Showing papers in "Language in 1991"

Beginning to read : thinking and learning about print

Abstract: "Beginning to Read reconciles the debate that has divided theorists for decades over what is the "right" way to help children learn to read Drawing on a rich array of research on the nature and development of reading proficiency, Marilyn Adams shows educators that they need not remain trapped in the phonics versus teaching-formeaning dilemma and offers instructional alternatives She proposes that phonies can work together with the "whole language" approach to teaching reading and provides an integrated treatment of the knowledge and processes involved in skillful reading, the issues surrounding their acquisition, and the implications for reading instruction Broad in scope and clearly written, "Beginning to Read provides fresh insights into the relationship between thinking and learning Developing the new connectionist theory as it relates to reading and its acquisition, Adams underscores the automatic nature of print perception in skillful readers while contrasting it with the attentive thought required for conceptual learning and understanding Adams reviews the history of debate over approaches to reading instruction as well as the research on their effectiveness, She consistently integrates instructional concerns with meticulous attention to research and theory from education, developmental and cognitive psychology, and linguistics Throughout, she emphasizes the interdependence of meaning appreciation and orthographic facility in both fluent reading and its acquisition Relevant learning theory is presented along with discussion of the roles of experience, practice, direct instruction, rules, thinking and understanding Adams stresses the importance of preschool language andliteracy experiences and includes descriptions of those that will best prepare children for reading instruction Marilyn Jager Adams is a Senior Scientist at Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc She was Principal Author and Curriculum Coordinator/Editor for the five volume classroom instruction series, "Odyssey: A Curriculum for Thinking Beginning to Read was developed in conjunction with the Reading Research and Education Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change series

Thematic proto-roles and argument selection

Abstract: As a novel attack on the perennially vexing questions of the theoretical status of thematic roles and the inventory of possible roles, this paper defends a strategy of basing accounts of roles on more unified domains of linguistic data than have been used in the past to motivate roles, addressing in particular the problem of ARGUMENT SELECTION (principles determining which roles are associated with which grammatical relations). It is concluded that the best theory for describing this domain is not a traditional system of discrete roles (Agent, Patient, Source, etc.) but a theory in which the only roles are two cluster-concepts called PROTO-AGENT and PROTO-PATIENT, each characterized by a set of verbal entailments: an argument of a verb may bear either of the two proto-roles (or both) to varying degrees, according to the number of entailments of each kind the verb gives it. Both fine-grained and coarse-grained classes of verbal arguments (corresponding to traditional thematic roles and other classes as well) follow automatically, as do desired 'role hierarchies'. By examining occurrences of the 'same' verb with different argument configurations—e.g. two forms of psych predicates and object-oblique alternations as in the familiar spray/load class—it can also be argued that proto-roles act as defaults in the learning of lexical meanings. Are proto-role categories manifested elsewhere in language or as cognitive categories? If so, they might be a means of making grammar acquisition easier for the child, they might explain certain other typological and acquisitional observations, and they may lead to an account of contrasts between unaccusative and unergative intransitive verbs that does not rely on deriving unaccusatives from underlying direct objects.

More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

Abstract: \"The authors restore metaphor to our lives by showing us that it's never gone away. We've merely been taught to talk as if it had: as though weather maps were more 'real' than the breath of autumn; as though, for that matter, Reason was really 'cool.' What we're saying whenever we say is a theme this book illumines for anyone attentive.\" -- Hugh Kenner, Johns Hopkins University \"In this bold and powerful book, Lakoff and Turner continue their use of metaphor to show how our minds get hold of the world. They have achieved nothing less than a postmodern Understanding Poetry, a new way of reading and teaching that makes poetry again important.\" -- Norman Holland, University of Florida

Active/agentive case marking and its motivations

Abstract: A kind of case marking-termed variously active, active-neutral, active-inactive, active-static, stative-active, agentive, agent-patient, split S, and split intransitive-is shown to be less arbitrary than is sometimes assumed. Its semantic bases can be missed if sought only in immediate one-to-one correspondences between meaning and form. Case systems of this kind are often the products of successive diachronic developments, each individually motivated. Several factors can obscure the motivations, including not only crosslinguistic differences in detail, but also shifts of defining features over time, grammaticization, and lexicalization. To explain why these case systems have the shapes they do, we must appreciate both the diversity of features that can underlie them and the dynamic processes that mold them.*

