, philosopher, or psychologist who is skeptical of generative grammar and wants to learn more about it. Newmeyer's formidable scholarship raises the level of debate on transformational generative grammar. He stresses the central importance of an autonomous formal grammar, discusses the limitations of "discourse-based" approaches to syntax, cites support for generativist theory in recent research, and clarifies misunderstood concepts associated with generative grammar.

Download or read book A computer validated Portuguese to English transformational grammar written by James Larkin Wyatt and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Grammatical gaps definition typology and theory written by Thomas Strobel and published by Helmut Buske Verlag. This book was released on 2023-12-11 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grammatiken sind (metaphorisch gesprochen) Anweisungen zum richtigen Gebrauch einer Sprache. Interessanterweise zeigen Grammatiken offenbar Lücken, die dadurch entstehen, dass für bestimmte Bereiche Regeln (bzw. Formen) ganz fehlen oder dass sich einzelne Regeln widersprechen und der daraus resultierende Konflikt deren Anwendung verhindert. Grammatische Lücken, auf deren Relevanz für eine 'realistische' Grammatiktheorie wohl zuerst Marga Reis hingewiesen hat, sind in den letzten Jahren schon vereinzelt in den Fokus der Forschung geraten. Das Sonderheft versammelt Arbeiten zu verschiedenen Arten von Lücken und zeigt damit, wie ertragreich und wichtig die Erforschung grammatischer Lücken sein kann. Grammars are (metaphorically speaking) instructions for the correct use of languages. One might expect that grammars are complete, i.e., that they provide an appropriate solution for each utterance context. Interestingly, however, grammars seem to show gaps, which are caused by the fact that rules (or forms) in certain domains are missing completely or that individual rules contradict each other and that the resulting conflict prevents their application. Grammatical gaps, whose relevance for a 'realistic' theory of grammar was probably first pointed out by Marga Reis, have come into the focus of research in recent years. The present special issue collects papers on different kinds of gaps and shows how fruitful and important the investigation of grammatical gaps can prove to be. Inhalt: Introduction – Ralf Vogel: Grammatical gaps, grammatical invention and grammatical theory – André Meinunger: Unexpected finite verb forms in German – cases of grammatical illusion? – Patrick Mächler, Anja Hasse: Gaps of definiteness. Marking of (in)definiteness in Swiss German, Norwegian, Faroese and Elfdalian – Elisabeth Scherr: Attraction of the void. The lack of aspect in German and its effect on language change – Oliver Schallert: Morphological gaps in verbal diminutive formation: Some observations on Alemannic – Julia Bacskai-Atkari: Syntactic paradigms, markedness and similative markers in comparative and relative clauses – Fenna Bergsma: A typology of case competition in headless relatives – Ewa Trutkowski: How sex and gender shape agreement in German relative clauses – Tabea Reiner: What counts as a gap? The case of typological hierarchies

Download or read book Extra grammatical Morphology in English written by Elisa Mattiello and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-01-30 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extra-grammatical morphology is a hitherto neglected area of research, highly marginalised because of its irregularity and unpredictability. Yet many neologisms in English are formed by means of extra-grammatical mechanisms, such as abbreviation, blending and reduplication, which therefore deserve both greater attention and more systematic study. This book analyses such phenomena.

Download or read book Normativity in Language and Linguistics written by Aleksi Mäkilähde and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-12-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume sets out to discuss the role of norms and normativity in both language and linguistics from a multiplicity of perspectives. These concepts are centrally important to the philosophy and methodology of linguistics, and their role and nature need to be investigated in detail. The chapters address a range of issues from general questions about ontology, epistemology and methodology to aspects of particular subfields (such as semantics and historical linguistics) or phenomena (such as construal and code-switching). The volume aims to further our understanding of language and linguistics as well as to encourage further discussion on the metatheory of linguistics. Due to the fundamental nature of the issues under discussion, this volume will be of interest to all linguists regardless of their background or fields of expertise and to philosophers concerned with language or other normative domains.

Download or read book Fuzzy Grammar written by Bas Aarts and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-03-26 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together classic and recent papers in the philosophical and linguistic analysis of fuzzy grammar, gradience in meaning, word classes, and syntax. Issues such as how many grains make a heap, when a puddle becomes a pond, and so forth, have occupied thinkers since Aristotle and over the last two decades been the subject of increasing interest among linguists as well as in fields such as artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. The work is designed to be of use to students in all these fields. It has a substantial introduction, is divided into thematic parts, contains annotated sections of further reading, and is fully indexed.

