Quantitative Approaches to Morphosyntax : Morphological Analysis, Typology, and Learning
Authors: Farrell Ackerman, Olivier Bonami, and Rob Malouf
Quantitative Approaches to Morphosyntax : Morphological Analysis, Typology, and Learning
Within the study of morphosyntax over the past decade there has been increasing interest in applying the analytic tools and strategies associated with Information Theory (Shannon 1948 ; Miller 1963) Discriminative Learning (Rescorla and Wagner 1972; Bouton 2006 ) and associated computational modelling to cross-linguistic morphological phenomena, typological comparison and language learning. Information theoretic concepts and measures have proven crucial to assessing the complexity of individual words and their paradigmatic organization within morphological systems (Ackerman et. al. 2009 ; Blevins & Blevins 2009 ; Milin et. al. 2009. ). In typology, such methods in conjunction with probabilistic models have provided new insights concerning the strength of correlations between features within and across languages (Cysouw 2011; Bickel 2010). In psycholinguistics and language acquisition the interplay between Information Theory and Discriminative Learning has been crucial for defining an alternative to nativist assumptions of grammar learning by providing explicit mechanisms and formal measures for assessing language development (Arnon & Ramscar 2011 ; Gerken et. al. ; 2011 ; Stoll et. al.)
In many instances these new trends are being explored among linguists in different subdisciplines working with limited knowledge of concurrent and relevant advances among colleagues in other subareas. This workshop is designed to bring together experts in morphosyntax who all share an interest in the application of these and related methods to the analysis of complex empirical phenomena. The workshop will consist of nine 40 minute presentations (30 minutes of talk, 10 minutes of discussion). There will be 3 presentations from each subarea. Since many of the invited participants are working within groups of researches it is expected that several of the talks will represent collaborative projects.
Morphological Analysis
- Farrell Ackerman, UC San Diego, Olivier Bonami, U. Paris-Sorbonne, IUF & LLF and Rob Malouf, SDSU
- Alice Harris, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Jim Blevins, Cambridge University
Typology
- Johanna Nichols, UC Berkeley
- Balthasar Bickel, University of Zurich
- Andrea Sims, Ohio State University
Learning
- Michael Ramscar, Univerity of Tubingen
- Petar Milin, University of Novi Sad
- Csaba Pleh, Budapest Technical University
References
Ackerman, Farrell, James Blevins, and Rob Malouf. 2009. Parts and wholes:
Patterns of relatedness in complex morphological systems and why they matter. In Analogy in Grammar: Form and Acquisition, ed. by James P. Blevins & Juliette Blevins, 54–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Arnon, Inbal and Michael Ramscar. 2012. Granularity and acquisition of grammatical gender: How order of acquisition what gets learned. Cognition 122.3:292-305.
Bickel, Balthasar. 2011. Statistical modeling of language universals. Linguistic Typology 15: 401 - 414
Blevins, James P. and Juliette Blevins eds. 2009. Analogy in Grammar: Form and Acquisition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cysouw, Michael. 2011. Understanding transition probabilities Linguistic Typology 15: 415–431
Gerken, Lou Ann, Frances K. Balcomb abd Juliet L. Minton. 2011. Infants avoid `laboring in vain’ by attending more to learnable than unlearnable linguistic patterns. Developomental Science 14.5:972-979.
Kostić, Aleksandar and R. Harald Baayen. 2004. Putting the bits together: an information theoretical perspective on morphological processing. Cognition 94.1-18.
Milin, Petar, et.al. 2009. The simultaneous effects of inflectional paradigms and classes on lexical recognition: Evidence from Serbian. Journal of Memory and Language. 60: 50-64.
Miller, George. 1963. Language and communication. New York: McGraw Hill.
Shannon, Claude. 1948. A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell System Technical Journal 27: 379-423, 623-656.
Sabine Stoll et. al. 2012. Nouns and verbs in Chintang: children’s usage and surrounding adult speech. Online Ms.
