What are the guiding principles in the evolution of language: Paradigmatics or syntagmatics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-142
Author(s):  
Werner Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Critical Mass ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Added Value ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The One

Abstract The main designs of modern theories of syntax assume a process of syntagmatic organization. However, research on first language acquisition leaves no doubt that the structured combination of single lexical items cannot begin until a critical mass of lexical items has been acquired such that the lexicon is structured hierarchically on the basis of hierarchical feature bundling. Independent of a decision between the main views about the design of a proto language (the grammarless “Holophrastic view”, Arbib & Bickerton 2010: 1, Bickerton 2014) or the ‘Compositional View’ as taken by Rizzi (2010), Carstairs-McCarthy (2010), and others. What seems to be the minimal offset for language is the existence of grammatical categories like verb and noun, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, functional categories as needed for the expression of all kinds of agreement between the distinct categories to form recursively structured complexes. I follow the different stages of complexification asking whether there is paradigmatic next to syntagmatic organization and what its added value is for the evolution of grammar. The conclusion will be that paradigmatics is an indismissible part of the organization of early language in that it structures the lexicon so as to make primary and secondary syntactic merge possible and, consequently, is also a prerequisite for movement. The guiding idea of this position is Roman Jakobson’s insistence on the twofold organization of language and grammar. The two organizational designs, syntagmatics and paradigmatics, are manifest within each module: in the phonetic, the morphological, the syntactic, the semantic, and the pragmatic form (consider Jakobson’s 1971a, b reiterated argument).

scholarly journals First and second language acquisition: Towards a reconcillation

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Nicole Nau
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract For the past two decades, research on first language acquisition on the one side, and on second language acquisition and learning on the other have largely developed separately, probably as a reaction to the failure of earlier attempts to use the same methods or simply transfer insights gained in one of the fields to the other. T his article argues that a reconciliation may be fruitful, provided that different aspects which have often got blurred in the discussion are considered separately. These aspects include the assessment of multilingualism and monolingualism, the age factor and the definition of “first” and “second” language, the understanding of linguistic competence and of completeness of acquisition, different forms of acquisition and learning, and uniformity vs. individual differences in the process of language acquisition. By challenging some widely held views on characteristics of first language acquisition and its differences to second language learning, more fine-grained research questions are revealed, some of which have been addressed in recent studies on language acquisition and multilingualism

Informed Consent: Ezenwa–Ohaeto between Past and Future Uses of Pidgin

Matatu ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantal Zabus
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
First Language ◽  
West African ◽  
The Other ◽  
Wole Soyinka ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The One

The essay shows how Ezenwa–Ohaeto's poetry in pidgin, particularly in his collection (1988), emblematizes a linguistic interface between, on the one hand, the pseudo-pidgin of Onitsha Market pamphleteers of the 1950s and 1960s (including in its gendered guise as in Cyprian Ekwensi) and, on the other, its quasicreolized form in contemporary news and television and radio dramas as well as a potential first language. While locating Nigerian Pidgin or EnPi in the wider context of the emergence of pidgins on the West African Coast, the essay also draws on examples from Joyce Cary, Frank Aig–Imoukhuede, Ogali A. Ogali, Ola Rotimi, Wole Soyinka, and Tunde Fatunde among others. It is not by default but out of choice and with their 'informed consent' that EnPi writers such as Ezenwa–Ohaeto contributed to the unfinished plot of the pidgin–creole continuum.

The Moderating Effect of Motivation to Comply and Perceived Critical Mass in Smartphones' Adoption

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdou Illia ◽  
Assion Lawson-Body ◽  
Simon Lee ◽  
Gurkan I Akalin
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Perceived Usefulness ◽  
The Other ◽  
Perceived Ease Of Use ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The testing of the technology acceptance model over the years has shown that its explanatory power is about 50%; which led researchers to revisit the model in an attempt to gain a better understanding of technology adoption. Some of the studies found social influence to be a key factor, but others have yielded mixed results. This article questions the assumption made in some previous studies that most people would comply with social influence. Using data collected from 210 smartphone users, we investigated the moderating effect of motivation to comply on the relationship between social influence, on the one hand, and perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use on the other hand. Also, based on the theory of critical mass, we investigated the moderating effect of the perceived critical mass on the relationship between perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on the one hand, and actual usage on the other hand. The results showed a significant moderating effect of both motivation to comply and perceived critical mass. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

What is a verb?

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Eva Smolka ◽  
Dorit Ravid
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
The One ◽  
Current Special Issue ◽  
Structure And Functions

Abstract Verbs constitute one of the basic building blocks of a clause, setting the structure of arguments and expressing the relationships among nouns in various thematic roles. In general terms, verbs are lexical items expressing verb-oriented notions such as activities, processes, and states. In morphology-rich languages, the syntactic and lexical roles of verbs are mediated by typologically-oriented morphological means. The current Special Issue contrasts the structure and functions of verbs in languages from two morphologically rich, yet typologically different families. The articles in the Special Issue present spoken and written aspects of verbs in usage and development in German (a Germanic language) on the one hand, in Hebrew, Neo-Aramaic, and Arabic (Semitic languages), on the other. From a theoretical linguistic perspective, we ask how the different typological features of these languages affect the function of verbs in sentences, and from a psycholinguistic perspective, we ask how typological differences affect the processing of verbs in the mature minds of adults and in the developing minds of children.

Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface between syntax and pragmatics

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aafke Hulk ◽  
Natascha Müller
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
External Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Surface Level ◽  
Language Dominance ◽  
Starting Point

This paper has as its starting point the assumption that in acquiring two languages from birth, bilingual children separate their grammars from very early on. This does not, however, exclude cross-linguistic influence – the possible influence of one language on the other. The main focus of the paper is on the acquisition of syntax in a generative framework. We argue that cross-linguistic influence can occur if (1) an interface level between two modules of grammar is involved, and (2) the two languages overlap at the surface level. We show that both conditions hold for object drop, but not for root infinitives. Root infinitives satisfy the first condition: they involve the interface between syntax and pragmatics. However, they do not satisfy the second condition. Therefore, we expect cross-linguistic influence to occur only in the domain of object drop and not in the domain of root infinitives. Comparing the development of the two phenomena in a bilingual Dutch–French and a German–Italian child to the development in monolingual children, we show that this prediction is borne out by our data. Moreover, this confirms the hypothesis that cross-linguistic influence is due to language internal factors and not to language external factors such as language dominance: the periods during which we observe influence in the domain of object drop and non-influence in the domain of root infinitives are identical.

Comprehension matters: a commentary on ‘A multiple process solution to the logical problem of language acquisition’

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 936-940 ◽  
Author(s):  
LETITIA R. NAIGLES
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Logical Problem ◽  
Process Solution ◽  
Multiple Process ◽  
The One ◽  
Probabilistic Nature

MacWhinney (2004) has provided a clear and welcome synthesis of many strands of the recent research addressing the logical problem of first language acquisition from a non-nativist or non-generative grammar framework. The strand that I will comment on is the one MacWhinney calls the ‘pivot’ of his proposal, namely, that acquiring a grammar is primarily a function of learning ITEM-BASEDPATTERNS (e.g. pp. 23–29, 41, passim). These item-based patterns serve a number of dominant roles within MacWhinney's proposal, including enforcing children's conservatism (thereby reducing greatly their overgeneralizations and need to recover from the same), supporting the probabilistic nature of grammar, and enabling the competition that promotes recovery from the overgeneralizations that do occur. My concern here is primarily with the first role, that of enforcing children's conservatism, and especially with the exclusive use of language PRODUCTION as the demonstrated support of this conservatism.

Subject realization in the syntactic development of a bilingual child

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Juan-Garau ◽  
Carmen Pérez-Vidal
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Syntactic Development

The present article reports on the findings of a case study of bilingual first language acquisition in Catalan and English. It first presents a general overview of a child's syntactic development from the age of 1;3 to 4;2 and then focuses on the question of subject realization in the two contrasting languages he is acquiring simultaneously. In this case, Catalan is a null subject language in opposition to the overt subject properties of English. Such data allow us to provide evidence on a key issue in bilingual acquisition research: the question of language separation in the early stages of acquisition. The data available suggest the absence of any major influence of one language on the other. In other words, our subject seems to be acquiring word order patterns which are different in the two adult systems in a language-dependent manner from the beginning of his production in both languages.

Het Bepalen Van De Moedertaalbeheersing Van Brugklassen In Het Kader Van Een Onderzoek Naar De Effekten Van Luistervaardigheidstraining

1986 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 70-79
Author(s):  
Martina van de Graaf ◽  
Ed Volkerts
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Year ◽  
Onderzoek Naar ◽  
The One

The achievement of a foreign language in instructional education appears in the presence of an established first language. The purpose of the present study was to determine the level of first language development of Dutch schoolchildren in the first year of three hierarchical secondary schooltypes, M.A.V.O., M.A.V.O./ H.A.V.O., H.A.V.O./V.W.O. respectively. Two tests of a test bat-tery were used. The one assessed the vocabulary and the other the powers of abstraction in the first language. Extensive differences in performance between the different school types were found on both tests.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE GRONINGEN ASSEMBLY ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.Charlotte Koster and Frank Wijnen (Eds.). Groningen, The Netherlands: Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen, 1996. Pp. 389.

1997 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-520
Author(s):  
Robert Yates
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Lively Discussion ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Language And Cognition

This volume contains 34 papers presented at the Groningen Assembly on Language Acquisition in September 1995. According to the editors, the conference was designed to promote “a lively discussion about the merits and constraints of different approaches to language acquisition.” Not surprisingly, in a conference that explicitly mentions it is continuing in the tradition of GALA 1993, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, 23 of the papers in one way or the other deal with the innate properties of language and their status in language acquisition, whereas 7 papers have a connectionist perspective. Only 2 of the connectionist papers provide data from language learners. Two papers describe aspects of first language acquisition without an obvious theoretical allegiance. Only 1 paper considers how children make use of negative input provided in an experimental setting for learning about irregular verb forms. There is not a single paper on how interaction with caregivers influences language acquisition or how language is socially constructed.

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