Quantitative Determinants of Prefabs: a Corpus-Based, Experimental Study of Multiword Units in the Lexicon." (2013)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Phonological Optimization and Syntactic Variation: the Case of Optional That*
BLS 32, No 1 2006. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/bls.v32i1.3453 (published by the Berkeley Linguistics Society and the Linguistic Society of America) Phonological Optimization and Syntactic Variation: The Case of * Optional That T. FLORIAN JAEGER Stanford University 1. Introduction The principle of Phonology-Free Syntax (see papers in Zwicky 1969) states that syntax should not be influenced by phonological constraints. This predicts that choice in syntactic variation should not be affected by phonological constraints, such as the avoidance of identical adjacent elements (Frisch et al. 2004; Leben 1973). Only a few studies have investigated the extent to which phonological encoding can influence syntactic encoding and they have come to conflicting results (see Bock and Eberhard 1993; Haskell and MacDonald 2003; MacDonald et al. 1993). I investigate the influence of phonological optimization at different levels of linguistic form on so called optional that, as in the following comple- 1 ment clauses (CC*s) and relative clauses (RC*s): (1a) You would think [CC* (that) there's no place for capital punishment in a ci- vilized western country]. (1b) I heard [CC* (that) that’s the second happiest day of your life]. (2a) I mean [NP any drugs [RC* (that) you want _ ]]. (2b) I mean [NP the way [RC* (that) it vibrates _ ]]. * I am grateful for the discussions that lead to this paper. I would like to thank D. Pesetsky, N. Richards, and A. Marantz for raising the question whether optional that is allomorphy rather than syntactic variation. I am particularly thankful to A. Antilla and L. -
Implicit and Explicit Knowledge About Language
Comp. by: TPrasath Date:27/12/06 Time:22:59:29 Stage:First Proof File Path:// spiina1001z/womat/production/PRODENV/0000000005/0000001817/0000000016/ 0000233189.3D Proof by: QC by: NICK ELLIS IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LANGUAGE INTRODUCTION Children acquire their first language (L1) by engaging with their caretakers in natural meaningful communication. From this “evidence” they automatically acquire complex knowledge of the structure of their language. Yet paradoxically they cannot describe this knowledge, the discovery of which forms the object of the disciplines of theoretical lin- guistics, psycholinguistics, and child language acquisition. This is a difference between explicit and implicit knowledge—ask a young child how to form a plural and she says she does not know; ask her “here is a wug, here is another wug, what have you got?” and she is able to reply, “two wugs.” The acquisition of L1 grammar is implicit and is extracted from experience of usage rather than from explicit rules—simple expo- sure o normal linguistic input suffices and no explicit instruction is needed. Adult acquisition of second language (L2) is a different matter in that what can be acquired implicitly from communicative contexts is typically quite limited in comparison to native speaker norms, and adult attainment of L2 accuracy usually requires additional resources of explicit learning. The various roles of consciousness in second language acquisi- tion (SLA) include: the learner noticing negative evidence; their attending to language form, their perception focused by social scaffolding or explicit instruction; their voluntary use of pedagogical grammatical descriptions and analogical reasoning; their reflective induction of metalinguistic insights about language; and their consciously guided practice which results, eventually, in unconscious, automatized skill. -
Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages Patrick Rebuschat
Introduction: Implicit and explicit learning of languages Patrick Rebuschat (Lancaster University) Introduction to the forthcoming volume: Rebuschat, P. (Ed.) (in press, 2015). Implicit and explicit learning of languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Implicit learning, essentially the process of acquiring unconscious (implicit) knowledge, is a fundamental feature of human cognition (Cleeremans, Destrebecqz, & Boyer, 1998; Dienes, 2012; Perruchet, 2008; Shanks, 2005; Reber, 1993). Many complex behaviors, including language comprehension and production (Berry & Dienes, 1993; Winter & Reber, 1994), music cognition (Rohrmeier & Rebuschat, 2012), intuitive decision making (Plessner, Betsch, & Betsch, 2008), and social interaction (Lewicki, 1986), are thought to be largely dependent on implicit knowledge. The term implicit learning was first used by Arthur Reber (1967) to describe a process during which subjects acquire knowledge about a complex, rule-governed stimulus environment without intending to and without becoming aware of the knowledge they have acquired. In contrast, the term explicit learning refers to a process during which participants acquire conscious (explicit) knowledge; this is generally associated with intentional learning conditions, e.g., when participants are instructed to look for rules or patterns. In his seminal study, Reber (1967) exposed subjects to letter sequences (e.g., TPTS, VXXVPS and TPTXXVS) by means of a memorization task. In experiment 1, subjects were presented with letter sequences and simply asked to commit them to memory. One group of subjects was given sequences that were generated by means of a finite-state grammar (Chomsky, 1956, 1957; Chomsky & Miller, 1958), while the other group received randomly 1 constructed sequences. The results showed that grammatical letter sequences were learned more rapidly than random letter sequences. -
Two Approaches to Second Language Acquisition: Universal Grammar and Emergentism
