-
Grammatical representations versus productive patterns in change theories Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 Ailís Cournane
Abstract In this paper, I discuss differences between representational change (i. e. in formal features and structures involved in grammatical competence) and change in quantitative patterns (i. e. in the quantitative properties of the language system in use), as relevant to my approach to incrementation. My approach differs from the standard variationist sociolinguistic approach because I argue that
-
Uninterpretable features in learning and alternative grammars? Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 Igor Yanovich
Walkden and Breitbarth employ historical data in order to test a conjecture expressed by Trudgill (2011) regarding a link between linguistic complexity and the language-contact situation: namely, “short-term contact involving extensive adult second-language (L2) use is predicted to lead to simplification” (W&B). Specifically, the authors address this conjecture with respect to syntactic complexity
-
A developmental view on incrementation in language change Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 Ailís Cournane
Abstract Acquisition is an intuitive place to look for explanation in language change. Each child must learn their individual grammar(s) via the indirect process of analyzing the output of others’ grammars, and the process necessarily involves social transmission over several years. On the basis of child language learning behaviors, I ask whether it is reasonable to expect the incrementation (advancement)
-
Model evaluation in computational historical linguistics Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 Gerhard Jäger
Abstract This is a reply to the comments by Hammarström et al. (This volume) and List (This volume) on the target article Computational Historical Linguistics (This volume). There I proposed several methodological principles for research in Computational Historical Linguistics pertaining to suitable techniques for model fitting and model evaluation. Hammarström et al. debate the usefulness of these
-
On computational historical linguistics in the 21st century Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 Harald Hammarström, Philipp Rönchen, Erik Elgh, Tilo Wiklund
We welcome Gerhard Jäger’s framing of Computational Historical Linguistics: its history and background, its goals and ambitions as well as the concrete implementation by Jäger himself. As Jäger explains (pp. 151–153), the comparative method can be broken down into seven steps and there have been attempts to formalise/automatise (some of) the steps since the 1950s. However, Jäger contrasts the work
-
Computational historical linguistics Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 Gerhard Jäger
Abstract Computational approaches to historical linguistics have been proposed for half a century. Within the last decade, this line of research has received a major boost, owing both to the transfer of ideas and software from computational biology and to the release of several large electronic data resources suitable for systematic comparative work. In this article, some of the central research topics
-
Interpreting (un)interpretability Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 George Walkden, Anne Breitbarth
Our target article (henceforth W&B) proposed a diachronic connection between a structural property of grammars and particular sociohistorical situations: all else being equal, we predict that in sociohistorical situations in which adult L2 learners are particularly dominant quantitatively or qualitatively, uninterpretable features will typically be lost. W&B outlines a research programme rather than
-
Complexity as L2-difficulty: Implications for syntactic change Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-12-18 George Walkden, Anne Breitbarth
Abstract Recent work has cast doubt on the idea that all languages are equally complex; however, the notion of syntactic complexity remains underexplored. Taking complexity to equate to difficulty of acquisition for late L2 acquirers, we propose an operationalization of syntactic complexity in terms of uninterpretable features. Trudgill’s sociolinguistic typology predicts that sociohistorical situations
-
Experimental approaches to studying visible meaning. Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-28 Karen Emmorey
-
Some questions about the notion of “commitment” Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-26 Rodger Kibble
I much enjoyed reading this paper: it is admirably lucid, and I am generally in sympathy with the author’s programme of treating communication as a vehicle for action coordination via social commitments. In what follows I offer some suggestions as to how the analysis could be elaborated, as well as indicating some points where I am not quite convinced by the author’s proposals, however much I might
-
Commitment sharing as crucial step toward a developmentally plausible speech act theory? Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-26 Hannes Rakoczy, Tanya Behne
From the point of view of cognitive development, the present paper by Bart Geurts is highly relevant, welcome and timely. It speaks to a fundamental puzzle in developmental pragmatics that used to be seen as such, then was considered to be resolved by many researchers, but may return nowadays with its full puzzling force. The puzzle in question is the following: on broadly Gricean accounts, how should
-
How to avoid overcommitment: Communication as thought sharing (with consequences) Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-26 Dietmar Zaefferer
We have to be grateful to Bart Geurts (BG henceforth) for his intriguing study on the effects of running through an interesting option in the theory of linguistic communication: Casting the concept of commitment as the principal character in order to explore the amount of “explanatory mileage” (BG p. 2) a commitment-based account provides. And I am grateful for being offered the opportunity to spell
-
Think twice before paving illocutionary paradise Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-26 Mitchell Green
