DOCSLIB.ORG

The Growth of Language: Universal Grammar, Experience, and Principles of Computation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Growth of Language: Universal Grammar, Experience, and Principles of Computation Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 81 (2017) 103–119 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews jou rnal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neubiorev Review article The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation a,∗ b c d e,f Charles Yang , Stephen Crain , Robert C. Berwick , Noam Chomsky , Johan J. Bolhuis a Department of Linguistics and Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 619 Williams Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19081, USA b Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia c Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA d Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge MA, USA e Cognitive Neurobiology and Helmholtz Institute, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands f Department of Zoology and St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, UK a r a t i b s c t l e i n f o r a c t Article history: Human infants develop language remarkably rapidly and without overt instruction. We argue that the Received 13 September 2016 distinctive ontogenesis of child language arises from the interplay of three factors: domain-specific prin- Received in revised form ciples of language (Universal Grammar), external experience, and properties of non-linguistic domains 10 November 2016 of cognition including general learning mechanisms and principles of efficient computation. We review Accepted 16 December 2016 developmental evidence that children make use of hierarchically composed structures (‘Merge’) from the Available online 7 January 2017 earliest stages and at all levels of linguistic organization. At the same time, longitudinal trajectories of development show sensitivity to the quantity of specific patterns in the input, which suggests the use of Keywords: probabilistic processes as well as inductive learning mechanisms that are suitable for the psychological Language acquisition constraints on language acquisition. By considering the place of language in human biology and evolu- Generative grammar Computational linguistics tion, we propose an approach that integrates principles from Universal Grammar and constraints from Speech perception other domains of cognition. We outline some initial results of this approach as well as challenges for Inductive inference future research. Evolution of language © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Internal and external factors in language acquisition . 104 2. The emergence of linguistic structures . 104 2.1. Hierarchy and merge . 104 2.2. Merge in early child language . 105 2.3. Structure and interpretation . 107 3. Experience, induction, and language development . 108 3.1. Sparsity and the necessity of generalization . 109 3.2. The trajectories of parameters . 110 3.3. Negative evidence and inductive learning . 112 4. Language acquisition in the light of biological evolution . 114 4.1. Merge, cognition, and evolution . 114 4.2. The mechanisms of the language acquisition device . 115 Acknowledgments . 116 References . 116 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Yang). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.12.023 0149-7634/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 104 C. Yang et al. / Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 81 (2017) 103–119 1. Internal and external factors in language acquisition to the design of language and therefore crucial for the acquisition of language (Chomsky, 2005): Where does language come from? Legend has it that the Egyp- tian Pharaoh Psamtik I ordered the ultimate experiment to be a Universal Grammar: The initial state of language development conducted on two newborn children. The story was first recorded in is determined by our genetic endowment, which appears to be Herodotus’s Histories. At the Pharaoh’s instruction, the story goes, nearly uniform for the species. At the initial state, infants inter- the children were raised in isolation and thus devoid of any linguis- pret parts of the environment as linguistic experience; this is tic input. Evidently pursuing a recapitulationist line, the Pharaoh a nontrivial task which infants carry out reflexively and which believed that child language would reveal the historical root of regulates the growth of the language faculty. all human languages. The first word the newborns produced was b Experience: This is the source of language variation, within a bekos, meaning “bread” in the now extinct language, Phrygian. This fairly narrow range, as in the case of other subsystems of human identified Phrygian, to the Pharaoh’s satisfaction, as the original cognition and the formation of the organism more generally. tongue. c Third factors: These factors include principles that are not spe- Needless to say, this story must be taken with a large pinch of cific to the language faculty, including principles of hypothesis salt. For starters, we now know that consonants such as /s/ in bekos formation and data analysis, which are used both in language are very rare in early speech: the motor control for its articula- acquisition and in the acquisition of knowledge in other cog- tion requires forcing airflow through partial opening of the vocal nitive domains. Among the third factors are also principles of tract (hence the hissing sound), and this takes a long time for chil- efficient computation as well as external constraints that regulate dren to master and is often replaced by other consonants (Locke, development in all biological organisms. 