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Grammaticality
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formulate rules that define well-formed, grammatical, sentences. These rules of grammaticality also provide explanations of ill-formed, ungrammatical sentences. In theoretical linguistics, a speaker's judgement on the well-formedness of a linguistic 'string'—called a grammaticality judgement—is based on whether the sentence is interpreted in accordance with the rules and constraints of the relevant grammar. If the rules and constraints of the particular lect are followed, then the sentence is judged to be grammatical. In contrast, an ungrammatical sentence is one that violates the rules of the given language variety. Linguists use grammaticality judgements to investigate the syntactic structure of sentences. Generative linguists are la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acceptability Judgment Task
An acceptability judgment task, also called acceptability rating task, is a common method in empirical linguistics to gather information about the internal grammar of speakers of a language. Acceptability and grammaticality The goal of acceptability rating studies is to gather insights into the mental grammars of participants. As the grammaticality of a linguistic construction is an abstract construct that cannot be accessed directly, this type of tasks is usually not called grammaticality, but acceptability judgment. This can be compared to intelligence. Intelligence is an abstract construct that cannot be measured directly. What can be measured are the outcomes of specific test items. The result of one item, however, is not very telling. Instead, IQ tests consist of several items building a score. Similarly, in acceptability rating studies, grammatical constructions are measured through several items, i.e., sentences to be rated. This is also done to ensure that participants do no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntactic Structures
''Syntactic Structures'' is an influential work in linguistics by American linguist Noam Chomsky, originally published in 1957. It is an elaboration of his teacher Zellig Harris's model of transformational generative grammar. A short monograph of about a hundred pages, Chomsky's presentation is recognized as one of the most significant studies of the 20th century. It contains the now-famous sentence " Colorless green ideas sleep furiously", which Chomsky offered as an example of a grammatically correct sentence that has no discernible meaning. Thus, Chomsky argued for the independence of syntax (the study of sentence structures) from semantics (the study of meaning).From :"...such semantic notions as reference, significance, and synonymity played no role in the discussion." Based on lecture notes he had prepared for his students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chomsky's first book presented contemporary developments in early generative grammar. The approach to sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Performance
The term linguistic performance was used by Noam Chomsky in 1960 to describe "the actual use of language in concrete situations". It is used to describe both the production, sometimes called '' parole'', as well as the comprehension of language. Performance is defined in opposition to " competence"; the latter describes the mental knowledge that a speaker or listener has of language. Part of the motivation for the distinction between performance and competence comes from speech errors: despite having a perfect understanding of the correct forms, a speaker of a language may unintentionally produce incorrect forms. This is because performance occurs in real situations, and so is subject to many non-linguistic influences. For example, distractions or memory limitations can affect lexical retrieval (Chomsky 1965:3), and give rise to errors in both production and perception. Such non-linguistic factors are completely independent of the actual knowledge of language,Noam Chomsky.(20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Well-formedness
__NOTOC__ Well-formedness is the quality of a clause, word, or other linguistic element that conforms to the grammar of the language of which it is a part. Well-formed words or phrases are grammatical, meaning they obey all relevant rules of grammar. In contrast, a form that violates some grammar rule is ill-formed and does not constitute part of the language. A word may be phonologically well-formed, meaning it conforms to the sound pattern of the language. A word, phrase, clause, or utterance may be grammatically well-formed, meaning it obeys the rules of morphology and syntax. A semantically well-formed utterance or sentence is one that is meaningful. Grammatical well-formedness and semantic well-formedness do not always coincide. For example, the following sentence is grammatically well-formed, but has no clear meaning. :''Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.'' The concept of well-formedness was developed in generative grammar during the twentieth century. Sometimes native ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the Cognition, cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preposition Stranding
Historically, grammarians have described preposition stranding or p-stranding as the syntactic construction in which a so-called ''stranded'', ''hanging'' or ''dangling'' preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding object; for example, at the end of a sentence. The term ''preposition stranding'' was coined in 1964, predated by stranded preposition in 1949. Linguists had previously identified such a construction as a sentence-terminal preposition or as a preposition at the end. This kind of construction is found in English, and more generally in other Germanic languages. Preposition stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi (two languages in the Niger–Congo family), and certain dialects of French spoken in North America. P-stranding occurs in various syntactic contexts, including passive voice, wh-movement, and sluicing. Wh-movement and P-stranding Wh-movement—which involves wh-words like ''wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Competence
