Theories of language espoused by linguists during much of this century have assumed that there is a hierarchy to the elements of language such that certain constructions, rule, and features are unmarked while others are marked; "play" for example, is unmarked or neutral, while "played" or "player" is marked. This opposition, referred to as markedness, is one of the concepts which both Chomskyan generative grammar and Jakobsonian structuralism appear to share, yet which each tradition has treated differently.
Battistella studies the historical development of the concept of markedness in the Prague School structuralism of Roman Jakobson, its importation into generative linguistics, and its subsequent development within Chomsky's "principles and parameters" framework. He traces how structuralist and generative linguistics have drawn on and expanded the notion of markedness, both as a means of characterizing linguistic constructs and as a theory of the innate language faculty.
Author(s): Edwin L. Battistella
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1996
Language: English
Pages: 188
City: New York
Contents......Page 8
Introduction......Page 12
One: On Markedness......Page 16
Leading Ideas......Page 18
Correlations and Criteria......Page 22
Marked and Unmarked......Page 25
Two: The Development of Markedness in Jakobson's Work......Page 28
Child Language, Aphasia, and Universals of Language......Page 37
Jakobson's Later Work......Page 40
Iconism of Values......Page 44
Invariance of Meaning......Page 49
Universals......Page 58
Functionalism......Page 62
Further Aspects of Markedness......Page 65
Reversal......Page 67
Neutralization......Page 69
Markedness Assimilation......Page 70
Names......Page 74
Punctuation......Page 75
Conclusion......Page 79
The Sound Pattern of English......Page 82
The Extended Standard Theory......Page 86
Core Grammar......Page 89
Principles and Parameters......Page 91
Exemplification......Page 95
Economy and Minimalism......Page 99
Overview......Page 101
Five: Departures from the Core......Page 102
The Evaluation Metric......Page 103
Instantiations of Core Grammar......Page 104
Parameters......Page 109
Creoles......Page 111
Functional Motivation......Page 113
Poverty-of-Stimulus Arguments......Page 114
Indirect Negative Evidence and Strength Markedness......Page 115
Manzini and Wexler on the Subset Principle......Page 117
Extensions of the Subset Approach......Page 122
Triggering Experiences......Page 124
Second Language Acquisition......Page 126
Conclusion......Page 130
Six: Jakobson and Chomsky: Bridging Invariance and Variation......Page 133
Beyond Formalism......Page 134
Two Models of Markedness......Page 140
Conclusion......Page 142
Notes......Page 146
References......Page 166
C......Page 182
F......Page 183
J......Page 184
M......Page 185
P......Page 186
T......Page 187
Z......Page 188
