DS course at ESSLLI 2008

Modelling dialogue and language change: a Dynamic Syntax account.

This series addresses issues at the syntax-pragmatics interface: word-order variation, dialogue-alignment effects and clitic clustering. Having been introduced to concepts of tree growth underpinning Dynamic Syntax via the modelling of Latin word order (scrambling), including a concept of context as recording actions whereby tree-growth is established, students will be shown how this system can be used to model generation, dialogue-alignment and routinisation effects. We shall show how routinised sequences of actions for flexible-constituent-order construal provide an explanation of clitic clusters of Romance languages by showing that the range of patterns clitics display corresponds to exactly the range of strategies used in flexible word-order systems for incrementally establishing content, with shifting positioning of clitic clusters across time reflecting re-routinisations. The result will be a case-study model of why optionality/variation is intrinsic to language, how preferences in variation arise, and how change is not always in the direction of increasing transparency.

Lecturers: Ruth Kempson and Ronnie Cann
Course Type: Language and Computation, Advanced
Schedule: 4-8 August 2008, week 1: 17:15-18:45

Additional course webpage on the Dialogue Matters twiki.

Lecture notes

Lecturer: Ruth Kempson

Lecture 1 (pdf, 198KB). Modelling Dialogue and Language Change: a Dynamic Syntax account.
Lecture 2 (pdf, 187KB). Dynamic Syntax: updates within and across structures - developing an evolving structural concept of context.
Lecture 3 (pdf, 140KB). Modelling Dialogue-Preliminaries for Syntactic Change: production, ellipsis, and re-use of actions from context.
Lecture 4 (pdf, 170KB). Syntactic Change: Latin pronoun placement, routinisation of actions and reanalysis (with Miriam Bouzouita)
Lecture 5 (pdf, 134KB). Change as Calcifying Pragmatic Strategies-The Person Case Constraint as a Tree-Logic Consequence-Language as an Evolving System.

Readings

Cann, R., Kempson, R. and Marten, L. 2005. The Dynamics of Language: A Textbook. Elsevier. (paperback: 2006), chapters 2-5 (pdf, 1166KB).
Cann, R. and Kempson, R. forthcoming 2008. Production pressures, syntactic change and the emergence of clitic pronouns. (pdf, 307KB) In Cooper and Kempson (eds.) Language in Flux: Variation, Change and Evolution. College publications, London.
Bouzouita, M. forthcoming 2008: At the syntax-pragmatics interface: clitics in the history of Spanish. (pdf, 230KB). In Cooper and Kempson (eds.) Language in Flux: Variation, Change and Evolution. College Publications, London.
Kempson, R., Cann, R. and Marten, L. forthcoming. Tree growth dynamics. (pdf, 280KB). In C. Chesi (ed.) Directions in Derivations. Elsevier.
Cann, R. Kempson, R. and Purver, M. 2007. Context and wellformedness: the dynamics of ellipsis (290KB). In: Research on Language and Computation vol.5
Kempson, R. and Kiaer, J. forthcoming 2008. Japanese scrambling: the dynamics of on-line processing. (500KB). In: Hoshi, H. (ed.), Kuroshio Publishers, Tokyo. forthcoming.

For any problems or queries please contact Eleni Gregoromichelaki.

Attached files
Lecture 1 (pdf, 198 KB) Lecture 2 (pdf, 187 KB) Lecture 3 (pdf, 140 KB) Lecture 4 (pdf, 170 KB) Lecture 5 (pdf, 134 KB)