English Teaching, Vol. 75, Supplement 1, Summer 2020, pp. 3-8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15858/engtea.75.s1.202006.3 http://journal.kate.or.kr Two Approaches to Second Language Acquisition: Universal Grammar and Emergentism William O’Grady and Kitaek Kim* 1. THE TWO APPROACHES TO SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Language presents us with many questions. Why does it have certain properties and features, but not others? Why does it vary and change in the ways that it does? How is it acquired with such ease by young children despite its evident complexity? And why do adults find it so difficult to acquire a second language (L2), despite their cognitive maturity and their access to well-designed pedagogical programs? An impressive feature of Universal Grammar (UG), as it was traditionally conceived, is that it offers an integrated explanatory narrative—an inborn system of grammatical principles stipulates the architecture of language, including limits on variation and change, while also shedding light on the apparent magic of first language acquisition. With the help of additional assumptions, such as the full-transfer/full-access proposal of Bonnie D. Schwartz and Rex Sprouse (1996), it is even possible to offer an explanation for why the mastery of a L2 proves so challenging, but is perhaps nonetheless attainable. Parts of the discussion in the first section of this paper appeared in O’Grady, Lee, and Kwak (2009). *Corresponding Author: William O’Grady, Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1890 East-West Road, Moore 569, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA; E-mail: [email protected] Co-Author: Kitaek Kim, Professor, Department of English Language Education, Seoul National University Received 10 June 2020; Reviewed 17 June 2020; Accepted 25 June 2020 © 2020 The Korea Association of Teachers of English (KATE) This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, transmit and adapt the work provided the original work and source is appropriately cited. -
Phonological Evidence for Exemplar Storage of Mul Tiword Sequences
SSLA. 24. 215-221 DOl 111.1111; S02722ti:llll21111211til PHONOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR EXEMPLAR STORAGE OF MULTIWORD SEQUENCES Joan Bybee University of New Mexico Phonological evidence supports the frequency-based model pro posed in the article by Nick Ellis. Phonological reduct1on occurs ear lier and to a greater extent in high-frequency words and phrases than in low-frequency ones. A model that accounts for this effect needs both an exemplar representation to show phonet1c variation and the ability to represent multiword combinations. The maintenance of alternations conditioned by word boundaries. such as French liai son, also provides evidence that multiword sequences are stored and can accrue representational strength. The reorganization of pho netic exemplars in favor of the more frequent types prov1des evidence for some abstraction in categories beyond the simple registration of tokens of experience. Ellis's review article paints a very different landscape for linguistic knowledge from that provided by structural theories of language. In this landscape, fre quency of use is not a constraint added to an otherwise structural or genera tive architecture (as in Hammond, 1999), nor is it just invoked when the facts do not yield entirely to structural analysis (see, e.g., Kaisse, 1985, p. 59). Rather, the picture that emerges from the array of studies that Ellis cites is one in which linguistic knowledge is based firmly on experience with language, and frequency of use is a foundational determinate of grammatical properties of language. The article demonstrates that there is a major convergence of re search from many different perspectives-corpus-based analysis, computational linguistics, discourse, cognitive and functional linguistics, and psycholinguis tics-that all point to a new theory of grammar with its attendant theory of language acquisition. -
Preprint Ellis, NC (2013). Second Language Acquisition. in Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar
Second Language Acquisition Nick C. Ellis University of Michigan [email protected] preprint Ellis, N. C. (2013). Second language acquisition. In Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 365-378), G. Trousdale & T. Hoffmann (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1. Introduction Usage-based approaches hold that we learn linguistic constructions while engaging in communication, the “interpersonal communicative and cognitive processes that everywhere and always shape language” (Slobin 1997). Constructions are form-meaning mappings, conventionalized in the speech community, and entrenched as language knowledge in the learner’s mind. They are the symbolic units of language relating the defining properties of their morphological, syntactic, and lexical form with particular semantic, pragmatic, and discourse functions (Bates and MacWhinney 1987; Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987; Croft 2001; Croft and Cruse 2004; Goldberg 1995, 2003, 2006; Tomasello 2003; Robinson and Ellis 2008; Bybee 2008). Broadly, Construction Grammar argues that all grammatical phenomena can be understood as learned pairings of form (from morphemes, words, and idioms, to partially lexically filled and fully general phrasal patterns) and their associated semantic or discourse functions. Such beliefs, increasingly influential in the study of child language acquisition, have turned upside down generative assumptions of innate language acquisition devices, the continuity hypothesis, and top-down, rule-governed, processing, bringing back data-driven, emergent accounts of linguistic systematicities. Constructionist theories of child first language acquisition (L1A) use dense longitudinal corpora to chart the emergence of creative linguistic competence from children’s analyses of the utterances in their usage history and from their abstraction of regularities within them (Goldberg 1995, 2006, 2003; Diessel, this volume; Tomasello 1998; Tomasello 2003). -
