Facing Plato's cave: viewing the shadows of grammatical competence: commentary on learnability and linguistic performance by Ken Drozd

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 484-488
Author(s):  
BARBARA LUST
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
Grammatical Competence ◽  
Behavioural Sciences

C&T deserve credit for their concern for attaining empirical evidence, in particular evidence from language acquisition, for linguistic theory. They also deserve credit for bringing to the attention of the linguistic community the fact that variations in methodology do indeed produce variations in child behaviours, a fact well appreciated in behavioural sciences such as psychology, but often not fully appreciated outside of it; in particular, not in linguistics, a field which is fundamentally and rightfully ambivalent about its standing as a behavioural science, considering its relation to mathematics and formal theory as well as to sociolinguistics (Lust, Flynn, Foley & Chien, 1999). C&T also deserve credit for their appreciation of the importance of what children do NOT do (constraints) in language, and attempts to empirically verify such.

scholarly journals What is grammar like? A usage-based constructionist perspective

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vsevolod Kapatsinski
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Infinite Number ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Probability Matching ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
Multimodel Inference ◽  
Predictive Relationships ◽  
Phonological Units

This paper is intended to elucidate some implications of usage-based linguistic theory for statistical and computational models of language acquisition, focusing on morphology and morphophonology. I discuss the need for grammar (a.k.a. abstraction), the contents of individual grammars (a potentially infinite number of constructions, paradigmatic mappings and predictive relationships between phonological units), the computational characteristics of constructions (complex non-crossover interactions among partially redundant features), resolution of competition among constructions (probability matching), and the need for multimodel inference in modeling internal grammars underlying the linguistic performance of a community.

Grammaticalization of Modality in Language Acquisition

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Giacalone Ramat
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Modal Verbs

The present study aims to provide empirical evidence for a number of claims concerning the grammaticalization of deontic and epistemic modality. It is based on results from a research project on the acquisition of Italian as a second language conventionally called the "Pavia Project". The organization is as follows: first, the relevance of Second Language Acquisition for linguistic theory and — conversely — the relevance of linguistic theory for interpreting results of empirical studies are advocated. Then a theoretical framework is established and the polysemy of modal verbs is presented as an essential issue to the present study. In Section 5 information on research design and subjects is provided and results are discussed. The focus is on the order of emergence of modal distinctions in learner varieties and the types of encoding of modal notions preferred by learners. It will be shown that deontic modality is straightforwardly expressed through modal verbs, while epistemic modality is expressed through a number of different means. Conclusions are drawn, and implications for the study of modality and for principles governing learner languages are assessed.

Acquiring “Knowledge”—An Alternative Model

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
First Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Method Of Cases ◽  
Striking Fact

The chapter argues that empirical studies of first-language acquisition lend support to the Wittgensteinian-Merleau-Pontian conception of language as against the prevailing conception that underwrites the method of cases in either its armchair or experimental version. It offers a non-representationalist model, inspired by the work of Michael Tomasello, for the acquisition of “knowledge,” with the aim of showing that we could fully account for the acquisition of this and other philosophically troublesome words without positing independently existing “items” to which these words refer. The chapter also aims at bringing out and underscoring the striking fact that, whereas many in contemporary analytic philosophy regard and present themselves as open and attentive to empirical science, they have often relied on a conception of language that has been supported by no empirical evidence.

scholarly journals Studying individual differences in the social environment to better understand language learning and processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiri Lev-Ari
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
The Social

AbstractPeople learn language from their social environment. Therefore, individual differences in the input that their social environment provides could influence their linguistic performance. Nevertheless, investigation of the role of individual differences in input on performance has been mostly restricted to first and second language acquisition. In this paper I argue that individual differences in input can influence linguistic performance even in adult native speakers. Specifically, differences in input can affect performance by influencing people’s knowledgebase, by modulating their processing manner, and by shaping expectations. Therefore, studying the role that individual differences in input play can improve our understanding of how language is learned, processed and represented.

Linguistic Theory in Second Language Acquisition

Language ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 202
Author(s):  
Sara Thomas Rosen ◽  
Suzanne Flynn ◽  
Wayne O'Neil
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Linguistic Theory

On the naturalness of stop consonant voicing

1986 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Westbury ◽  
Patricia A. Keating
Keyword(s):  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Articulatory Features ◽  
Consonant Voicing

A long recognized problem for linguistic theory has been to explain why certain sounds, sound oppositions, and sound sequences are statistically preferred over others among languages of the world. The formal theory of markedness, developed by Trubetzkoy and Jakobson in the early 1930's, and extended by Chomsky and Halle (1968), represents an attempt to deal with this problem. It is at least implicit in that theory that sounds are rare when (and because) they are marked, and common when (and because) they are not. Whether sounds are marked or unmarked depends – in the latter version of the theory, particularly – upon the ‘intrinsic content’ of acoustic and articulatory features which define them. There was, however, no substantive attempt among early proponents of the theory to show what it was about the content of particular features and feature combinations that caused them to be marked, and others not.

scholarly journals Retrieving Linguistic Information from a Corpus on the Example of Negation in Chinese

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-115
Author(s):  
Ľuboš GAJDOŠ
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Information ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Authentic Language ◽  
Practical Implications

The paper deals with corpus analysis of negation in Chinese, namely the negatives bù 不 and méi/ méiyǒu没/没有. The adverbs BU and MEI are two of the most frequent negatives in Chinese. The aim of this study is to present statistical data together with linguistics analysis. The results provide empirical evidence of discrepancy between “authentic” language data versus linguistic prescription with practical implications for second-language acquisition. The findings inter alia suggest a new approach to verb categorisation.  

Language acquisition in the absence of experience

1991 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Crain
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Syntactic Knowledge ◽  
Early Emergence ◽  
Fundamental Goal ◽  
Decisive Evidence

AbstractA fundamental goal of linguistic theory is to explain how natural languages are acquired. This paper describes some recent findings on how learners acquire syntactic knowledge for which there is little, if any, decisive evidence from the environment. The first section presents several general observations about language acquisition that linguistic theory has tried to explain and discusses the thesis that certain linguistic properties are innate because they appear universally and in the absence of corresponding experience. A third diagnostic for innateness, early emergence, is the focus of the second section of the paper, in which linguistic theory is tested against recent experimental evidence on children's acquisition of syntax.

Grammaticalization Processes in the Area of Temporal and Modal Relations

1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Giacalone Ramat
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
General Linguistic ◽  
The University

This study investigates some instances of linguistic development in the acquisition of a second language that might be subsumed under the issue of grammaticalization. First, the notion of grammaticalization is discussed with reference to the current linguistic debate and its applicability to the domain of language acquisition is evaluated. Then, some cases are examined drawing on data on the acquisition of Italian collected during several years at the University of Pavia. With respect to temporality and modality, learners are shown to move from lexical means or context-dependent strategies to a gradual acquisition of the morphological devices required by the target language. The results of the analyses are discussed in terms of their implications for both general linguistic theory and language acquisition research.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document