1995; Vihman, 2013). Furthermore, the very first words children produce tend to follow a consonant-vowel (CV) template: even if In the following Section we discuss several general principles /s/ were properly articulated, it would almost surely be followed of language and the remarkably early emergence of these princi- by an epenthetic vowel to maintain the integrity of a CV alterna- ples in children’s biological development. Section 3 focuses on the tion. But the Pharaoh did get two important matters right. First, he role of language-specific experience and how the latitude in chil- was correct to assume that language is a biological necessity—in dren’s experience shapes language variation during the course of Darwin’s words, “an instinctive tendency to acquire an art”. He acquisition. Section 4 reviews some recent effort to reconceptu- was also correct in supposing that, Phrygian or otherwise, a lan- alize the problem of language acquisition, focusing specifically on guage can emerge simply by putting children together, even in the how domain-general learning mechanisms and the principles of absence of an external model. Indeed, we now know that sign lan- efficient computation figure into the Language Acquisition Device. guages are often spontaneous creations by deaf communities, as recently documented in Nicaragua and in Israel (Kegl et al., 1999; 2. The emergence of linguistic structures Sandler et al., 2005; Goldin-Meadow and Yang this issue). Second, the Pharaoh was correct in supposing that child language develop- As observed long ago by Wilhelm von Humboldt, human lan- ment can reveal a great deal about the nature of language, its place guage makes “infinite use of finite means”. It is clear that to acquire in the mind, and how it emerged as a biological capacity that is a language is to implement a combinatorial system of rules that unique to our species. generates an unbounded range of meaningful expressions, relying The nature of language acquisition has always been a central on the biological endowment that determines the range of possi- concern in the modern theory of linguistics known as generative ble systems and a specific linguistic environment to select among grammar (Chomsky, 1957; this issue). The notion of a Language them. von Humboldt’s adage underscores a central feature of lan- Acquisition Device (Chomsky, 1965), a dedicated module of the guage; namely, linguistic representations are always hierarchically mind, still features prominently in the general literature on lan- organized structures, at all levels of the linguistic system (Everaert guage and cognitive development. In this article, we highlight some et al., 2015). These structural representations are formed by the major empirical findings that, together with additional case stud- combinatorial operation known as ‘Merge.’ ies, form the foundation of future research in language acquisition. At the same time, we present some leading ideas from theoretical investigations of language acquisition, including promising themes 2.1. Hierarchy and merge developed in recent years. For several of the additional case studies, see Crain et al. (this issue). The hierarchical structure of language was recognized at the Like the Crain et al. paper, our perspective on the acquisition very beginning of generative grammar. The complexity of human of language is shaped by the biolinguistic approach (Berwick and language lies beyond the descriptive power of finite state Markov Chomsky, 2011). Language is fundamentally a biological system processes (Chomsky, 1956), as exemplified in sentences that and should be studied using the methodologies of the natural sci- involve recursive nonlocal dependencies: (1) a. If . Then . ences. Although we are still quite distant from fully understanding b. Either . Or . the biological basis of language, we contend that the develop- c.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Event Representations Constrain the Structure of Language: Sign
    Correction PSYCHOLOGICAL AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES Correction for “Event representations constrain the structure of language: Sign language as a window into universally accessible linguistic biases,” by Brent Strickland, Carlo Geraci, Emmanuel Chemla, Philippe Schlenker, Meltem Kelepir, and Roland Pfau, which appeared in issue 19, May 12, 2015, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (112:5968–5973; first published April 27, 2015; 10.1073/ pnas.1423080112). The authors note that the following statement should be added to the Acknowledgments: “This research received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement 324115–FRONTSEM (principal investi- gator, Philippe Schlenker).” www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1600619113 E1326 | PNAS | March 1, 2016 | vol. 113 | no. 9 www.pnas.org Downloaded by guest on September 26, 2021 Event representations constrain the structure of language: Sign language as a window into universally accessible linguistic biases Brent Stricklanda,b,1, Carlo Geracia, Emmanuel Chemlac, Philippe Schlenkera, Meltem Kelepird, and Roland Pfaue aInstitut Jean Nicod, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France; bLaboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS, 75006 Paris, France; cLaboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France; dDepartment of Linguistics, Bogaziçi University, Istanbul 34342, Turkey; and eDepartment of Linguistics, University of Amsterdam, 1012VT Amsterdam, Netherlands Edited by Lila R. Gleitman, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, and approved March 3, 2015 (received for review December 3, 2014) According to a theoretical tradition dating back to Aristotle, verbs dynamic events can be classified into two broad grammatical can be classified into two broad categories. Telic verbs (e.g., “decide,” categories: telic and atelic (16–20).