Structure and Intonation

Abstract: Rules for assigning phrasal intonation to sentences are often assumed to require an autonomous level of "intonational structure", distinct from what is usually thought of as surface syntactic structure. The present paper argues that the requisite notion of structure can be subsumed under the generalised notion of surface structure that emerges from the combinatory extension of Categorial Grammar. According to this theory, the syntactic structures and the intonational structures of English are one, and can be captured in a single unified grammar. The interpretations that the grammar provides for such constituents correspond to the entities and open propositions that are concerned in certain discourse-related aspects of intonational meaning that have variously been described as "theme" and "rheme", "given" and "new", or "presupposition" and "focus". Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-90-45. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/cis_reports/571 Structure and Intonation MS-CIS-90-45 LINC LAB 174

On Language: The Diversity of Human Language-Structure and Its Influence on the Mental Development of Mankind

Abstract: This is an entirely new translation of one of the fundamental works in the development of the study of language. Published in 1836, it formed the general introduction to Wilhelm von Humboldt's three-volume treatise on the Kawi language of Java. It is the final statement of his lifelong study of the nature of language, and presents a survey of a great many languages, exploring ways in which their various grammatical structures make them more or less suitable as vehicles of thought and cultural development. Empirically wide-ranging - von Humboldt goes far beyond the Indo-European family of languages - it remains one of the most interesting and important attempts to draw philosophical conclusions from comparative linguistics.

First language attrition

Abstract: Part I. Survey Studies: 1. The study of first language attrition: an overview Herbert W. Seliger and Robert M. Vago 2. First language attrition and the parameter-setting model Michael Sharwood Smith and Paul Van Buren 3. Recapitulation, regression and language loss Kees de Bot and Bert Weltens 4. First language loss in bilingual and polyglot aphasics Loraine K. Obler and Nancy Mahecha 5. A cross-linguistic study of language contact and language attrition Julianne Maher Part II. Group Studies: 6. L1 loss in an L2-environment: Dutch immigrants in France Kees de Bot, Paul Gommans and Carola Rossing 7. The sociolinguistic and patholinguistic attrition of Breton phonology, morphology, and morphonology Wolfgang U. Dressler 8. Language attrition in Boumaa Fijian and Dyirbal Annette Schmit 9. Pennsylvania German: convergence and change as strategies of discourse Marion Lois Huffines 10. Lexical retrieval difficulties in adult language attrition Elite Olshtain and Margaret Barzilay 11. Spanish language attrition in a contact situation with English Carmen Silva-Corvalan Part III. Case Studies: 12. Morphological disintegration and reconstruction in first language attrition Dorit Kaufman and Mark Aronoff 13. Assessing first language vulnerability to attrition Evelyn Altenberg 14. Compensatory strategies of child first language attrition Donna Turian and Evelyn Altenberg 15. Language attrition, reduced redundancy and creativity Herbert W. Seliger 16. Paradigmatic regularity in first language attrition Robert M. Vago.

Semantic change and heterosemy in grammaticalization

Abstract: In Oceanic languages, elements that function or used to function as directional verbs of motion-'go', 'come', and 'return'-undergo a variety of grammaticalization processes. This study is an investigation of the semantic aspects of those developments, the factors that motivate the functional extensions, and the relations among the meanings/ functions of the etyma. It is human conceptualization of phenomena (viz. metaphor and metonymy) that directly motivates the developments. Even though the various meanings/ functions of an etymon are all historically related, synchronically there need not be any property exclusively shared by all of them. The nature of the motivations for the functional extensions provides support for the view of meaning as essentially subjective and open-ended.*

An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English

Abstract: Revised to cover modern instrumental techniques, recent research and publications, current terminology, and changes in present-day Received Pronunciation (RP), this edition retains the characteristics that have made it a standard reference text on the pronunciation of British English. A new section on stylistic variation in RP has been added and there is clarification of various rules concerning connected-speech processes. The editor is a former pupil of A.C.Gimson. An ELBS/LPBB edition is available.