Download or read book Grammar Discourse Context written by Kristin Bech and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-20 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collected volume brings together a wide array of international linguists working on diachronic language change with a specific focus on the history of English, who work within usage-based frameworks and investigate processes of grammatical change in context. Although usage-based linguistics emphasizes the centrality of the discourse context for language usage and cognition, this insight has not been fully integrated into the investigation of processes of grammatical variation and change. The structuralist heritage as well as corpus linguistic methodologies have favoured de-contextualized analytical perspectives on contemporary and historical language data and on the mechanisms and processes guiding grammatical variation and change. From a range of different perspectives, the contributions to this volume take up the challenge of contextualization in the investigation of grammatical variation and change in different stages of English language history and discuss central theoretical notions such as gradable grammaticality, motivation in hypervariation, and hypercharacterization. The book will be relevant to students and linguists working in the field of diachronic and variational linguistics and English language history.

Download or read book The Origins of Grammar written by James R. Hurford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second in James Hurford's acclaimed two-volume exploration of the biological evolution of language explores the evolutionary and cultural preconditions and consequences of humanity's great leap into language.

Download or read book Neue Ans tze Zu Linguistischer Evidenz written by András Kertész and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2008 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evaluation of linguistic theories depends heavily on what kind of data can be regarded as evidence either for or against their hypotheses. The question of what data types linguistic theories use, and which of these types are acknowledged as evidence, is accordingly one of the most fundamental and most widely discussed problems of contemporary linguistics. The aim of this volume is to shed fresh light on this problem by presenting the first findings of a research project. Part I consists of state-of-the-art studies critically analysing current views on the topic. Part II includes case studies which highlight how the conclusions of the state-of-the-art studies may motivate novel and sophisticated accounts of the particular linguistic issues investigated. Die Bewertung linguistischer Theorien hängt in einem bedeutenden Maße davon ab, welche Datentypen als Evidenz für oder gegen ihre Hypothesen herangezogen werden. Die Frage, welche Datentypen linguistische Theorien verwenden und welche von diesen als Evidenz gelten, ist dementsprechend eines der schwerwiegendsten und meistdiskutierten Grundlagenprobleme der gegenwärtigen Linguistik. Dieser Band setzt sich zum Ziel, durch die Darstellung der ersten Resultate eines Forschungsprojekts neues Licht auf dieses Problem zu werfen. Teil I besteht aus Forschungsüberblicken, die sich mit jüngsten Ansichten kritisch auseinandersetzen. Teil II enthält Fallstudien, die illustrieren sollen, auf welche Weise die Ergebnisse der Forschungsüberblicke neuartige und ausgefeilte Analysen der jeweiligen linguistischen Erscheinungen motivieren.

Download or read book Inconsistency in Linguistic Theorising written by András Kertész and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-07 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely believed that inconsistency is one of the greatest sins a scholar can commit. This issue is especially relevant in linguistics due to the rich diversity of data types, exceptions to the rules, counterexamples to the hypotheses, and background assumptions which constantly come into conflict with methodological principles. Bringing together ideas from linguistics and philosophy of science, this groundbreaking book seeks to answer the following questions: which kinds of inconsistency arise in linguistic theorising? Under which conditions can inconsistencies be tolerated? And how can inconsistencies be resolved? It is the first study to develop a novel metatheoretical framework that accounts for the emergence and the resolution of inconsistency in linguistic theorising, and to reveal the strategies of inconsistency resolution in theoretical linguistics. Supported by detailed case studies, the findings of this metatheoretical analysis can be applied to improve the effectiveness of the working linguist's problem-solving activity.

Download or read book The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics written by Ryan M. Nefdt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-02 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the remit of theoretical linguistics? How are human languages different from animal calls or artificial languages? What philosophical insights about language can be gleaned from phonology, pragmatics, probabilistic linguistics, and deep learning? This book addresses the current philosophical issues at the heart of theoretical linguistics, which are widely debated not only by linguists, but also philosophers, psychologists, and computer scientists. It delves into hitherto uncharted territory, putting philosophy in direct conversation with phonology, sign language studies, supersemantics, computational linguistics, and language evolution. A range of theoretical positions are covered, from optimality theory and autosegmental phonology to generative syntax, dynamic semantics, and natural language processing with deep learning techniques. By both unwinding the complexities of natural language and delving into the nature of the science that studies it, this book ultimately improves our tools of discovery aimed at one of the most essential features of our humanity, our language.

Download or read book English Grammar written by Liliane Haegeman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1998-04-08 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is intended primarily for undergraduate students of English, though it will also be useful for undergraduates in linguistics focusing on English. It shows how a restricted set of principles can account for a wide range of the phenomena of English syntax. While the main focus of the book is empirical, it introduces important theoretical concepts: theta theory, X-bar theory, case theory, locality, binding theory, economy, full interpretation, functional projections. In doing so it prepares the student for more advanced theoretical work. The authors integrate many recent insights into the nature of syntactic structure into their discussion. They present information in a gradual way: hypotheses developed in early chapters are reviewed and modified in subsequent ones. The authors also pay attention to the relation between structure and interpretation and to language variation, and particularly to register variation. They include a wide range of diverse exercises, giving the student an opportunity for creative individual work on English.