The Role of Language Variation in Mental Grammars: An Optimality-Theoretic Perspective
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Sonia Colina
Abstract
This paper argues that language variation plays a critical role in the shaping and understanding of mental grammars and that Optimality Theory is a crucial player in demonstrating the relevance of variation data for advancing our knowledge of mental grammars. It takes the position that experimental, quantitative and variationist studies need to formalize the results of their research (cf. Díaz-Campos & Colina 2006) and propose grammars that generate the variable patterns described, as well as their interaction with non-variable patterns. Similarly, existing formal models of variation need to be tested against quantitative and variable corpora and data, and analyses and predictions need to be compared to evaluate formal accounts of variation (Auger 2001 and Cardoso 2001). The optimality-theoretic studies reviewed show that this is already an emerging and important line of research that opens the doors to unprecedented progress both in variationist and formal phonology.
© 2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Front Matter
- Contents
- Research Articles
- Ratio Frequency: Insights into Usage Effects on Phonological Structure from Hiatus Resolution in New Mexican Spanish
- A Reanalysis of Paradigmatic Variation in the Old Spanish Imperfect
- How Pragmatically Odd! Interface Delays and Pronominal Subject Distribution in L2 Spanish
- Book Reviews
- Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas: Manual de fonética española: Articulaciones y sonidos del español
- State of the Discipline. Topic: First Language Acquisition
- Research on First Language Acquisition of Spanish Phonology
- Viewpoints. Topic: The Role of Language Variation in Mental Grammars
- Variation and Second Language Grammars
- Phonological and Grammatical Variation in Exemplar Models
- Syntactic Variation: The Case of Spanish and Portuguese Subjects
- The Role of Language Variation in Mental Grammars: An Optimality-Theoretic Perspective
- Dissertation Notices
- Acquiring a Variable Structure: An Interlanguage Analysis of Second- Language Mood Use in Spanish
- The Role of Perceptual Learning Style Preferences and Instructional Method in the Acquisition of L2 Spanish Vocabulary
- Doing Being Boricua: Perceptions of National Identity and the Sociolinguistic Distribution of Liquid Variables in Puerto Rican Spanish
Articles in the same Issue
- Front Matter
- Contents
- Research Articles
- Ratio Frequency: Insights into Usage Effects on Phonological Structure from Hiatus Resolution in New Mexican Spanish
- A Reanalysis of Paradigmatic Variation in the Old Spanish Imperfect
- How Pragmatically Odd! Interface Delays and Pronominal Subject Distribution in L2 Spanish
- Book Reviews
- Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas: Manual de fonética española: Articulaciones y sonidos del español
- State of the Discipline. Topic: First Language Acquisition
- Research on First Language Acquisition of Spanish Phonology
- Viewpoints. Topic: The Role of Language Variation in Mental Grammars
- Variation and Second Language Grammars
- Phonological and Grammatical Variation in Exemplar Models
- Syntactic Variation: The Case of Spanish and Portuguese Subjects
- The Role of Language Variation in Mental Grammars: An Optimality-Theoretic Perspective
- Dissertation Notices
- Acquiring a Variable Structure: An Interlanguage Analysis of Second- Language Mood Use in Spanish
- The Role of Perceptual Learning Style Preferences and Instructional Method in the Acquisition of L2 Spanish Vocabulary
- Doing Being Boricua: Perceptions of National Identity and the Sociolinguistic Distribution of Liquid Variables in Puerto Rican Spanish
