scholarly journals Characterizing the Typical Information Curves of Diverse Languages

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1300
Author(s):  
Josef Klafka ◽  
Daniel Yurovsky
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Upper Bounds ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Optimal Coding ◽  
Novel Method

Optimal coding theories of language predict that speakers will keep the amount of information in their utterances relatively uniform under the constraints imposed by their language, but how much do these constraints influence information structure, and how does this influence vary across languages? We present a novel method for characterizing the information structure of sentences across a diverse set of languages. While the structure of English is broadly consistent with the shape predicted by optimal coding, many languages are not consistent with this prediction. We proceed to show that the characteristic information curves of languages are partly related to a variety of typological features from phonology to word order. These results present an important step in the direction of exploring upper bounds for the extent to which linguistic codes can be optimal for communication.

Pragmatics for Latin

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Devine ◽  
Laurence D. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Association With Focus ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Order Language ◽  
Free Word

Latin is often described as a free word order language, but in general each word order encodes a particular information structure: in that sense, each word order has a different meaning. This book provides a descriptive analysis of Latin information structure based on detailed philological evidence and elaborates a syntax-pragmatics interface that formalizes the informational content of the various different word orders. The book covers a wide ranges of issues including broad scope focus, narrow scope focus, double focus, topicalization, tails, focus alternates, association with focus, scrambling, informational structure inside the noun phrase and hyperbaton (discontinuous constituency). Using a slightly adjusted version of the structured meanings theory, the book shows how the pragmatic meanings matching the different word orders arise naturally and spontaneously out of the compositional process as an integral part of a single semantic derivation covering denotational and informational meaning at one and the same time.

Bare nominals, information structure and word order

Lingua ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 120 (6) ◽  
pp. 1476-1501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murad Salem
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Bare Nominals

Word Order in Old and Middle English

Diachronica ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Extended Version ◽  
Major Parameter ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mixed Systems

In the history of English one finds a mixture of V2 and non-V2 word order in declaratives for several hundred years, with frequencies suggesting a relatively gradual development in the direction of non-V2. Within an extended version of a cue-based approach to acquisition and change, this paper argues that there are many possible V2 grammars, differing from each other with respect to clause types, information structure, and the behavior of specific lexical elements. This variation may be formulated in terms of micro-cues. Child language data from present-day mixed systems show that such grammars are acquired early. The apparent optionality of V2 in the history of English may thus be considered to represent several different V2 grammars in succession, and it is not necessary to refer to competition between two major parameter settings. Diachronic language development can thus be argued to occur in small steps, reflecting the loss of micro-cues, and giving the impression that change is gradual.

scholarly journals Word order in Latin locative constructions: a corpus study in Caesar’s De bello gallico

2011 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavros Skopeteas
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Motion Verbs ◽  
Structural Domains ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
First Order ◽  
Order Language ◽  
Free Word

AbstractClassical Latin is a free word order language, i.e., the order of the constituents is determined by information structure rather than by syntactic rules. This article presents a corpus study on the word order of locative constructions and shows that the choice between a Theme-first and a Locative-first order is influenced by the discourse status of the referents. Furthermore, the corpus findings reveal a striking impact of the syntactic construction: complements of motion verbs do not have the same ordering preferences with complements of static verbs and adjuncts. This finding supports the view that the influence of discourse status on word order is indirect, i.e., it is mediated by information structural domains.

scholarly journals On the Acquisition of Word Order in WH-Questions in theTromsø Dialect

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.48 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Wh Questions

This article reports on a study of three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian which allows two different word orders in certain types of WH-questions, verb second (V2) and and verb third (V3). The latter is only allowed after monosyllabic WH-words, while the former, which is the result of verb movement, is the word order found in all other main clauses in the language. It is shown that both V2 and V3 are acquired extremely early by the children in the study (before the age of two), and that subtle distinctions between the two orders with respect to information structure are attested from the beginning. However, it is argued that V3 word order, which should be ìsimplerî than the V2 structure as it does not involve verb movement, is nevertheless acquired slightly later in its full syntactic form. This is taken as an indication that the V3 structure is syntactically more complex, and possibly also more marked.

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