Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics : upso

Rich Languages From Poor Inputs

Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini and Robert C. Berwick — 2013-01-24

Author:: MassimoPiattelli-PalmariniDepartment of Linguistics, University of ArizonaRobert C.BerwickDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ISBN:: 9780199590339
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199590339.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

This book addresses one of the most famous and controversial arguments in the study of language and mind, the Poverty of the Stimulus (POS). Presented by Chomsky in 1968, the argument holds that children do not receive enough evidence to infer the existence of core aspects of language, such as the dependence of linguistic rules on hierarchical phrase structure. The argument strikes against empiricist accounts of language acquisition and supports the conclusion that knowledge of some aspects of grammar must be innate. In the first part of this book, chapters consider the general issues around the POS argument, review the empirical data, and offer new and plausible explanations. This is followed by a discussion of the processes of language acquisition, and observed ‘gaps’ between adult and child grammar, concentrating on the late spontaneous acquisition by children of some key syntactic principles, basically, though not exclusively, between the ages of 5 to 9. Part 3 widens the horizon beyond language acquisition in the narrow sense, examining the natural development of reading and writing and of the child's growing sensitivity for the fine arts.

Motion Encoding in Language and Space

Mila Vulchanova and Emile van der Zee — 2013-01-24

Author:: MilaVulchanovaDepartmetn of Modern Foreign Languages, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyEmilevan der ZeeSchool of Psychology, University of Lincoln
ISBN:: 9780199661213
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661213.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

This volume in the Explorations in Language and Space series contains a unique collection of chapters on the way in which motion is encoded in language. Although the way in which people encode motion in language has been an object of study for some time, the chapters in this volume show that many aspects of linguistic motion encoding are still unexplored, that current theories in this area do not capture all main aspects of linguistic motion encoding, and that the research area of linguistic motion encoding is very much alive and evolving. The chapters in this volume take different theoretical and methodological approaches in exploring possible new parameters in linguistic motion encoding, in describing new empirical research on how direction of motion is represented in language, and in presenting original insights into how motion is encoded at different levels of spatial resolution or granularity in language. This collection of chapters presents both advanced students and researchers in linguistics, computer science, psychology, and cognitive science with a set of new explorations and challenges in the area of spatial language.

Computational Phenotypes

Sergio Balari and Guillermo Lorenzo — 2013-01-24

Author:: Sergio Balari, Guillermo Lorenzo
ISBN:: 9780199665464
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665464.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

This is a book about language as a species-typical trait of humans. Linguists customarily describe it as an extremely exceptional capacity, even when compared with the biological endowment of closely related species, and this is the source of the many quarrels that exist around the aim of explaining its evolutionary origins. This book argues that language is not so exceptional after all, as according to the text it is just the human version of a rather common and conservative organic system that they refer to as the Central Computational Complex. The book argues that inter-specific variation of this organ is restricted to (i) accessible memory resources, and (ii) patterns of external connectivity, both being the result of perturbations in the system underlying its development. The book thus offers a fresh perspective on language as a naturally evolved phenomenon.

Agent, Person, Subject, Self

Paul Kockelman — 2013-01-24

Author:: Paul Kockelman
ISBN:: 9780199926985
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199926985.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2013-01-24

This book offers both a naturalistic and critical theory of signs, minds, and meaning-in-the-world. It provides a reconstructive rather than deconstructive theory of the individual, one which both analytically separates and theoretically synthesizes a range of faculties that are often confused and conflated: agency (understood as a causal capacity), subjectivity (understood as a representational capacity), selfhood (understood as a reflexive capacity), and personhood (understood as a sociopolitical capacity attendant on being an agent, subject, or self). It argues that these facilities are best understood from a semiotic stance that supersedes the usual intentional stance. And, in so doing, it offers a pragmatism-grounded approach to meaning and mediation that is general enough to account for processes that are as embodied and embedded as they are articulated and enminded. In particular, while this theory is thereby focused on human-specific modes of meaning, it also offers a general theory of meaning, such that the agents, subjects and selves in question need not always, or even usually, map onto persons. And while this theory foregrounds agents, persons, subjects and selves, it does this by theorizing processes that often remain in the background of such otherwise erroneously individuated figures: ontologies (akin to culture, but generalized across agentive collectivities), interaction (not only between people, but also between people and things, and anything outside or in-between), and infrastructure (akin to context, but generalized to include mediation at any degree of remove).

