Usage-based Grammar

Generative Oscillation - A Cognitive Model for the Emergence of Language

by Thorold (Thor) May

Research Material for a discontinued PhD

DRAFT COPY ONLY

NOT READY FOR PRINT PUBLICATION

The GO model proposes a co-generative view of the emergence of language. Most conventional linguistics models conceive... more The GO model proposes a co-generative view of the emergence of language. Most conventional linguistics models conceive of language as a representational system of symbols which refer to events, either mental or external to the organism. This representational function is said to motivate the linguistic system and (depending upon the linguistic model) largely control its form. The GO (Generative Oscillation) model proposed here recognizes the representational role of language. However it notes that as the mental linguistic system itself becomes efficiently organized, it creates an internal logic and drive of its own. To some extent this internally motivated linguistic system is conceived to override the external motivation to represent another reality. Since the internal linguistic system is dynamic and generative, it may give rise to linguistic output which seems strange in an inter-human communicative context (or even within the reflective mind of the creator). Thus while the external communicative context can become a constraint on unmotivated non-representational "internal language", it might not eliminate it. The Generative Oscillation model proposes that actual language production is an oscillating compromise between the representational function of language and the mental "language bot" itself (i.e. an internal self-organizing system) which is generating language strings just because that is what language language bots do. As far as I know, the Generative Oscillation Model, or anything like it, had not been suggested before in linguistics at the time of writing. Some conventional linguists may find it a bit "off the wall".

Snider, N., & Arnon, I. (2012). A unified lexicon and grammar? Compositional and non-compositional phrases in the lexicon. In S. Gries & D. Divjak (Eds.) Frequency effects in language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter

by Inbal Arnon

In this chapter, we address the debate between single-system and dual-system models of language by looking at the... more In this chapter, we address the debate between single-system and dual-system models of language by looking at the processing of multi-word phrases. We present findings that challenge the distinction between ‘stored’ and ‘computed’ linguistic forms via two experiments. The first demonstrates parallels in the processing of words and phrases: frequent four-word phrases are processed more quickly than less frequent ones, without any evidence of a frequency threshold. The second experiment shows that idiomatic phrases prime their construction just as well as non-idiomatic phrases, suggesting that they are not stored as analyzed wholes, but instead have internal structure. Taken together, the findings undermine the empirical criteria traditionally used to distinguish between ‘stored’ and ‘computed’ forms: compositional phrases showed frequency effects, even though such effects are often thought to be a marker of lexical storage, while non-compositional forms (idioms) showed evidence of internal structure, unexpected if they are stored as unanalyzed wholes. The findings show that linguistic structures are processed in qualitatively the same way regardless of where they fall on the frequency and compositionality continua, and highlight the utility of models that deal with all linguistic experience in a qualitatively similar fashion, and allow for experience to influence the learning, representation and processing of all linguistic patterns.

When Grammar Doesn't Help

by Thorold (Thor) May

This paper questions the role of grammar in language teaching and learning. Firstly it identifies the constituencies... more This paper questions the role of grammar in language teaching and learning. Firstly it identifies the constituencies in academic language teaching, and their often conflicting notions of language programs. Several kinds of learners are discussed, with particular attention to the large group who are uncomfortable with any technical analysis, including formal grammars. Some conventional ideas about what a natural language grammar actually is are challenged. The consequences of a connectionist view of language processing are briefly explored. The power of collocation sets is identified as a key to language acquisition. Language is set in the broader cognitive context of memory processes and patterns of generalization. Pedagogical grammars are viewed as forced external generalizations with little organic presence in memory, but some suggestions are made about how to make use of them. Actual student language memory, as well as teacher self-insight into L1 are both contrasted with the idealized patterns assumed by academic language programs. Finally, the stubborn problem of average teacher behaviour is set against the real ways in which people appear to use grammars and learn languages.

Kapatsinski, Vsevolod. 2012. When and why we (fail to) extend morphophonological alternations: Towards a usage-based Harmonic Grammar. Ms. U of Oregon.

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

Kapatsinski, Vsevolod. 2012. Minding gaps or seeking bumps in learning phonotactics? Poster presented at LSA Annual Meeting.

by Vsevolod Kapatsinski

Grammar For Language Teachers

by Thorold (Thor) May

A seminar for language teachers.
Also on the blog, Thor's Language & Teaching Notes at http://thorslanguageandteachingnotes.byeways.net/

Abstract : 1. What are we doing when we do grammar ? / 2. So what is grammar?/ 3. Where do the rules in book grammars... more Abstract : 1. What are we doing when we do grammar ? / 2. So what is grammar?/ 3. Where do the rules in book grammars come from ? / 4. So is grammar just about the links between words ? / 5.Language grammar always happens at the same time as lots of other things in your brain / 6. What should grammar teachers teach ? / 7. Do students learn useful language control from studying grammar books? / 8. Can teachers teach grammar? / 9. How can language teachers be most useful? / 10. Do grammar mistakes matter? / 11. Is accuracy more important than fluency?

This is the outline of a seminar on grammar teaching given as a teacher inservice for Chinese English teachers in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, on 13 May 2008. Thor May has been teaching language and linguistics since 1976.

La corrélative en the... the...

by Bert Cappelle

Accepted for publication in a volume on correlative syntax and semantics (ed. by Olga Inkova et al. Genève: Droz)

Doubler-upper nouns: a challenge for usage-based models of language?

by Bert Cappelle

Cappelle, Bert. 2010. Doubler-upper nouns: A challenge for usage-based models of language? In: Alexander Onysko and Sascha Michel (eds.), Cognitive Perspectives on Word Formation. (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs). Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 335-374.

