[PDF] Discovery Of Language eBook

Author : Peter W. Jusczyk
Publisher : Bradford Books
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 15,43 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780262600361

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The Discovery of Spoken Language marks one of the first efforts to integrate the field of infant speech perception research into the general study of language acquisition. It fills in a key part of the acquisition story by providing an extensive review of research on the acquisition of language during the first year of life, focusing primarily on how normally developing infants learn the organization of native language sound patterns. Peter Jusczyk examines the initial capacities that infants possess for discriminating and categorizing speech sounds and how these capacities evolve as infants gain experience with native language input. Jusczyk also looks at how infants' growing knowledge of native language sound patterns may facilitate the acquisition of other aspects of language organization and discusses the relationship between the learner's developing capacities for perceiving and producing speech.

Author : Holger Pedersen
Publisher : Bloomington : Indiana University Press
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 45,42 MB
Release : 1962
Category : Comparative linguistics
ISBN :

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The study of language is the study of civilization-- to discover man's cultural antecedents and to understand the meaning of his intellectual heritage we must look to the origins of human language buried in the mists of historical antiquity. The present work has long been a celebrated classic in the field of linguistics: it reveals not only the genesis of man's great languages and their interrelation, but tells as well of the development of linguistic science itself, of the discoveries of its pioneers and great masters, particularly during the last century. In addition, a concise summary of the methods employed in linguistics is provided -- Provided by publisher.

Author : Vladimir Pericliev
Publisher : Equinox Publishing (UK)
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 50,92 MB
Release : 2010
Category : Computational linguistics
ISBN : 9781845536602

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Solving linguistic problems not infrequently is reduced to carrying out tasks that are computationally complex and therefore requires automation. In such situations, the difference between having and not having computational tools to handle the tasks is not a matter of economy of time and effort, but may amount to the difference between finding and not finding a solution at all. This book is an introduction to machine-aided linguistic discovery, a novel research area, arguing for the fruitfulness of the computational approach by presenting a basic conceptual apparatus and several intelligent discovery programmes. One of the systems models the fundamental Saussurian notion of system, and thus, for the first time, almost a century after the introduction of this concept and structuralism in general, linguists are capable of adequately handling this recurring, computationally complex task. Another system models the problem of searching for Greenbergian language universals and is capable of stating its discoveries in an intelligible form, viz. a comprehensive English language text, thus constituting the first computer program to generate a whole scientific article. Yet another system detects potential inconsistencies in genetic language classifications. The programmes are applied with noteworthy results to substantial problems from diverse linguistic disciplines such as structural semantics, phonology, typology and historical linguistics.

Author : Chris Biemann
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 15,36 MB
Release : 2011-12-08
Category : Computers
ISBN : 3642259235

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Current language technology is dominated by approaches that either enumerate a large set of rules, or are focused on a large amount of manually labelled data. The creation of both is time-consuming and expensive, which is commonly thought to be the reason why automated natural language understanding has still not made its way into “real-life” applications yet. This book sets an ambitious goal: to shift the development of language processing systems to a much more automated setting than previous works. A new approach is defined: what if computers analysed large samples of language data on their own, identifying structural regularities that perform the necessary abstractions and generalisations in order to better understand language in the process? After defining the framework of Structure Discovery and shedding light on the nature and the graphic structure of natural language data, several procedures are described that do exactly this: let the computer discover structures without supervision in order to boost the performance of language technology applications. Here, multilingual documents are sorted by language, word classes are identified, and semantic ambiguities are discovered and resolved without using a dictionary or other explicit human input. The book concludes with an outlook on the possibilities implied by this paradigm and sets the methods in perspective to human computer interaction. The target audience are academics on all levels (undergraduate and graduate students, lecturers and professors) working in the fields of natural language processing and computational linguistics, as well as natural language engineers who are seeking to improve their systems.

Author : Daniel L. Everett
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 19,24 MB
Release : 2017-11-07
Category : Science
ISBN : 087140477X

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A Buzzfeed Gift Guide Selection “Few books on the biological and cultural origin of humanity can be ranked as classics. I believe [this] will be one of them.” — Edward O. Wilson At the time of its publication, How Language Began received high acclaim for capturing the fascinating history of mankind’s most incredible creation. Deemed a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” by Tom Wolfe (Harper’s), Daniel L. Everett posits that the near- 7,000 languages that exist today are not only the product of one million years of evolution but also have allowed us to become Earth’s apex predator. Tracing 60,000 generations, Everett debunks long- held theories across a spectrum of disciplines to affi rm the idea that we are not born with an instinct for language. Woven with anecdotes of his nearly forty years of fi eldwork amongst Amazonian hunter- gatherers, this is a “completely enthralling” (Spectator) exploration of our humanity and a landmark study of what makes us human. “[An] ambitious text. . . . Everett’s amiable tone, and especially his captivating anecdotes . . . , will help the neophyte along.”— New York Times Book Review

