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The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology

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https://escholarship.org/uc/item/05b2s4wg

ISBN

978-3946234043

Author

Schütze, Carson T

Publication Date

2016-02-01

DOI

10.17169/langsci.b89.101

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The data associated with this publication are managed by: Language Science Press, Berlin

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University of California

The empirical base of linguistics

Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology

Carson T. Schütze

language

science press

Classics in Linguistics 2

Classics in Linguistics

Chief Editors: Martin Haspelmath, Stefan Müller In this series:
1. Lehmann, Christian. Thoughts on grammaticalization 2. Schütze, Carson T. The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology

3. Bickerton, Derek. Roots of language

ISSN: 2366-374X

The empirical base of linguistics

Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology

Carson T. Schütze

language

science press

Carson T. Schütze. 2019. e empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology (Classics in Linguistics 2). Berlin:

Language Science Press. is title can be downloaded at: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/89 © 2019, Carson T. Schütze Published under the Creative Commons Aꢀribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0): hꢀp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN: 978-3-946234-02-9 (Digital)
978-3-946234-03-6 (Hardcover) 978-3-946234-04-3 (Soſtcover) 978-1-523743-32-2 (Soſtcover US)
ISSN: 2366-374X DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3362734

Cover and concept of design: Ulrike Harbort Typeseꢀing: Felix Kopecky, Sebastian Nordhoff, Carson T. Schütze Fonts: Linux Libertine, Arimo, DejaVu Sans Mono

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Language Science Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For my mother, Dorly Schütze, and the memory of my father, Ted Schütze

It is simultaneously the greatest virtue and failing of linguistic theory that sequence acceptability judgments are used as the basic data.

(Bever 1970b)

Contents

  • Preface (2016)
  • xi

xvii xix
Preface (1996) Aꢀnowledgments (1996)

  • 1
  • Introduction
  • 1

17
10 13 15
1.1 Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Motivation: Whither Linguistics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 A Working Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Scope and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  • 2
  • Definitions and Historical Baꢀground
  • 19

19 20 36 36 37 41
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 A Short History of Grammaticality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 e Use of Judgment Data in Linguistic eory . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 e Dangers of Unsystematic Data Collection . . . . . . 2.3.3 A Case Study in the Use of Subtle Judgments . . . . . . 2.3.4 e Interpretation of the Annotations and Degrees of Bad-

  • ness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  • 44

48 52
2.4 Introspection, Intuition, and Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  • 3
  • Judging Grammaticality
  • 55

55 56 62 62 70 74
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Tasks that Access Grammaticality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 e Nature of Graded Judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3.1 Is Grammaticality Dichotomous? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Experiments on Chomsky’s ree Levels of Deviance . . 3.3.3 Other Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Contents

  • 3.3.4 Ratings, Rankings, and Consistency . . . . . . . . . . . .
  • 77

81 88 96
3.4 e Judgment Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 e Interpretation of Judgments with Respect to Competence . 3.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  • 4
  • Subject-Related Factors in Grammaticality Judgments

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Individual Differences: ree Representative Studies . . . . . . .

97

97 98
4.3 Organismic Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.3.1 Field Dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 4.3.2 Handedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 4.3.3 Other Organismic Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.4 Experiential Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.4.1 Linguistic Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 4.4.2 Literacy and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 4.4.3 Other Experiential Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

  • 5
  • Task-Related Factors in Grammaticality Judgments
  • 127

5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 5.2 Procedural Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.2.1 Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 5.2.2 Order of Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 5.2.3 Repetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 5.2.4 Mental State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 5.2.5 Judgment Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 5.2.6 Modality and Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 5.2.7 Speed of Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
5.3 Stimulus Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
5.3.1 Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 5.3.2 Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 5.3.3 Parsability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 5.3.4 Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 5.3.5 Lexical Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 5.3.6 Morphology and Spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 5.3.7 Rhetorical Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

viii
Contents

  • 6
  • eoretical and Methodological Implications
  • 167

6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 6.2 Modeling Grammaticality Judgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
6.2.1 Previous Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 6.2.2 e Outlines of a Preliminary Model . . . . . . . . . . . 169 6.2.3 Applications of the Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
6.3 Methodological Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
6.3.1 Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 6.3.2 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 6.3.3 Analysis and Interpretation of Results . . . . . . . . . . 191
6.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

  • 7
  • Looking Baꢀ and Looking Ahead
  • 199

7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 7.2 Directions for Further Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 7.3 e Future in Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