We here assess Geurts’ proposal to understand the bulk of human communication in terms of commitments undertaken in the service of action coordination. Our main points are as follows: (i) Geurts’ criticism of intention-based accounts rests on an unduly narrow notion of intentional action and its interpretation, and thus attacks a straw version thereof; (ii) properly understood, Geurts’ view of communication
-
Intention and commitment in speech acts Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-26 Daniel W. Harris
What is a speech act, and what makes it count as one kind of speech act rather than another? In the target article, Geurts considers two ways of answering these questions.1 His opponent is intentionalism—the view that performing a speech act is a matter of acting with a communicative intention, and that speech acts of different kinds involve intentions to affect hearers in different ways. Geurts offers
-
Commitments continued Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-26 Bart Geurts
My target article outlines a pragmatic theory centred on the notion of commitment, which I believe is simpler and more general than what has been on offer so far. First, I argue that commitments are involved in a wider variety of utterances than are covered by alternative accounts, and are also the basis for turn-taking (question–answer, greeting–greeting, and so on). Second, the theory features a
-
Communication as commitment sharing: speech acts, implicatures, common ground Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2019-06-26 Bart Geurts
Abstract The main tenet of this paper is that human communication is first and foremost a matter of negotiating commitments, rather than one of conveying intentions, beliefs, and other mental states. Every speech act causes the speaker to become committed to the hearer to act on a propositional content. Hence, commitments are relations between speakers, hearers, and propositions. Their purpose is to
-
Pronouns in space Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Regine Eckardt
The original utterance is copied verbatim and is arguably mentioned, not used by the speaker of (1). In writing, the utterance is marked by quotation marks “ ”. Grammatical relations between the utterance in quotation marks and the clause introducing the quotation are generally prohibited. Let me introduce a few terms on basis of (1). The reported speaker, here Tom, will be called the “protagonist”
-
What belongs in the “logical core” of a language? Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Kathryn Davidson
Cognitive scientific approaches to the study of language are relatively young, and younger still are the comparison between the psychological representations of speech and sign. However, early within sign language linguistics (Stokoe 1960) and psycholinguistics (Bellugi and Fischer 1972; Klima and Bellugi 1979) it became clear that sign languages share fundamental structural and psychological properties
-
Sign language iconicity and gradient effects Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Sandro Zucchi
Schlenker’s paper presents a very stimulating wide-ranging assessment of the import of work in sign language semantics for the foundations of semantics and universal grammar. My comments here will focus on the role of iconicity in the semantics of sign languages, which is a central theme addressed in the paper. In Section 2, I discuss the distinction between categorical iconicity and gradient iconicity
-
Sign Language Semantics: Problems and Prospects Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Philippe Schlenker
Abstract ‘Visible Meaning’ (Schlenker 2018b) claims (i) that sign language makes visible some aspects of the Logical Form of sentences that are covert in spoken language, and (ii) that, along some dimensions, sign languages are more expressive than spoken languages because iconic conditions can be found at their logical core. Following nine peer commentaries, we clarify both claims and discuss three
-
A comparison of sign language with speech plus gesture Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Cornelia Ebert
In the introduction to his target article Schlenker writes that „sign languages provide overt evidence on crucial aspects of the Logical Form of sentences that are only inferred indirectly in spoken language“ (p. 3) and furthermore that „sign languages are strictly more expressive than spoken languages because iconic phenomena can be found at their logical core“ (p.3). He further argues that one of
-
Iconic components as gestural elements: The case of LIS Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Valentina Aristodemo, Mirko Santoro
In his target article, Schlenker argues that sign languages play a crucial role in the foundations of semantics because of two key properties: visibility and iconicity. The first property allows some crucial semantic elements, which are covert in spoken language, to be overtly represented in sign language. The second property refers to the possibility to have amapping between form andmeaning which
-
Visible Meaning: Sign language and the foundations of semantics Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Philippe Schlenker
Abstract While it is now accepted that sign languages should inform and constrain theories of ‘Universal Grammar’, their role in ‘Universal Semantics’ has been under-studied. We argue that they have a crucial role to play in the foundations of semantics, for two reasons. First, in some cases sign languages provide overt evidence on crucial aspects of the Logical Form of sentences, ones that are only
-
Modality and contextual salience in co-sign vs. co-speech gesture Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Diane Brentari
Schlenker has done an excellent job of combining a number of different strands of recent work on sign languages in order to make a larger case that: (i) sign languages make logical form visible, and (ii) this logical visibility is made possible via iconicity. These two hypotheses are intertwined in ways that focus on the fundamental question concerning the boundary between language and gesture, both
-
On categorizing types of role shift in Sign languages Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Josep Quer
The research in this paper was partly made possible thanks to the grants awarded to the author by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and FEDER Funds (FFI2015-68 594-P), by the Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017 SGR 1478) and by the European Commission (SIGN-HUB H2020 project 693 349).