Joan Bybee (2001). Phonology and Language Use. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 94.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Phonology http://journals.cambridge.org/PHO Additional services for Phonology: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Joan Bybee (2001). Phonology and language use. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 94.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xviii +238. Janet Pierrehumbert Phonology / Volume 19 / Issue 03 / December 2002, pp 459 - 463 DOI: 10.1017/S0952675703214445, Published online: 04 July 2003 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0952675703214445 How to cite this article: Janet Pierrehumbert (2002). Joan Bybee (2001). Phonology and language use. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 94.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xviii+238.. Phonology, 19, pp 459-463 doi:10.1017/S0952675703214445 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/PHO, IP address: 129.105.215.146 on 09 Mar 2015 Phonology 19 (2002) 459–463. f 2002 Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0952675703214445 Printed in the United Kingdom Reviews Joan Bybee (2001). Phonology and language use. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 94.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xviii+238. Janet Pierrehumbert Northwestern University The functionalist viewpoint in linguistics can take different forms. A caricature of functionalist thinking is the notion that the structure of language is opti- mised, or nearly so, for its function as a means of human communication. This notion has met with widespread scepticism because of its lack of predictiveness in the face of typological variation. Either it leads to the prediction that all languages are en route to some single ‘Utopian’ (even if they have not quite achieved it) or it leads one to posit so many contradictory functional goods that the nature of possible languages is not effectively restricted. -
Towards a Computational Model of Grammaticalization and Lexical Diversity
Towards a computational model of grammaticalization and lexical diversity Christian Bentz Paula Buttery University of Cambridge, DTAL University of Cambridge, DTAL 9 West Road, CB3 9DA 9 West Road, CB3 9DA [email protected] [email protected] Abstract To model these processes Section 2 will Languages use different lexical inven- present a quantitative measure of lexical diver- tories to encode information, ranging sity based on Zipf-Mandelbrots law, which is from small sets of simplex words to also used as a biodiversity index (Jost, 2006). large sets of morphologically complex Based on this measure we present a prelimi- words. Grammaticalization theories nary computational model to reconstruct the argue that this variation arises as gradual change from lexically constrained to the outcome of diachronic processes lexically rich languages in Section 3. We whereby co-occurring words merge therefore use a simple grammaticalization al- to one word and build up complex gorithm and show how historical developments morphology. To model these pro- towards higher lexical diversity match the vari- cesses we present a) a quantitative ation in lexical diversity of natural languages measure of lexical diversity and b) a today. This suggests that synchronic variation preliminary computational model of in lexical diversity can be explained as the out- changes in lexical diversity over several come of diachronic language change. generations of merging higly frequent The computational model we present will collocates. therefore help to a) understand the diver- sity of lexical encoding strategies across lan- guages better, and b) to further uncover the 1 Introduction diachronic processes leading up to these syn- All languages share the property of being car- chronic differences. -
Crosslinguistic Structural
CROSSLINGUISTIC STRUCTURAL PRIMING AS A MECHANISM OF CONTACT-INDUCED LANGUAGE CHANGE: EVIDENCE FROM PAPIAMENTO-DUTCH BILINGUALS IN ARUBA AND THE NETHERLANDS Gerrit Jan Kootstra Hülya Şahin Centre for Language Studies, Radboud Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen University Nijmegen Studies on language contact suggest that cross-language interactions in individual language use may lead to contact-induced change at the community level. We propose that the phenomenon of crosslinguistic structural priming may well drive this process. We investigated this by focusing on dative sentence production by Papiamento speakers in Aruba and in the Netherlands. In experi - ment 1, Papiamento speakers in Aruba and in the Netherlands described dative events. The speak - ers in the Netherlands produced more Dutch-like structures than the speakers in Aruba, especially younger speakers. In experiment 2, speakers from the same populations heard a Dutch prime sen - tence before describing a dative event in Papiamento. Syntactic choices were influenced by the Dutch prime sentences, and, again, especially younger speakers in the Netherlands produced more Dutch-like dative structures. This combination of results suggests that Papiamento syntactic pref - erences in the Netherlands are changing as a function of contact with Dutch, and that crosslinguis - tic structural priming is a likely mechanism underlying this change.* Keywords : crosslinguistic priming, structural priming, contact-induced language change, bilin - gualism, dative alternation 1. Introduction. When multiple languages are spoken in the same situation and/or by the same people, this can lead to interaction between these languages, also called lan - guage contact. Language contact can be divided into ‘synchronic’ processes, like cross- language effects in bilingual language processing (e.g. -
Lourdes Ortega Curriculum Vitae
