Nicht aus der Schweiz? Besuchen Sie lehmanns.de
Variation, Selection, Development -

Variation, Selection, Development

Probing the Evolutionary Model of Language Change
Buch | Hardcover
VIII, 408 Seiten
2008
de Gruyter Mouton (Verlag)
978-3-11-019869-0 (ISBN)
CHF 289,95 inkl. MwSt
Can language change be modelled as an evolutionary process? Can notions like variation, selection and competition be fruitfully applied to facts of language development? This volume offers a rich spectrum of ways to elucidate these questions, confronting studies from the perspective of historical and creole linguistics with research in Artificial Intelligence and mathematical modelling of language change.
Can language change be modelled as an evolutionary process? Can notions like variation, selection and competition be fruitfully applied to facts of language development? The present volume ties together various strands of linguistic research which can bring us towards an answer to these questions. In one of the youngest and rapidly growing areas of linguistic research, mathematical models and simulations of competition based developments have been applied to instances of language change. By matching the predicted and observed developmental trends, researchers gauge existing models to the needs of linguistic applications and evaluate the fruitfulness of evolutionary models in linguistics. The present volume confronts these studies with more empirically-based studies in creolization and historical language change which bear on key concepts of evolutionary models. What does it mean for a linguistic construction to survive its competitors? How do the interacting factors in phases of creolization differ from those in ordinary language change, and how - consequently - might Creole languages differ structurally from older languages? Some of the authors, finally, also address the question how different aspects of our linguistic competence tie in with our more elementary cognitive capacities. The volume contains contributions by Brady Clark et al., Elly van Gelderen, Alain Kihm, Manfred Krifka, Wouter Kusters, Robert van Rooij, Anette Rosenbach, John McWhorter, Teresa Satterfield, Michael Tomasello and Elizabeth C. Traugott. The book brings together contributions from two areas of research: the study of language evolution by means of methods from artifical intelligence/artificial life (like computer simulations and analytic mathematical methods) on the one hand, and empirically oriented research from historical linguistics and creolisation studies that uses concepts from evolutionary theory as a heuristic tool in a qualitative way. The book is thus interesting for readers from both traditions because it supplies them with information about relevant ongoing research and useful methods and data from the other camp.

Regine Eckardt, University of Göttingen, Germany; Gerhard Jäger, University of Bielefeld, Germany; Tonjes Veenstra, ZAS Berlin, Germany.

Erscheint lt. Verlag 27.2.2008
Reihe/Serie Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] ; 197
Verlagsort Basel/Berlin/Boston
Sprache englisch
Maße 155 x 230 mm
Gewicht 715 g
Themenwelt Geisteswissenschaften Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaft
Schlagworte Berlin <2005> • Creole dialects • Hardcover, Softcover / Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft • HC/Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft • HC/Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft • Historical Linguistics • Kongress • Language and languages • Linguistic change • Linguistik • Sprachentwicklung • Sprachgeschichte • Sprachwandel
ISBN-10 3-11-019869-X / 311019869X
ISBN-13 978-3-11-019869-0 / 9783110198690
Zustand Neuware
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt?
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich