scholarly journals Problems with variable properties in syntax

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-19
Author(s):  
David Lightfoot
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Variable Properties ◽  
Generative Capacity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Evaluation Metric

Like those birds born to chirp, humans are born to parse; children are predisposed to assign linguistic structures to the amorphous externalization of the thoughts that we encounter. This yields a view of variable properties quite different from one based on parameters defined at Universal Grammar (UG). Our approach to language acquisition makes two contributions to Minimalist thinking. First, in accordance with general Minimalist goals, we minimize the pre-wired components of internal languages, dispensing with three separate, central entities: parameters, an evaluation metric for rating the generative capacity of grammars, and any independent parsing mechanism. Instead, children use their internal grammar to parse the ambient external language they experience. UG is “open,” consistent with what children learn through parsing. Second, our understanding of language acquisition yields a new view of variable properties, properties that occur only in certain languages. Under this open UG vision, specific elements of I-languages arise in response to new parses. Both external and internal languages play crucial, interacting roles:  unstructured, amorphous external language is parsed and a structured internal language system results. My Born to parse (Lightfoot 2020) explores case studies that show innovative parses of external language shaping the history of languages. I discuss 1) how children learn through parsing, 2) the role of parsing at the two interfaces between syntactic structure and the externalization system (sound or sign) and logical form, 3) language change, and 4) variable linguistic properties seen through the lens of an open UG. This, in turn, yields a view of variable properties akin to that of evolutionary biologists working on Darwin’s finches; see section 7.

scholarly journals Special issue on mechanisms of French contact influence in Middle English: diffusion and maintenance

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
OLGA TIMOFEEVA ◽  
RICHARD INGHAM
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The World ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
History Of

Recent years have seen a spate of publications that attempt to recontextualise the history of English in contact-linguistic (Miller 2012; Lutz 2013; Durkin 2014) and sociolinguistic terms (Millar 2012), and conversely to confront previous descriptions of contact phenomena with new data and theoretical insights available from situations of language shift and substratum influence (Filppula, Klemola & Paulasto 2008; Vennemann 2011), extensive bilingualism (Schendl & Wright 2011), language acquisition (Ingham 2012) and contact-induced grammaticalisation (Timofeeva 2010). Coupled with advances in our understanding of contact- and acquisition-induced language change (Heine & Kuteva 2005; Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008), and of the role of contact in the varieties of English around the world (Schreier & Hundt 2013), there is a clear need in this area of historical research for scholars to reinvestigate earlier stages of English as a contact language.

Ambiguity avoidance as a factor in the rise of the English dative alternation

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Zehentner
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
Cue Reliability ◽  
History Of ◽  
Potential Impact

Abstract This paper discusses the role of cognitive factors in language change; specifically, it investigates the potential impact of argument ambiguity avoidance on the emergence of one of the most well-studied syntactic alternations in English, viz. the dative alternation (We gave them cake vs We gave cake to them). Linking this development to other major changes in the history of English like the loss of case marking, I propose that morphological as well as semantic-pragmatic ambiguity between prototypical agents (subjects) and prototypical recipients (indirect objects) in ditransitive clauses plausibly gave a processing advantage to patterns with higher cue reliability such as prepositional marking, but also fixed clause-level (SVO) order. The main hypotheses are tested through a quantitative analysis of ditransitives in a corpus of Middle English, which (i) confirms that the spread of the PP-construction is impacted by argument ambiguity and (ii) demonstrates that this change reflects a complex restructuring of disambiguation strategies.

scholarly journals Language Change and Language Acquisition

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.21 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorbjörg Hróarsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Performance ◽  
Previous Generation ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Diachronic Changes

The aim of this paper is to present diachronic changes in terms of the conditions of first language acquisition. Grammars, seen as mental organs, may change between two generations. A change is initiated when (a population of) learners converge on a grammatical system which differs in at least one parameter value from the system internalized by the speakers of the previous generation. Learnability issues then connect to both language acquisition and language change, and understanding language changes depends on understanding how children acquire their native language. Acquisition is a process in which Universal Grammar (UG) interacts with a context-specific set of Primary Linguistic Data (PLD: the linguistic input to the child-learner) and uses these PLD as the source for triggers or cues that map the innate (preexperience) knowledge to a mature grammar. If a certain phenomenon has survived through many generations, it must have been reflected clearly in the PLD. Then, if we note that it has changed, something in the language performance of the previous generation must have changed, and thereby paved the way for a new interpretation. Innovation leading to linguistic variation in the PLD and gradual changes in PLD play a central role in the explanation here: the immediate cause of a grammar change must lie in some alternation in the PLD. We will look at how the language spoken in a certain community (E-language) may gradually become different from the language that originally served as the triggering experience. These changes in the E-language also mean changes in the input available to the child-learners of the next generation and a motivation for a different parameter setting has arisen.