References Indexes
209 229

Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

ix

Preface (2016)

Since the original version of this book (University of Chicago Press, 1996) went out of print in the 2000s, I have continued to receive inquiries from people asking how they can obtain a copy. I am therefore thrilled that Language Science Press has offered to make the title available again, as part of their Classics in Linguistics series. I would like to thank series editors Stefan Müller and Martin Haspelmath, as well as Sebastian Nordhoff and Felix Kopecky, for their help in making this happen.
e content of this new printing is identical to the first printing, with the following exceptions:

• I have altered the wording in a few places where I found it insufficiently clear or terminologically outdated;

• my uses of the term informant(s) have been replaced with consultant(s) or speaker(s), in keeping with current practice (of course, the former term still appears in some quoted passages);

• I have updated the reference information for a couple of works that had not been published at the time of the original printing, particularly Cowart (1997);

• the original index has been split into name and subject indexes, and both are now more comprehensive.

In terms of presentation, the following things have changed:
• the format of citations and references has been adapted to LangSci house style, as have other minor typographical choices;

• full given names have been added to references whenever available; • since the text has been freshly typeset, the page numbers do not match those of the original printing; however, the (sub)section numbers are unchanged: I suggest using those if it is necessary to specify a location within a chapter. Example numbers are also unchanged.
Preface (2016)
Importantly, I have not aꢀempted to update the content in light of subsequent relevant research, since this would undoubtedly have compelled me to try to write a whole new book. Of course, linguistics and psycholinguistics have changed a great deal in the 20 years since I completed the original manuscript; e.g., “theoretical” linguistics has notably become more “experimental.” Also, some of my own views on the issues have evolved over those two decades. ere are passages in the book that I would have omiꢀed or altered, if I had allowed myself to make any substantive revisions. Instead, I have chosen to restrict all followup discussion to this preface. In what follows I try to point readers to works that should allow them to “get up to speed” on intervening developments.
For collections that are comprised mainly of papers on topics that are important in the book, see McNair et al. (1996), Penke & Rosenbach (2004), Kepser & Reis (2005), Borsley (2005), Featherston (2007) and replies in the same journal issue, Featherston & Sternefeld (2007), Featherston & Winkler (2009), and Winkler & Featherston (2009). My more recent views can be found in the following surveys: Schütze (2006; 2011) and Schütze & Sprouse (2013).
ere have been (at least) four major developments involving the empirical base of linguistics that anyone interested in the topic should be aware of.

1. e adaptation of the magnitude estimation task from psychophysics to judgment collection (Bard, Robertson & Sorace 1996). is was touted as having numerous potential advantages over the traditional Likert scale task, most or all of which have been subsequently refuted (see Weskoꢀ & Fanselow 2011 and Sprouse, Schütze & Almeida 2013).

2. e use of World Wide Web searches to establish aꢀestation, and infer acceptability, of certain sentence/construction types. I discuss the limitations of this approach in Schütze (2009).

3. e use of Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) and potentially other crowdsourcing platforms as sources of subjects for acceptability judgment and many other psycholinguistic experiments (so far, in only a handful of languages). For an empirical investigation of how AMT results compare with judgments collected in the lab (on a small range of constructions in English), see Sprouse (2011).

4. Detailed empirical challenges to – and defenses of – the proposal, advocated in Section 7.2 in the book, that Subjacency effects could be reduced to processing factors. See Yoshida et al. (2014) as well as the Stanford/ Maryland debate (Hofmeister & Sag (2010); Hofmeister, Staum Casasanto

xii
Preface (2016)
& Sag (2012a,b); Sprouse, Wagers & Phillips (2012a,b), and many of the contributions in Sprouse & Hornstein 2014).

Finally, there is a statement by Chomsky, which I aꢀribute in the book (p. 195) to a popular press source, about which I have oſten been questioned, wherein Chomsky calls it a truism that genetically based Universal Grammar (UG) is subject to some individual variation. For those who have asked whether Chomsky’s position can be confirmed in any academic publications, I offer the following quotes:

Puꢀing aside genetic variation (an interesting but marginal phenomenon in the case of language) and conceivable but unknown epigenetic effects, the principles of UG, whatever they are, are invariant. (Chomsky 2013: 35)

It is hardly controversial that [the faculty of language] is a common human possession apart from pathology, to an approximation so close that we can ignore variation. (Chomsky 2008: 138)

I am aware of no empirical evidence that would indicate how much UG can vary across individuals.