The Mental Corpus

John R. Taylor — 2012-09-20

Author:: John R. Taylor
ISBN:: 9780199290802
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199290802.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-09-20

This book argues that knowledge of a language can be thought of as a mental corpus, that is, as a repository of memories of previous linguistic encounters with the language. Features of incoming language resonate with items already stored. Similarities between stored items give rise to generalizations of varying degrees of certainty and precision, which in turn are able to sanction new and innovative expressions. The thesis is argued on the basis of both psycholinguistic and language-internal evidence. The former shows that speakers have implicit knowledge of distributional and statistical properties of encountered language, while language data testifies to speakers’ precise knowledge of idiosyncratic facts of usage.

Interpreting Motion

Inderjeet Mani and James Pustejovsky — 2012-05-24

Author:: Inderjeet Mani, James Pustejovsky
ISBN:: 9780199601240
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199601240.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

Natural language allows for efficient communication of elaborate descriptions of movement without requiring precise specification of the motion. Interpreting Motion is the first book to analyze the semantics of motion expressions in terms of the formalisms of qualitative spatial reasoning, mapping motion descriptions in language to trajectories of moving entities based on qualitative spatio-temporal relationships. The book provides an extensive discussion of prior research on spatial prepositions and motion verbs, and devotes chapters to the compositional semantics of motion sentences, the formal representations needed for computers to reason qualitatively about time, space, and motion, and the methodology for annotating corpora with linguistic information in order to train computer programs to reproduce the annotation. The applications they illustrate include route navigation, the mapping of travel narratives, question-answering, image and video tagging, and graphical rendering of scenes from textual descriptions. The book is written accessibly for a broad scientific audience of linguists, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, and those working in fields such as artificial intelligence and geographic information systems.

The Interactive Stance

Jonathan Ginzburg — 2012-05-24

Author:: Jonathan Ginzburg
ISBN:: 9780199697922
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697922.001.0001
Published in print:: 2012
Published Online:: 2012-05-24

The fine structure of conversational interaction is of significant interest for wide swathes of the behavioural sciences: linguists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, literary scholars, artificial intelligence researchers must all contend with issues relating to the nature of meaning and its sharing among interlocuters, the possibility of repair — the wide range of corrective actions that occur when ‘trouble’ arises in interaction — and the characterization of coherence in interaction. This book presents the results of attempting to create a precise, grammatically rooted, theory of conversation motivated by data from real conversations. It develops KoS, one of the most detailed theories of context in conversation, and uses this to analyze a variety of linguistic constructions characteristic of spoken interaction, many of which have not been previously analyzed formally. KoS has descriptive reach from the micro-conversational (e.g., self-repair at the word level) to macro-level phenomena such as multi-party conversation and the characterization of distinct conversational genres. It draws on extensive corpus studies of the British National Corpus, on evidence from language acquisition, and on computer simulations of language evolution. KoS provides accounts of the opening, middle game, and closing stages of conversation. KoS also offers a new perspective on traditional semantic concerns such as quantification and anaphora. It suggests a new methodological criterion — stronger than traditional compositionality — regulating allowable semantic denotations. All in all, KoS provides a highly detailed theory of relevance, taking in the illocutionary, metacommunicative, metadiscursive, and genre-based components of this complex notion. This book challenges orthodox views of grammar by arguing that grammar and interaction are intrinsically bound. It argues that, unless we wish to exclude from analysis a large body of frequently occurring words and constructions, the right way to construe grammar is as a system that characterizes types of talk in interaction.

Spell‐Out and the Minimalist Program

Juan Uriagereka — 2012-01-19

Author:: Juan Uriagereka
ISBN:: 9780199593521
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199593521.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

Since Juan Uriagereka originated the multiple spell-out model in 1999 it has been one of the most influential lines of research in syntactic theorizing. The model simplified a crucial element of the minimalist account of language making it a more accurate reflection of syntax and its acquisition. This book explores important consequences of the multiple spell-out hypothesis and of the linked notion of cyclicity. It combines the latest thinking in linguistics with perspectives drawn from physics, biology, and animal behaviour, aiming thereby to advance the field first described by Noam Chomsky as biolinguistics. Without simplifying, this book seeks to present the issues and their broader biological significance. The subjects discussed include the linearization of structure, the punctuated nature of a derivation (the multiple spell-out model), cyclicity and its consequences for locality, and the definition of c-command and its relevance to various types of grammatical dependency. The book discusses the evolutionary implications of Uriagereka's work, considering, for example, whether the punctuated nature of the derivation is a resolution of conflicting demands that yield an equilibrium found in nature more generally.

