Constraints on Language Acquisition

Download Constraints on Language Acquisition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 1317783808
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (177 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Constraints on Language Acquisition by : Helen Tager-Flusberg

Download or read book Constraints on Language Acquisition written by Helen Tager-Flusberg and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After decades of research most scholars generally agree that language acquisition is a complex and multifaceted process that involves the interaction of innate biologically-based mechanisms devoted to language, other non-linguistic cognitive and social mechanisms, linguistic input, and information about the social and physical world. Theoretical work in the field of language acquisition now needs to focus in greater depth and detail on some specific aspects of this general model, which is the main goal of this book. The chapters in this volume provide some new insights into one of the most remarkable accomplishments achieved by almost all children. The particular questions that are raised by contributors include: * What kinds of constraints operate on the process of language development? * Which aspects of the acquisition process depend on language-specific mechanisms? * Are there critical brain structures necessary for the acquisition of language? * What role do cognitive and social mechanisms play in language development? * How critical is perceptual input about the physical and social world? * What is the specific role played by linguistic input in the child's construction of a linguistic system? Questions are addressed from the perspective of children who come to the task of acquiring language with many hurdles to overcome, including deafness and blindness, mental retardation, autism, and prenatal or perinatal brain damage involving the left hemisphere. Each section contributes some insight on how an innate language-specific biological substrate interacts with cognitive and social factors, as well as external information, to support the child's construction of a linguistic system. Studies of atypical children offer a singular contribution to this enterprise by allowing us to see the specific influences of each component, and in turn, they shed new light on how all children are able to acquire language so effortlessly and during such a brief period of development.

Language Choices

Download Language Choices PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027218315
Total Pages : 453 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Language Choices by : Martin Pütz

Download or read book Language Choices written by Martin Pütz and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume concerns various aspects of the theory and application of language conflict phenomena seen from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus is on linguistic, social, psychological and educational issues (conditions, constraints and consequences) involved in the status and use of languages in multilingual settings. The book is divided into four sections, which deal with: theoretical issues - such as the nature of the concepts of language maintenance; language policy and language planning; attitudes towards languages; and codeswitching and language choice.

Origins of Language

Download Origins of Language PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027294607
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Origins of Language by : Sverker Johansson

Download or read book Origins of Language written by Sverker Johansson and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2005-02-17 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sverker Johansson has written an unusual book on language origins, with its emphasis on empirical evidence rather than theory-building. This is a book for the student or researcher who prefers solid data and well-supported conclusions, over speculative scenarios. Much that has been written on the origins of language is characterized by hypothesizing largely unconstrained by evidence. But empirical data do exist, and the purpose of this book is to integrate and review the available evidence from all relevant disciplines, not only linguistics but also, e.g., neurology, primatology, paleoanthropology, and evolutionary biology. The evidence is then used to constrain the multitude of scenarios for language origins, demonstrating that many popular hypotheses are untenable. Among the issues covered: (1) Human evolutionary history, (2) Anatomical prerequisites for language, (3) Animal communication and ape "language", (4) Mind and language, (5) The role of gesture, (6) Innateness, (7) Selective advantage of language, (8) Proto-language.

Functional Constraints in Grammar

Download Functional Constraints in Grammar PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027295212
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Functional Constraints in Grammar by : Susumu Kuno

Download or read book Functional Constraints in Grammar written by Susumu Kuno and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines in detail the acceptability status of sentences in the following five English constructions, and elucidates the syntactic, semantic, and functional requirements that the constructions must satisfy in order to be appropriately used: There-Construction, (One’s) Way Construction, Cognate Object Construction, Pseudo-Passive Construction, and Extraposition from Subject NPs. It has been argued in the frameworks of Chomskyan generative grammar, relational grammar, conceptual semantics and other syntactic theories that the acceptability of sentences in these constructions can be accounted for by the unergative–unaccusative distinction of intransitive verbs. However, this book shows through a wide range of sentences that none of these constructions is sensitive to this distinction. For each construction, it shows that acceptability status is determined by a given sentence's semantic function as it interacts with syntactic constraints (which are independent of the unergative–unaccusative distinction), and with functional constraints that apply to it in its discourse context.