  • Carson T. Schütze
  • December 2015

References

Bard, Ellen Gurman, Dan Robertson & Antonella Sorace. 1996. Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language 72. 32–68.

Borsley, Robert D. (ed.). 2005. Data in theoretical linguistics. Special issue 115(11).

Chomsky, Noam. 2008. On phases. In Robert Freidin, Carlos P. Otero & Maria

Luisa Zubizarreta (eds.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory: Essays in honor

of Jean-Roger Vergnaud, 133–166. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130. 33–49.

Cowart, Wayne. 1997. Experimental syntax: Applying objective methods to sentence

judgments. ousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Featherston, Sam. 2007. Data in generative grammar: e stick and the carrot.

eoretical Linguistics 33(3). 269–318.

Featherston, Sam & Wolfgang Sternefeld (eds.). 2007. Roots: Linguistics in search of its evidential base. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

xiii
Preface (2016) Featherston, Sam & Susanne Winkler (eds.). 2009. e fruits of empirical linguistics. Volume 1: Process. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Hofmeister, Philip & Ivan A. Sag. 2010. Cognitive constraints and island effects.
Language 86. 366–415.
Hofmeister, Philip, Laura Staum Casasanto & Ivan A. Sag. 2012a. How do individual cognitive differences relate to acceptability judgments? A reply to Sprouse, Wagers, and Phillips. Language 88. 390–400.
Hofmeister, Philip, Laura Staum Casasanto & Ivan A. Sag. 2012b. Misapplying working-memory tests: A reductio ad absurdum. Language 88. 408–409.
Kepser, Stephan & Marga Reis (eds.). 2005. Linguistic evidence: Empirical, theoret-

ical, and computational perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

McNair, Lisa, Kora Singer, Lise M. Dobrin & Michelle M. AuCoin (eds.). 1996. Pa-

pers from the parasession on theory and data in linguistics (CLS 32/2). Chicago:

Chicago Linguistic Society.
Penke, Martina & Aneꢀe Rosenbach (eds.). 2004. What counts as evidence in lin-

guistics? Special issue 28(3).

Phillips, Colin. 2006. e real-time status of island phenomena. Language 82. 795–
823.
Schütze, Carson T. 2006. Data and evidence. In Keith Brown (ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, 2nd edn., vol. 3, 356–363. Oxford: Elsevier.
Schütze, Carson T. 2009. Web searches should supplement judgements, not sup-

plant them. Zeitschriſt für Sprachwissenschaſt 28. 151–156.

Schütze, Carson T. 2011. Linguistic evidence and grammatical theory. Wiley In-

terdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 2. 206–221.

Schütze, Carson T. & Jon Sprouse. 2013. Judgment data. In Robert J. Podesva &
Devyani Sharma (eds.), Research methods in linguistics, 27–50. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sprouse, Jon. 2011. A validation of Amazon Mechanical Turk for the collection of acceptability judgments in linguistic theory. Behavior Research Methods 43(1). 155–167.
Sprouse, Jon & Norbert Hornstein (eds.). 2014. Experimental syntax and island effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sprouse, Jon, Carson T. Schütze & Diogo Almeida. 2013. A comparison of informal and formal acceptability judgments using a random sample from Linguistic Inquiry 2001–2010. Lingua 134. 219–248.
Sprouse, Jon, Maꢀ Wagers & Colin Phillips. 2012a. A test of the relation between working memory and syntactic island effects. Language 88. 82–123.

xiv
Preface (2016)
Sprouse, Jon, Maꢀ Wagers & Colin Phillips. 2012b. Working-memory capacity and island effects: A reminder of the issues and the facts. Language 88. 401– 407.
Weskoꢀ, omas & Gisbert Fanselow. 2011. On the informativity of different measures of linguistic acceptability. Language 87. 249–273.
Winkler, Susanne & Sam Featherston (eds.). 2009. e fruits of empirical linguistics. Volume 2: Product. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Yoshida, Masaya, Nina Kazanina, Leticia Pablos & Patrick Sturt. 2014. On the origin of islands. Language 29(7). 761–770.