Reference in Discourse

Andrej Kibrik — 2012-01-19

Author:: Andrej Kibrik
ISBN:: 9780199215805
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199215805.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

This book studies how people refer to entities in natural discourse. It contributes to the understanding of both linguistic diversity and the cognitive underpinnings of language and it provides a framework for further research in both fields. This book focuses on the way specific entities are mentioned in natural discourse, during which about every third word usually depends on referential choice. It considers reference as an overt representation of underlying cognitive processes and combines a theoretically-oriented cognitive approach with empirically-based cross-linguistic analysis. It begins by introducing the cognitive approach to discourse analysis and by examining the relationship between discourse studies and linguistic typology. The book discusses reference as a linguistic phenomenon, in connection with the traditional notions of deixis, anaphora, givenness, and topicality, and describes the way its theoretical approach is centred on notions of referent activation in working memory. The book argues that the speaker is responsible for the shape of discourse and that referential expressions should be understood as choices made by speakers rather than as puzzles to be solved by addressees. It examines the cross-linguistic aspects of reference and the typology of referential devices, including referring expressions per se, such as free and bound pronouns, and referential aids that help to tell apart the concurrently activated entities. This discussion is based on the data from about 200 languages from around the world. The book then proposes a comprehensive model of referential choice, in which it draws on concepts from cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, and applies this to Russian and English. The book also draws together empirical analyses in order to examine what light the analysis of discourse can shed on the way information is processed in working memory. The final part of the book offers a wider perspective, including deixis, referential aspects of gesticulation and signed languages.

Phonological Architecture

Bridget D. Samuels — 2012-01-19

Author:: Bridget D. Samuels
ISBN:: 9780199694358
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Phonetics / Phonology, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199694358.001.0001
Published in print:: 2011
Published Online:: 2012-01-19

This volume endeavors to bridge one of the gaps between linguistic theory and the biological sciences by presenting a comprehensive view of phonology which simultaneously addresses linguists and those who from other fields who would like to make contact with phonological theory. It proposes a new theory of phonological computation using representations and operations informed by a broader biolinguistic perspective, breaking the human language externalization system into component parts and investigating their possible origins in cognitive abilities found throughout the animal kingdom. Issues discussed include phonology in evolutionary perspective, the role of phonology within a Minimalist conception of the language faculty, phonological operations and representations, arguments for parallel cyclicity across linguistic modules, the order of operations at the syntax/phonology interface, diachronic phonology, the role of language acquisition in language change, and the sources of linguistic variation.

The Spatial Foundations of Language and Cognition

Kelly S. Mix, Linda B. Smith, and Michael Gasser — 2010-05-01

Author:: Kelly S.MixMichigan State Universityhttp://www.educ.msu.edu/content/default.asp?contentID=907Linda B.SmithIndiana Universityhttp://psych.indiana.edu/faculty/pages/smith.aspMichaelGasserIndiana Universityhttp://www.soic.indiana.edu/people/profiles/gasser-michael.shtml
ISBN:: 9780199553242
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199553242.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

In this book, we ask how space, language, and thought interact in learning and development. This encompasses not only how children learn about space and spatial language, but also how language and cognition are grounded in space. People think and act in a spatial medium. How does this impact language learning? How does it frame human concepts? Does the acquisition of language change the way we experience space? The chapters gathered here represent a broad range of perspectives on these questions. They are authored by experts in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, computer science, philosophy, and linguistics.

