Download or read book Linguistic Minimalism written by Cedric Boeckx and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-08-24 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Minimalist Program for linguistic theory is Noam Chomsky's boldest and most radical version of his naturalistic approach to language. Cedric Boeckx examines its foundations, explains its underlying philosophy, exemplifies its methods, and considers the significance of its empirical results.

Download or read book Linguistic Minimalism Origins Concepts Methods and Aims written by Cedric Boeckx and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2006-08-24 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a self-contained introduction to the Minimalist Program for linguistic theory, the boldest and most radical version of Noam Chomsky's naturalistic approach to language. Cedric Boeckx examines its foundations, explains its underlying philosophy, exemplifies its methods, and considers the significance of its empirical results. He explores the roots and antecedents of the Program and shows how its methodologies parallel those of sciences such as physics and biology. He disentangles and clarifies current debates and issues around the nature of minimalist research in linguistics and shows how the aims and ambitions of the Minimalist Program lie at the centre of the enterprise to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and is manifested in the world's languages. The book contains a glossary of key concepts, each one illustrated with relevant examples drawn from a variety of languages.

Download or read book The Minimalist Program 20th Anniversary Edition written by Noam Chomsky and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-12-19 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic work that situates linguistic theory in the broader cognitive sciences, formulating and developing the minimalist program. In his foundational book, The Minimalist Program, published in 1995, Noam Chomsky offered a significant contribution to the generative tradition in linguistics. This twentieth-anniversary edition reissues this classic work with a new preface by the author. In four essays, Chomsky attempts to situate linguistic theory in the broader cognitive sciences, with the essays formulating and progressively developing the minimalist approach to linguistic theory. Building on the theory of principles and parameters and, in particular, on principles of economy of derivation and representation, the minimalist framework takes Universal Grammar as providing a unique computational system, with derivations driven by morphological properties, to which the syntactic variation of languages is also restricted. Within this theoretical framework, linguistic expressions are generated by optimally efficient derivations that must satisfy the conditions that hold on interface levels, the only levels of linguistic representation. The interface levels provide instructions to two types of performance systems, articulatory-perceptual and conceptual-intentional. All syntactic conditions, then, express properties of these interface levels, reflecting the interpretive requirements of language and keeping to very restricted conceptual resources. In the preface to this edition, Chomsky emphasizes that the minimalist approach developed in the book and in subsequent work “is a program, not a theory.” With this book, Chomsky built on pursuits from the earliest days of generative grammar to formulate a new research program that had far-reaching implications for the field.

Download or read book Language Faculty Science written by Hajime Hoji and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-26 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how we can aspire to accumulate knowledge about the language faculty in line with Feynman's 'The test of all knowledge is experiment'. The two pillars of the proposed methodology for language faculty science are the internalist approach advocated by Chomsky and what Feynman calls the 'Guess-Compute-Compare' method. Taking the internalist approach, the book is concerned with the I-language of an individual speaker. Adopting the Guess-Compute-Compare method, it aims at deducing definite predictions and comparing them with experimental results. It offers a conceptual articulation of how we deduce definite predictions about the judgments of an individual speaker on the basis of universal and language-particular hypotheses and how we obtain experimental results precisely in accordance with such predictions. In pursuit of rigorous testability and reproducibility, the experimental demonstration in the book is supplemented by an accompanying website which provides the details of all the experiments discussed in the book.

Download or read book The SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics written by James Mattingly and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2022-10-28 with total page 1801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Project Description: Theories are part and parcel of every human activity that involves knowing about the world and our place in it. In all areas of inquiry from the most commonplace to the most scholarly and esoteric, theorizing plays a fundamental role. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics focuses on the ways that various STEM disciplines theorize about their subject matter. How is thinking about the subject organized? What methods are used in moving a novice in given field into the position of a competent student of that subject? Within the pages of this landmark work, readers will learn about the complex decisions that are made when framing a theory, what goes into constructing a powerful theory, why some theories change or fail, how STEM theories reflect socio-historical moments in time and how – at their best – they form the foundations for exploring and unlocking the mysteries of the world around us. Featuring more than 200 authoritative articles written by experts in their respective fields, the encyclopedia includes a Reader’s Guide that organizes entries by broad themes; lists of Further Readings and cross-references that conclude each article; and a Resource Guide listing classic books in the field, leading journals, associations, and key websites.