Author : Nicholas Brownlees
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 32,95 MB
Release : 2019-10-31
Category : History
ISBN : 1527542556

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This volume offers the first fully-focused study on the language and discourse employed in historical accounts of discovery, exploration and settlement, stretching from the 16th to 19th centuries, and covering areas as far afield as the Americas, Africa, India, Australasia and the Arctic. In the examination of the discourse (and accompanying paratextual features when present), the contributors make use of qualitative and quantitative analysis in order to identify the manner in which the knowledge disseminators of the time adapted, created and exploited the language of the genre in which they were communicating to inform or persuade contemporary readers. The chapters focus, in particular, on six genres: namely, print news, manuscript correspondence, journals, dictionaries, travel books and geography schoolbooks. Knowledge dissemination is mediated through these six different genres, but, in each case, the genre in question conveys three common aspects of knowledge dissemination: the factual, the personal and the ideological. The focus is, as such, on how domain-specific knowledge is mediated in specialized and popularizing discourse in order to address different stakeholders.

Author : Raf Van Rooy
Publisher : Language Science Press
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 24,21 MB
Release :
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 3961102104

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Fascinated with the heritage of ancient Greece, early modern intellectuals cultivated a deep interest in its language, the primary gateway to this long-lost culture, rehabilitated during the Renaissance. Inspired by the humanist battle cry “To the sources!” scholars took a detailed look at the Greek source texts in the original language and its different dialects. In so doing, they saw themselves confronted with major linguistic questions: Is there any order in this immense diversity? Can the Ancient Greek dialects be classified into larger groups? Is there a hierarchy among the dialects? Which dialect is the oldest? Where should problematic varieties such as Homeric and Biblical Greek be placed? How are the differences between the Greek dialects to be described, charted, and explained? What is the connection between the diversity of the Greek tongue and the Greek homeland? And, last but not least, are Greek dialects similar to the dialects of the vernacular tongues? Why (not)? This book discusses and analyzes the often surprising and sometimes contradictory early modern answers to these questions.

Author : David W. Anthony
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 566 pages
File Size : 15,56 MB
Release : 2010-07-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1400831105

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Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? Until now their identity has remained a tantalizing mystery to linguists, archaeologists, and even Nazis seeking the roots of the Aryan race. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language lifts the veil that has long shrouded these original Indo-European speakers, and reveals how their domestication of horses and use of the wheel spread language and transformed civilization. Linking prehistoric archaeological remains with the development of language, David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European, and shows how their innovative use of the ox wagon, horseback riding, and the warrior's chariot turned the Eurasian steppes into a thriving transcontinental corridor of communication, commerce, and cultural exchange. He explains how they spread their traditions and gave rise to important advances in copper mining, warfare, and patron-client political institutions, thereby ushering in an era of vibrant social change. Anthony also describes his fascinating discovery of how the wear from bits on ancient horse teeth reveals the origins of horseback riding. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries--the source of the Indo-European languages and English--and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.

Author : Scott L. Montgomery
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 40,87 MB
Release : 2013-05-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 0226535037

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In early 2012, the global scientific community erupted with news that the elusive Higgs boson had likely been found, providing potent validation for the Standard Model of how the universe works. Scientists from more than one hundred countries contributed to this discovery—proving, beyond any doubt, that a new era in science had arrived, an era of multinationalism and cooperative reach. Globalization, the Internet, and digital technology all play a role in making this new era possible, but something more fundamental is also at work. In all scientific endeavors lies the ancient drive for sharing ideas and knowledge, and now this can be accomplished in a single tongue— English. But is this a good thing? In Does Science Need a Global Language?, Scott L. Montgomery seeks to answer this question by investigating the phenomenon of global English in science, how and why it came about, the forms in which it appears, what advantages and disadvantages it brings, and what its future might be. He also examines the consequences of a global tongue, considering especially emerging and developing nations, where research is still at a relatively early stage and English is not yet firmly established. Throughout the book, he includes important insights from a broad range of perspectives in linguistics, history, education, geopolitics, and more. Each chapter includes striking and revealing anecdotes from the front-line experiences of today’s scientists, some of whom have struggled with the reality of global scientific English. He explores topics such as student mobility, publication trends, world Englishes, language endangerment, and second language learning, among many others. What he uncovers will challenge readers to rethink their assumptions about the direction of contemporary science, as well as its future.