In linguistics, linguistic competence is the system of unconscious knowledge that one knows when they know a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practice. In approaches to linguistics which adopt this distinction, competence would normally be considered responsible for the fact that "I like ice cream" is a possible sentence of English, the particular proposition that it denotes, and the particular sequence of phones that it consists of. Performance, on the other hand, would be responsible for the real-time processing required to produce or comprehend it, for the particular role it plays in a discourse, and for the particular sound wave one might produce while uttering it. The distinction is widely adopted in formal linguistics, where competence and performance are typically studied independently. However, it is not used in other approaches including functional linguistics and cogniti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and letter-spacing (tracking), as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters ( kerning). The term ''typography'' is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information. Typography is the work of typesetters (also known as compositors), typographers, graphic designers, art directors, manga artists, comic book artists, and, now, anyone who arranges words, letters, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pied-piping
In linguistics, pied-piping is a phenomenon of syntax whereby a given focused expression brings along an encompassing phrase with it when it is moved. The term was introduced by John Robert Ross in 1967. It references the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, where a piper lured rats and children away from their town. In syntactic pied-piping, a focused expression (such as an interrogative word) pulls its host phrase with it when it moves to its new position in the sentence. Metaphorically, the focused expression is the piper and the host phrase is the material being pied-piped. Pied-piping is an aspect of syntactic discontinuities, having to do with constituents that can and cannot be discontinuous. While pied-piping is most visible in cases of wh-fronting of information questions and relative clauses, it is not limited to ''wh''-fronting. It can also occur with almost any type of discontinuity, including extraposition, scrambling, and topicalization. Most, if not all, languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optimality Theory
In linguistics, Optimality Theory (frequently abbreviated OT) is a linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the optimal satisfaction of conflicting constraints. OT differs from other approaches to phonological analysis, such as autosegmental phonology and linear phonology (SPE), which typically use rules rather than constraints. OT models grammars as systems that provide mappings from inputs to outputs; typically, the inputs are conceived of as underlying representations, and the outputs as their surface realizations. It is an approach within the larger framework of generative grammar. In linguistics, Optimality Theory has its origin in a talk given by Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky in 1991 which was later developed in a book manuscript by the same authors in 1993. Overview There are three basic components of the theory: * Generator () takes an input, and generates the list of possible outputs, or candidates, * Constraint component () provid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subjacency
Subjacency is a general syntactic locality constraint on movement. It specifies restrictions placed on movement and regards it as a strictly local process. This term was first defined by Noam Chomsky in 1973 and constitutes the main concept of the Government and Binding Theory. The revised definition of subjacency from Chomsky (1977) is as follows: "A cyclic rule cannot move a phrase from position Y to position X (or conversely) in … X … �…_Y_…_.html"_;"title="�…_[β…_Y_…_">�…_[β…_Y_…_…_…_X_…,_where_α_and_β_are_cyclic_nodes._Cyclic_nodes_are_S_and_NP",_(where_S=Sentence_(linguistics).html" ;"title="�…_Y_…_…_.html" ;"title="�…_Y_…_.html" ;"title="�… [β… Y … ">�… [β… Y … … ">�…_Y_…_.html" ;"title="�… [β… Y … ">�… [β… Y … … … X …, where α and β are cyclic nodes. Cyclic nodes are S and NP", (where S=Sentence (linguistics)">Sentence and NP=Noun Phrase). This principle states that no movement can move an e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felicity (pragmatics)
In linguistics and philosophy of language, an utterance is ''felicitous'' if it is pragmatically well-formed. An utterance can be infelicitous because it is self-contradictory, trivial, irrelevant, or because it is somehow inappropriate for the context of utterance. Researchers in semantics and pragmatics use felicity judgments much as syntacticians use grammaticality judgments. An infelicitous sentence is marked with the pound sign. The terms ''felicitous'' and ''infelicitous'' were first proposed by J. L. Austin as part of his theory of speech acts. In his thinking, a performative utterance is neither true nor false, but can instead be deemed felicitous or infelicitous according to a set of conditions whose interpretation differs depending on whether the utterance in question is a declaration ("I sentence you to death"), a request ("I ask that you stop doing that") or a warning ("I warn you not to jump off the roof"). Felicity conditions for declarations * ''Conventionality of p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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