The price of linguistic productivity : how children learn to break the rules of language / Charles Yang.
2016
P118.65 .Y36 2016eb
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Details
Title
The price of linguistic productivity : how children learn to break the rules of language / Charles Yang.
Author
Yang, Charles D., author.
ISBN
9780262336376 (electronic bk.)
0262336375 (electronic bk.)
9780262035323
0262035324
0262336375 (electronic bk.)
9780262035323
0262035324
Published
Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2016]
Copyright
©2016
Language
English
Description
1 online resource
Call Number
P118.65 .Y36 2016eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
401/.93
Summary
An investigation of how children balance rules and exceptions when they learn languages.
"All languages have exceptions alongside overarching rules and regularities. How does a young child tease them apart within just a few years of language acquisition? In this book, drawing an economic analogy, Charles Yang argues that just as the price of goods is determined by the balance between supply and demand, the price of linguistic productivity arises from the quantitative considerations of rules and exceptions. The learner postulates a productive rule only if it results in a more efficient organization of language, with the number of exceptions falling below a critical threshold. Supported by a wide range of cases with corpus evidence, Yang's Tolerance Principle gives a unified account of many long-standing puzzles in linguistics and psychology, including why children effortlessly acquire rules of language that perplex otherwise capable adults. His focus on computational efficiency provides novel insight on how language interacts with the other components of cognition and how the ability for language might have emerged during the course of human evolution"--Publisher's website.
"All languages have exceptions alongside overarching rules and regularities. How does a young child tease them apart within just a few years of language acquisition? In this book, drawing an economic analogy, Charles Yang argues that just as the price of goods is determined by the balance between supply and demand, the price of linguistic productivity arises from the quantitative considerations of rules and exceptions. The learner postulates a productive rule only if it results in a more efficient organization of language, with the number of exceptions falling below a critical threshold. Supported by a wide range of cases with corpus evidence, Yang's Tolerance Principle gives a unified account of many long-standing puzzles in linguistics and psychology, including why children effortlessly acquire rules of language that perplex otherwise capable adults. His focus on computational efficiency provides novel insight on how language interacts with the other components of cognition and how the ability for language might have emerged during the course of human evolution"--Publisher's website.
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