Maltreated children's language and speech development: abused, neglected, and abused and neglected:

Abstract: Seventy-four preschool-age maltreated children's receptive and expressive language, speech skills, general language and cognitive abilities were assessed to investigate the language, speech and cognitive skills of abused, neglected, and abused and neglected children. While all three groups were delayed, neglect was the type of maltreatment most strongly associated with both expressive and receptive language delays and overall language delay. The three groups did not differ in general cognitive development. The most important feature of our data, relative to a Vygotskian perpective, is that language development is particularly vulnerable in an environment devoid of parent-child social language exchange.

A parent report instrument for early language assessment

Abstract: A structured questionnaire for evaluating the level of communicative and linguistic development at 12, 16 and 20 months of age respectively was administered to the parents of 23 children for three ...

A Pragmatic Analysis of So-Called Anaphoric Islands

Abstract: It is commonly assumed that words are grammatically prohibited from containing antecedents for anaphoric elements, and thus constitute 'anaphoric islands' (Postal 1969). In this paper, we argue that such anaphora—termed OUTBOUND ANAPHORA—is in fact fully grammatical and governed by independently motivated pragmatic principles. The felicity of outbound anaphora is shown to be a function of the accessibility of the discourse entity which is evoked by the word-internal element and to which the anaphor is used to refer. The morphosyntactic status of the antecedent is but one factor affecting the accessibility of that entity. A series of psycholinguistic experiments support the analysis.

Studies in language origins

Abstract: 1. Notes on contributors 2. Introduction by the editors 3. 1. A functional reconstruction of the supralaryngeal vocal tract of the fossil hominid from Petralona (by Budil, Ivo) 4. 2. A much-too-brief evolutionary history of the mammalian middle ear (by Daniel, Hal J.) 5. 3. Spatial mapping and the origin of language: A paleoneurological model (by Wallace, Ron) 6. 4. Some acoustic properties of baby-talk and the prototype effect in infant speech perception (by Davis, Barbara L.) 7. 5. Cerebral lateralization for cognitive and linguistic abilities: Neuropsychological and cultural aspects (by Chernigovskaya, Tatiana V.) 8. 6. Echolocation: An acoustic causal function. Semiotic and linguistic aspects (by Frundt, Hans) 9. 7. Further evidence of verbal and non-verbal communication between the mother and her unborn child in the womb - in support of the author's theory of the bi-modal origin of language (by Raffler-Engel, Walburga von) 10. 8. The Neanderthals: The origins of language and human consciousness? (by Jonker, Abraham) 11. 9. Motor theory of language origin: The diversity of languages (by Allott, Robin) 12. 10. Sign arbitrariness as an index of semiogenesis (by Liska, Jo) 13. 11. Language as analogic strategy: Suggestions for evolutionary research (by Foster, Mary LeCron) 14. 12. Vocal/auditory cognitive mapping, shared meaning and consciousness (by Ragir, Sonia) 15. 13. Historical motivation in the linguistic sign and its cognitive origin (by Gyori, Gabor) 16. 14. The red marbles of phonological and semantic stability through the ages (by Key, Mary Ritchie) 17. 15. The elaboration of language structure (by McArthur, Douglas) 18. 16. The use of the scenario method in the historical sciences (by Greenhood, William) 19. 17. Developments in the pongid and human motor systems as preadaptations for the evolution of human language ability (by Kien, Jenny) 20. 18. The gestural origin of language and new neurological data (by Hewes, Gordon W.) 21. 19. Memory for personal information: Have names become special? (by Burton, A. Mike) 22. Name index 23. Subject index

Generalized LR parsing

Abstract: 1 The Generalized LR Parsing Algorithm.- 2 Experiments with GLR and Chart Parsing.- 3 The Computational Complexity of GLR Parsing.- 4 GLR Parsing in Time O(n3).- 5 GLR Parsing for ?-Grammers.- 6 Parallel GLR Parsing Based on Logic Programming.- 7 GLR Parsing with Scoring.- 8 GLR Parsing With Probability.- 9 GLR Parsing for Erroneous Input.- 10 GLR Parsing for Noisy Input.- 11 GLR Parsing in Hidden Markov Model.

