Language Creation and Language Change
Title | Language Creation and Language Change PDF eBook |
Author | Michel DeGraff |
Publisher | MIT Press (MA) |
Total Pages | 592 |
Release | 1999 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 9780262041683 |
Research on creolization, language change, and language acquisition has been converging toward a triangulation of the constraints along which grammatical systems develop within individual speakers--and (viewed externally) across generations of speakers. The originality of this volume is in its comparison of various sorts of language development from a number of linguistic-theoretic and empirical perspectives, using data from both speech and gestural modalities and from a diversity of acquisition environments. In turn, this comparison yields fresh insights on the mental bases of language creation.The book is organized into five parts: creolization and acquisition; acquisition under exceptional circumstances; language processing and syntactic change; parameter setting in acquisition and through creolization and language change; and a concluding part integrating the contributors' observations and proposals into a series of commentaries on the state of the art in our understanding of language development, its role in creolization and diachrony, and implications for linguistic theory.Contributors : Dany Adone, Derek Bickerton, Adrienne Bruyn, Marie Coppola, Michel DeGraff, Viviane D�prez, Alison Henry, Judy Kegl, David Lightfoot, John S. Lumsden, Salikoko S. Mufwene, Pieter Muysken, Elissa L. Newport, Luigi Rizzi, Ian Roberts, Ann Senghas, Rex A. Sprouse, Denise Tangney, Anne Vainikka, Barbara S. Vance, Maaike Verrips.
Language Change
Title | Language Change PDF eBook |
Author | Joan Bybee |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 311 |
Release | 2015-05-28 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 1107020166 |
This new introduction explores all aspects of language change, with an emphasis on the role of cognition and language use.
The Art of Language Invention
Title | The Art of Language Invention PDF eBook |
Author | David J. Peterson |
Publisher | Penguin Books |
Total Pages | 306 |
Release | 2015-09-29 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0143126466 |
From language creator David J. Peterson comes a creative gui de to language constructio, offering an overview of language creation, covering its history from Tolkien's creations and Klingon to today's thriving global community of conlangers. He provides the essential tools necessary for inventing and evolving new languages, using examples from a variety of languages including his own creations.
Creating Language
Title | Creating Language PDF eBook |
Author | Morten H. Christiansen |
Publisher | MIT Press |
Total Pages | 345 |
Release | 2016-03-18 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 026233478X |
A work that reveals the profound links between the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, and proposes a new integrative framework for the language sciences. Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater argue that to understand this astonishing phenomenon, we must consider how language is created: moment by moment, in the generation and understanding of individual utterances; year by year, as new language learners acquire language skills; and generation by generation, as languages change, split, and fuse through the processes of cultural evolution. Christiansen and Chater propose a revolutionary new framework for understanding the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, offering an integrated theory of how language creation is intertwined across these multiple timescales. Christiansen and Chater argue that mainstream generative approaches to language do not provide compelling accounts of language evolution, acquisition, and processing. Their own account draws on important developments from across the language sciences, including statistical natural language processing, learnability theory, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic experiments with children and adults. Christiansen and Chater also consider some of the major implications of their theoretical approach for our understanding of how language works, offering alternative accounts of specific aspects of language, including the structure of the vocabulary, the importance of experience in language processing, and the nature of recursive linguistic structure.
Language Creation and Language Change
Title | Language Creation and Language Change PDF eBook |
Author | Michel DeGraff |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 0 |
Release | 1999 |
Genre | Creole dialects |
ISBN | 9780262271394 |
The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
Title | The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages PDF eBook |
Author | Peter K. Austin |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 581 |
Release | 2011-03-24 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 113950083X |
It is generally agreed that about 7,000 languages are spoken across the world today and at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of this century. This state-of-the-art Handbook examines the reasons behind this dramatic loss of linguistic diversity, why it matters, and what can be done to document and support endangered languages. The volume is relevant not only to researchers in language endangerment, language shift and language death, but to anyone interested in the languages and cultures of the world. It is accessible both to specialists and non-specialists: researchers will find cutting-edge contributions from acknowledged experts in their fields, while students, activists and other interested readers will find a wealth of readable yet thorough and up-to-date information.
Exploring Language Change
Title | Exploring Language Change PDF eBook |
Author | Mari Jones |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 240 |
Release | 2013-09-13 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 1136522409 |
In this student-friendly text, Jones and Singh explore the phenomenon of language change, with a particular focus on the social contexts of its occurrence and possible motivations, including speakers’ intentions and attitudes. Presenting new or little-known data, the authors draw a distinction between "unconscious" and "deliberate" change. The discussion on "unconscious" change considers phenomena such as the emergence and obsolescence of individual languages, whilst the sections on "deliberate" change focus on issues of language planning, including the strategies of language revival and revitalization movements. There is also a detailed exploration of what is arguably the most extreme instance of "deliberate" change; language invention for real-world use. Examining an extensive range of language situations, Exploring Language Change makes a clear, but often ignored distinction between concepts such as language policy and planning, and language revival and revitalization. Also featured are a number of case studies which demonstrate that real-life language use is often much more complex than theoretical abstractions might suggest. This is a key text for students on a variety of courses, including sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and language policy and planning.