Center for the Study of Language and Information: New Titles

Center for the Study of Language and Information: New Titles http://www.press.uchicago.edu/rss/newcsli.xml The latest new books from Center for the Study of Language and Information en-us erg@press.uchicago.edu Construction Grammar http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=16108 Charles Fillmore, Paul Kay, Laura A. Michaelis, and Ivan A. Sag <br><br><DIV>The renowned Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure conceived of language as a system of signs, invoking conventional associations of form and meaning. Modern work on grammatical theory has taken a very different approach, focusing instead on the hierarchical relations that constitute sentence structures: in this approach, sentences have meanings, but the linguistic patterns that create them do not. The theory described in this book marks a return to the sign-based model, taking grammatical constructions—including idioms and formulas—as the fundamental units from which sentences and their meanings are built.<BR /><BR />The nine chapters here establish the motivations and formal mechanisms of Construction Grammar, describing the ways in which constructions combine to license nominal and verbal syntax, argument structure, long-distance dependencies, complementation, and idioms. While this work makes an original contribution to syntactic theory, it is accessible enough to serve as an introductory syntax text and holds findings of interest to all scholars of language.</DIV><br></div> Korean Phonology and Morphology http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=16106 Young-mee Yu Cho <br><br><DIV>Despite the amount of material currently in print on Korean grammar, phonology, and morphology, the need for a book combining careful grammatical descriptions with theoretical discussions is more than evident. This book fills that void with an in-depth analysis of morpho-phonology. Working within the Optimality Theoretic framework, the author offers solutions to seemingly intractable problems—addressing issues such as segmental processes and metrical and phrasal phonology as well as systematically addressing questions of opacity and the phonological lexicon. The broad range of topics discussed also includes Korean vowels, palatalization and derived environment effects, and tonal and rhythmic developments from Middle to Modern Korean.</DIV><br></div> World Color Survey http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=16120 Paul Kay, Brent Berlin, Luisa Maffi, and William R. Merrifield <br><br><DIV>The 1969 publication of Paul Kay and Brent Berlin's <I>Basic Color Terms</I> proved explosive and controversial. Contrary to the then-popular doctrine of random language variation, Kay and Berlin's multilingual study of color nomenclature indicated a cross-cultural and almost universal pattern in the selection of colors that received abstract names in each language. The ensuing debate helped reform the views of anthropologists, linguists, and biologists alike.<BR /><BR />After three decades in print, <I>Basic Color Terms</I> now has a sequel: in this book, Kay, Berlin, Luisa Maffi, and William R. Merrifield authoritatively defend and complete the original survey, studying ninety more languages in detail with the help of native collaborators. The results are presented even more clearly than before, with charts showing the overall palette of color terms within each language as well as the levels of agreement among speakers. Their raw data are also available online, ready to fuel or settle a new round of disputes.</DIV><br></div> Comparative Grammar and Grammatical Theory http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=16101 Farrell Ackerman and Irina Nikolaeva <br><br><DIV>This book broadens the scope of Eurasian language research, providing a cross-linguistic description and construction-based treatment of a neglected subtype of prenominal relative clause construction. Documenting these constructions contributes to a comprehensive taxonomy of relative clause types, while their particular properties present instructive challenges to linguistic theory. The authors develop a construction-based proposal using default multiple inheritance hierarchy architecture, arguing that these data contribute to the growing evidence for the need to posit constructions as explanatory concepts in grammatical theory.</DIV><br></div> Geometry of Elections http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=16532 Ernest W. Adams and James Adams <br><br><DIV>How can we ensure that the “right” person is elected to office? Voter turnout, balloting methods, candidates, and, in the case of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, the courts all conspire to produce electoral results that are horrific to some, wonderful to others, and tolerable to most. <I>The Geometry of Elections</I> utilizes mathematical theories to analyze how people vote and explores possible voting systems that could minimize the likelihood of the “wrong” candidate being elected.<BR /> <BR /><I>The Geometry of Elections</I> examines real world elections held in the United States, Britain, and France and asks: What criteria do voters use to determine the “right” candidate or party, and if there is a “right” candidate, how can we design a more accurate voting system? Applying spatial modeling and insights from geometry to real-world political elections, the authors present an intriguing examination of how voters conceptualize and eventually vote for politicians and policy positions.</DIV><br></div> Web-based Instruction for the Less Commonly Taught Languages http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=16533 Edited by Eva Prionas and James Fox <br><br><DIV>New technologies provide new opportunities for education in languages, both rare and popular, and this volume explores the potential of multimedia Web-based instruction for learning and teaching less commonly taught languages. Contributors offer views on this exciting, state-of-the-art instruction method, drawing on their work at various American academic institutions teaching these rare languages. The authors examine key issues in the development process and use of Web-based instruction, and they analyze experimental model paradigms based on representative languages including Polish, Catalan, Uyghur, and Farsi, making <I>Web-Based Instruction</I> a valuable sourcebook to language educators.