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Variable Properties in Language

Author: David W. Lightfoot

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2019-07-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 162616665X

This edited volume, based on papers presented at the 2017 Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics (GURT), approaches the study of language variation from a variety of angles. Language variation research asks broad questions such as, "Why are languages' grammatical structures different from one another?" as well as more specific word-level questions such as, "Why are words that are pronounced differently still recognized to be the same words?" Too often, research on variation has been siloed based on the particular question—sociolinguists do not talk to historical linguists, who do not talk to phoneticians, and so on. This edited volume seeks to bring discussions from different subfields of linguistics together to explore language variation in a broader sense and acknowledge the complexity and interwoven nature of variation itself.

Linguistic Variables

Author: Hans-Heinrich Lieb

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1993-09-15

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 9027277036

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This book for the first time reconstructs in a single theoretical framework the more important approaches to linguistic variation found in areas as different as historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, stylistics, contrastive linguistics, language typology, so-called evaluation grammar, and current Chomskyan generative grammar (generally with an emphasis on syntax). The book concentrates on language-internal variation but also analyses typological research and considers the question of how linguistic descriptions may account for variation both within and between languages. The book's first and primary aim is adequate conceptualization in the area of linguistic variation. Its second aim is a practical one: to contribute, from a theoretical point of view, to the vast descriptive effort that is demanded in linguistics in documenting endangered languages. Its third aim is, simply, orientation. Using a non-Labovian notion of linguistic variable, the author distinguishes a holistic and a component approach to linguistic variation. A precise version of the former is developed by formulating a theory of language varieties based on the concept of variety structure of a language; it is then shown how the proposals made by major representatives of the component approach can be integrated into this framework. The theory is extended to interlanguage variation and applied, in particular, to typology. It is further extended to establish the properties of linguistic descriptions that account for variation in a unified way.

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Author: Geoffrey Sampson

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2009-02-26

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0191567663

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This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.

Born to Parse

Author: David Lightfoot

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780262358866

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"This book represents a new approach to language acquisition and to variable properties in language. By taking a novel approach in allowing for an account of the acquisition of variable properties of language and a biologically plausible treatment of language variation, Lightfoot argues against the use of binary parameters, for the centrality of parsing in language acquisition, and for the "openness" of Universal Grammar"

Nominal Arguments and Language Variation

Author: Li Julie Jiang

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-09-28

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0190084189

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Nominal Arguments in Language Variation investigates nominal arguments in classifier languages, refuting the long-held claim that classifier languages do not have overt article determiners. Li Julie Jiang brings the typologically unique Nuosu Yi, a classifier language that has an overt definite determiner (D), to the forefront of the theoretical investigation. By comparing nominal arguments in Nuosu Yi to those in Mandarin, a well-studied classifier language that has no overt evidence of an article determiner, Jiang provides new accounts of variation among classifier languages and extends the parameters to argument formation in general. In addition to paying particular attention to these two classifier languages, the discussion of nominal arguments also covers a wider range of classifier languages and number marking languages from Romance, Germanic, and Slavic to Hindi. Using a broad cross-linguistic perspective and detailed empirical analysis, Nominal Arguments in Language Variation is an important contribution to research on classifier languages and the fields of theoretical syntax, semantics, language variation, and linguistic typology.

Nominal Arguments and Language Variation

Author: Li Julie Jiang

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0190084162

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Introduction: classifier languages: their definition and variable properties -- A classifier language without D: Mandarin -- A classifier language with D: Nuosu Yi -- When what you see is what you get and when it is not: language universals, variation, and typology of nominal arguments -- Conclusion.

Variable Domain-specific Software Languages with DjDSL

Author: Stefan Sobernig

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-07-09

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 303042152X

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This book details the conceptual foundations, design and implementation of the domain-specific language (DSL) development system DjDSL. DjDSL facilitates design-decision-making on and implementation of reusable DSL and DSL-product lines, and represents the state-of-the-art in language-based and composition-based DSL development. As such, it unites elements at the crossroads between software-language engineering, model-driven software engineering, and feature-oriented software engineering. The book is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 (“DSL as Variable Software”) explains the notion of DSL as variable software in greater detail and introduces readers to the idea of software-product line engineering for DSL-based software systems. Chapter 2 (“Variability Support in DSL Development”) sheds light on a number of interrelated dimensions of DSL variability: variable development processes, variable design-decisions, and variability-implementation techniques for DSL. The three subsequent chapters are devoted to the key conceptual and technical contributions of DjDSL: Chapter 3 (“Variable Language Models”) explains how to design and implement the abstract syntax of a DSL in a variable manner. Chapter 4 (“Variable Context Conditions”) then provides the means to refine an abstract syntax (language model) by using composable context conditions (invariants). Next, Chapter 5 (“Variable Textual Syntaxes”) details solutions to implementing variable textual syntaxes for different types of DSL. In closing, Chapter 6 (“A Story of a DSL Family”) shows how to develop a mixed DSL in a step-by-step manner, demonstrating how the previously introduced techniques can be employed in an advanced example of developing a DSL family. The book is intended for readers interested in language-oriented as well as model-driven software development, including software-engineering researchers and advanced software developers alike. An understanding of software-engineering basics (architecture, design, implementation, testing) and software patterns is essential. Readers should especially be familiar with the basics of object-oriented modelling (UML, MOF, Ecore) and programming (e.g., Java).

Determiners

Author: Jila Ghomeshi

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 902725530X

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This volume brings together recent work on the formal and interpretational properties of determiners across a variety of typologically and geographically unrelated languages. It seeks to answer the core question of modern linguistic theory: Which properties of languages are universal and which are variable? In recent theorizing, much of language variation is argued to stem from differences in the properties of features associated with functional heads. As such, this volume can be viewed as a case study of one such category: the determiner (D). The contributions all investigate the status of D as a language universal by examining the language-specific syntactic and semantic properties associated with this category. This volume will appeal to researchers and students in syntax and semantics, as well as to those who have more a specific interest in determiners and noun phrases.

Crafting Interpreters

Author: Robert Nystrom

Publisher: Genever Benning

Published: 2021-07-27

Total Pages: 1021

ISBN-13: 0990582949

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Despite using them every day, most software engineers know little about how programming languages are designed and implemented. For many, their only experience with that corner of computer science was a terrifying "compilers" class that they suffered through in undergrad and tried to blot from their memory as soon as they had scribbled their last NFA to DFA conversion on the final exam. That fearsome reputation belies a field that is rich with useful techniques and not so difficult as some of its practitioners might have you believe. A better understanding of how programming languages are built will make you a stronger software engineer and teach you concepts and data structures you'll use the rest of your coding days. You might even have fun. This book teaches you everything you need to know to implement a full-featured, efficient scripting language. You'll learn both high-level concepts around parsing and semantics and gritty details like bytecode representation and garbage collection. Your brain will light up with new ideas, and your hands will get dirty and calloused. Starting from main(), you will build a language that features rich syntax, dynamic typing, garbage collection, lexical scope, first-class functions, closures, classes, and inheritance. All packed into a few thousand lines of clean, fast code that you thoroughly understand because you wrote each one yourself.