{"title":"Some thoughts on the complexity of syntactic complexity","authors":"T. Biberauer","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"259 - 274"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42767024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Overgeneralization and change: The role of acquisition in diachrony","authors":"Marit Westergaard","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0014","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"225 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43532931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
H. 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 in the 1960–2000s on various steps as “mostly constituting isolated efforts” and, in contrast, characterises the biologically inspired work of the 2000s as a “major impetus”. It is difficult to find the motivation for this division as the latter group, like the former, also concern themselves with only a subpart of the comparative method and, furthermore, rely fundamentally on subjective cognate judgments done by humans (as also acknowledged by Jäger later, pp. 156–157).
{"title":"On computational historical linguistics in the 21st century","authors":"H. Hammarström, Philipp Rönchen, Erik Elgh, Tilo Wiklund","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0015","url":null,"abstract":"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 in the 1960–2000s on various steps as “mostly constituting isolated efforts” and, in contrast, characterises the biologically inspired work of the 2000s as a “major impetus”. It is difficult to find the motivation for this division as the latter group, like the former, also concern themselves with only a subpart of the comparative method and, furthermore, rely fundamentally on subjective cognate judgments done by humans (as also acknowledged by Jäger later, pp. 156–157).","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"233 - 245"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42554953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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) of new variants to be kicked off by and sustained by the acquisition process. I discuss literature on how children respond to input variation, and a series of new studies experimentally testing incrementation, and argue that at least for some phenomena, young children overgeneralize innovative variants beyond their input. I sketch a model of incrementation based on initial overgeneralization, and offer further thoughts on next steps. Much collaborative work remains to precisely link analogous dynamic phenomena in learning and change.
{"title":"A developmental view on incrementation in language change","authors":"Ailís Cournane","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0010","url":null,"abstract":"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) of new variants to be kicked off by and sustained by the acquisition process. I discuss literature on how children respond to input variation, and a series of new studies experimentally testing incrementation, and argue that at least for some phenomena, young children overgeneralize innovative variants beyond their input. I sketch a model of incrementation based on initial overgeneralization, and offer further thoughts on next steps. Much collaborative work remains to precisely link analogous dynamic phenomena in learning and change.","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"127 - 150"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42990867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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. They operationalize syntactic complexity as universal (i.e. L1-independent) L2learner difficulty. Drawing on L2 research in the generative tradition, W&B use a specific theoretical concept supposed to faithfully capture L2-difficulty: Interpretability Hypothesis, which states that (assuming a broadly MinimalistFramework analysis) uninterpretable features are not easily available to L2learners. This should lead to syntactic analyses involving uninterpretable features being harder to learn, which in turn should facilitate patterns of language change where uninterpretable features get lost. W&B discuss a number of cases, primarily concerning Jespersen’s cycle in Germanic and Romance, that suggest that their explanation is compatible with the data. The program outlined by the authors is ambitious and promising; the shortcomings of the current argument as it stands should not detract from that. Though the authors employ a syntactic characterization relative to a single kind of syntactic theories, uninterpretable features in their framework would likely correspond to other specific types of syntactic properties in other traditions; briefly put, an uninterpretable feature indicates the presence of a purely formal syntactic relation, such as agreement, movement or movement-like relation, etc. It is reasonable to argue that the presence of such (obligatory) relations corresponds well to the intuitive notion of syntactic complexity. The authors only provide cases where uninterpretable features got lost, under their analyses, and cite roughly contemporaneous contact circumstances that approximately agree with the circumstances described in Trudgill’s conjecture. This does provide tantalizing support for W&B’s theory, in that the data are compatible with their explanation. It does not at this point provide
{"title":"Uninterpretable features in learning and alternative grammars?","authors":"I. Yanovich","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0019","url":null,"abstract":"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. They operationalize syntactic complexity as universal (i.e. L1-independent) L2learner difficulty. Drawing on L2 research in the generative tradition, W&B use a specific theoretical concept supposed to faithfully capture L2-difficulty: Interpretability Hypothesis, which states that (assuming a broadly MinimalistFramework analysis) uninterpretable features are not easily available to L2learners. This should lead to syntactic analyses involving uninterpretable features being harder to learn, which in turn should facilitate patterns of language change where uninterpretable features get lost. W&B discuss a number of cases, primarily concerning Jespersen’s cycle in Germanic and Romance, that suggest that their explanation is compatible with the data. The program outlined by the authors is ambitious and promising; the shortcomings of the current argument as it stands should not detract from that. Though the authors employ a syntactic characterization relative to a single kind of syntactic theories, uninterpretable features in their framework would likely correspond to other specific types of syntactic properties in other traditions; briefly put, an uninterpretable feature indicates the presence of a purely formal syntactic relation, such as agreement, movement or movement-like relation, etc. It is reasonable to argue that the presence of such (obligatory) relations corresponds well to the intuitive notion of syntactic complexity. The authors only provide cases where uninterpretable features got lost, under their analyses, and cite roughly contemporaneous contact circumstances that approximately agree with the circumstances described in Trudgill’s conjecture. This does provide tantalizing support for W&B’s theory, in that the data are compatible with their explanation. It does not at this point provide","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"283 - 286"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0019","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46504206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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 principles, and List proposes a novel evaluation measure specifically aimed at the task of proto-form reconstruction. This reply will focus on the role of model evaluation in our field.