</DIV><br></div> Paradigms and Periphrasis http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=16182 Edited by Farrell Ackerman, Jim Blevins, and Gregory T. Stump <br><br><DIV>Recent work in realizational paradigm-based morphological theory is based on the idea that morphology is an independent component of grammar, irreducible to other components—an idea that Jackendoff refers to as "representational modularity." But representational modularity raises questions about the organization of the morphological component and its interaction with the lexicon, semantics, and syntax. The study of periphrastic expressions and their relevance for derivational and inflectional paradigms is necessary to challenge current assumptions about lexical representation, semantic compositionality, and the interface between morphology and syntax. This book contains original contributions bearing on the relation between paradigms and periphrastic expressions, as attested in numerous genetically and geographically unrelated languages.</DIV><br></div> Reference and Reflexivity, 2nd Edition http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=4370383 John Perry <br><br><DIV><DIV>In this second edition of <I>Reference and Reflexivity</I>, John Perry develops his reflexive-referential theory of indexicals, demonstratives, and proper names and further illuminates the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. Responding to ideas from both the descriptivist and referentialist traditions, Perry reveals the essential truth behind these competing philosophies—a coherent and structured family of contents, from reflexive contents that place conditions on their actual utterance to fully incremental contents that place conditions only on the objects of reference—thus reconciling the legitimate insights of both traditions.</DIV></DIV><br></div> Arabic Computational Linguistics http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=5667079 Edited by Ali Farghaly <br><br><DIV><DIV>Arabic is an exciting—yet challenging—language for scholars because many of its linguistic properties have not been fully described. <I>Arabic Computational Linguistics</I> documents the recent work of researchers in both academia and industry who have taken up the challenge of solving the real-life problems posed by an understudied language. </DIV><DIV><BR />This comprehensive volume explores new Arabic machine translation systems, innovations in speech recognition and mention detection, tree banks, and linguistic corpora. <I>Arabic Computational Linguistics </I>will be an indispensable reference for language researchers and practitioners alike.</DIV></DIV><br></div> Online Deliberation http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=5667101 Edited by Todd Davies and Seeta Peña Gangadharan <br><br><DIV><DIV><DIV>Can new technology enhance local, national, and global democracy? <I>Online Deliberation</I> is the first book that attempts to sample the full range of work on online deliberation, forging new connections between academic research, web designers, and practitioners. <BR /></DIV><DIV>Since the most exciting innovations in deliberation have occurred outside of traditional institutions, and those involved have often worked in relative isolation from each other, research conducted on this growing field has to this point neglected the full perspective of online participation. This volume, an essential read for those working at the crossroads of computer and social science, illuminates the collaborative world of deliberation by examining diverse clusters of Internet communities.</DIV></DIV></DIV><br></div> Structure of Scientific Articles http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=5704236 Simone Teufel <br><br><DIV><DIV><DIV>Finding a particular scientific document amidst a sea of thousands of other documents can often seem like an insurmountable task. <I>The Structure of Scientific Articles</I> shows how linguistic theory can provide a solution by analyzing rhetorical structures to make information retrieval easier and faster.<BR /></DIV><DIV>Through the use of an improved citation indexing system, this indispensable volume applies empirical discourse studies to pressing issues of document management, including attribution, the author’s stance towards other work, and problem-solving processes.</DIV></DIV></DIV><br></div> Collected Papers of Martin Kay http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=5926556 Martin Kay Edited by Dan Flickinger and Stephen Oepen <br><br><DIV><DIV>Since the dawn of the age of computers, researchers have been pushing the limits of available processing power to tackle the formidable challenge of developing software that can understand ordinary human language.  At the forefront of this quest for the past fifty years, Martin Kay has been a constant source of new algorithms which have proven fundamental to progress in computational linguistics. <I>Collected Papers of Martin Kay</I>, the first comprehensive collection of his works to date, opens a window into the growth of an increasingly important field of scientific research and development.  </DIV><DIV> </DIV><DIV> </DIV></DIV><br></div> Theory and Evidence in Semantics http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6930879 Edited by Erhard W. Hinrichs and John Nerbonne <br><br><DIV><P>In <I>Theory and Evidence in Semantics</I>, editors Erhard W. Hinrichs and John Nerbonne present a series of state-of-the-art papers that investigate the interface of natural language semantics with other modules of grammar—such as morphology, syntax, and pragmatics—and pursue applications of semantic theory in computational linguistics. Written by some of the leading scholars in the field, and strongly influenced by the seminal work of David R. Dowty in model-theoretical semantics, the papers provide novel accounts of highly complex sets of semantic phenomena, including anaphora, coordination, ellipsis, interrogatives, and negative and collective predicates, as well as tense and aspect.</P></DIV><br></div> Japanese/Korean Linguistics, Volume 17 http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/rssresolve.cgi?id=6930892 Edited by Shoishi Iwasaki, Hajime Hoji, Patricia M. Clancy, and Sung-Ock Sohn <br><br><DIV><P>The papers in this volume are from the seventeenth Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, which was held at the University of California, Los Angeles in November of 2007. The articles cover a broad range of topics in Japanese and Korean linguistics, including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics, discourse analysis, prosody, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, acquisition, and grammaticalization. </P></DIV><br></div>