-
Quotation, demonstration, and attraction in sign language role shift Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-11-27 Emar Maier
Sign language researchers have devoted a lot of attention to role shift, a way of reporting what someone said, signed, thought or did. Typically, role shift is characterized as a kind of direct quotation, involving a shift of the body or eye gaze away from the current addressee, and allowing the signer to sign “from the perspective of the reported speaker.” i.e. depicting the reported (utterance) event
-
Shifting perspective: noun classes, voice, and animacy type shifts Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Diane Nelson, Virve-Anneli Vihman
Much work on linguistic animacy represents it as a gradient or scalar phenomenon, conceptualized as either linear or radial (Lockwood and Macaulay 2012; Yamamoto 1999, 2006). De Swart & de Hoop’s (henceforth dS&dH) central proposal rejects the view that grammatical reflexes of animacy are themselves gradient. Instead, they argue for a dissociation between conceptual animacy, a category which allows
-
Shifting animacy shifts Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Joost Zwarts
De Swart and de Hoop (henceforth dS&dH) make the suggestion that the linguistic distinction between animate and inanimate categories should be brought within the scope of the formal semantic theory of types and type shifts, overt and covert. I would like to work out this interesting idea a bit more. The result might be different from what dS&dH had in mind, although it is hopefully in the same promising
-
Possible and impossible animacy shifts Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Elizabeth Ritter
The core idea explored in the target article by dS&dH is that covert and overt shifts in animacy have different effects on selected arguments: Overt shifts constitute a repair strategy when there is a mismatch between the semantic type of the argument and the selectional properties of the predicate. The result is morpho-syntactic accommodation with no change in conceptual animacy. In contrast, covert
-
Gradience, features and hierarchies Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Ida Toivonen
In Shifting Animacy, Peter de Swart and Helen de Hoop argue that animacy in general and animacy shifts in particular can be better understood if we take into account the distinction between grammatical and conceptual animacy. They argue that possible mismatches between conceptual and grammatical animacy licence animacy shifts. Their approach seems promising to me,1 but I would nevertheless like to
-
Shifting animacy Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Peter de Swart, Helen de Hoop
Abstract We examine the effects of morphosyntactic marking and selectional restrictions of predicates on conceptual and grammatical animacy. We argue in favour of animacy as an ontological category with human, animate and inanimate entities representing discrete subtypes in the domain of entities. We distinguish between conceptual animacy, which is a gradient notion, and grammatical animacy, for which
-
Shifting from animacy to agentivity Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Marco García García, Beatrice Primus, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann
The target article argues for a need to distinguish between covert and overt (ly marked) shifts in animacy and claims that understanding these shifts allows for “a deeper understanding of animacy and its effects on language” (abstract target article). The paper certainly contains a number of interesting observations regarding these shifts, as well as about the relationship between conceptual and grammatical
-
Animacy shifts and resolution of semantic conflicts: A typological commentary on Shifting animacy by de Swart & de Hoop Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2018-05-25 Andrej Malchukov
The target article is an insightful and interesting paper, raising many issues, which go far beyond its major focus – animacy effects in differential case marking (DCM). The authors (henceforth: dS&dH) claim that animacy can be shifted in a context, but the triggering contexts and effects are different. They also provide an interesting perspective on semantic shifts integrating insights from semantic
-
Grammars as Mechanisms for Interaction: The Emergence of Language Games Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Arash Eshghi, Oliver Lemon
In their article “Language as Mechanisms for Interaction” Kempson et al. have provided the research community with numerous real examples of complex dialogue phenomena – in particular various examples of split utterances. From the point of view of developers of real-world spoken dialogue systems (one of the perspectives that we will take in this commentary), this paper presents both a treasure-trove
-
What Language Is Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Wolfram Hinzen
Research leading to this paper has been supported by the grants ‘Language and Mental Health’, AH/L004070/1, and ‘Un-Cartesian linguistics’, AH/H50009X/1 awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, and the grants ‘Language, Deixis, and the Disordered Mind’ (FFI2013-40526-P) and ‘Cognitive and linguistic diversity across mental disorders’ (FFI 042177665-77665-4-16) awarded by the Ministerio
-
Do Grammatical and Cognitive Phenotypes Illuminate Each Other? Reflections on Un-Cartesian Linguistics and the Language-ToM Interface Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Stephanie Durrleman
