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The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to linguistics:
In linguistics, syntax is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals.
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the innate biological component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible human language could be. When linguistic stimuli are received in the course of language acquisition, children then adopt specific syntactic rules that conform to UG. The advocates of this theory emphasize and partially rely on the poverty of the stimulus (POS) argument and the existence of some universal properties of natural human languages. However, the latter has not been firmly established, as some linguists have argued languages are so diverse that such universality is rare, and the theory universal grammar remains controversial among linguists.
In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is part of the theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It considers grammar to be a system of rules that generate exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language and involves the use of defined operations to produce new sentences from existing ones. The method is commonly associated with American linguist Noam Chomsky.
In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970 reformulating the ideas of Zellig Harris (1951,) and further developed by Ray Jackendoff, along the lines of the theory of generative grammar put forth in the 1950s by Chomsky. It attempts to capture the structure of phrasal categories with a single uniform structure called the X-bar schema, basing itself on the assumption that any phrase in natural language is an XP that is headed by a given syntactic category X. It played a significant role in resolving issues that phrase structure rules had, representative of which is the proliferation of grammatical rules, which is against the thesis of generative grammar.
Generative grammar, or generativism, is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistics, deriving ultimately from glossematics. Generative grammar considers grammar as a system of rules that generates exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language. It is a system of explicit rules that may apply repeatedly to generate an indefinite number of sentences which can be as long as one wants them to be. The difference from structural and functional models is that the object is base-generated within the verb phrase in generative grammar. This purportedly cognitive structure is thought of as being a part of a universal grammar, a syntactic structure which is caused by a genetic mutation in humans.
Principles and parameters is a framework within generative linguistics in which the syntax of a natural language is described in accordance with general principles and specific parameters that for particular languages are either turned on or off. For example, the position of heads in phrases is determined by a parameter. Whether a language is head-initial or head-final is regarded as a parameter which is either on or off for particular languages. Principles and parameters was largely formulated by the linguists Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik. Many linguists have worked within this framework, and for a period of time it was considered the dominant form of mainstream generative linguistics.
In generative grammar, non-configurational languages are languages characterized by a flat phrase structure, which allows syntactically discontinuous expressions, and a relatively free word order.
Syntactic Structures is an important work in linguistics by American linguist Noam Chomsky, originally published in 1957. A short monograph of about a hundred pages, it is recognized as one of the most significant and influential linguistic studies of the 20th century. It contains the now-famous sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously", which Chomsky offered as an example of a grammatically correct sentence that has no discernible meaning, thus arguing for the independence of syntax from semantics.
Lydia White is a Canadian linguist and educator in the area of second language acquisition (SLA). She is James McGill Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at McGill University.
Biolinguistics can be defined as the study of biology and the evolution of language. It is highly interdisciplinary as it is related to various fields such as biology, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, mathematics, and neurolinguistics to explain the formation of language. It is important as it seeks to yield a framework by which we can understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. This field was first introduced by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. It was first introduced in 1971, at an international meeting at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Biolinguistics, also called the biolinguistic enterprise or the biolinguistic approach, is believed to have its origins in Noam Chomsky's and Eric Lenneberg's work on language acquisition that began in the 1950s as a reaction to the then-dominant behaviorist paradigm. Fundamentally, biolinguistics challenges the view of human language acquisition as a behavior based on stimulus-response interactions and associations. Chomsky and Lenneberg militated against it by arguing for the innate knowledge of language. Chomsky in 1960s proposed the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) as a hypothetical tool for language acquisition that only humans are born with. Similarly, Lenneberg (1967) formulated the Critical Period Hypothesis, the main idea of which being that language acquisition is biologically constrained. These works were regarded as pioneers in the shaping of biolinguistic thought, in what was the beginning of a change in paradigm in the study of language.
Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within the system. It is derived from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and is part of the overall approach of structuralism. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a dynamic system of interconnected units. Saussure is also known for introducing several basic dimensions of semiotic analysis that are still important today. Two of these are his key methods of syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis, which define units syntactically and lexically, respectively, according to their contrast with the other units in the system.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The modern-day scientific study of linguistics takes all aspects of language into account — i.e., the cognitive, the social, the cultural, the psychological, the environmental, the biological, the literary, the grammatical, the paleographical, and the structural. Linguistics is based on the theoretical as well as descriptive study of language, and is also interlinked with the applied fields of language studies and language learning, which entails the study of specific languages. Before the 20th century, linguistics evolved in an informal manner that did not employ scientific methods.
