Download or read book Linguistic Nativism and the Poverty of the Stimulus written by Alexander Clark and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique contribution to the ongoing discussion of language acquisition considers the Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus in language learning in the context of the wider debate over cognitive, computational, and linguistic issues. Critically examines the Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus - the theory that the linguistic input which children receive is insufficient to explain the rich and rapid development of their knowledge of their first language(s) through general learning mechanisms Focuses on formal learnability properties of the class of natural languages, considered from the perspective of several learning theoretic models The only current book length study of arguments for the poverty of the stimulus which focuses on the computational learning theoretic aspects of the problem

Download or read book Linguistic Nativism and the Poverty of the Stimulus written by Alexander Simon Clark and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique contribution to the ongoing discussion of language acquisition considers the Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus in language learning in the context of the wider debate over cognitive, computational, and linguistic issues. Critically examines the Argument from the Poverty of the Stimulus - the theory that the linguistic input which children receive is insufficient to explain the rich and rapid development of their knowledge of their first language(s) through general learning mechanisms Focuses on formal learnability properties of the class of natural languages, considered from the perspective of several learning theoretic models The only current book length study of arguments for the poverty of the stimulus which focuses on the computational learning theoretic aspects of the problem

Download or read book What s Within written by Fiona Cowie and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003-01-30 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work reconsiders the influential nativist position towards the mind. It claims that the view that certain skills are hardwired into the brain is mistaken, arguing that nativism is an unstable amalgam of two quite different - and probably inconsistent - theses.

Download or read book Innate Ideas written by Stephen P. Stich and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1975 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Handbook of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing written by Alexander Clark and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-24 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive reference work provides an overview of the concepts, methodologies, and applications in computational linguistics and natural language processing (NLP). Features contributions by the top researchers in the field, reflecting the work that is driving the discipline forward Includes an introduction to the major theoretical issues in these fields, as well as the central engineering applications that the work has produced Presents the major developments in an accessible way, explaining the close connection between scientific understanding of the computational properties of natural language and the creation of effective language technologies Serves as an invaluable state-of-the-art reference source for computational linguists and software engineers developing NLP applications in industrial research and development labs of software companies

Download or read book The Language Instinct Debate written by Geoffrey Sampson and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it was first published in 1997, Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve was described as the definitive response to Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct and Noam Chomsky's nativism. In this revised and expanded new edition, Sampson revisits his original arguments in the light of fresh evidence that has emerged since the original publication. Since Chomsky revolutionized the study of language in the 1960s, it has increasingly come to be accepted that language and other knowledge structures are hard-wired in our genes. According to this view, human beings are born with a rich structure of cognition already in place. But people do not realize how thin the evidence for that idea is.The 'Language Instinct' Debate examines the various arguments for instinctive knowledge, and finds that each one rests on false premisses or embodies logical fallacies. The structures of language are shown to be purely cultural creations. With a new chapter entitled 'How People Really Speak' which uses corpus data to analyse how language is used in spontaneous English conversation, responses to critics, extensive revisions throughout, and a new preface by Paul Postal of New York University, this new edition will be an essential purchase for students, academics, and general readers interested in the debate about the 'language instinct'.

Download or read book How Children Learn the Meanings of Words written by Paul Bloom and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-01-25 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do children learn that the word "dog" refers not to all four-legged animals, and not just to Ralph, but to all members of a particular species? How do they learn the meanings of verbs like "think," adjectives like "good," and words for abstract entities such as "mortgage" and "story"? The acquisition of word meaning is one of the fundamental issues in the study of mind. According to Paul Bloom, children learn words through sophisticated cognitive abilities that exist for other purposes. These include the ability to infer others' intentions, the ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic structure, and certain general learning and memory abilities. Although other researchers have associated word learning with some of these capacities, Bloom is the first to show how a complete explanation requires all of them. The acquisition of even simple nouns requires rich conceptual, social, and linguistic capacities interacting in complex ways. This book requires no background in psychology or linguistics and is written in a clear, engaging style. Topics include the effects of language on spatial reasoning, the origin of essentialist beliefs, and the young child's understanding of representational art. The book should appeal to general readers interested in language and cognition as well as to researchers in the field.

Download or read book Constructing a Language written by Michael TOMASELLO and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking book, Tomasello presents a comprehensive usage-based theory of language acquisition. Drawing together a vast body of empirical research in cognitive science, linguistics, and developmental psychology, Tomasello demonstrates that we don't need a self-contained "language instinct" to explain how children learn language. Their linguistic ability is interwoven with other cognitive abilities.