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 Philosophy of Linguistics written by Ruth M. Kempson and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-04-20 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Philosophy of linguistics' investigates the foundational concepts and methods of linguistics, the scientific study of human language. It brings together philosophers, scientists and historians to map out both the basic assumptions set during the second half of the last century and the unfolding shifts in perspective in which more functionalist perspectives are explored.

Download or read book Why Language written by Jacques Moeschler and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-08-23 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is, at present, no book introducing the general issue of why language is specific to human beings, how it works, why language is not communication and communication is not language, why languages vary and how they evolved. Based on the most recent works in linguistics and pragmatics, Why Language? addresses many questions that everyone has about language. Starting from false claims about language and languages, showing that language is not communication and communication is not language, the first part (Language and Communication) ends by proposing a difference between linguistic rules and communicative principles. The second part (Language, Society, Discourse) includes domains of language and language uses which are generally taken as extrinsic to language, such as language variety, discourse and non-ordinary (literary) usages. Special attention is given to figures of discourse (metaphor, metonymy, irony) and literary usages such as narration and free indirect style. The reader, either specialist or amateur in language science, will find a first and unique synthesis about what we know today about language and what we have yet to learn, sketching what could be the future of linguistics in the next decades.

Download or read book The Historiography of Generative Linguistics written by András Kertész and published by Narr Francke Attempto Verlag. This book was released on 2017-08-14 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the past decades have seen a great diversity of approaches to the history of generative linguistics, there has been no systematic analysis of the state of the art. The aim of the book is to fill this gap. Part I provides an unbiased, balanced and impartial overview of numerous approaches to the history of generative linguistics. In addition, it evaluates the approaches thus discussed against a set of evaluation criteria. Part II demonstrates in a case study the workability of a model of plausible argumentation that goes beyond the limits of current historiographical approaches. Due to the comprehensive analysis of the state of the art, the book may be useful for graduate and undergraduate students. However, since it is also intended to enrich the historiography of linguistics in a novel way, the book may also attract the attention of both linguists interested in the history of science, and historians of science interested in linguistics.

Download or read book Formalism and Functionalism in Linguistics written by Margaret Thomas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a concise introduction to the lively ongoing debate between formalist and functionalist approaches to the study of language. The book grounds its comparisons between the two in both historical and contemporary contexts where, broadly speaking, formalists’ focus on structural relationships and idealized linguistic data contrasts with functionalists’ commitment to analyzing real language used as a communicative tool. The book highlights key sub-varieties, proponents, and critiques of each respective approach. It concludes by comparing formalist versus functionalist contributions in three domains of linguistic research: in the analysis of specific grammatical constructions; in the study of language acquisition; and in interdisciplinary research on the origins of language. Taken together, the volume opens insight into an important tension in linguistic theory, and provides students and scholars with a more nuanced understanding of the structure of the discipline of modern linguistics.

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 Information and Living Systems written by George Terzis and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The informational nature of biological organization, at levels from the genetic and epigenetic to the cognitive and linguistic. Information shapes biological organization in fundamental ways and at every organizational level. Because organisms use information—including DNA codes, gene expression, and chemical signaling—to construct, maintain, repair, and replicate themselves, it would seem only natural to use information-related ideas in our attempts to understand the general nature of living systems, the causality by which they operate, the difference between living and inanimate matter, and the emergence, in some biological species, of cognition, emotion, and language. And yet philosophers and scientists have been slow to do so. This volume fills that gap. Information and Living Systems offers a collection of original chapters in which scientists and philosophers discuss the informational nature of biological organization at levels ranging from the genetic to the cognitive and linguistic. The chapters examine not only familiar information-related ideas intrinsic to the biological sciences but also broader information-theoretic perspectives used to interpret their significance. The contributors represent a range of disciplines, including anthropology, biology, chemistry, cognitive science, information theory, philosophy, psychology, and systems theory, thus demonstrating the deeply interdisciplinary nature of the volume's bioinformational theme.