xv

Preface (1996)

e goal of this book is to demonstrate that the absence of methodology of grammaticality judgments in linguistics constitutes a serious obstacle to meaningful research, and to begin to propose suitable remedies for this problem. roughout much of the history of linguistics, judgments of the grammaticality/acceptability of sentences (and other linguistic intuitions) have been the major source of evidence in constructing grammars. While this seems to have been an exceedingly fruitful approach, some skeptics have worried that theoretical linguists are in fact constructing grammars of intuition, which might not have much to do with the competence that underlies everyday production or comprehension of language. Also, in the pseudoexperimental procedure of judgment elicitation there is typically no aꢀempt to impose any of the standard experimental controls, and oſten the only subject is the theorist himself or herself. Should we linguists be worried? I think so. I survey the way grammaticality judgments are currently used in theoretical syntax, and argue that such uses, together with the problems of intuition and experimental design, demand a careful examination of judgments, not as pure sources of data, but as instances of metalinguistic performance.
Several important issues arise when this view of grammaticality judgments is pursued, including which tasks one should use to elicit them, what people are doing when they give them, and what they can really tell us about linguistic competence. On the assumption that grammaticality judgments result from interactions among primary language faculties of the mind and general cognitive processes, I try to understand the process by identifying and analyzing its component parts. I review the psycholinguistic research that has examined ways in which the judgment process can vary with differences among subjects, experimental manipulations, and spurious features of the stimulus. Parallels with other cognitive behaviors are pointed out. Aſter drawing together the substantive and methodological findings into a schematic picture of what the overall process of giving linguistic intuitions might look like, I propose strategies for collecting these intuitions that avoid the pitfalls of previous work and take account of the conditions that have been shown to influence such judgments. I suggest that we can actually strengthen the case for linguistic universals by giving empirical ar-

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  • Preprint Corpus Analysis in Forensic Linguistics

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    Nini, A. (2020). Corpus analysis in forensic linguistics. In Carol A. Chapelle (ed), The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 313-320, Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell Corpus Analysis in Forensic Linguistics Andrea Nini Abstract This entry is an overview of the applications of corpus linguistics to forensic linguistics, in particular to the analysis of language as evidence. Three main areas are described, following the influence that corpus linguistics has had on them in recent times: the analysis of texts of disputed authorship, the provision of evidence in cases of trademark disputes, and the analysis of disputed meanings in criminal or civil cases. In all of these areas considerable advances have been made that revolve around the use of corpus data, for example, to study forensically realistic corpora for authorship analysis, or to provide naturally occurring evidence in cases of trademark disputes or determination of meaning. Using examples from real-life cases, the entry explains how corpus analysis is therefore gradually establishing itself as the norm for solving certain forensic problems and how it is becoming the main methodological approach for forensic linguistics. Keywords Authorship Analysis; Idiolect; Language as Evidence; Ordinary Meaning; Trademark This entry focuses on the use of corpus linguistics methods and techniques for the analysis of forensic data. “Forensic linguistics” is a very general term that broadly refers to two areas of investigation: the analysis of the language of the law and the analysis of language evidence in criminal or civil cases. The former, which often takes advantage of corpus methods, includes areas as wide as the study of the language of the judicial process and courtroom interaction (e.g., Tkačuková, 2015), the study of written legal documents (e.g., Finegan, 2010), and the investigation of interactions in police interviews (e.g., Carter, 2011).
  • The Linguistics Wars Pdf, Epub, Ebook

    The Linguistics Wars Pdf, Epub, Ebook

    THE LINGUISTICS WARS PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Randy Allen Harris | 368 pages | 09 Mar 1995 | Oxford University Press Inc | 9780195098341 | English | New York, United States The Linguistics Wars PDF Book As a non-linguist, this book also served as a serviceable introduction to some of the field's basic ideas, and it was interesting to read about Chomsky in his original role. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. It has also been noted that the complex adaptive system view of language is highly compatible with those strands of language evolution research that focus on the cumulative cultural evolution of language see e. We can begin with very simple notions that depend on bodily orientation: front-back, before-after, left-right, etc. The book is certainly not suitable for people outside the field because it involves too much linguistic theory, so in a sense the book fails to do what it wants to do. Protolanguage and mechanisms of meaning construal in interaction. It''s just a matter of fact. Spivey, M. The major research project was aimed at overcoming this tension by showing that the apparent complexity and variety of language was only superficial, the result of minor changes in a fixed and invariant system. Since the mid-twentieth century, the field of linguistics has been a tumultuous discipline. Jul 30, Tom rated it it was ok. Leaving the myth behind: a reply to Adger The shape of the human language-ready brain. However, Christiansen and Chater , p. Oxford: OUP. Wang Taiwan: Pyramid Press , — It should be stressed that these matters are presented in an entirely different light by intellectual opinion, which has its own tasks and commitments.
  • Greek and Latin Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes

    Greek and Latin Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes

    GREEK AND LATIN ROOTS, PREFIXES, AND SUFFIXES This is a resource pack that I put together for myself to teach roots, prefixes, and suffixes as part of a separate vocabulary class (short weekly sessions). It is a combination of helpful resources that I have found on the web as well as some tips of my own (such as the simple lesson plan). Lesson Plan Ideas ........................................................................................................... 3 Simple Lesson Plan for Word Study: ........................................................................... 3 Lesson Plan Idea 2 ...................................................................................................... 3 Background Information .................................................................................................. 5 Why Study Word Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes? ......................................................... 6 Latin and Greek Word Elements .............................................................................. 6 Latin Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes .......................................................................... 6 Root, Prefix, and Suffix Lists ........................................................................................... 8 List 1: MEGA root list ................................................................................................... 9 List 2: Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes .......................................................................... 32 List 3: Prefix List ......................................................................................................
  • Where Did Pragmatics Comme From

    Where Did Pragmatics Comme From

    n°19, Juin 2003, pp. 7-12 Where did pragmatics come from ? Abstract The present study is concerned with the early beginnings of pragmatics. It investigated the linguistic and philosophical backgrounds of this field. It was argued that pragmatics grew within philosophy and its emergence as an independent field Dr. A. HAMAD was, for some time, delayed by the influence of some linguistic Associate Prof. of Linguistics theories especially the generative-transformational theory. An-Najah Nat. University Finally, it was pointed out that this field was freed from the Nablus, Palestine influence of this theory. lthough many scholars, philosophers and A linguists, have been studying various types of pragmatic topics such as indexicality, implicatures, illocutionary force, speech acts, presuppositions, etc. For hundreds of years, pragmatics as a field has not emerged until recently. Not only that, but it has been denied the status of a component of grammar besides the phonological, syntactic, and semantic components which altogether constitute the core components of human language grammar. Critics have questioned the nature and the domain of this field; that is the theoretical as well as the practical status of the field in general. It seems that the scholars’ attitude toward pragmatics has been the result of radical theorizations in the main trend of theoretical linguistics motivated primarily by the structural and ملخص generative-transformational linguistic theories. The تهدف هذه الدراسة للتعرف على present study will attempt to explore briefly the البدايات المبكرة لعلم المقا مية. بحثت background of this field, its development, and the الدراسة في الخلفيات اللغوية والفلسفية reasons that stood behind the delay of its emergence التي تقف وراء هذا العلم.ثم حاولت .and institutionalization الدراسة التدليل على أن علم المقامية Philosophy and the Study of Language قد نشأ في حضن الفلسفة وأن بعض النضريات اللغوية عملت ولبعض In order to have a better understanding of the الوقت على تأخير ظهور هذا العلم.
  • Language Structure: Phrases “Productivity” a Property of Language • Definition – Language Is an Open System

    Language Structure: Phrases “Productivity” a Property of Language • Definition – Language Is an Open System

    Language Structure: Phrases “Productivity” a property of Language • Definition – Language is an open system. We can produce potentially an infinite number of different messages by combining elements differently. • Example – Words into phrases. An Example of Productivity • Human language is a communication system that bears some similarities to other animal communication systems, but is also characterized by certain unique features. (24 words) • I think that human language is a communication system that bears some similarities to other animal communication systems, but is also characterized by certain unique features, which are fascinating in and of themselves. (33 words) • I have always thought, and I have spent many years verifying, that human language is a communication system that bears some similarities to other animal communication systems, but is also characterized by certain unique features, which are fascinating in and of themselves. (42 words) • Although mainstream some people might not agree with me, I have always thought… Creating Infinite Messages • Discrete elements – Words, Phrases • Selection – Ease, Meaning, Identity • Combination – Rules of organization Models of Word reCombination 1. Word chains (Markov model) Phrase-level meaning is derived from understanding each word as it is presented in the context of immediately adjacent words. 2. Hierarchical model There are long-distant dependencies between words in a phrase, and these inform the meaning of the entire phrase. Markov Model Rule: Select and concatenate (according to meaning and what types of words should occur next to each other). bites bites bites Man over over over jumps jumps jumps house house house Markov Model • Assumption −Only adjacent words are meaningfully (and lawfully) related.
  • CONTENT Unit I 2-18 Communication and Language INTRODUCTION to LINGUISTICS Major Linguists and Their Contribution