Proofs (may slightly differ from published version)

R-bortfall og apikalisering i oslomålet

by Eirik Olsen

Masters Thesis

Grammar-based automatic extraction of definitions and applications for Romanian

by Adrian Iftene

Grammar-based automatic extraction of definitions

by Adrian Iftene

Arnon, I. (2011). Units of learning in language acquisition. In I. Arnon & E.V. Clark (Eds.), Experience, Variation and Generalization: Learning a First Language, Trends in Language Acquisition Research Series, Amsterdam: John Benjamins

by Inbal Arnon

Text-book descriptions of how production develops in first language acquisition often move from babbling (producing... more Text-book descriptions of how production develops in first language acquisition often move from babbling (producing syllables), through single-word utterances, to multi-word combinations. This progression emphasizes the small-to-big aspect of language learning where each stage involves larger, more structured linguistic units. In this chapter, I discuss an equally important, but often neglected, process: the move from large unanalyzed units to the identification and analysis of smaller more structured ones. I present evidence for such Gestalt processes in a range of linguistic domains (phonetics, morphology, and syntax), and suggest that they play an important role in first language learning by offering children another route into linguistic structure. I discuss implications for identifying early building blocks for language learning.

A usage-based approach to modeling and teaching the phrasal lexicon

by Kurt Queller

Italian article allomorphy and the treatment of initial glides

by Antonio Baroni

Talk presented at the University of Padua on the 10th November 2011

Learning simple statistics for language comprehension and production: The CAPPUCCINO model

by Stewart McCauley

McCauley, S.M. & Christiansen, M.H. (2011). Learning simple statistics for language comprehension and production: The CAPPUCCINO model. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher, & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1619-1624). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Whether the input available to children is sufficient to explain their ability to use language has been the subject of... more Whether the input available to children is sufficient to explain their ability to use language has been the subject of much theoretical debate in cognitive science. Here, we present a simple, developmentally motivated computational model that learns to comprehend and produce language when exposed to child-directed speech. The model uses backward transitional probabilities to create an inventory of ‘chunks’ consisting of one or more words. Language comprehension is approximated in terms of shallow parsing of adult speech and production as the reconstruction of the child’s actual utterances. The model functions in a fully incremental, on-line fashion, has broad cross-linguistic coverage, and is able to fit child data from Saffran’s (2002) statistical learning study. Moreover, word-based distributional information is found to be more useful than statistics over word classes. Together, these results suggest that much of children’s early linguistic behavior can be accounted for in a usage-based manner using distributional statistics.

A Connectionist Account of the Acquisition and Processing of Relative Clauses

by Hartmut Fitz

Co-authored with Franklin Chang and Morten H. Christiansen (2011). In Kidd, E. (Ed.), The Acquisition of Relative Clauses: Processing, Typology, and Function (pp. 39–60), Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Relative clause processing depends on the grammatical role of the head noun in the subordinate clause. This has... more Relative clause processing depends on the grammatical role of the head noun in the subordinate clause. This has traditionally been explained in terms of cognitive limitations. We suggest that structure-related processing differences arise from differences in experience with these structures. We present a connectionist model which learns to produce utterances with relative clauses from exposure to message-sentence pairs. The model shows how various factors such as frequent subsequences, structural variations, and meaning conspire to create differences in the processing of these structures. The predictions of this learning-based account have been confirmed in behavioral studies with adults. This work shows that structural regularities that govern relative clause processing can be explained within a usage-based approach to recursion.

2010 Effect of Subject Types on the Production of Auxiliary Is in Young English-Speaking Children

by Ling-Yu Guo

Usage-Based Construction Selection

by Ryan Dewey

[seminar essay]

Broadly, the cognitive linguistic enterprise seeks to identify an emergentist approach to language that investigates... more Broadly, the cognitive linguistic enterprise seeks to identify an emergentist approach to language that investigates the motivation of language use, considers the effects of distributed cognition in situated communication, views complex systems of form-meaning pairings as primitives, and views online processing as dynamic. Within this tradition, this essay takes the position that language use is a manifestation of construal operations in the selection process of utilizing appropriate constructions which encode speaker perspective in a situated common ground. What follows is a usage-based treatment of the situated nature of construction selection in adult language informed by research in child language acquisition, discourse studies of communication, and construction grammar.

Locality and Accessibility in Wh-Questions

by T. Florian Jaeger

http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/fjaeger/papers/LingEvidence_paper_0926.pdf

Learning Language From the Input: Why Innate Constraints Can't Explain Noun Compounding

by Melody Dye

Ramscar, M. & Dye, M. (2011) Learning language from the input : Why innate constraints can’t explain noun compounding. Cognitive Psychology, 62(1), 1-40.

Do the production and interpretation of patterns of plural forms in noun-noun compounds reveal the workings of innate... more Do the production and interpretation of patterns of plural forms in noun-noun compounds reveal the workings of innate constraints that govern morphological processing? The results of previous studies on compounding have been taken to support a number of important theoretical claims: first, that there are fundamental differences in the way that children and adults learn and process regular and irregular plurals, second, that these differences reflect formal constraints that govern the way the way regular and irregular plurals are processed in language, and third, that these constraints are unlikely to be the product of learning. In a series of seven experiments, we critically assess the evidence that is cited in support of these arguments. The results of our experiments provide little support for the idea that substantively different factors govern the patterns of acquisition, production and interpretation patterns of regular and irregular plural forms in compounds. Once frequency differences between regular and irregular plurals are accounted for, we find no evidence of any qualitative difference in the patterns of interpretation and production of regular and irregular plural nouns in compounds, in either adults or children. Accordingly, we suggest that the pattern of acquisition of both regular and irregular plurals in compounds is consistent with a simple account, in which children learn the conventions that govern plural compounding using evidence that is readily available in the distribution patterns of adult speech.