The Prehistory of Language

Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight — 2010-05-01

Author:: RudolfBothaUniversity of StellenboschChrisKnightUniversity of East Londonhttp://www.uel.ac.uk/hss/staff/knight-chris.htm
ISBN:: 9780199545872
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199545872.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

‘When, why, and how did language evolve?’ ‘Why do only humans have language?’ This book looks at these and other questions about the origins and evolution of language. It does so via a diversity of perspectives, including social, cultural, archaeological, palaeoanthropological, musicological, anatomical, neurobiological, primatological, and linguistic. Among the subjects it considers are: how far sociality is a prerequisite for language; the evolutionary links between language and music; the relation between natural selection and niche construction; the origins of the lexicon; the role of social play in language development; the use of signs by great apes; the evolution of syntax; the evolutionary biology of language; the insights offered by Chomsky's biolinguistic approach to mind and language; the emergence of recursive language; the selectional advantages of the human vocal tract; and why women speak better than men. The authors are prominent linguists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, archaeologists, primatologists, social anthropologists, and specialists in artificial intelligence. As well as explaining what is understood about the evolution of language, they look squarely at the formidable obstacles to knowing more: the absence of direct evidence, for example; the problems of using indirect evidence; the lack of a common conception of language; confusion about the operation of natural selection and other processes of change; the scope for misunderstanding in a multi-disciplinary field, and many more. Despite these difficulties, the authors in their contributions to this book are able to show just how much has been achieved in this area of research in the social, natural, and cognitive sciences.

Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766-1976

Peter Mackridge — 2010-05-01

Author:: Peter Mackridge
ISBN:: 9780199214426
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199214426.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-05-01

This book provides a history of the great language controversy that has occupied and impassioned Greeks — sometimes with fatal results — for over two hundred years. It begins in the late 18th century when a group of Greek intellectuals sought to develop a new, Hellenic, national identity alongside the traditional identity supplied by Orthodox Christianity. The ensuing controversy focused on the language, fuelled by a desire to develop a form of Greek that expressed the Greeks' relationship to the ancients, and by the different groups'contrasting notions of what the national image so embodied should be. The purists wanted a written language close to the ancient. The vernacularists — later known as demoticists — sought to match written language to spoken, claiming the latter to be the product of the unbroken development of Greek since the time of Homer. The book explores the political, social, and linguistic causes and effects of the controversy in its many manifestations. Drawing on a wide range of evidence from literature, language, history, and anthropology, it traces its effects on spoken and written varieties of Greek and shows its impact on those in use today. The book describes the efforts of linguistic elites and the state to achieve language standardization and independence from languages such as Turkish, Albanian, Vlach, and Slavonic. The sense of national and linguistic identity that has been inculcated into generations of Greeks since the start of the War of Independence in 1821 has, in the last twenty-five years, received blows from which it may not recover. Immigration from Eastern Europe and elsewhere has introduced new populations whose religions, languages, and cultures are transforming Greece into a country quite different from what it has been and from what it once aspired to be.

The Logic of Language

Pieter A. M. Seuren — 2010-02-01

Author:: Pieter A. M. Seuren
ISBN:: 9780199559480
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559480.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-02-01

The Logic of Language opens a new perspective on logic. Seuren first argues that the logic of language derives from the lexical meanings of the logical operators. These meanings, however, prove not to be consistent. To solve this problem, the author distinguishes between a default ‘basic‐natural’ and two nondefault ‘strict‐natural’ versions of natural predicate logic, all different from standard modern logic. Basic‐natural logic is shown to derive from an ontology of entities and properties, combined with a basic‐natural set theory, reflecting the way humans deal cognitively with plural sets. A new measure for ‘logical power’ shows the extreme weakness of standard predicate logic as against the maximal power of one version of strict‐natural logic, traditional, post‐Aristotelian predicate logic, or the ‘Square of Opposition’. It is shown that Aristotle's original logic as reconstructed by Abelard is logically faultless (unlike the Square, which suffers from ‘undue existential import’) and also more powerful than standard logic, though less so than the Square or basic‐natural logic. The latter two are shown to be maximally functional for natural linguistic interaction. In the last five chapters, a general theory of discourse‐bound interpretation is developed, covering discourse incrementation, anaphora, presupposition (with its logic) and topic—comment structure. The ‘donkey‐anaphora’ problem is solved by an appeal to discourse structures. The great defect of the Square, its ‘undue existential import’, is remedied by means of a protecting presuppositional ‘mantle’ creating a third truth value of radical falsity, assigned to propositions suffering from presupposition failure and causing inconsistency with preceding true discourse. Finally, topic—comment structure is shown to correspond to a question—answer game directing the building up of discourse domains and to be not of a pragmatic but of a truth‐conditional, hence semantic, nature. Anaphora, presupposition, and topic—comment structure are thus seen to form the ‘cement’ of discourse structure.