    CONTENT Unit I 2-18 Communication and Language INTRODUCTION to LINGUISTICS Major Linguists and Their Contribution

    1 CONTENT Unit I 2-18 Communication and Language INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS Major Linguists and their Contribution Unit II 19-27 Phonology of English and Phonetics Mechanism of Speech Production Organs of speech The Respiratory System The Phonatory System The Articulatory System The Air-stream Mechanism Unit III 29-43 Phonology of English and Phonetics (Continued) Description and Classification of Vowels and Consonants Description of Vowel Sounds Description of Pure Vowels in English Description of Dipthongs or Glides in English Occurrence of Vowel Sounds in English Description of Consonant Sounds Unit IV 44-56 STRESS AND INTONATION Word Accent/Stress Intonation Unit V 57-70 SOCIOLINUISTICS Definitions of Sociolinguistics Language Variation or Varieties of Language Dialects Sociolect Idiolect Register Language Contact: Pidgin and Creole 2 UNIT-I INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS 1.0 1.1 Linguistics/lɪŋˈɡwɪstɪks/ refers to the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of grammar, syntax, and phonetics. Specific branches of linguistics include sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, comparative linguistics, and structural linguistics. WHAT IS LINGUISTICS? Linguistics is defined as the scientific study of language.It is the systematic study of the elements of language and the principles governing their combination and organization. Linguistics provides for a rigorous experimentation with the elements or aspects of language that are actually in use by the speech community. It is based on observation and the data collected thereby from the users of the language, a scientific analysis is made by the investigator and at the end of it he comes out with a satisfactory explanation relating to his field of study.
  • Sentential Negation and Negative Concord

    Sentential Negation and Negative Concord

    Sentential Negation and Negative Concord Published by LOT phone: +31.30.2536006 Trans 10 fax: +31.30.2536000 3512 JK Utrecht email: [email protected] The Netherlands http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/ Cover illustration: Kasimir Malevitch: Black Square. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. ISBN 90-76864-68-3 NUR 632 Copyright © 2004 by Hedde Zeijlstra. All rights reserved. Sentential Negation and Negative Concord ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Prof. Mr P.F. van der Heijden ten overstaan van een door het College voor Promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Aula der Universiteit op woensdag 15 december 2004, te 10:00 uur door HEDZER HUGO ZEIJLSTRA geboren te Rotterdam Promotiecommissie: Promotores: Prof. Dr H.J. Bennis Prof. Dr J.A.G. Groenendijk Copromotor: Dr J.B. den Besten Leden: Dr L.C.J. Barbiers (Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam) Dr P.J.E. Dekker Prof. Dr A.C.J. Hulk Prof. Dr A. von Stechow (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen) Prof. Dr F.P. Weerman Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen Voor Petra Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................V 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................1 1.1 FOUR ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF NEGATION.......................................................1
  • Like, Hedging and Mirativity. a Unified Account

    Like, Hedging and Mirativity. a Unified Account

    Like, hedging and mirativity. A unified account. Abstract (4) Never thought I would say this, but Lil’ Wayne, is like. smart. We draw a connection between ‘hedging’ (5) My friend I used to hang out with is like use of the discourse particle like in Amer- . rich now. ican English and its use as a mirative marker of surprise. We propose that both (6) Whoa! I like . totally won again! uses of like widen the size of a pragmati- cally restricted set – a pragmatic halo vs. a In (4), the speaker is signaling that they did not doxastic state. We thus derive hedging and expect to discover that Lil Wayne is smart; in (5) surprise effects in a unified way, outlining the speaker is surprised to learn that their former an underlying link between the semantics friend is now rich; and in (6) the speaker is sur- of like and the one of other mirative mark- prised by the fact that they won again. ers cross-linguistically. After presenting several diagnostics that point to a genuine empirical difference between these 1 Introduction uses, we argue that they do in fact share a core grammatical function: both trigger the expansion Mirative expressions, which mark surprising in- of a pragmatically restricted set: the pragmatic formation (DeLancey 1997), are often expressed halo of an expression for the hedging variant; and through linguistic markers that are also used to en- the doxastic state of the speaker for the mirative code other, seemingly unrelated meanings – e.g., use. We derive hedging and mirativity as effects evidential markers that mark lack of direct evi- of the particular type of object to which like ap- dence (Turkish: Slobin and Aksu 1982; Peterson plies.