Frequency Effects in Language Learning and Processing

by Stefan Th. Gries (Editor), Dagmar Divjak (Editor)

One of the basic tenets of cognitive linguistics, which sets it apart from most other linguistic theories, is the conviction that language is a dynamic system that emerges from language use. Such a usage-based view on language attributes a central role to the notion of frequency. Fre-quency plays a crucial role in the emergence, processing, and change of virtually every type of language structure. Furthermore, the central role of frequency underscores the nature of linguis-tics as an empirical science and relates it more to neighboring disciplines, facilitating much needed the development of exemplar-based and probabilistic psycholinguistic models of representation and processing has provided robust psycholinguistic underpinnings from which to derive testable predictions. The first volume is concerned with a variety of more general questions that arise once a usage-based perspective is taken more seriously. Given the different papers, we divided this volume in four different parts plus one general introduction.

Genres: Linguistics

243 pages, Hardcover

First published July 13, 2012

About the author

Also sometimes listed as Stefan Thomas Gries.