How language and thought interact is a hot topic of debate, and one that is refreshingly revisited by Hinzen in his paper entitled ‘Reference across pathologies: A new linguistic lens on disorders of thought’. The work is situated within the ‘un-Cartesian’ linguistics research program, which seeks to illustrate that the organizational principles of grammar directly configure human-specific thought
-
Is the Generative Conception of Language Cartesian? Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 John Collins
Hinzen presents a rich and potentially far-reaching account of the constitutive role of grammar in the formation of distinctively human thought, and further ventures a connection between grammar and various pathologies of thought: if thought (in the appropriate sense) just is linguistic structure, then a pathology of the former should be a pathology of the latter. My concern will be for the theoretical
-
Imagination, Psychologistic Semantics, and the Paradox of Fictional Names Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Dolf Rami, Thomas Ede Zimmermann
The main goal of Maier’s article is to provide a new solution to what he calls the paradox of fictional names. This new solution combines two different already classic proposals: (a) Walton’s (1990) anti-realist analysis of fictional discourse and (b) Kamp’s (2015) psychologistic version of the formal semantic framework of Discourse Representation Theory. Before evaluating Maier’s solution in more
-
Dynamic Syntax and Proof Theory Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Graham White
Kempson et al. (2016) deliver a well-reasoned, subtle and interesting critique of the current orthodoxy in linguistics, and also offer an alternative approach which, they would argue, goes a long way to remedying the problems that they have uncovered. I find their approach very appealing: I think that the issues which they have uncovered are genuine issues, and that their proposed resolution of these
-
Names in Fiction Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Dilip Ninan
Those of us familiar with Tolkien’s writings would seem to be in a position to accept both of these sentences. And yet how can we? If Frodo doesn’t really exist, then he doesn’t exist. If he doesn’t exist, then he doesn’t have any properties, and so doesn’t have the property of being a hobbit who was adopted by his cousin. So the truth of (2) would seem to preclude the truth of (1). Nevertheless, it
-
Games of Make-Believe and Factual Information Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Sandro Zucchi
According to Maier, both (1), written by Tolkien, and (2), uttered by me, should be interpreted as prescriptions to imagine certain states of affairs, respectively Frodo’s having a very trying afternoon at some past time and Frodo’s being a hobbit born in the Shire. According to this view, a reader who understands correctly these utterances and complies with the prescription imagines that Frodo had
-
Fictional Names in Psychologistic Semantics Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Emar Maier
Abstract Fictional names pose a difficult puzzle for semantics. How can we maintain that Frodo is a hobbit, while admitting that Frodo does not exist? To dissolve this paradox, I propose a way to formalize the interpretation of fiction as ‘prescriptions to imagine’ (Walton 1990) within a psychologistic semantic framework in the style of Kamp (1990). In the context of an information exchange, the interpretation
-
More on Fictional Names and Psychologistic Semantics: Replies to Comments Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Emar Maier
I am extremely grateful for the thoughtful commentaries I received on my paper. They raise a wide variety of issues with my proposal, ranging from metaphysical worries to psychological and linguistic ones. Moreover, they also suggest various promising alternative approaches I would never have considered otherwise. In this reply I have tried to take a few arguments or observations from each of the contributions
-
Reference Across Pathologies: A New Linguistic Lens on Disorders of Thought Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Wolfram Hinzen
Abstract According to a linguistic tradition here termed ‘Cartesian’, language is relegated to an expressive system considered to provide the means to encode or communicate an independently constituted thought process. An alternative vision here termed ‘un-Cartesian’ regards language as an organizational principle of human-specific thought, with the implication that thought of the same type would not
-
On the Model-Theoretic Interpretation of a Mental State Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2017-01-01 Maria Aloni
How can we maintain that (i) Gregor Samsa turned into a beetle; (ii) imagine what it would be like if he turned into a horse; (iii) compare his intelligence with that of Sherlock Holmes while admitting that (iv) Gregor Samsa is a fictional character and therefore does not exist? Maier proposes a novel account of fictional statements within a “psychologistic” version of DRT (Kamp) which provides insightful
-
An Embarrassment of Riches? Cutting Up the Elliptical Pie Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Jason Merchant