Programming with Constraints

Download Programming with Constraints PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262133418
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (334 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Programming with Constraints by : Kim Marriott

Download or read book Programming with Constraints written by Kim Marriott and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constraints; Simplification, optimization and implication; Finite constraint domains; Constraint logic programming; Simple modeling; Using data structures; Controlling search; Modelling with finite domain constraints; Advanced programming techniques; CLP systems; Other constraint programming languages; Constraint databases; Index.

The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition

Download The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027271690
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition by : Anke Lenzing

Download or read book The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition written by Anke Lenzing and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Christopher Brumfit Award in Applied Linguistics.The Development of the Grammatical System in Early Second Language Acquisition focuses on the acquisition process of early L2 learners. It is based on the following key hypothesis: the initial mental grammatical system of L2 learners is constrained semantically, syntactically and mnemonically. This hypothesis is formalised as the Multiple Constraints Hypothesis. The empirical test of the Multiple Constraints Hypothesis is based on a large database including cross-sectional and longitudinal data from square-one ESL beginners. The study demonstrates that the postulated constraints are relaxed successively as learning progresses. The book is intended for postgraduate students as well as SLA researchers.

Constraints in Discourse

Download Constraints in Discourse PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027291438
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Constraints in Discourse by : Anton Benz

Download or read book Constraints in Discourse written by Anton Benz and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008-04-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a commonplace to say that the meaning of text is more than the conjunction of the meaning of its constituents. But what are the rules governing its interpretation, and what are the constraints that define well-formed discourse? Answers to these questions can be given from various perspectives. In this edited volume, leading scientists in the field investigate these questions from structural, cognitive, and computational perspectives. The last decades have seen the development of numerous formal frameworks in which the structure of discourse can be analysed, the most important of them being the Linguistic Discourse Model, Rhetorical Structure Theory and Segmented Discourse Representation Theory. This volume contains an introduction to these frameworks and the fundamental topics in research about discourse constraints. Thus it should be accessible to specialists in the field as well as advanced graduate students and researchers from neighbouring areas. The volume is of interest to discourse linguists, psycholinguists, cognitive scientists, and computational linguists.

The Human Semantic Potential

Download The Human Semantic Potential PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262181730
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (817 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Human Semantic Potential by : Terry Regier

Download or read book The Human Semantic Potential written by Terry Regier and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on ideas from cognitive linguistics, connectionism, and perception, The Human Semantic Potential describes a connectionist model that learns perceptually grounded semantics for natural language in spatial terms. Languages differ in the ways in which they structure space, and Regier's aim is to have the model perform its learning task for terms from any natural language. The system has so far succeeded in learning spatial terms from English, German, Russian, Japanese, and Mixtec. The model views simple movies of two-dimensional objects moving relative to one another and learns to classify them linguistically in accordance with the spatial system of some natural language. The overall goal is to determine which sorts of spatial configurations and events are learnable as the semantics for spatial terms and which are not. Ultimately, the model and its theoretical underpinnings are a step in the direction of articulating biologically based constraints on the nature of human semantic systems. Along the way Regier takes up such substantial issues as the attraction and the liabilities of PDP and structured connectionist modeling, the problem of learning without direct negative evidence, and the area of linguistic universals, which is addressed in the model itself. Trained on spatial terms from different languages, the model permits observations about the possible bases of linguistic universals and interlanguage variation.