Information Structure

Malte Zimmermann and Caroline Féry — 2010-02-01

Author:: MalteZimmermannUniversity of PotsdamCarolineFéryUniversity of Potsdamhttp://www-old.ling.uni-potsdam.de/people/index-e.html
ISBN:: 9780199570959
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570959.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2010-02-01

This book brings together leading figures to present an overview of different approaches to the formal expression of information structure in language and how it works in human communication. Information structure concerns the ways in which aspects of grammar including semantics, pragmatics, syntax, morphology, prosody, and intonation interact in the communication and reception of information. It is also concerned with the neurolinguistics of the production and cognition of meaning. This book reflects recent research in all central aspects of the subject. It examines the concepts of focus versus background, topic versus comment, and given versus new, and the kinds of inferences required to make sense of different combinations of words, syntax, intonation, and context. The chapters combine theoretical and experimental approaches and include examination of variations of information structure across different languages and within the same language over time.

Representing Direction in Language and Space

Emile van der Zee and Jon Slack — 2010-01-01

Author:: Emilevan der ZeeUniversity of LincolnJonSlackUniversity of Lincolnhttp://auth.lincoln.ac.uk/psychology/staff/529.asp
ISBN:: 9780199260195
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260195.001.0001
Published in print:: 2003
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

This book considers how it is possible for people to use directions like above the table or over the city. How does our brain or any other information processing system represent a direction as a spatial entity? And how is it possible to link such a representation to language, so that we talk about a direction we have in mind? When we look at or imagine a scene, what entities can be employed for representing a direction, and what are the parts in language that can be used to talk about directions? This book brings together research from linguistics, psychology, philosophy, computer science, anthropology, and neuroscience to answer these intriguing questions. By considering direction representation across different languages and in different information processing systems, this book gives an overview of the main issues in this area.

The Representation and Processing of Compound Words

Gary Libben and Gonia Jarema — 2010-01-01

Author:: GaryLibbenUniversity of Albertahttp://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/recognition/FRSCLibben.cfmGoniaJaremaUniversity of Montrealhttp://www.criugm.qc.ca/a_chercheur.html?id=18
ISBN:: 9780199228911
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228911.001.0001
Published in print:: 2007
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

This book presents new work on the psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics of compound words. It shows the insights this work offers on natural language processing and the relation between language, mind, and memory. Compounding is an easy and effective way to create and transfer meanings. By building new lexical items based on the meanings of existing items, compounds can usually be understood on first presentation, though—as, for example, breadboard, cardboard, cupboard, and sandwich-board show—the rules governing the relations between the components’ meanings are not always straightforward. Compound words may be segmentable into their constituent morphemes in much the same way as sentences can be divided into their constituent words: children and adults would not otherwise find them interpretable. But compound sequences may also be independent lexical items that can be retrieved for production as single entities and whose idiosyncratic meanings are stored in the mind. Compound words reflect the properties both of linguistic representation in the mind and of grammatical processing. They thus offer opportunities for investigating key aspects of the mental operations involved in language: for example, the interplay between storage and computation; the manner in which morphological and semantic factors impact on the nature of storage; and the way the mind’s computational processes serve on-line language comprehension and production. This book explores the nature of these opportunities, assesses what is known, and considers what may yet be discovered and how.

Functional Features in Language and Space

Laura Carlson and Emile van der Zee — 2010-01-01

Author:: LauraCarlsonUniversity of Notre Damehttp://psychology.nd.edu/people/faculty/carlson-laura/Emilevan der ZeeUniversity of Lincoln
ISBN:: 9780199264339
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264339.001.0001
Published in print:: 2004
Published Online:: 2010-01-01

The notions of ‘function’, ‘feature’, and ‘functional feature’ are associated with relatively new developments and insights in several areas of cognition. This book brings together different definitions, insights, and research related to defining these notions from such diverse areas as language, perception, categorization, and development. Each of the contributors in this book explicitly defines the notion of ‘function’, ‘feature’, or ‘functional feature’ within their own theoretical framework, presents research in which such a notion plays a pivotal role, and discusses the contribution of functional features in relation to their insights in a particular area of cognition. As such, this book not only presents new developments devoted to defining ‘function’, ‘feature’, and ‘functional feature’ in several sub-disciplines of cognitive science, but also offers a focused account of how these notions operate within the cognitive interface linking language and spatial representation.

