This book examines one of the allegedly unique features of human language: structure sensitivity. Its point of departure is the distinction between content and structural units, which are defined in psycholinguistic terms. The focus of the book is on structural representations, in particular their hierarchicalness and their branching direction. Structural representations reach variable levels of activation and are therefore gradient in nature. Their variable strength is claimed to account for numerous effects including differences between individual analytical levels, differences between languages as well as pathways of language acquisition and breakdown. English is found to be consistent in its branching direction and to have evolved its branching direction in line with the cross-level harmony constraint. Structure sensitivity is argued to be highly variable both within and across languages and consequently an unlikely candidate for a defining property of human language.
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The focus of this book is on structural representations, in particular their hierarchicalness and their branching direction, and structure sensitivity is argued to be highly variable both within and across languages and consequently an unlikely candidate for a defining property of human language.
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PrefaceChapter One: A Structural Model of Language ProductionChapter Two: Constituent Structure and Branching Direction in EnglishChapter Three: Level-specific Differences in HierarchicalnessChapter Four: Structural Variation across TimeChapter Five: Structural Variation across LanguagesChapter Six: Branching Direction (and Hierarchicalness) from a Typological PerspectiveChapter Seven: How Structure is AcquiredChapter Eight: How Structure Breaks DownChapter Nine: Structure across Output ModalitiesChapter Ten: The Whys and Wherefores of StructureNotesBibliographyIndex
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780415542241
Publisert
2012-09-20
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Vekt
750 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
396

Forfatter

Biographical note

Thomas Berg is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and is the author of Language Structure and Change.