Search results

1

A dynamical-systems approach to the evolution of morphonotactic and lexical consonant clusters in English and Polish

100%

Baumann A., Kaźmierski K.

Yearbook of the Poznań Linguistic Meeting

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2016

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vol. 2

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issue 1

EN

Consonant clusters appear either lexically within morphemes or morphonotactically across morpheme boundaries. According to extant theories, their diachronic dynamics are suggested to be determined by analogical effects on the one hand as well as by their morphological signaling function on the other hand. This paper presents a mathematical model which allows for an investigation of the interaction of these two forces and the resulting diachronic dynamics. The model is tested against synchronic and diachronic language data. It is shown that the evolutionary dynamics of the cluster inventory crucially depend on how the signaling function of morphonotactic clusters is compromised by the presence of lexical items containing their morpheme internal counterparts.

2

A contemporary look at language origins

86%

Wacewicz S.

Avant

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2016

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vol. 7

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issue 2

EN

Why is language unique? How did language come about? When did this happen? These questions, although quite emblematic of the Western intellectual tradition since its ancient beginnings, so far have not found satisfying answers. Indeed, many still question the very possibility of addressing these basic problems of the origins of language with proper scientific rigor (see e.g. Hauser et al. 2014). However, an emerging consensus is that current research in the field of language evolution is in fact bearing fruit, making it at least possible to judge in an informed manner which of these competing scenarios are far more or less probable. In what follows, I guide the reader through some of this research and some of these scenarios; for more details, I refer the reader to a recent book (Żywiczyński & Wacewicz 2015), which is the first monograph that presents this developing field of language evolution research to the Polish reader.

3

A contemporary look at language origins

86%

Wacewicz S.

Avant

|

2016

|

vol. 7

|

issue 2

EN

Why is language unique? How did language come about? When did this happen? These questions, although quite emblematic of the Western intellectual tradition since its ancient beginnings, so far have not found satisfying answers. Indeed, many still question the very possibility of addressing these basic problems of the origins of language with proper scientific rigor (see e.g. Hauser et al. 2014). However, an emerging consensus is that current research in the field of language evolution is in fact bearing fruit, making it at least possible to judge in an informed manner which of these competing scenarios are far more or less probable. In what follows, I guide the reader through some of this research and some of these scenarios; for more details, I refer the reader to a recent book (Żywiczyński & Wacewicz 2015), which is the first monograph that presents this developing field of language evolution research to the Polish reader.

4

The Place of Universal Grammar in the Study of Language and Mind: A Response to Dabrowska (2015)

86%

Boxell O.

Open Linguistics

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2016

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vol. 2

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issue 1

EN

Generative Linguistics proposes that the human ability to produce and comprehend language is fundamentally underwritten by a uniquely linguistic innate system called Universal Grammar (UG). In her recent paper What is Universal Grammar, and has anyone seen it? Ewa Dabrowska reviews a range of evidence and argues against the idea of UG from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective. In the current paper, I take each of Dabrowska’s arguments in turn and attempt to show why they are not well founded, either because of flaws in her argumentation or because of a careful consideration of the available empirical evidence. I also attempt to demonstrate how evidence from the fields Dabrowska reviews actually supports the notion of UG. However, arguments are additionally presented in favor of integrating an understanding of domain-specific UG with an understanding of domain-general cognitive capacities in order to understand the language faculty completely.

5

Lingua franca features in Italian. Evidence form an evolutionary linguistics experiment

72%

Rogalska-Chodecka K.

