Structure in Language: A Dynamic Perspective

✍ Scribed by Thomas Berg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 409
• Series: Routledge Studies in Linguistics
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Dedication......Page 10
Preface......Page 12
1 A Structural Model of Language Production......Page 14
2 Constituent Structure and Branching Direction in English......Page 46
3 Level-Specific Differences in Hierarchicalness......Page 142
4 Structural Variation Across Time......Page 150
5 Structural Variation Across Languages......Page 199
6 Branching Direction (and Hierarchicalness) from a Typological Perspective......Page 250
7 How Structure Is Acquired......Page 259
8 How Structure Breaks Down......Page 285
9 Structure Across Output Modalities......Page 316
10 The Whys and Wherefores of Structure......Page 338
Notes......Page 366
References......Page 378
Index......Page 406