    [Show full text]
  • THE UPS and DOWNS of CHILD LANGUAGE: Experimental Studies
    THE UPS AND DOWNS OF CHILD LANGUAGE: Experimental Studies on Children’s Knowledge of Entailment Relations and Polarity Phenomena By Andrea Gualmini Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2003 Advisory Committee: Professor Stephen Crain, Chair/Advisor Professor Norbert Hornstein Professor Paul M. Pietroski Professor Rosalind Thornton Professor John F. Horty, Dean’s Representative © Copyright by Andrea Gualmini 2003 ABSTRACT Title of the Dissertation: The Ups and Downs of Child Language Andrea Gualmini, Doctor of Philosophy, 2003 Dissertation directed by: Stephen Crain, Professor Department of Linguistics Downward Entailment is a semantic property common to many linguistic expressions across natural languages (Ladusaw, 1979). This dissertation takes downward entailment as a yardstick in assessing children’s semantic competence. First, downward entailment is used as a case study for several alternative models of language acquisition, including those recently proposed by Tomasello (2000) and by Pullum and Scholz (2002). According to these researchers, children are initially conservative, and tend to (re)produce linguistic expressions that they have experienced in the input. Even at later stages, when children form generalizations, children’s linguistic generalizations are directly tied to the input, i based on domain general learning mechanisms. These models are contrasted with one based on the principles and parameters of Universal Grammar. In an experimental study using the Truth Value Judgment task (Crain and Thornton, 1998), these alternative models are put to a test by investigating a phenomenon that displays a mismatch between the data available to the child and the semantic competence the child acquires, namely the interaction between downward entailment and c-command.
    [Show full text]
  • Applications of Universal Grammar (UG) in the ESL/EFL Classroom1
    Applications of Universal Grammar (UG) in the ESL/EFL Classroom1 Lorne O. Kirkwold ABSTRACT The article proposes Stern's (1983) framework for classifying issues related to instruction in order to ascertain the relevance of Universal Grammar (UG) in the ESL/EFL classroom. Discussed in this article, particularly as UG pertains to them, are issues related to: (a) L1transfer; (b) teaching rules and giving error correction versus presenting structures by analogy; and (c) the extent to which the focus should be content rather than language. The article will be of interest especially to teachers and also SLA researchers. The author draws on some examples in English and French, but then presents his conclusion along with further issues he raises based on his recent experience in Japanese universities. INTRODUCTION H. H. Stern will long be remembered as a prominent language educator at the University of Toronto’s prestigious Ontario Institute for Studies in Education for the contribution he made to research in Canada. In his 1983 Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching, he identified what he perceived as three central issues of language learning: (1) “The L1-L2 connection;” (2) “The explicit - implicit option;” and (3) “The code - communication dilemma” (pp. 400 - 405). These issues as he enumerated them may prove useful as a checklist for classroom teachers for evaluating theoretical framework. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to consider applications of Universal Grammar (UG) which are immediately germane in ESL/EFL instruction. As a definition of UG, Pinker (1995) includes this entry in his glossary: 1 A recent version of this article appears in Studies in Culture, the journal of the Faculty of Humanities, Hokkai- Gakuen University, Sapporo.
