Statistical Universals Of Language

Author : Kumiko Tanaka-Ishii
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030593770
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Statistical Universals of Language written by Kumiko Tanaka-Ishii and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the universal mathematical properties underlying big language data and possible reasons why such properties exist, revealing how we may be unconsciously mathematical in our language use. These properties are statistical and thus different from linguistic universals that contribute to describing the variation of human languages, and they can only be identified over a large accumulation of usages. The book provides an overview of state-of-the art findings on these statistical universals and reconsiders the nature of language accordingly, with Zipf's law as a well-known example. The main focus of the book further lies in explaining the property of long memory, which was discovered and studied more recently by borrowing concepts from complex systems theory. The statistical universals not only possibly lie as the precursor of language system formation, but they also highlight the qualities of language that remain weak points in today's machine learning. In summary, this book provides an overview of language's global properties. It will be of interest to anyone engaged in fields related to language and computing or statistical analysis methods, with an emphasis on researchers and students in computational linguistics and natural language processing. While the book does apply mathematical concepts, all possible effort has been made to speak to a non-mathematical audience as well by communicating mathematical content intuitively, with concise examples taken from real texts.

Author : Morten H. Christiansen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190294116
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Language Universals written by Morten H. Christiansen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Languages differ from one another in bewildering and seemingly arbitrary ways. For example, in English, the verb precedes the direct object ('understand the proof'), but in Japanese, the direct object comes first. In some languages, such as Mohawk, it is not even possible to establish a basic word order. Nonetheless, languages do share certain regularities in how they are structured and used. The exact nature and extent of these "language universals" has been the focus of much research and is one of the central explanatory goals in the language sciences. During the past 50 years, there has been tremendous progress, a few major conceptual revolutions, and even the emergence of entirely new fields. The wealth of findings and theories offered by the various language-science disciplines has made it more important than ever to work toward an integrated understanding of the nature of human language universals. This book is the first to examine language universals from a cross-disciplinary perspective. It provides new insights into long standing questions such as: What exactly defines the human capacity for language? Are there universal properties of human languages and, if so, what are they? Can all language universals be explained in the same way, or do some universals require different kinds of explanations from others? Language Universals is unique in starting with the assumption that the best way to approach these and related questions is through a dialogue between a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, computer science and biology.

Author : Jürgen Handke, Peter Franke
Publisher : Waxmann Verlag
ISBN 13 : 383096689X
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Virtual Linguistics Campus written by Jürgen Handke, Peter Franke and published by Waxmann Verlag. This book was released on 2006 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Bernard Comrie
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226114330
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Language Universals and Linguistic Typology written by Bernard Comrie and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989-07-15 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here, Comrie (linguistics, U. of Southern Cal.) is particularly concerned with syntactico-semantic universals, devoting chapters to word order, case marking, relative clauses, and causative constructions. This second edition takes full account of new research into generative grammatical theory. Acidic paper. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author : Nicholas Allott
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119598680
Total Pages : 644 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Companion to Chomsky written by Nicholas Allott and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A COMPANION TO CHOMSKY Widely considered to be one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky has revolutionized modern linguistics. His thought has had a profound impact upon the philosophy of language, mind, and science, as well as the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science which his work helped to establish. Now, in this new Companion dedicated to his substantial body of work and the range of its influence, an international assembly of prominent linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists reflect upon the interdisciplinary reach of Chomsky's intellectual contributions. Balancing theoretical rigor with accessibility to the non-specialist, the Companion is organized into eight sections—including the historical development of Chomsky's theories and the current state of the art, comparison with rival usage-based approaches, and the relation of his generative approach to work on linguistic processing, acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language. Later chapters address Chomsky's rationalist critique of behaviorism and related empiricist approaches to psychology, as well as his insistence upon a "Galilean" methodology in cognitive science. Following a brief discussion of the relation of his work in linguistics to his work on political issues, the book concludes with an essay written by Chomsky himself, reflecting on the history and character of his work in his own words. A significant contribution to the study of Chomsky's thought, A Companion to Chomsky is an indispensable resource for philosophers, linguists, psychologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers with interest in Noam Chomsky's intellectual legacy as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century.

Author : Karsten Schmidtke-Bode
Publisher : Language Science Press
ISBN 13 : 3961101477
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Explanation in typology written by Karsten Schmidtke-Bode and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides an up-to-date discussion of a foundational issue that has recently taken centre stage in linguistic typology and which is relevant to the language sciences more generally: To what extent can cross-linguistic generalizations, i.e. statistical universals of linguistic structure, be explained by the diachronic sources of these structures? Everyone agrees that typological distributions are the result of complex histories, as “languages evolve into the variation states to which synchronic universals pertain” (Hawkins 1988). However, an increasingly popular line of argumentation holds that many, perhaps most, typological regularities are long-term reflections of their diachronic sources, rather than being ‘target-driven’ by overarching functional-adaptive motivations. On this view, recurrent pathways of reanalysis and grammaticalization can lead to uniform synchronic results, obviating the need to postulate global forces like ambiguity avoidance, processing efficiency or iconicity, especially if there is no evidence for such motivations in the genesis of the respective constructions. On the other hand, the recent typological literature is equally ripe with talk of "complex adaptive systems", "attractor states" and "cross-linguistic convergence". One may wonder, therefore, how much room is left for traditional functional-adaptive forces and how exactly they influence the diachronic trajectories that shape universal distributions. The papers in the present volume are intended to provide an accessible introduction to this debate. Covering theoretical, methodological and empirical facets of the issue at hand, they represent current ways of thinking about the role of diachronic sources in explaining grammatical universals, articulated by seasoned and budding linguists alike.

Author : Peter Siemund
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110238055
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Linguistic Universals and Language Variation written by Peter Siemund and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume explores the relationship between linguistic universals and language variation. Its contributions identify the recurrent patterns and principles behind the complex spectrum of observable variation. The volume bridges the gap between cross-linguistic variation, regional variation, diachronic variation, contact-induced variation as well as socially conditioned variation. Moreover, it addresses fundamental methodological and theoretical issues of variation research. The volume brings together internationally renowned specialists of their fields while, at the same time, offering a platform for gifted and highly talented young researchers. The authors come from different theoretical backgrounds and through their work illustrate a rich array of scientific methods. All authors share a strong belief in empirically founded theoretical work. The contributions span a high number of languages and dialects from many parts of the world. They are extremely broad in their empirical coverage addressing an impressive selection of grammatical domains.

Author : Marcel Danesi
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030225372
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Math Cognition written by Marcel Danesi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-14 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an anthology of contemporary studies from various disciplinary perspectives written by some of the world's most renowned experts in each of the areas of mathematics, neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, semiotics, education, and more. Its purpose is not to add merely to the accumulation of studies, but to show that math cognition is best approached from various disciplinary angles, with the goal of broadening the general understanding of mathematical cognition through the different theoretical threads that can be woven into an overall understanding. This volume will be of interest to mathematicians, cognitive scientists, educators of mathematics, philosophers of mathematics, semioticians, psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, and all other kinds of scholars who are interested in the nature, origin, and development of mathematical cognition.

Author : John A Hawkins
Publisher : Elsevier
ISBN 13 : 1483296601
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Word Order Universals written by John A Hawkins and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Word Order Universals

Author : Anthony Woods
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521273121
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Statistics in Language Studies written by Anthony Woods and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1986-08-14 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a wide variety of linguistic examples to demonstrate the use of statistics in summarizing data appropriately. The range of techniques introduced will help readers to evaluate and use literature employing statistical analysis, and to apply statistics in their own research.