Lourdes Ortega Curriculum Vitae Updated: August 2019 Department of Linguistics 1437 37th Street NW Box 571051 Poulton Hall 250 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057-1051 Department of Linguistics Fax (202) 687-6174 E-mail: [email protected] Webpage: https://sites.google.com/a/georgetown.edu/lourdes-ortega/ EDUCATION 2000 Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Department of Second Language Studies, USA. 1995 M.A. in English as a Second Language. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Department of Second Language Studies, USA. 1993 R.S.A. Dip., Diploma for Overseas Teachers of English. Cambridge University/UCLES, UK. 1987 Licenciatura in Spanish Philology. University of Cádiz, Spain. EMPLOYMENT since 2012 Professor, Georgetown University, Department of Linguistics. 2004-2012 Professor (2010-2012), Associate Professor (2006-2010), Assistant Professor (2004-2006), University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Department of Second Language Studies. 2002-2004 Assistant Professor (tenure-track), Northern Arizona University, Department of English. 2000-2002 Assistant Professor (tenure-track). Georgia State University, Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL. 1999-2000 Visiting Instructor of Applied Linguistics, Georgetown University, Department of Linguistics. 1994-1998 Research and Teaching Graduate Assistant, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature. 1987-1993 Instructor of Spanish, Instituto Cervantes of Athens, Greece. FELLOWSHIPS 2018: Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC). August through December, 2018. 2010: External Senior Research Fellow at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS), University of Freiburg. One-semester residential fellowship at FRIAS to carry out project titled Pathways to multicompetence: Applying usage-based and constructionist theories to the study of interlanguage development. -
Code-Switching and Predictability of Meaning In
CODE-SWITCHING AND PREDICTABILITY OF MEANING IN DISCOURSE Mark Myslín Roger Levy University of California, San Diego University of California, San Diego What motivates a fluent bilingual speaker to switch languages within a single utterance? We propose a novel discourse-functional motivation: less predictable, high information-content mean- ings are encoded in one language, and more predictable, lower information-content meanings are encoded in another language. Switches to a speaker’s less frequently used, and hence more salient, language offer a distinct encoding that highlights information-rich material that comprehenders should attend to especially carefully. Using a corpus of natural Czech-English bilingual discourse, we test this hypothesis against an extensive set of control factors from sociolinguistic, psycholin- guistic, and discourse-functional lines of research using mixed-effects logistic regression, in the first such quantitative multifactorial investigation of code-switching in discourse. We find, using a Shannon guessing game to quantify predictability of meanings in conversation, that words with difficult-to-guess meanings are indeed more likely to be code-switch sites, and that this is in fact one of the most highly explanatory factors in predicting the occurrence of code-switching in our data. We argue that choice of language thus serves as a formal marker of information content in discourse, along with familiar means such as prosody and syntax. We further argue for the utility of rigorous, multifactorial approaches to sociolinguistic speaker-choice phenomena in natural conversation.* Keywords: code-switching, bilingualism, discourse, predictability, audience design, statistical modeling 1. Introduction. In an early sketch of language contact, André Martinet (1953:vii) observed that in multilingual speech, choice of language is not dissimilar to the ‘choice[s] among lexical riches and expressive resources’available in monolingual speech. -
Constructing a Second Language Introduction to the Special Section*
John Benjamins Publishing Company This is a contribution from Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 7 © 2009. John Benjamins Publishing Company This electronic file may not be altered in any way. The author(s) of this article is/are permitted to use this PDF file to generate printed copies to be used by way of offprints, for their personal use only. Permission is granted by the publishers to post this file on a closed server which is accessible to members (students and staff) only of the author’s/s’ institute, it is not permitted to post this PDF on the open internet. For any other use of this material prior written permission should be obtained from the publishers or through the Copyright Clearance Center (for USA: www.copyright.com). Please contact [email protected] or consult our website: www.benjamins.com Tables of Contents, abstracts and guidelines are available at www.benjamins.com Special Section Constructing a Second Language Introduction to the Special Section* Nick C. Ellis and Teresa Cadierno University of Michigan / University of Southern Denmark This Special Section brings together researchers who adopt a constructional approach to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) as informed by Cognitive and Corpus Linguistics, approaches which fall under the general umbrella of Usage- based Linguistics. The articles present psycholinguistic and corpus linguistic evidence for L2 constructions and for the inseparability of lexis and grammar. They consider the psycholinguistics of language learning following general cognitive principles of category learning, with schematic constructions emerging from usage. They analyze how learning is driven by the frequency and frequency distribution of exemplars within construction, the salience of their form, the significance of their functional interpretation, the match of their meaning to the construction prototype, and the reliability of their mappings.