Socjolingwistyka

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2021

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vol. 35

7-22

PL

Nie ma wątpliwości co do statusu lingua franca języka angielskiego (np. Mair 2003). Można go było zaobserwować nawet w badaniu z zakresu językoznawstwa ewolucyjnego opartym na metodologii iterowanego uczenia się (por. Kirby and Hurford 2002). W eksperymencie z udziałem rodzimych użytkowników języka polskiego, który miał na celu stworzenie podstawowych, ale nowych systemów językowych, można było łatwo rozpoznać zakorzenione struktury językowe związane z językiem angielskim, pomimo faktu, że uczestnicy eksperymentu zostali poproszeni o nieużywanie jednostek językowych z istniejących języków (np. Rogalska-Chodecka 2015). Kiedy uczestnicy eksperymentu próbowali dostrzec wzorzec leksykalny lub syntaktyczny w zestawie ciągów spółgłoskowo-samogłoskowych CVCVCV, odwoływali się do słów angielskich niezależnie od swojego poziomu znajomości języka lub instrukcji eksperymentatora. W efekcie końcowym produktem eksperymentu nie był nowy system językowy, ale system zawierający zakorzenione struktury językowe związane z językiem angielskim, co dowodzi, że przy braku znanych struktur językowych najłatwiejszym wyjściem wydaje się być odwoływanie się do tych angielskich. W niniejszym artykule postawiono pytanie, czy możliwe jest „zmuszenie” uczestników eksperymentu do używania niektórych elementów włoskiego leksykonu (dla określenia koloru, ilości i kształtu) zamiast tych pochodzących z języka angielskiego, pomimo deklarowanego braku znajomości języka włoskiego. Porównano wyniki dwóch badań, jednego z grupą kontrolną, której uczestnicy zostali poproszeni o nauczenie się słów pochodzących z języka angielskiego, a także losowych ciągów CVCVCV, oraz drugiego, „zanieczyszczonego” językiem włoskim, w którym losowe słowa zastąpiono włoskimi w celu ustalenia, czy język włoski jest tak samo użyteczny jak angielski z perspektywy uczestników eksperymentu i posiada cechy lingua franca, które można zauważyć w przypadku oryginalnego eksperymentu ewolucyjnego. Okazało się, że język włoski, ze względu na łatwą przyswajalność, wykazuje cechy lingua franca i przy podobnych warunkach historycznych jak język angielski mógłby odzyskać swój historyczny status lingua franca.

EN

There is no doubt about the lingua franca status of the English language (e.g. Mair 2003). It even manifested itself in an evolutionary linguistics study based on the methodology of iterated learning (cf. Kirby and Hurford 2002). In an experiment with human participants, all of whom were native speakers of Polish, aimed at producing basic yet novel linguistic systems, entrenched linguistic structures related to English could easily be found, despite the fact that the experiment’s participants were asked not to use linguistic units from existing languages (e.g. Rogalska-Chodecka 2015). When the experiment’s participants tried to notice a lexical or syntactic pattern in a set of CVCVCV strings, they referred to English words regardless of their level of language knowledge or the experimenter’s instruction. Consequently, the final product of the experiment was not a novel linguistic system, but one containing entrenched linguistic English-related structures, which proves that in the absence of known linguistic structures, referring to English ones seems to be the easiest option. The present article asks whether it is possible to “force” participants in an experiment to use certain items from the Italian lexicon (related to colour, number, and shape) instead of those that come from English, despite their declared lack of knowledge of the Italian language. The results of two studies, one with a control group where the participants were asked to learn words in English as well as random CVCVCV strings, and one “contaminated” with Italian, where random words were exchanged with Italian ones, are compared in order to determine whether Italian is as useful as English from the perspective of participants in experiments and possesses lingua franca features that can be noticed in the case of the original evolutionary experiment. It turned out that, due to its high learnability, Italian exhibits lingua franca features and, given similar historical conditions to English, could regain its historical lingua franca status.

Refine search results

2 Avant

1 Open Linguistics

1 Socjolingwistyka

1 Yearbook of the Poznań Linguistic Meeting

2 Wacewicz S.

1 Baumann A.

1 Boxell O.

1 Kaźmierski K.

1 Rogalska-Chodecka K.

1 2021

4 2016

A dynamical-systems approach to the evolution of morphonotactic and lexical consonant clusters in English and Polish

A contemporary look at language origins

A contemporary look at language origins

The Place of Universal Grammar in the Study of Language and Mind: A Response to Dabrowska (2015)

Lingua franca features in Italian. Evidence form an evolutionary linguistics experiment