摘要这是对Hammarström et 等。（本卷）和列表（本册）的目标文章计算历史语言学（本卷的）。在那里，我提出了计算历史语言学研究的几个方法论原则，涉及模型拟合和模型评估的适当技术。Hammarström等人 等人对这些原则的有用性进行了辩论，List提出了一种新的评估措施，专门针对原型重建的任务。本答复将侧重于示范评估在我们领域的作用。
{"title":"Model evaluation in computational historical linguistics","authors":"Gerhard Jäger","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0020","url":null,"abstract":"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 principles, and List proposes a novel evaluation measure specifically aimed at the task of proto-form reconstruction. This reply will focus on the role of model evaluation in our field.","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"299 - 307"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0020","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47964199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cournane’s “A developmental view on incrementation in language change” outlines a model of child-driven variation and change, which highlights the significance of an overgeneralisation and retraction pattern observed in child language acquisition. The purpose of this commentary is to endorse this proposal as a sizeable step in the direction of facilitating more concrete understanding of the intuition that children can, in a relevant sense, be drivers of linguistic change. Specifically, my objective is to demonstrate the striking way in which Cournane’s proposal converges with an independently proposed model which originated as an attempt to understand crosslinguistic variation in a way that explicitly draws on all of Chomsky’s Three Factors: universal grammar (UG), the input, and relevant aspects of domain-general cognition (Chomsky 2005). This is Biberauer’s so-called Maximise Minimal Means (MMM) model (Biberauer 2011 et seq.; see Biberauer 2017a, Biberauer in press). The commentary is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces the MMM model, Section 3 considers how it incorporates overgeneralisation and retraction to account for patterns of acquisition, variation, and change, and Section 4 concludes.
{"title":"Children always go beyond the input: The Maximise Minimal Means perspective","authors":"T. Biberauer","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Cournane’s “A developmental view on incrementation in language change” outlines a model of child-driven variation and change, which highlights the significance of an overgeneralisation and retraction pattern observed in child language acquisition. The purpose of this commentary is to endorse this proposal as a sizeable step in the direction of facilitating more concrete understanding of the intuition that children can, in a relevant sense, be drivers of linguistic change. Specifically, my objective is to demonstrate the striking way in which Cournane’s proposal converges with an independently proposed model which originated as an attempt to understand crosslinguistic variation in a way that explicitly draws on all of Chomsky’s Three Factors: universal grammar (UG), the input, and relevant aspects of domain-general cognition (Chomsky 2005). This is Biberauer’s so-called Maximise Minimal Means (MMM) model (Biberauer 2011 et seq.; see Biberauer 2017a, Biberauer in press). The commentary is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces the MMM model, Section 3 considers how it incorporates overgeneralisation and retraction to account for patterns of acquisition, variation, and change, and Section 4 concludes.","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"211 - 224"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43752585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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 involving substantial late L2 acquisition should be conducive to simplification, i.e. loss of such features. We sketch a programme for investigating this prediction. In particular, we suggest that the loss of bipartite negation in the history of Low German and other languages indicates that it may be on the right track.
{"title":"Complexity as L2-difficulty: Implications for syntactic change","authors":"G. Walkden, Anne Breitbarth","doi":"10.1515/tl-2019-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tl-2019-0012","url":null,"abstract":"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 involving substantial late L2 acquisition should be conducive to simplification, i.e. loss of such features. We sketch a programme for investigating this prediction. In particular, we suggest that the loss of bipartite negation in the history of Low German and other languages indicates that it may be on the right track.","PeriodicalId":46148,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Linguistics","volume":"45 1","pages":"183 - 209"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tl-2019-0012","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46618000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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