Point counterpoint : universal grammar in the second language

Abstract: 1. Introduction: Universal Grammar in the Second Language (by Eubank, Lynn) 2. Seven Trivia of Language Acquisition (by Klein, Wolfgang) 3. Seven Not-So-Trivial Trivia of Language Acquistion: Comments on Wolfgang Klein (by Hyams, Nina) 4. The Accessibility of Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition (by Felix, Sascha) 5. Issues in the Accessibility Debate: A Reply to felix (by Schachter, Jacquelyn) 6. Age-dependent Effects in Language Acquuisition: An Evaluation of "Critical Period" Hypotheses (by Flynn, Suzanne) 7. On the Notion of "Critical Period" in UG/L2 Theory: A Response to Flynn and Manuel (by Birdsong, David) 8. Second Language Competence versus Second Language Performance: UG or Processing Strategies? (by White, Lydia) 9. Processing, Contraints on Acquisition, and the Parsing of Ungrammatical Sentences (by Bley-Vroman, Robert) 10. Linguistic Knowledge in Second Language Acquisition (by Jordens, Peter) 11. Transfer or Universal Grammar: Reply to Jordens (by Eubank, Lynn) 12. Principles of Universal Grammar and Strategies of Language Learning: Some Similarities and Differencies between First and Second Language Acquisition (by Meisel, Jurgen M.) 13. Conceptual and Empirical Evidence: A Response to Meisel (by Schwartz, Bonnie D.) 14. Access to Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition (by Hilles, Sharon) 15. Language Acquisition and the "Pro-Drop" Phenomenon: A response to Hilles (by O'Grady, William) 16. Binding Parameters in Second Language Acquisition (by Finer, Daniel L.) 17. Do Second Language Learners Have "Rogue" Grammars of Anaphora? (by Thomas, Margaret) 18. Morphological Uniformity and Null Subjects in Child Second Language Acquisition (by Lakshmanan, Usha) 19. Evidence, Analogy and Passive Knowledge: Comments on Lakshmanan (by Hyams, Nina) 20. Abbreviations 21. Index

A Paradigm-Based Theory of Morphosemantic Mismatches

Abstract: In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to the mismatches that often exist between a word's morphological structure and its semantics. Here, I argue that the full range of mismatches can only be resolved within the framework of a paradigm-based theory of morphology in which morphological rules are formulated as operations on morphological expressions and in which the formal relations between the root of a paradigm and the words in that paradigm are defined by a set of PARADIGM FUNCTIONS. I demonstrate that this kind of framework affords a straightforward resolution of certain morphosemantic mismatches from Breton which nevertheless present insuperable difficulties for structure-based approaches to 'bracketing paradoxes' such as that proposed in Pesetsky 1985. The paradigm-based approach is shown to apply with equal success in the domains of inflection and derivation. Moreover, paradigm functions are shown to be more adequate for the resolution of certain kinds of mismatches than either the head operations of Hoeksema 1985 or the process of analogical back-formation proposed by Spencer 1988.*

Registers of written English : situational factors and linguistic features

Abstract: Part 1: Front pages - lexis, style and newspaper reports, R.Carter the language of written sports commentary (soccer) - a description, M.Ghadessy the language of press advertising, M.Toolan. Part 2: Creationist writings, D.Houghton the language of religion - a sociolinguistic perspective, J.Webster. Part 3: Compressed English, J.Sinclair form and function in English business letters - implications for computer-based learning, M.Ghadessy and J.Webster. Part 4: The language of synopses, J.P.Thorne how to put the pieces of a poem together, A.Makkai. Part 5: The language of physical sciences, M.A.K.Halliday.