Women in the history of linguistics

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Wendy Ayres-Bennett ◽  
Helena Sanson
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Central Section ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Women

This Introduction outlines the need for a ‘true history’ (Lerner 1976) of the role of women in the history of linguistics, which considers them on their own terms, and challenges categories and concepts devised for traditional male-dominated accounts. We start by considering what research has already been conducted in the field, before exploring some of the reasons for the relative dearth of studies. We outline some of the challenges and opportunities encountered by women who wished to study the nature of language and languages in the past. The geographical and chronological scope of this volume is then discussed. In a central section we examine some of the major recurring themes in the volume. These include attitudes towards women’s language, both positive and negative; women and language acquisition and teaching; and women as creators of new languages and scripts. We further explore women as authors, dedicatees, or intended readers of metalinguistic texts, as interpreters and translators, and as contributors to the linguistic documentation and maintenance. We consider how women supported male relatives and colleagues in their endeavours, sometimes in invisible ways, before reviewing the early stages of their entry into institutionalized contexts. The chapter concludes with a brief section on future directions for research.

Comparison of the RC Model and the WR Model Based on CHILDES

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 1260
Author(s):  
Liang Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Data Exchange ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Input Frequency ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Real Process ◽  
Language Data

The acquisition of the verb past tense has often been used to help to figure out children’s real process of language acquisition. This paper aims to make a comparison between Charles Yang’s Rules and Competition Model (the RC model) and Steven Pinker’s Words and Rules Model (the WR model) based on real language acquisition data selected from CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System). Chomsky’s Universal grammar is the foundation of both models. The comparison has been done from three aspects: the role of input frequency, overregularization errors, and the origin of irregular past tense. The finding of the study indicates that the RC model can well explain the role of input frequency in verb classes and the similarity between verb and the past tense while the WR model’s explanation is vague in this point. Overregularization errors are more like an inevitable learning phenomenon that sheds light on phonological rules in the RC model instead of simple memory failures in the WR model. The WR model well explains the origin of irregular past tense while the RC model does not mention this point.

scholarly journals Formal Syntax, Diachronic Minimalism, and Etymology: The History of French, Chez

2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Longobardi
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Diachronic Syntax ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
History Of ◽  
Parameter Resetting ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Diachronic Changes

Current theories place very mild constraints on possible diachronic changes, something at odds with the trivial observation that actual, “language change” represents a tiny fraction of the variation made a priori available by Universal Grammar. Much recent work in diachronic syntax has actually been guided by the aim of describing changes (e.g., parameter resetting), rather than by concerns of genuine explanation. Here I suggest a radically different viewpoint (the Inertial, Theory of diachronic syntax), namely, that syntactic change not provably due to interference should not occur at all as a primitive-that is, unless forced by changes in the phonology, the semantics, or the lexicon, perhaps ultimately by interface or grammar-external pressures, in line with the minimalist enterprise in synchronic linguistics. I concentrate on a single case, the etymology of Modern French chez, showing howthe proposed approach attains a high degree of explanatory adequacy.

scholarly journals The Role of Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition from the Perspective of Chinese Acquiring English Reflexives

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. p284
Author(s):  
Jing Song
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Chinese And English

In China, the second language learning has always played an important role in primary and higher education. The issue of how children acquire the second language has experienced a boom in China over the past decade as the proficiency of a person’s English level mainly depends on its acquisition in primary stage. The main focus of this paper is to examine the role of UG in the second language acquisition and to what extent it plays in the process. To illustrate this, the four access hypotheses were given firstly. In addition, the role of UG from the aspect of Chinese learners’ acquiring the English reflexives was discussed. In this section, the importance of analyzing the reflexives and the different features of them in Chinese and English were exhibited.

From unit-and-ten to ten-before-unit order in the history of English numerals

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Berg ◽  
Marion Neubauer
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Old English ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Unit Order ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Number Words ◽  
Significant Structural Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Order Change

AbstractIn the course of its history, English underwent a significant structural change in its numeral system. The number words from 21 to 99 switched from the unit-and-ten to the ten-before-unit pattern. This change is traced on the basis of more than 800 number words. It is argued that this change, which took seven centuries to complete and in which the Old English pattern was highly persistent, can be broken down into two parts—the reordering of the units and tens and the loss of the conjoining element. Although the two steps logically belong to the same overall change, they display a remarkably disparate behavior. Whereas the reordering process affected the least frequent number words first, the deletion process affected the most frequent words first. This disparity lends support to the hypothesis that the involvement or otherwise of low-level aspects of speech determines the role of frequency in language change (Phillips, 2006). Finally, the order change is likely to be a contact-induced phenomenon and may have been facilitated by a reduction in mental cost.

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