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Morgan, Emily Ida Popper – ProQuest LLC, 2016
The ability to generate novel utterances compositionally using generative knowledge is a hallmark property of human language. At the same time, languages contain non-compositional or idiosyncratic items, such as irregular verbs, idioms, etc. This dissertation asks how and why language achieves a balance between these two systems--generative and…
Descriptors: Generative Grammar, Phonology, Semantics, Diachronic Linguistics
Bloomfield, Tiffany Corinna – ProQuest LLC, 2012
Among known communication systems, human language alone exhibits open-ended productivity of meaning. Interest in the psychological mechanisms supporting this ability, and their evolutionary origins, has resurged following the suggestion that the only uniquely human ability underlying language is a mechanism of recursion. This "Unique…
Descriptors: Animals, Communication Strategies, Generative Grammar, Psycholinguistics