    [Show full text]
  • Errors in Indian English: Interlanguage and Focus Constructions
    International Journal of English Learning and Teaching Skills; Vol. 1, No. 2; ISSN : 2639-7412 (Print) ISSN : 2638-5546 (Online) ERRORS IN INDIAN ENGLISH: INTERLANGUAGE AND FOCUS CONSTRUCTIONS Anindita Sahoo, Pratiti Palit Indian Institute of Technology Madras Abstract : Language is dynamic; it is unique, creative, complex and modifiable. It grows through permutation and combination of political, social, economic, and environmental factors. Hence, we see a lot of differences in the form of dialects and idiolects. At the same time, if we cast a glance over the international scenario we can find variations from standard British English and American English. It’ll be a herculean task to identify and suggest one standard variety among all the varieties of English being used in the world today; as such there can be nothing that we call ‘Standard English’. Hence by keeping in view the scientific study of Indian English Language, we want to focus our study on errors in a variety of Indian English spoken by the native speakers of Bangla. The contention is that infrequent occurrence of certain linguistic constructions (in this case relative clauses) in one’s native language (NL) leads to errors in the target language (TL). Key Words: Indian English, Interlanguage, Focus constructions, errors, language learning, acquisition Introduction: The object of teaching is to produce learning. This learning leads interest to acquire the skill and knowledge about various aspects of language. Language teaching is basically helping the learner to get a reasonably good command over the four important skills. i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. English Language Teaching (henceforth ELT) is a vast and dynamic field of study.
    [Show full text]
  • Pidginization Theory and Second Language Learning/Acquisition 73
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Journal of King Saud University – Languages and Translation (2012) 24,71–74 King Saud University Journal of King Saud University – Languages and Translation www.ksu.edu.sa www.sciencedirect.com FULL LENGTH ARTICLE Pidginization theory and second language learning/ acquisition Jasser A. Al-Jasser College of Languages & Transation, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia Received 17 May 2011; accepted 15 February 2012 Available online 27 May 2012 KEYWORDS Abstract The study discusses and evaluates the pidginization theory and shows, through various Pidginization theory; standard and extensive references, how it relates to Second/Foreign language learning. In the intro- Language acquisition; ductory statements, the definition and sources of pidgin(ization) are illustrated. This is followed by Language learning background studies with special reference to the authors who have explored this sociolinguistic phe- nomena. In the discussion section, the linguistic characteristics of the pidginization theory are minutely examined in the context of Second and/or Foreign language learning. In this section, association between some variables such as linguistic universal and simplification, which dominate the structure of pidgin languages and their pedagogic significance, are examined. Finally, in the concluding remarks it is reasonably inferred that there is an analogy between pid- ginization theory and the early stages of Foreign/Second language acquisition, and Creolization (i.e. end result of pidginization) and the later stages of Foreign/Second language acquisition. ª 2012 King Saud University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • The Growth of Language: Universal Grammar, Experience, and Principles of Computation
    G Model NBR-2698; No. of Pages 18 ARTICLE IN PRESS Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews xxx (2017) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/neubiorev Review article The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation a,∗ b c d e,f Charles Yang , Stephen Crain , Robert C. Berwick , Noam Chomsky , Johan J. Bolhuis a Department of Linguistics and Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, 619 Williams Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19081, USA b Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, and ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia c Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA d Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT, Cambridge MA, USA e Cognitive Neurobiology and Helmholtz Institute, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands f Department of Zoology and St. Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, UK a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Human infants develop language remarkably rapidly and without overt instruction. We argue that the Received 13 September 2016 distinctive ontogenesis of child language arises from the interplay of three factors: domain-specific prin- Received in revised form ciples of language (Universal Grammar), external experience, and properties of non-linguistic domains 10 November 2016 of cognition including general learning mechanisms and principles of efficient computation. We review Accepted 16 December 2016 developmental evidence that children make use of hierarchically composed structures (‘Merge’) from the Available online xxx earliest stages and at all levels of linguistic organization.
