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Foundations of Grammar Ser.: Syntactic Nuts : Hard Cases, Syntactic Theory, and Language Acquisition by Peter W. Culicover (1999, Uk-Trade Paper)
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The language faculty, the author argues, must be able not only to accommodate what is general, exceptionless, and universal in language, but must also be capable of dealing with what is irregular, exceptional, and idiosyncratic.
- Buy It NowSyntactic Nuts: Hard Cases, Syntactic Theory, and Language Acquisition by Peter
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated
ISBN-100198700237
ISBN-139780198700234
eBay Product ID (ePID)311615
Product Key Features
Number of Pages256 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameSyntactic Nuts : Hard Cases, Syntactic Theory, and Language Acquisition
SubjectLinguistics / General
Publication Year1999
TypeTextbook
Subject AreaLanguage Arts & Disciplines
AuthorPeter W. Culicover
SeriesFoundations of Grammar Ser.
FormatUk-Trade Paper
Dimensions
Item Height0.6 in
Item Weight13.4 Oz
Item Length9.2 in
Item Width6.1 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceCollege Audience
LCCN99-016105
Dewey Edition21
Reviews'Culicover addresses the fundamental question of the nature of syntactic universals and the related issue of how syntactic knowledge is acquired by children. His answer challenges many mainstream generative conceptions in taking to a new and higher level the debate over the relative balancebetween innateness and learning. The fact that his conclusions are supported by dozens of meticulously argued analyses of diverse syntactic phenomena gives his conclusions a credibility that has heretofore been missing in critiques of parametric approaches to universal grammar' Frederick Newmeyer, University of Washington, Along the way, Culicover provides an entertaining tour through many of the uncharted byways of the peripheral syntax of English and other languages. He grounds his approach in a careful analysis of language learnability, and in so doing urges both syntacticians and neuroscientists toward a more responsible rapprochement in dealing with the complexities of human language., The reigning orthodoxy in generative linguistics has it that syntax can be divided into a fully systematic core and an eccentric periphery. The former is claimed to be learnable by virtue of a finite parameterization; the learnability of the latter is rarely discussed, but taken to be relatively haphazard. In this new book, Peter Culicover, one of the early pioneers of learnability theory, has thrown a monkeywrench into the works. He demonstrates that there is in fact no sharp line between core and periphery, that there cannot be a finite parameterization of the core, and that any learning theory capable of accounting for the peculiarities of the periphery can also account for the core's systematicity, given the systematicity of semantics., 'Culicover addresses the fundamental question of the nature of syntacticuniversals and the related issue of how syntactic knowledge is acquired bychildren. His answer challenges many mainstream generative conceptions in takingto a new and higher level the debate over the relative balance betweeninnateness and learning. The fact that his conclusions are supported by dozensof meticulously argued analyses of diverse syntactic phenomena gives hisconclusions a credibility that has heretofore been missing in critiques ofparametric approaches to universal grammar'Frederick Newmeyer, University of Washington, 'Culicover takes us on an invigorating tour through a vast range of 'idiosyncratic' data.'John R. Taylor, Cognitive Linguistics 10-3 (1999)., 'Culicover addresses the fundamental question of the nature of syntactic universals and the related issue of how syntactic knowledge is acquired by children. His answer challenges many mainstream generative conceptions in taking to a new and higher level the debate over the relative balance between innateness and learning. The fact that his conclusions are supported by dozens of meticulously argued analyses of diverse syntactic phenomena gives hisconclusions a credibility that has heretofore been missing in critiques of parametric approaches to universal grammar' Frederick Newmeyer, University of Washington'Culicover takes us on an invigorating tour through a vast range of 'idiosyncratic' data.'John R. Taylor, Cognitive Linguistics 10-3 (1999).
Series Volume NumberVol. 1
IllustratedYes
Dewey Decimal415
Table Of ContentOn the nature of linguistic explanationBetween learning and predeterminationArchitecture of the learnerThe theory of syntactic categorieseither, etc.forDeterminers and quantifiersOdd prepositionsthe theUniformitySyntactic idiosyncrasies and the learnerReductionsMovementsInflectionsOther potential nutsBrief mentionGenerality and idiosyncrasy in grammarSyntactic complexityConsequencesSummaryReferencesIndex
SynopsisThis book investigates the architecture of the language faculty by considering what the properties of language reveal about the mental abilities and processes involved in language acquisition. The language faculty, the author argues, must be able not only to accommodate what is general, exceptionless, and universal in language, but must also be capable of dealing with what is irregular, exceptional, and idiosyncratic. In Syntactic Nuts Peter Culicover shows that this is true not only of the lexicon, but for syntax. Marginal and exceptional cases, where there is no straightforward form-meaning correspondence, are dealt with by the language faculty easily and precisely as the general cases. In considering how and why this should be the author argues against the prevailing trend in generative grammar, which takes the learner as either incorporating maximally global generalisations as part of its innate capacity for language, or projecting global generalisations from a very limited input on the basis of innate mechanisms. He suggests that the learning mechanism does not generalize significantly beyond the evidence presented to it, and further that it seeks to form generalizations based on all and only the evidence presented to it. Syntactic Nuts makes a fundamental contribution to generative grammar and syntactic theory. It situates syntactic theory within cognitive science in a novel way. It contributes to an alternative, and yet in many ways traditional, perspective on the manner in which knowledge is represented and processed in the mind., How are native speakers of a language instinctively able to make precise linguistic judgements about marginal syntactic matters? What does this tell us about both the structure of language and our innate language ability as humans? These questions form the focus of Professor Culicover's in-depth study which will appeal to both graduate students and professionals within the fields of linguistic theory and cognitive science.
LC Classification NumberP291.C798 1999
