Gradience in grammar: Experimental and computational aspects of degrees of grammaticality

Gradience in grammar: Experimental and computational aspects of degrees of grammaticality (2000)

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by Frank Keller

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Datum	Value	Source
TITLE	Gradience in grammar: Experimental and computational aspects of degrees of grammaticality	INFERENCE
AUTHOR NAME	Frank Keller	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
ABSTRACT	This thesis deals with gradience in grammar, i.e., with the fact that some linguistic structures are not fully acceptable or unacceptable, but receive gradient linguistic judgments. The importance of gradient data for linguistic theory has been recognized at least since Chomsky’s Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. However, systematic empirical studies of gradience are largely absent, and none of the major theoretical frameworks is designed to account for gradient data. The present thesis addresses both questions. In the experimental part of the thesis (Chapters 3–5), we present a set of magnitude estimation experiments investigating gradience in grammar. The experiments deal with unaccusativity/unergativity, extraction, binding, word order, and gapping. They cover all major modules of syntactic theory, and draw on data from three languages (English, German, and Greek). In the theoretical part of thesis (Chapters 6 and 7), we use these experimental results to motivate a model of gradience in grammar. This model is a variant of Optimality Theory, and explains gradience in terms of the competition of ranked, violable linguistic constraints. The experimental studies in this thesis deliver two main results. First, they demonstrate	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
YEAR	2000	INFERENCE
VENUE TYPE	TECHREPORT	INFERENCE
TECH	Ph.D. thesis	INFERENCE
CITATIONS	13 found	ParsCit 1.0