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax is a book on linguistics written by American linguist Noam Chomsky, first published in 1965. In Aspects, Chomsky presented a deeper, more extensive reformulation of transformational generative grammar (TGG), a new kind of syntactic theory that he had introduced in the 1950s with the publication of his first book, Syntactic Structures. Aspects is widely considered to be the foundational document and a proper book-length articulation of Chomskyan theoretical framework of linguistics. It presented Chomsky's epistemological assumptions with a view to establishing linguistic theory-making as a formal discipline comparable to physical sciences, i.e. a domain of inquiry well-defined in its nature and scope. From a philosophical perspective, it directed mainstream linguistic research away from behaviorism, constructivism, empiricism and structuralism and towards mentalism, nativism, rationalism and generativism, respectively, taking as its main object of study the abstract, inner workings of the human mind related to language acquisition and production.
In linguistics, the term formalism is used in a variety of meanings which relate to formal linguistics in different ways. In common usage, it is merely synonymous with a grammatical model or a syntactic model: a method for analyzing sentence structures. Such formalisms include different methodologies of generative grammar which are especially designed to produce grammatically correct strings of words; or the likes of Functional Discourse Grammar which builds on predicate logic.
In linguistics, transformational syntax is a derivational approach to syntax that developed from the extended standard theory of generative grammar originally proposed by Noam Chomsky in his books Syntactic Structures and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. It emerged from a need to improve on approaches to grammar in structural linguistics.
Pro-drop parameter, or null subject parameter, is the parameter that determines whether or not a language is pro-drop. A positive setting of the parameter allows an empty pro-element to be identified by its governor, which is the case in pro-drop languages.
Diane Lillo-Martin is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut. She is currently the Director of the university's Cognitive Sciences Program as well as its Coordinator of American Sign Language Studies. She spent 12 years as Head of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut.
Suzanne Flynn is an American linguist and Professor of Linguistics at MIT who has contributed to the fields of second and third language acquisition. She has also investigated language disorders.
Maria Rita Manzini is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Florence. She is known for her work on syntax, syntactic variation, principles and parameters, the Romance languages, and the languages of the Balkans.
References
- ↑ "Nina Hyams". Department of Linguistics - UCLA. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ↑ "Students and Alumni". www.gc.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ↑ Hyams, Nina (2012). Language Acquisition and the Theory of Parameters. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-94-009-4638-5.
- ↑ "[BOOK] Language acquisition and the theory of parameters". Google Scholar. Retrieved 16 November 2022.
- ↑ Anderson, John Robert (October 2004). Cognitive psychology and its implications. Macmillan. pp. 384–. ISBN 978-0-7167-0110-1 . Retrieved 28 June 2011.
- ↑ Joseph, Brian D.; Janda, Richard D. (2003). The handbook of historical linguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 500. ISBN 978-0-631-19571-9.
- ↑ White, Lydia (2003). Second language acquisition and universal grammar. Cambridge University Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-521-79647-7.
- ↑ Cook, Vivian James; Newson, Mark (2007). Chomsky's Universal Grammar: An Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 213. ISBN 978-1-4051-1187-4.
- ↑ Chamberlain, Charlene; Morford, Jill Patterson; Mayberry, Rachel I. (2000). Language acquisition by eye. Psychology Press. pp. 91–95. ISBN 978-0-8058-2937-2.
- ↑ Barbara Lust; Gabriella Hermon; Jaklin Kornfilt (1994). Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives: Binding, Dependencies, and Learnability. Psychology Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8058-1350-0.
- ↑ Sharon Armon-Lotem; Gabi Danon; Susan Deborah Rothstein (2008). Current issues in generative Hebrew linguistics. ISBN 978-90-272-5517-4.
- ↑ Radford (2010). An Introduction to English Sentence Structure International Student Edition. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-521-15730-8.
- ↑ Jaeggli, Osvaldo (1989). The Null subject parameter. Springer. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-55608-087-6.
- ↑ Angeles, UCLA Humanities Division is part of the Humanities Division within UCLA College 2300 Murphy Hall | Los; Regents, CA 90095 University of California © 2022 UC (2020-01-07). "Linguistic Society of America elects Prof. Nina Hyams as 2020 fellow". Humanities Division - UCLA. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
- ↑ "LSA Fellows by Year of Induction | Linguistic Society of America". www.linguisticsociety.org. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
