Dynamical Grammar Minimalism, Acquisition, and Change

by Culicover, Peter W.; Nowak, Andrzej

• ISBN13: 9780198700265
• ISBN10: 0198700261
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Dynamical Grammar explores the consequences for language acquisition, language evolution, and linguistic theory of taking the underlying architecture of the language faculty to be that of a complex adaptive dynamical system. It contains the first results of a new and complex model of language acquisition which the authors have developed to measure how far language input is reflected in language output and thereby get a better idea of just how far the human language faculty is hard-wired.

Author Biography

Peter W. Culicover is currently the Chair of the Department of Linguistics and Director of the Center for Cognitive Science at the Ohio State University. His current research is concerned with the architecture of the language faculty and its role in the dynamical aspects of language. Andrzej Nowak is Associate Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University. His research interests are modeling and computer simulation of social processes.

Table of Contents

Preface	xii
Acknowledgements	xv
List of Figures	xvii
List of Tables	xxi
Part I: Foundations
1. The Dynamical Perspective	3	(20)
1.1. The problem	3	(1)
1.2. The science of language	4	(2)
1.3. Unification, modularity, and complexity	6	(6)
1.3.1. The elegant universe	6	(2)
1.3.2. Language is a biological system	8	(2)
1.3.3. Concrete Minimalism	10	(2)
1.4. Static and dynamical	12	(3)
1.5. Growth of the system	15	(5)
1.5.1. Structuring linguistic space: categories and flows	15	(3)
1.5.2. Adaptive mechanisms	18	(2)
1.6. Overview of the book	20	(3)
2. Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory	23	(26)
2.1. Universals	23	(2)
2.2. Continuity	25	(5)
2.3. Parameter setting	30	(10)
2.3.1. Outline of the theory	30	(1)
2.3.2. Problems with parameter setting	31	(22)
2.3.2.1. Parameters	31	(2)
2.3.2.2. Parsing and triggers	33	(5)
2.3.2.3. Mistakes, idioms, and subregularities	38	(2)
2.4. How is language special?	40	(2)
2.5. The course of language acquisition	42	(7)
Part II: Simulations
3. The Computational Simulation of Language Acquisition: Aqui	49	(52)
3.1. Computational simulation	50	(3)
3.2. Statistical approaches to modelling language acquisition	53	(15)
3.2.1. Introduction	53	(2)
3.2.2. What distributional approaches can and cannot prove	55	(3)
3.2.3. Segmentation and and categorization	58	(10)
3.2.3.1. Word segmentation	58	(2)
3.2.3.2. Morphology	60	(1)
3.2.3.3. Speech recognition. Markov models	61	(1)
3.2.3.4. Distinguishing word classes	62	(3)
3.2.3.5. Finding syntactic structure	65	(3)
3.3. Aqui and Clagen	68	(31)
3.3.1. Preliminaries	69	(2)
3.3.2. Aqui's performance	71	(12)
3.3.2.1. Input	71	(1)
3.3.2.2. Performance on texts	72	(1)
3.3.2.2.1. Performance on symmetrical text	72	(1)
3.3.2.2.2. Performance on asymmetrical text	73	(3)
3.3.2.3. Natural text	76	(1)
3.3.2.4. Phrases	77	(5)
3.3.2.5. Summary	82	(1)
3.3.3. Clagen	83	(25)
3.3.3.1. Data set information	83	(1)
3.3.3.2. Description of the algorithm	84	(3)
3.3.3.3. Qualitative analysis	87	(1)
3.3.3.4. Quantitative analysis	88	(11)
3.4. Summary	99	(2)
4. Computational Simulation of Language Acquisition: CAMiLLe	101	(28)
