Chapter 12. Syntactic complexity and language evolution

2009 ◽  
pp. 305-338
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Syntactic Complexity

Communication as source and motivator of language evolution

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vilmos Benczik
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

Language emerges and changes primarily through communication; therefore communication technologies play a key role in the history of language change. The most powerful communication technology from this point of view is phonetic writing, which has a double effect on language: on the one hand it impoverishes suprasegmental linguistic resources; on the other hand it evokes in language a profound and sophisticated semantic precision, and also syntactic complexity. The huge progress in abstract human thought that has taken place over the past three or four centuries has come about on the basis of these linguistic changes. Today, when writing seems to be losing its earlier hegemony over communication, the question arises as to whether this will lead to the erosion of human language, and also of human thought.

Eliciting Verbs From Children With Specific Language Impairment

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Frome Loeb ◽  
Clifton Pye ◽  
Sean Redmond ◽  
Lori Zobel Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Lexical Skills

The focus of assessment and intervention is often aimed at increasing the lexical skills of young children with language impairment. Frequently, the use of nouns is the center of the lexical assessment. As a result, the production of verbs is not fully evaluated or integrated into treatment in a way that accounts for their semantic and syntactic complexity. This paper presents a probe for eliciting verbs from children, describes its effectiveness, and discusses the utility of and problems associated with developing such a probe.

Language Evolution and Development

1993 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 520-522
Author(s):  
Richard P. Meier
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Evolution And Development

The Russian Language at the Turn of the Century: Semantic Capability and Development Prospects

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 150-169
Author(s):  
Svetlana N. Perevolochanskaya
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
First Century ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Current State ◽  
Linguistic Sign ◽  
Development Prospects ◽  
The Russian Language

The article considers the current state of the Russian language. Information technologies in the twenty first century present diverse forms of linguistic knowledge and modalities of knowledge quantisation in a linguistic sign. The Russian language develops from a standard, direct expression of thoughts to a nonstandard, psychologically complex, associative deep statement of thoughts. In the early nineteenth century, during the democratisation of the Russian language, a national genius, Alexander Pushkin, emerged. Thanks to him, the unique informational, cultural, and artistic evolution of the language took place. Nowadays, while democratisation and globalisation, processes which resemble the language evolution 200 years ago, are occurring. These processes suggest some patterns: overcoming stylistic disparity, changes in linguistic sign boundaries and semantic extension.

Clash of signs: Putting bilingualism back into language evolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Samuel
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Alarm Calls ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
The Real ◽  
Multiple Languages

Research and thinking into the cognitive aspects of language evolution has usually attempted to account for how the capacity for learning even one modern human language developed. Bilingualism has perhaps been thought of as something to think about only once the ‘real’ puzzle of monolingualism is solved, but this would assume in turn (and without evidence) that bilingualism evolved after monolingualism. All typically-developing children (and adults) are capable of learning multiple languages, and the majority of modern humans are at least bilingual. In this paper I ask whether by skipping bilingualism out of language evolution we have missed a trick. I propose that exposure to synonymous signs, such as food and alarm calls, are a necessary precondition for the abstracting away of sound from referent. In support of this possibility is evidence that modern day bilingual children are better at breaking this ‘word magic’ spell. More generally, language evolution should be viewed through the lens of bilingualism, as this is the end state we are attempting to explain.

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