Innateness hypothesisIn linguistics, the innateness hypothesis, also known as the nativist hypothesis, holds that humans are born with at least some knowledge of linguistic structure. On this hypothesis, language acquisition involves filling in the details of an innate blueprint rather than being an entirely inductive process. The hypothesis is one of the cornerstones of generative grammar and related approaches in linguistics. Arguments in favour include the poverty of the stimulus, the universality of language acquisition, as well as experimental studies on learning and learnability.
Linguistique formelleLa linguistique formelle désigne une approche en linguistique qui consiste à modéliser les phénomènes linguistiques à l'aide de modèles formels, ou mathématiques. Par opposition, la linguistique « non formelle » décrit les phénomènes linguistiques à l'aide de métalangages non formels, le plus souvent des langages naturels. L'approche formelle est présente dans toutes les sous-disciplines de la linguistique (à côté des approches non formelles).
Théorie de l'optimalitéEn linguistique, la théorie de l'optimalité (OT) est un modèle linguistique qui postule que l'ordonnancement de contraintes universelles est responsable de la réalisation des formes d'une langue, que ce soit phonologiquement ou autrement. Cette théorie se distingue d'autres théories phonologiques parce qu'elle utilise des contraintes au lieu de recourir à des règles. Selon cette théorie, la grammaire est un système qui transforme un input donné en output optimal pour la langue.
Howard LasnikHoward Lasnik (born July 3, 1945) is a distinguished university professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Maryland. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (B.S., 1967), Harvard University (M.A., 1969) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1972). He joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1972, and took up his present post at the University of Maryland in 2002.
Equivalence (formal languages)In formal language theory, weak equivalence of two grammars means they generate the same set of strings, i.e. that the formal language they generate is the same. In compiler theory the notion is distinguished from strong (or structural) equivalence, which additionally means that the two parse trees are reasonably similar in that the same semantic interpretation can be assigned to both. Vijay-Shanker and Weir (1994) demonstrates that Linear Indexed Grammars, Combinatory Categorial Grammars, Tree-adjoining Grammars, and Head Grammars are weakly equivalent formalisms, in that they all define the same string languages.
Theta roleTheta roles are the names of the participant roles associated with a predicate: the predicate may be a verb, an adjective, a preposition, or a noun. If an object is in motion or in a steady state as the speakers perceives the state, or it is the topic of discussion, it is called a theme. The participant is usually said to be an argument of the predicate. In generative grammar, a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb.
Language moduleThe language module or language faculty is a hypothetical structure in the human brain which is thought to contain innate capacities for language, originally posited by Noam Chomsky. There is ongoing research into brain modularity in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience, although the current idea is much weaker than what was proposed by Chomsky and Jerry Fodor in the 1980s. In today's terminology, 'modularity' refers to specialisation: language processing is specialised in the brain to the extent that it occurs partially in different areas than other types of information processing such as visual input.
Functional discourse grammarFunctional grammar (FG) and functional discourse grammar (FDG) are grammar models and theories motivated by functional theories of grammar. These theories explain how linguistic utterances are shaped, based on the goals and knowledge of natural language users. In doing so, it contrasts with Chomskyan transformational grammar. Functional discourse grammar has been developed as a successor to functional grammar, attempting to be more psychologically and pragmatically adequate than functional grammar.
