Topic
Free variation
About: Free variation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 46 publications have been published within this topic receiving 461 citations.
Papers
TL;DR: Experimental evidence is used to establish that one and the same individual indeed manifests free variation in loans and to account for this variation, the feature geometry of autosegmental phonology is used, with separate tiers for the coronal and dorsal vowels.
101 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that interlanguage is best conceptualized as sets of loose lexical networks that are gradually reorganized into a system or systems, and that free variation arises when learners add items to those they have already acquired and before they analyse these items and organize them into a systems.
Abstract: This article provides an explanation for the existence of free variation in learner language. It argues that interlanguage is best conceptualized as sets of loose lexical networks that are gradually reorganized into a system or systems. Free variation in learner-language is seen as the behavioural manifestation of the lexical networks and systematic variation of the existence of a system. The article reviews previous research that provides evidence of the existence of free variation. It argues that free variation is of theoretical significance to SLA researchers because it reflects the role of item learning in acquiring an L2. Free variation arises when learners add items to those they have already acquired and before they analyse these items and organize them into a system. This view of free variation accords with current cognitive views of L2 acquisition according to which syntactic categories are extracted from items that are implicitly acquired through exposure to input (Ellis 1996).
94 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the functions served by Japanese/English code-switching in Canadian Niseis' (second generation) overall in-group speech repertoire, which, according to Nishimura (1992), consists of three bilingual varieties resulting from the language choices which the Japanese make depending upon their interlocutor(s).
58 citations
TL;DR: This article proposed the linguistic variable, a linguistic unit consisting of two or more variants which co-vary with other linguistic as well as extra-linguistic variables, and applied it to morphological and syntactic levels of linguistic structure.
41 citations
1 Jan 2008
TL;DR: The idea that variation arises precisely because UG is maximally underspecified, thus leaving many options open is pursued, and two kinds of variation are identified corresponding to the two domains in which indeterminacies may arise in a minimalist architecture with a minimally specified UG.
Abstract: This paper reconsiders the status of parameters and parametric variation from the perspective of recent developments within the minimalist program, in particular the problem that arises if parameters can no longer be part of UG, which must be maximally empty, and if variation is instead to be explained in terms of third-factor considerations (section 1) I pursue the idea that variation arises precisely because UG is maximally underspecified, thus leaving many options open (Biberauer & Richards 2006, Berwick & Chomsky 2008, Boeckx 2008) Adopting the asymmetric view of language design put forward in Chomsky 2005a, 2006 and Berwick & Chomsky 2008, whereby language is optimally designed only for satisfying conditions imposed by the semantic interface, I identify two kinds of variation corresponding to the two domains in which indeterminacies may arise in a minimalist architecture with a minimally specified UG: (i) within the narrow syntax or (ii) at the phonological (sensorimotor) interface (‘externalization’, the mapping to PF) In (i), the domain of the Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT) and thus of a parameter-free UG, free variation is predicted to occur, with each ‘competing option’ a possible choice in every derivation (section 3) In (ii), to which the SMT does not apply, competing options are resolved consistently in a language through parametric choices, yielding macroparametric variation (directionality, polysynthesis) at the PF-interface (section 2)
40 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2 |
| 2019 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2 |
| 2016 | 1 |