    [Show full text]
  • The Problem of Universal Grammar with Multiple Languages: Arabic, English, Russian As Case Study
    (IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2016 The Problem of Universal Grammar with Multiple Languages: Arabic, English, Russian as Case Study Nabeel Imhammed Zanoon Department of Applied Science, Al- Balqa' Applied University (BAU) Aqaba-Jordan Abstract—Every language has its characteristics and rules, to understand and acquire their mother tongue because they though all languages share the same components like words, stipulate that the universal rules are rules for all languages [6]. sentences, subject, verb, object and so on. Nevertheless, Chomsky The language acquisition device is called Universal Grammar suggested the theory of language acquisition in children which provides children with the principles of a universal instinctively through a universal grammar that represents a language and grammatical structures with an instinctive universal grammar for all human languages. Since it has its hypothesis; it suggests that our ability to learn language rules is declaration, this theory has encountered criticism from linguists. already found in the brain. This theory states that language In this paper, the criticism will be presented, and the conclusion ability appears by itself without being taught and that there are that the general rule is not compatible with all human languages characteristics common to all human languages [7]. The will be suggested by studying some human languages as a case problem of the universal grammar with other languages will namely Arabic, English, and Russian. be discussed by studying the syntactic structure in several Keywords—Chomsky; linguistic; Universal Grammar; Arabic; languages and comparing them to each other, and by designing English; Russian a finished cases device that represents the structure and arrangement of words in the languages in order to prove that I.
    [Show full text]
  • Universal Grammar Is Dead 7
    BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2009) 32, 429–492 doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999094X The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science Nicholas Evans Department of Linguistics, Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia [email protected] http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/evann_ling.php Stephen C. Levinson Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, NL-6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands; and Radboud University, Department of Linguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands [email protected] http://www.mpi.nl/Members/StephenLevinson Abstract: Talk of linguistic universals has given cognitive scientists the impression that languages are all built to a common pattern. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct sense that all languages exhibit them. Instead, diversity can be found at almost every level of linguistic organization. This fundamentally changes the object of enquiry from a cognitive science perspective. This target article summarizes decades of cross-linguistic work by typologists and descriptive linguists, showing just how few and unprofound the universal characteristics of language are, once we honestly confront the diversity offered to us by the world’s 6,000 to 8,000 languages. After surveying the various uses of “universal,” we illustrate the ways languages vary radically in sound, meaning, and syntactic organization, and then we examine in more detail the core grammatical machinery of recursion, constituency, and grammatical relations. Although there are significant recurrent patterns in organization, these are better explained as stable engineering solutions satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition.
    [Show full text]
  • An Overview of Researches on Biolinguistics
    ISSN 1712-8056[Print] Canadian Social Science ISSN 1923-6697[Online] Vol. 10, No. 1, 2014, pp. 171-176 www.cscanada.net DOI:10.3968/j.css.1923669720141001.4219 www.cscanada.org An Overview of Researches on Biolinguistics WU Jieqiong[a],* [a]School of Foreign Languages, Hubei Engineering University, Xiaogan, language to light and promote the further development China. of linguistics. Biolinguistics aims to study languages *Corresponding author. from the perspective of biology and highlights the Received 23 August 2013; accepted 15 January 2014 fact that humanistic linguistics obtains motive force of development from biology (Yuan & Liu, 2008). Abstract Biolinguistics can be interpreted in both narrow and In 1997 in memory of the 40th anniversary of broad senses. Biolinguistics in narrow sense mainly refers transformational-generative grammar, Jenkins wrote to the study on grammar attributes proposed by school the article “Biolinguistics: Structure development and of generative grammar represented by Chomsky, who evolution of language”, which helped produce a large studies languages as a natural object and regards linguistic number of scholarly monographs and papers with respect organic function as human brain’s innate biological organ. to biolinguistics. Simultaneously, a series of relevant In broad sense, the study of biolinguistics means language international academic seminars were successfully held. research from the perspectives of evolutionary biology, This paper, based on the summarization of research neuroscience, genetic science, psychology and even status quo on biolinguistics, looks forward to the future physiological basis for the research of languages (Wu, development of biolinguistics so as to help predict the 2012a). development of biolinguistic researches. Although the discipline of biolinguistics is a new branch of science, it has a long history.
