Experimental Syntax
eBook - PDF

Experimental Syntax

Applying Objective Methods to Sentence Judgments

  1. 202 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Experimental Syntax

Applying Objective Methods to Sentence Judgments

About this book

This original work provides a concise introduction to methods that linguists may use to describe patterns of sentence "acceptability" in speech communities. Experimental Syntax will enable an investigator with a well-formed question about a matter of fact-- relative to sentence acceptability--to design, execute, and analyze an appropriate survey experiment. The book examines variability and demonstrates a method by which an investigator can make principled decisions as to whether individual informants do or do not use a particular "dialect." Furthermore, this well-formulated book shows how to determine whether two or more informants who use atypical dialects are using the same atypical dialect. Experimental Syntax is recommended to researchers and professionals in linguistics who are interested in learning more about the methods available for dialect and sentence structure studies.

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Yes, you can access Experimental Syntax by Wayne Cowart in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Research & Methodology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Preface
  4. Chapter 1 - Introduction: Are Judgments Stable?
  5. 1.1. Doubts about the Stability of Judgments
  6. 1.2. Grammatical Theory and the Measurement of Acceptability
  7. 1.3. Evidence of Stability within Populations
  8. 1.4. Stability of Responses to Individual Sentences
  9. 1.5. Outline of the Book
  10. Chapter 2 - Error Variance in Sentence Judgments
  11. Chapter 3 - Designing Experiments on Acceptability
  12. 3.1. Variance and Variance Partitioning
  13. 3.2. Experiment Design
  14. 3.3. Designing and Constructing Sentence Materials
  15. 3.4. Controlling Context
  16. Chapter 4 - The Sentence Judgment Task
  17. Chapter 5 - Presenting Sentence Materials to Informants
  18. Chapter 6 - Response Methods and Scaling Issues
  19. 6.1. Category Scale Methods
  20. 6.2. Ratio Scale Methods
  21. Chapter 7 - Sampling
  22. 7.1. Representativeness
  23. 7.2. Linguist Informants
  24. 7.3. Sample Size
  25. 7.4. Comparing Groups
  26. Chapter 8 - Settings for Experiments
  27. 8.1. Survey Experiments
  28. 8.2. Laboratory Experiments
  29. 8.3. Field Settings
  30. Chapter 9 - The Organization and Construction of Questionnaires
  31. 9.1. General Instructions and Demographic Data
  32. 9.2. Response Training and Practice
  33. 9.3. Judgment Criteria
  34. 9.4. Practice and Benchmark Materials
  35. 9.5. The Main Sentence List
  36. 9.6. Constructing Questionnaires
  37. Chapter 10 - Coding and Decoding the Data
  38. 10.1. Scanning
  39. 10.2. Patching, Parsing, Decoding, and Sorting Scanned Data
  40. 10.3. Keying and Verifying Unscannable Responses
  41. Chapter 11 - Summarizing the Data
  42. 11.1. By-Ir Informants Summaries
  43. 11.2. By-Materials Summaries
  44. 11.3. Summaries for Filler and Benchmark Data
  45. Chapter 12 - Statistical Issues
  46. 12.1. Alternative Tests for Category Scale Data
  47. 12.2. Testing Generalizations across Informants and Token Sets
  48. 12.3. Variation Accounted for
  49. 12.4. Getting Training or Assistance in Statistics
  50. Appendix A: A Reader's Guide to Statistics
  51. A.l Descriptive Tools
  52. A.2 Iniferential Statistics
  53. Appendix B: Statistical Supplement to Chapter 1
  54. B.l. Subjacency
  55. B.2. "That"-Trace
  56. B.3. Coordination and Binding Theory
  57. B.4. Stability of Responses to Individual Sentences
  58. Appendix C:Excel as a Syntactician's Workbench
  59. C.l. Accessing Software Tools and Sample Files
  60. C.2. Building Questionnaires (Chapter 9)
  61. C.3. Coding/Decoding Data (Chapter 10)
  62. C.4. Summarizing Data (Chapter 11)
  63. C.5. Transferring Data to a Statistical Program
  64. Appendix D: Token Set Data from a "That"-Trace Experiment
  65. Appendix E: Sample Questionnaire for Scannable Line Drawing
  66. References
  67. Author Index
  68. Subject Index
  69. About the Author