Download or read book The Philosophy of Cognitive Science written by Mark J. Cain and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades cognitive science has revolutionised our understanding of the workings of the human mind. Philosophy has made a major contribution to cognitive science and has itself been hugely influenced by its development. This dynamic book explores the philosophical significance of cognitive science and examines the central debates that have enlivened its history. In a wide-ranging and comprehensive account of the topic, philosopher M.J. Cain discusses the historical origins of cognitive science and its philosophical underpinnings; the nature and role of representations in cognition; the architecture of the mind and the modularity thesis; the nature of concepts; knowledge of language and its acquisition; perception; and the relationship between the brain and cognition. Cain draws upon an extensive knowledge of empirical developments and their philosophical interpretation. He argues that although the field has generated some challenging new views in recent years, many of the core ideas that initiated its birth are still to be taken seriously. Clearly written and incisively argued, The Philosophy of Cognitive Science will appeal to any student or researcher interested in the workings of the mind.

Download or read book The Primacy of Grammar written by Nirmalangshu Mukherji and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-01-13 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A proposal that the biolinguistic approach to human languages may have identified, beyond the study of language, a specific structure of the human mind. The contemporary discipline of biolinguistics is beginning to have the feel of scientific inquiry. Biolinguistics—especially the work of Noam Chomsky—suggests that the design of language may be “perfect”: language is an optimal solution to conditions of sound and meaning. What is the scope of this inquiry? Which aspect of nature does this science investigate? What is its relation to the rest of science? What notions of language and mind are under investigation? This book is a study of such foundational questions. Exploring Chomsky's claims, Nirmalangshu Mukherji argues that the significance of biolinguistic inquiry extends beyond the domain of language. Biolinguistics is primarily concerned with grammars that represent just the computational aspects of the mind/brain. This restriction to grammars, Mukherji argues, opens the possibility that the computational system of human language may be involved in each cognitive system that requires similar computational resources. Deploying analytical argumentation and empirical evidence, Mukherji suggests that a computational system of language consisting of very specific principles and operations is likely to be involved in each articulatory symbol system—such as music—that manifests unboundedness. In that sense, the biolinguistics approach may have identified, after thousands of years of inquiry, a specific structure of the human mind.

Download or read book The Linguistics Wars written by Randy Allen Harris and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-13 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated and expanded history of the field of linguistics from the 1950s to the current day The Linguistics Wars tells the tumultuous history of language and cognition studies from the rise of Noam Chomsky's Transformational Grammar to the current day. Focusing on the rupture that split the field between Chomsky's structuralist vision and George Lakoff's meaning-driven theories, Randy Allen Harris portrays the extraordinary personalities that were central to the dispute and its aftermath, alongside the data, technical developments, and social currents that fueled the unfolding and expanding schism. This new edition, updated to cover the more than twenty-five years since its original publication and to trace the impact of that schism on the shape of linguistics in the twenty-first century, is essential reading for all those interested in the study of language, the making of knowledge, and some of the most brilliant minds of our era.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis written by Bernd Heine and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 1305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook compares the main analytic frameworks and methods of contemporary linguistics. It offers a unique overview of linguistic theory, revealing the common concerns of competing approaches. By showing their current and potential applications it provides the means by which linguists and others can judge what are the most useful models for the task in hand. Distinguished scholars from all over the world explain the rationale and aims of over thirty explanatory approaches to the description, analysis, and understanding of language. Each chapter considers the main goals of the model; the relation it proposes from between lexicon, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and phonology; the way it defines the interactions between cognition and grammar; what it counts as evidence; and how it explains linguistic change and structure. The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis offers an indispensable guide for everyone researching any aspect of language including those in linguistics, comparative philology, cognitive science, developmental philology, cognitive science, developmental psychology, computational science, and artificial intelligence. This second edition has been updated to include seven new chapters looking at linguistic units in language acquisition, conversation analysis, neurolinguistics, experimental phonetics, phonological analysis, experimental semantics, and distributional typology.

Download or read book Reflections on Psycholinguistic Theories written by Nigel Duffield and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid, 'well-tempered' exploration of the foundations of psycholinguistics, combining theoretical ideas with lyrical examples to explain high-level ideas in a lively, accessible way.