Kempson, Cann, Gregoromichelaki, and Chatzikyriakidis (henceforth KCGC) offer us a plethora of wonderful phenomena which they argue can be best modeled using a dynamic syntax that has modular resources, addressing a range of what appear to be elliptical data. The authors also show that the suggestions that were made in Merchant (2004) regarding “correctives and multi-speaker cooperative sentence construction
-
Why formal semantics and primate communication make strange bedfellows Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 W. Tecumseh Fitch
I strongly applaud the attempt of linguists and primatologists to work together to better understand primate communication and its implications for the biology of language, along with the general goal of using formal and comparative analyses of primate behaviour to ground such endeavours. However, I find formal semantics to be a rather inauspicious starting point for this research programme, due to
-
Actual Language Use and Competence Grammars Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Gregory M. Kobele
In their target article, Kempson, Cann, Gregoromichelaki and Chatzikyriakidis (henceforth KCGC) begin with the observation that language use (production and comprehension) is incremental, and that this incrementality is particularly evident in normal dialogue situations where hearers complete speakers’ sentences (and back again). They argue that data and generalizations like this militate against the:
-
Compositionality and competition in monkey alert calls Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Shane Steinert-Threlkeld
In their paper, Schlenker et al. (2016b) analyse a wealth of data on monkey alert calls using the tools of formal semantics and pragmatics. Such a pursuit promises to be extremely valuable. By figuring out exactly how such animal communication systems work, we may be able to shed light on evolutionary precursors of human language. While the field is too nascent to say anything concrete on this front
-
Formal monkey linguistics Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Philippe Schlenker, Emmanuel Chemla, Anne M. Schel, James Fuller, Jean-Pierre Gautier, Jeremy Kuhn, Dunja Veselinović, Kate Arnold, Cristiane Cäsar, Sumir Keenan, Alban Lemasson, Karim Ouattara, Robin Ryder, Klaus Zuberbühler
Abstract We argue that rich data gathered in experimental primatology in the last 40 years can benefit from analytical methods used in contemporary linguistics. Focusing on the syntactic and especially semantic side, we suggest that these methods could help clarify five questions: (i) what morphology and syntax, if any, do monkey calls have? (ii) what is the ‘lexical meaning’ of individual calls? (iii)
-
Monkey morpho-syntax and merge-based systems Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Luigi Rizzi
1. The target article makes a convincing case for the use of the sophisticated analytic tools developed in formal linguistics for the scientific study of monkey languages, with clear implications for the study of other animal communication systems. While the term “language” is construed very broadly, in a way reminiscent of the linguistic notion of e-language (a set of well-formed sentences), the focus
-
Formal monkey linguistics: The debate Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Philippe Schlenker, Emmanuel Chemla, Anne M. Schel, James Fuller, Jean-Pierre Gautier, Jeremy Kuhn, Dunja Veselinović, Kate Arnold, Cristiane Cäsar, Sumir Keenan, Alban Lemasson, Karim Ouattara, Robin Ryder, Klaus Zuberbühler
Abstract We explain why general techniques from formal linguistics can and should be applied to the analysis of monkey communication – in the areas of syntax and especially semantics. An informed look at our recent proposals shows that such techniques needn’t rely excessively on categories of human language: syntax and semantics provide versatile formal tools that go beyond the specificities of human
-
The Dynamics of Ellipsis Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Gregory M. Kobele, Jason Merchant
Kempson, Cann, Gregoromichelaki, and Chatzikyriakidis (henceforth KCGC) report on a theory of ellipsis in the idiom of Dynamic Syntax, and contrast it with other approaches. Underlying this contrast is the assumption that other grammatical traditions either must, or at least choose to, treat all sentence fragments as instances of ellipsis. This assumption is discussed further in Kobele [2016]. We think
-
Evolutionary monkey oscillomics: Generating linking hypotheses from preserved brain rhythms Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Elliot Murphy
In a recent attempt to naturalise core features of phonological theory, Samuels (2015: 161) writes that the success of any biological approach to language is measured ‘in terms of how much contact the study of language is able to make with the other cognitive sciences and other areas of biology more generally, and to what extent various components of language and the mind are more deeply understood
-
Language as Mechanisms for Interaction Theoretical Linguistics (IF 5.75) Pub Date : 2016-01-01 Ruth Kempson, Ronnie Cann, Eleni Gregoromichelaki, Stergios Chatzikyriakidis
Abstract Language use is full of subsentential shifts of context, a phenomenon dramatically illustrated in conversation where non-sentential utterances displaying seamless shifts between speaker/hearer roles appear regularly. The hurdle this poses for standard assumptions is that every local linguistic dependency can be distributed across speakers, with the content of what they are saying and the significance
Contents have been reproduced by permission of the publishers.