4.1. Capacities of CAMiLLe	103	(1)
4.2. Representation in CAMiLLe	104	(4)
4.3. Rule formulation	108	(3)
4.3.1. Templates	108	(2)
4.3.2. Fuzzy rules	110	(1)
4.3.3. Single difference rules	110	(1)
4.4. Correspondences	111	(7)
4.4.1. Coupling trajectories	111	(1)
4.4.2. Generalization	112	(2)
4.4.3. Larger categories	114	(4)
4.5. Parsing	118	(7)
4.5.1. Reduction to the head	118	(2)
4.5.2. Sentences of 0,1, and higher order	120	(2)
4.5.3. Representing syntactic structure	122	(8)
4.5.3.1. Phrase structure	122	(2)
4.5.3.2. Transformations	124	(1)
4.6. Family resemblances	125	(3)
4.7. Summary	128	(1)
5. Experiments With CAMiLLe	129	(65)
5.1. Lexicon	130	(24)
5.1.1. Categorizing nouns	130	(7)
5.1.1.1. Identifying and categorizing nouns	130	(5)
5.1.1.2. Compound nouns	135	(2)
5.1.2. Categorizing verbs	137	(4)
5.1.2.1. Verb #1	137	(1)
5.1.2.2. Verb #2	138	(3)
5.1.2.3. Verb #3	141	(1)
5.1.3. Verbal inflection	141	(4)
5.1.4. Synonymy, idiom, and ambiguity	145	(4)
5.1.4.1. Synonymy	145	(1)
5.1.4.2. Simple ambiguities	146	(2)
5.1.4.3. Idioms	148	(1)
5.1.5. Dummy semantics	149	(5)
5.2. Structure	154	(15)
5.2.1. DP Structure	154	(5)
5.2.1.1. Determiners	154	(2)
5.2.1.2. Adjectives	156	(1)
5.2.1.3. Pre- and post-nominal adjectives	157	(2)
5.2.2. Argument structure	159	(5)
5.2.3. Parsing	164	(5)
5.3. Word order	169	(19)
5.3.1. Word order correlates of argument structure	169	(3)
5.3.2. Generalizations of correspondences	172	(3)
5.3.3. Scrambling	175	(2)
5.3.4. Inversion	177	(8)
5.3.4.1. Subject auxiliary inversion	178	(5)
5.3.4.2. V-to-C inversion	183	(2)
5.3.5. Null arguments	185	(1)
5.3.6. Wh-movement	186	(2)
5.4. Extending CAMiLLe	188	(2)
5.5. Preconditions for language acquisition by CAMiLLe	190	(4)
6. Language Change	194	(47)
6.1. Language change and language variation in a dynamical system	194	(3)
6.2. The simulation of change	197	(27)
6.2.1. The model	198	(3)
6.2.2. Gaps	201	(12)
6.2.2.1. How gaps arise	201	(4)
6.2.2.2. Simulation parameters	205	(2)
6.2.2.3. A case study: West Germanic verb clusters	207	(6)
6.2.3. Implicational universals	213	(4)
6.2.4. Contact and Creoles	217	(7)
6.3. Extending the model	224	(17)
6.3.1. Bias	224	(4)
6.3.2. Variation across lexical populations	228	(4)
6.3.3. Computational complexity	232	(9)
Part III: Grammar
7. Concrete Minimalism	241	(65)
7.1. Capturing knowledge of language in a dynamical system: the design features of language	242	(21)
7.1.1. Levels of representation in a dynamical system	242	(3)
7.1.2. Trajectories	245	(5)
7.1.2.1. Representing sequences in a dynamical system	245	(2)
7.1.2.2. Embodying structure in a dynamical system	247	(3)
7.1.3. Lexical categories	250	(2)
7.1.4. Phrasal categories	252	(8)
7.1.4.1. Endocentricity	252	(6)
7.1.4.2. Exocentricity	258	(1)
7.1.4.3. Recursion	259	(1)
7.1.5. Movement	260	(3)
7.1.5.1. Multiple dependency	260	(2)
7.1.5.2. Leftward movement	262	(1)
7.1.6. Summary	263	(1)
7.2. Head-complement order	263	(14)
7.2.1. Superficial and abstract ordering	264	(4)
7.2.2. Explicit linear ordering	268	(5)
7.2.3. Additional empirical considerations	273	(4)
7.3. V raising to I	277	(9)
7.4. V2 and Inversion	286	(4)
7.5. A linear grammar for verbs	290	(4)
7.6. Null arguments	294	(2)
7.7. Wh-movement	296	(6)
7.8. Scrambling	302	(2)
7.9. Summary and conclusions	304	(2)
References	306	(15)
Index	321