Analogy in Grammar

James P. Blevins and Juliette Blevins — 2009-09-01

Author:: James P.BlevinsUniversity of Cambridgehttp://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/jpb39/JulietteBlevinsMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropologyhttp://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/jpb39/
ISBN:: 9780199547548
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547548.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2009-09-01

Analogy is a central component of language structure, language processing, and language change. This book addresses central questions about the form and acquisition of analogy in grammar. What patterns of structural similarity do speakers select as the basis for analogical extension? What types of items are particularly susceptible or resistant to analogical pressures? At what levels do analogical processes operate and how do processes interact? What formal mechanisms are appropriate for modeling analogy? What analogical processes are evident in language acquisition? Answers to these questions emerge from this book which is a synthesis of typological, experimental, computational, and developmental paradigms.

Language in Cognition

Pieter A. M. Seuren — 2009-05-01

Author:: Pieter A. M. Seuren
ISBN:: 9780199559473
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559473.001.0001
Published in print:: 2009
Published Online:: 2009-05-01

This book argues that language is based on the human construal of reality. Humans refer to and quantify over virtual entities with the same ease as they do over actual entities: the natural ontology of language, the book argues, must therefore comprise both actual and virtual entities and situations. The book reformulates speech act theory, suggesting that the primary function of language is less the transfer of information than the establishing of socially binding commitments or appeals based on the proposition expressed. This leads the book first to a new analysis of the systems and structures of cognitive language machinery and their ecological embedding, and finally to a reformulation of the notion of meaning, in which sentence meaning is distinguished from lexical meaning and the vagaries and multifarious applications of lexical meanings may be explained and understood. The book discusses and analyses such apparently diverse issues as the ontology underlying the semantics of language, speech act theory, intensionality phenomena, the machinery and ecology of language, sentential and lexical meaning, the natural logic of language and cognition, and the intrinsically context-sensitive nature of language—and shows them to be intimately linked.

Functional Discourse Grammar

Kees Hengeveld and J. Lachlan Mackenzie — 2008-09-01

Author:: Kees Hengeveld, J. Lachlan Mackenzie
ISBN:: 9780199278107
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics, Theoretical Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278107.001.0001
Published in print:: 2008
Published Online:: 2008-09-01

This book presents Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). Chapter 1 gives an overall picture of the model and places it in the context of contemporary linguistics. Chapter 2 presents the interpersonal level of the grammar, at which the Discourse Act, the central object of FDG, is analysed. Chapter 3 is a systematic account of the representational level, where semantic distinctions are located. Chapter 4 is concerned with the morphosyntactic level and Chapter 5 with the phonological level; these show how FDG treats formal distinctions across languages. The book ends with Chapter 6, an application of the theory to sample Discourse Acts.

Foundations of Language

Ray Jackendoff — 2007-09-01

Author:: Ray Jackendoff
ISBN:: 9780198270126
Publisher:: Oxford University Press
Subjects:: Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
DOI:: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270126.001.0001
Published in print:: 2002
Published Online:: 2007-09-01

This book surveys the last thirty-five years of research in generative linguistics and related fields and offers a new understanding of how language, the brain, and perception intermesh. The book renews the conclusions of early generative linguistics: that language can be a valuable entrée into understanding the human mind and brain. The approach is interdisciplinary. The book proposes that the creativity of language derives from multiple parallel generative systems linked by interface components. This shift in basic architecture allows for a reconception of mental grammar and how it is learned. The book aims to reintegrate linguistics with philosophy of mind, cognitive and developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and computational linguistics. Among the major topics treated are language processing, the relation of language to perception, the innateness of language, and the evolution of the language capacity, as well as more standard issues in linguistic theory such as the roles of syntax and the lexicon. In addition, this book offers a sophisticated theory of semantics that incorporates insights from philosophy of language, logic and formal semantics, lexical semantics of various stripes, cognitive grammar, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic approaches, and the author's own conceptual semantics.