Encyclopedia of Language Development

Download Encyclopedia of Language Development PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : SAGE Publications
ISBN 13 : 1483389774
Total Pages : 1471 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (833 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of Language Development by : Patricia J. Brooks

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Language Development written by Patricia J. Brooks and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2014-03-28 with total page 1471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The progression from newborn to sophisticated language user in just a few short years is often described as wonderful and miraculous. What are the biological, cognitive, and social underpinnings of this miracle? What major language development milestones occur in infancy? What methodologies do researchers employ in studying this progression? Why do some become adept at multiple languages while others face a lifelong struggle with just one? What accounts for declines in language proficiency, and how might such declines be moderated? Despite an abundance of textbooks, specialized monographs, and a couple of academic handbooks, there has been no encyclopedic reference work in this area--until now. The Encyclopedia of Language Development covers the breadth of theory and research on language development from birth through adulthood, as well as their practical application. Features: This affordable A-to-Z reference includes 200 articles that address such topic areas as theories and research tradition; biological perspectives; cognitive perspectives; family, peer, and social influences; bilingualism; special populations and disorders; and more. All articles (signed and authored by key figures in the field) conclude with cross reference links and suggestions for further reading. Appendices include a Resource Guide with annotated lists of classic books and articles, journals, associations, and web sites; a Glossary of specialized terms; and a Chronology offering an overview and history of the field. A thematic Reader’s Guide groups related articles by broad topic areas as one handy search feature on the e-Reference platform, which includes a comprehensive index of search terms. Available in both print and electronic formats, Encyclopedia of Language Development is a must-have reference for researchers and is ideal for library reference or circulating collections. Key Themes: Categories Effects of language on cognitive development Fundamentals, theories and models of language development Impairments of language development Language development in special populations Literacy and language development Mechanisms of language development Methods in language development research Prelinguistic communicative development Social effects in language acquisition Specific aspects of language development

Constraint Processing

Download Constraint Processing PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN 13 : 1558608907
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (586 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Constraint Processing by : Rina Dechter

Download or read book Constraint Processing written by Rina Dechter and published by Morgan Kaufmann. This book was released on 2003-05-05 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constraint reasoning has matured over the last three decades with contributions from a diverse community of researchers in artificial intelligence, databases and programming languages, operations research, management science, and applied mathematics. In Constraint Processing, Rina Dechter synthesizes these contributions, as well as her own significant work, to provide the first comprehensive examination of the theory that underlies constraint processing algorithms.

Planning Language, Planning Inequality

Download Planning Language, Planning Inequality PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Longman Publishing Group
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Planning Language, Planning Inequality by : James W. Tollefson

Download or read book Planning Language, Planning Inequality written by James W. Tollefson and published by Longman Publishing Group. This book was released on 1991 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of how an individual's native language can affect their lifestyle. Topics covered range from maintenance of the mother-tongue and second language learning, to the ideology of language planning theory, to education and language rights.

Language in Our Brain

Download Language in Our Brain PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262036924
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Language in Our Brain by : Angela D. Friederici

Download or read book Language in Our Brain written by Angela D. Friederici and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive account of the neurobiological basis of language, arguing that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Language makes us human. It is an intrinsic part of us, although we seldom think about it. Language is also an extremely complex entity with subcomponents responsible for its phonological, syntactic, and semantic aspects. In this landmark work, Angela Friederici offers a comprehensive account of these subcomponents and how they are integrated. Tracing the neurobiological basis of language across brain regions in humans and other primate species, she argues that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Friederici shows which brain regions support the different language processes and, more important, how these brain regions are connected structurally and functionally to make language processes that take place in milliseconds possible. She finds that one particular brain structure (a white matter dorsal tract), connecting syntax-relevant brain regions, is present only in the mature human brain and only weakly present in other primate brains. Is this the “missing link” that explains humans' capacity for language? Friederici describes the basic language functions and their brain basis; the language networks connecting different language-related brain regions; the brain basis of language acquisition during early childhood and when learning a second language, proposing a neurocognitive model of the ontogeny of language; and the evolution of language and underlying neural constraints. She finds that it is the information exchange between the relevant brain regions, supported by the white matter tract, that is the crucial factor in both language development and evolution.