Download or read book A Companion to Chomsky written by Nicholas Allott and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Child Language Acquisition written by Ben Ambridge and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-17 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is children's language acquisition based on innate linguistic structures or built from cognitive and communicative skills? This book summarises the major theoretical debates in all of the core domains of child language acquisition research (phonology, word-learning, inflectional morphology, syntax and binding) and includes a complete introduction to the two major contrasting theoretical approaches: generativist and constructivist. For each debate, the predictions of the competing accounts are closely and even-handedly evaluated against the empirical data. The result is an evidence-based review of the central issues in language acquisition research that will constitute a valuable resource for students, teachers, course-builders and researchers alike.

Download or read book Foundations of Intensional Semantics written by Chris Fox and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a systematic study of three foundational issues in the semantics of natural language that have been relatively neglected in the past few decades. focuses on the formal characterization of intensions, the nature of an adequate type system for natural language semantics, and the formal power of the semantic representation language proposes a theory that offers a promising framework for developing a computational semantic system sufficiently expressive to capture the properties of natural language meaning while remaining computationally tractable written by two leading researchers and of interest to students and researchers in formal semantics, computational linguistics, logic, artificial intelligence, and the philosophy of language

Download or read book The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory written by Shalom Lappin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory presents a comprehensive introduction to cutting-edge research in contemporary theoretical and computational semantics. Features completely new content from the first edition of The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory Features contributions by leading semanticists, who introduce core areas of contemporary semantic research, while discussing current research Suitable for graduate students for courses in semantic theory and for advanced researchers as an introduction to current theoretical work

Download or read book Empiricism and Language Learnability written by Nick Chater and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores one of the central theoretical problems in linguistics: learnability. Written by four researchers in linguistics, psychology, computer science, and cognitive science, it sheds light on the problems of learnability and language, and their implications for key theoretical linguistics and the study of language acquisition.

Download or read book Grammatical Inference written by Colin de la Higuera and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problem of inducing, learning or inferring grammars has been studied for decades, but only in recent years has grammatical inference emerged as an independent field with connections to many scientific disciplines, including bio-informatics, computational linguistics and pattern recognition. This book meets the need for a comprehensive and unified summary of the basic techniques and results, suitable for researchers working in these various areas. In Part I, the objects of use for grammatical inference are studied in detail: strings and their topology, automata and grammars, whether probabilistic or not. Part II carefully explores the main questions in the field: What does learning mean? How can we associate complexity theory with learning? In Part III the author describes a number of techniques and algorithms that allow us to learn from text, from an informant, or through interaction with the environment. These concern automata, grammars, rewriting systems, pattern languages or transducers.

Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition written by Julia Herschensohn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is language and how can we investigate its acquisition by children or adults? What perspectives exist from which to view acquisition? What internal constraints and external factors shape acquisition? What are the properties of interlanguage systems? This comprehensive 31-chapter handbook is an authoritative survey of second language acquisition (SLA). Its multi-perspective synopsis on recent developments in SLA research provides significant contributions by established experts and widely recognized younger talent. It covers cutting edge and emerging areas of enquiry not treated elsewhere in a single handbook, including third language acquisition, electronic communication, incomplete first language acquisition, alphabetic literacy and SLA, affect and the brain, discourse and identity. Written to be accessible to newcomers as well as experienced scholars of SLA, the Handbook is organised into six thematic sections, each with an editor-written introduction.

Download or read book Child Language written by Matthew Saxton and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2010-02-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electronic Inspection Copy available for instructors here Presented with the latest thinking and research on how children acquire their first language, the reader is taken from a standing start to the point where they can engage with key debates and current research in the field of child language. No background knowledge of linguistic theory is assumed and all specialist terms are introduced in clear, non-technical language. A theme running through the book is the nature-nurture debate, rekindled in the modern era by Noam Chomsky, with his belief that the child is born with a rich knowledge of language. This book is rare in its balanced presentation of evidence from both sides of the nature-nurture divide. The reader is encouraged to adopt a critical stance throughout and weigh up the evidence for themselves. Key features for the student include: boxes and exercises to foster an understanding of key concepts in language and linguistics; a glossary of key terms; suggestions for further reading; a list of useful websites at the end of each chapter; discussion points for use in class; and separate author and subject indexes.

Download or read book Evaluating Cartesian Linguistics written by Christina Behme and published by Potsdam Linguistic Investigations / Potsdamer Linguistische Untersuchungen / Recherches Linguistiques à Potsdam. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book evaluates Noam Chomsky's contributions to linguistics and focuses on the historic justification for Cartesian Linguistics, the evolution of Chomsky's theorizing, empirical language acquisition work, and computational modeling of language learning. It is shown that calling Chomsky's linguistic Cartesian cannot be historically justified.