    [Show full text]
  • Another Look at the Universal Grammar Hypothesis: Commentary on Evans 2014 Adele E
    200 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 92, NUMBER 1 (2016) quickly becomes evident that this is not a genuine tour de force, à la Pinker 1994. No, TLM is not the antidote to the long cognitivist nightmare that is The language instinct . In fact, by the end of the book, I fear it not only misses the point, but if adopted to any degree within the field, will also mislead young researchers and students of language into thinking that the debate is between E’s brand of linguistics on the one hand, and a bunch of raving, delusional, irrational bullies on the other. Ultimately, then, TLM will do little to advance the debate on linguistic nativism, although it might very well energize those already in E’s camp. REFERENCES Bickerton, Derek . 1981. The roots of language . Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma. Bickerton, Derek . 1984. The language bioprogram hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7.173–88. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00044149 . Crain, Stephen, and Mineharu Nakayama. 1987. Structure dependence in grammar formation. Language 63.522–43. DOI: 10.2307/415004 . Evans, Vyvyan. 2014 . The language myth: Why language is not an instinct . Cambridge: Cambridge Uni - versity Press. Pinker , Steven . 1994. The language instinct . New York: William Morrow & Company. Department of Linguistics University of Hawai‘i at Manoa [[email protected]] Another look at the universal grammar hypothesis: Commentary on Evans 2014 Adele E. Goldberg Princeton University * It is important to recognize that The language myth (TLM ) is not a research monograph, but is instead aimed at a popular audience, and therefore it should be judged in this light.
    [Show full text]
  • AUTHOR Poplack, Shana
    - DOCUMENT _RESUME ED 214 394' FL 012 847 AUTHOR Poplack, Shana . TITLE "Sometimes I'll, Start a Sentence in Spanish Y TERMINO EN ESPANOL": Toward a Typology of Code-Switching. 4 CENTRO Working Papers, No. 4. *_. INSTITUTION City Univ. of New Ybrk, N.Y. Centro de Estudios Puertorriguenos. PUB DATE Mar 79 NOTE 83p.; Prepared by Language policy Taik,,Force., ( EDRS PRICE MF01/PC04 Plus Postage. ' DESCRIPTORS Adults; *Bilingualism; *Code Switching (Language); English; Ethnic Groups; Language Research; Language 4-, Usage; Linguistic Competence; *Puerto Ricans; * -/ *Sociolinguistics; Spanish; *Spanish Speaking; *Speech Communication; Syntax ., IDENTIFIERS New York (New York) ABSTRACT This paper.attempts'to integrate the results of the ethnographic and attitudinal components of a broader study into a specifically sociolinguistic analysis. While A variety of opinions can be found in the literature'on code-switching, the contention here is that code-switching is'a norm in specific speech situations that exist in stable bilingual communities. Satisfaction of th 'Is norm requires more linguistic competence in two languages than has heretofore been noted. The code- switching behavior of 20 Puerto Ricans from 102nd'Street in New York City, who had varying degrees (4 reported and obseeved bilingual ability, was observed 9.nd described. The quantitative'analyseis are based on recorded speech data in both interview and natural settings. The analysis deals with linguistic . questions concerning the surface configuration pf.the switch, and with the code-switchers themselves. A finding considered to be Crucial is that there are virtually no ungrammatical conbinations of the two Anguages in the 1,835 switches studied, regardless of.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Linguistic Typology
    An Introduction to Linguistic Typology An Introduction to Linguistic Typology Viveka Velupillai University of Giessen John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of 8 the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data An introduction to linguistic typology / Viveka Velupillai. â. p cm. â Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Typology (Linguistics) 2. Linguistic universals. I. Title. P204.V45 â 2012 415--dc23 2012020909 isbn 978 90 272 1198 9 (Hb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 1199 6 (Pb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 7350 5 (Eb) © 2012 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Company • P.O. Box 36224 • 1020 me Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O. Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA V. Velupillai: Introduction to Typology NON-PUBLIC VERSION: PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR DISSEMINATE!! ForFor AlTô VelaVela anchoranchor and and inspiration inspiration 2 Table of contents Acknowledgements xv Abbreviations xvii Abbreviations for sign language names xx Database acronyms xxi Languages cited in chapter 1 xxii 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Fast forward from the past to the present 1 1.2 The purpose of this book 3 1.3 Conventions 5 1.3.1 Some remarks on the languages cited in this book 5 1.3.2 Some remarks on the examples in this book 8 1.4 The structure of this book 10 1.5 Keywords 12 1.6 Exercises 12 Languages cited in chapter 2 14 2.
    [Show full text]