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Null Subject Parameter
Pro-drop parameter or Null subject parameter is the parameter which determines whether a language is a pro-drop language or not. A positive setting of the parameter allows an empty pro-element to be identified by its governor. This is the case in pro-drop languages. Description A term used in government-binding theory for a specification of the types of variation that a principle of grammar manifests among different languages. It is suggested that there are no rules of grammar in the traditional sense, but only principles which can take a slightly different form in different languages. For example, a head parameter specifies the positions of heads within phrases (e.g. head-first in English, head-last in Japanese). The adjacency parameter of case theory specifies whether case assigners must be adjacent to their noun phrases (e.g. to the left in English, to the right in Chinese). The pro-drop (or ‘null subject’) parameter determines whether the subject of a clause can be suppre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parameter
A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when identifying the system, or when evaluating its performance, status, condition, etc. ''Parameter'' has more specific meanings within various disciplines, including mathematics, computer programming, engineering, statistics, logic, linguistics, and electronic musical composition. In addition to its technical uses, there are also extended uses, especially in non-scientific contexts, where it is used to mean defining characteristics or boundaries, as in the phrases 'test parameters' or 'game play parameters'. Modelization When a system is modeled by equations, the values that describe the system are called ''parameters''. For example, in mechanics, the masses, the dimensions and shapes (for solid bodies), the densities and the viscosities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pro-drop Language
A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite intricate. The phenomenon of "pronoun-dropping" is part of the larger topic of zero or null anaphora. The connection between pro-drop languages, and null anaphora relates to the fact that a dropped pronoun has referential properties, and so is crucially not a null dummy pronoun. Pro-drop is licensed only in languages that have a positive setting of the pro-drop parameter, which allows the null element to be identified by its governor. Pro-drop is a problem when translating to a non-pro-drop language such as English, which requires the pronoun to be added, especially noticeable in machine translation. Amongst other reasons, it can also pose a problem with respect to transfer errors and second language acquisition. Non-pro-drop is an areal f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Binding Theory
In linguistics, binding is the phenomenon in which anaphoric elements such as pronouns are grammatically associated with their antecedents. For instance in the English sentence "Mary saw herself", the anaphor "herself" is bound by its antecedent "Mary". Binding can be licensed or blocked in certain contexts or syntactic configurations, e.g. the pronoun "her" cannot be bound by "Mary" in the English sentence "Mary saw her". While all languages have binding, restrictions on it vary even among closely related languages. Binding has been a major area of research in syntax and semantics since the 1970s, and was a major for the government and binding theory paradigm. Some basic examples and questions The following sentences illustrate some basic facts of binding. The words that bear the index i should be construed as referring to the same person or thing. ::a. Fredi is impressed with himselfi. – Indicated reading obligatory ::b. *Fredi is impressed with himi. – Indicated reading im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domains such as phonology, morphology (linguistics), morphology, and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. There are currently two different approaches to the study of grammar: traditional grammar and Grammar#Theoretical frameworks, theoretical grammar. Fluency, Fluent speakers of a variety (linguistics), language variety or ''lect'' have effectively internalized these constraints, the vast majority of which – at least in the case of one's First language, native language(s) – are language acquisition, acquired not by conscious study or language teaching, instruction but by hearing other speakers. Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adjacent (graph Theory)
This is a glossary of graph theory. Graph theory is the study of graphs, systems of nodes or vertices connected in pairs by lines or edges. Symbols A B C D E F G H I K L M N O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic 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. It is a matter of empirical investigation to determine precisely what properties are universal and what linguistic capacities are innate. Argument The theory of universal grammar proposes that if human beings are brought up under normal conditions (not those of ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Crystal
David Crystal, (born 6 July 1941) is a British linguist, academic, and prolific author best known for his works on linguistics and the English language. Family Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, on 6 July 1941 after his mother had been evacuated there during The Blitz. Before he reached the age of one, his parents separated. He remained estranged from and ignorant of his father for most of his childhood, but later learnt (through work contacts and a half-brother) of the life and career of Dr. Samuel Crystal in London, and of his half-Jewish heritage. He grew up with his mother in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England, where he attended St Mary's College from 1951. Crystal is a practising Roman Catholic. He currently lives in Holyhead with his wife, Hilary, a former speech therapist and now children's author. He has four grown-up children. His son Ben Crystal is also an author, and has co-authored four books with his father. Career Crystal studied Englis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Schmidt (linguist)
Richard Schmidt (1941–2017) was an American linguist and professor in the Department of Language Studies, University of Hawaii. His chief research interests were cognitive factors and affective factors in adult second-language acquisition, and he was most known for developing the noticing hypothesis. He was the president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics The American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) is an American organization of scholars interested in applied linguistics. The goal of the organization is to provide an annual venue for scholars of the multi-disciplinary field of applied ... in 2003, and most recently served as a senior consultant for the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. References External links Richard Schmidt at the University of Hawaii Linguists from the United States University of Hawaiʻi faculty 1941 births 2017 deaths Presidents of the American Association for Appli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Typology
Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the common properties of the world's languages. Its subdisciplines include, but are not limited to phonological typology, which deals with sound features; syntactic typology, which deals with word order and form; lexical typology, which deals with language vocabulary; and theoretical typology, which aims to explain the universal tendencies. Linguistic typology is contrasted with genealogical linguistics on the grounds that typology groups languages or their grammatical features based on formal similarities rather than historic descendence. The issue of genealogical relation is however relevant to typology because modern data sets aim to be representative and unbiased. Samples are collected evenly from different language families, emphasizing t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generative Syntax
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. Generativists have created numerous theories to make the NP VP (NP) analysis work in natural la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