Constraints in Phonological Acquisition

Download Constraints in Phonological Acquisition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139450190
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Constraints in Phonological Acquisition by : René Kager

Download or read book Constraints in Phonological Acquisition written by René Kager and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-15 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This outstanding 2004 volume presents an overview of linguistic research into the acquisition of phonology. Bringing together well-known researchers in the field, it focuses on constraints in phonological acquisition (as opposed to rules), and offers concrete examples of the formalization of phonological development in terms of constraint ranking. The first two chapters situate the research in its broader context, with an introduction by the editors providing a brief general tutorial on Optimality Theory. Chapter two serves to highlight the history of constraints in studies of phonological development, which predates their current ascent to prominence in phonological theory. The remaining chapters address a number of partially overlapping themes: the study of child production data in terms of constraints, learnability issues, perceptual development and its relation to the development of production, and second-language acquisition.

Constraints, Language and Computation

Download Constraints, Language and Computation PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Elsevier
ISBN 13 : 0080502962
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (85 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Constraints, Language and Computation by : M. A. Rosner

Download or read book Constraints, Language and Computation written by M. A. Rosner and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2014-06-28 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constraint-based linguistics is intersected by three fields: logic, linguistics, and computer sciences. The central theme that ties these different disciplines together is the notion of a linguistic formalism or metalanguage. This metalanguage has good mathematical properties, is designed to express descriptions of language, and has a semantics that can be implemented on a computer. Constraints, Language and Computation discusses the theory and practice of constraint-based computational linguistics. The book captures both the maturity of the field and some of its more interesting future prospects during a particulary important moment of development in this field.

Developmental Neurocognition

Download Developmental Neurocognition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9789401582353
Total Pages : 498 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (823 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Developmental Neurocognition by : B. De Boysson-Bardies

Download or read book Developmental Neurocognition written by B. De Boysson-Bardies and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on the topic of "Changes in Speech and Face Processing in Infancy: A glimpse at Developmental Mechanisms of Cognition", which was held in Carry-Ie-Rouet (France) at the Vacanciel "La Calanque", from June 29 to July 3, 1992. For many years, developmental researchers have been systematically exploring what is concealed by the blooming and buzzing confusion (as William James described the infant's world). Much research has been carried out on the mechanisms by which organisms recognize and relate to their conspecifics, in particular with respect to language acquisition and face recognition. Given this background, it seems worthwhile to compare not only the conceptual advances made in these two domains, but also the methodological difficulties faced in each of them. In both domains, there is evidence of sophisticated abilities right from birth. Similarly, researchers in these domains have focused on whether the mechanisms underlying these early competences are modality-specific, object specific or otherwise.

Rules, Constraints, and Phonological Phenomena

Download Rules, Constraints, and Phonological Phenomena PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191527661
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Rules, Constraints, and Phonological Phenomena by : Bert Vaux

Download or read book Rules, Constraints, and Phonological Phenomena written by Bert Vaux and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-05-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of new work by prominent phonologists goes to the heart of current debates in phonological and linguistic theory: should the explanation of phonological variety be constraint or rule-based and, in the light of the resolution of this question, how in the mind does phonology interface with other components of the grammar. The book includes contributions from leading proponents of both sides of the argument and an extensive introduction setting out the history, nature, and more general linguistic implications of current phonological theory.

Probabilistic Linguistics

Download Probabilistic Linguistics PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : A Bradford Book
ISBN 13 : 0262025361
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Probabilistic Linguistics by : Rens Bod

Download or read book Probabilistic Linguistics written by Rens Bod and published by A Bradford Book. This book was released on 2003-04-08 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past forty years, linguistics has been dominated by the idea that language is categorical and linguistic competence discrete. It has become increasingly clear, however, that many levels of representation, from phonemes to sentence structure, show probabilistic properties, as does the language faculty. Probabilistic linguistics conceptualizes categories as distributions and views knowledge of language not as a minimal set of categorical constraints but as a set of gradient rules that may be characterized by a statistical distribution. Whereas categorical approaches focus on the endpoints of distributions of linguistic phenomena, probabilistic approaches focus on the gradient middle ground. Probabilistic linguistics integrates all the progress made by linguistics thus far with a probabilistic perspective. This book presents a comprehensive introduction to probabilistic approaches to linguistic inquiry. It covers the application of probabilistic techniques to phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics. It also includes a tutorial on elementary probability theory and probabilistic grammars.