Reply to the commentary "Be careful when assuming the obvious", by P. Alday

Here we respond to some comments by Alday concerning headedness in linguistic theory and the validity of the assumptions of a mathematical model for word order. For brevity, we focus only on two assumptions: the unit of measurement of dependency length and the monotonicity of the cost of a dependenc...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Ferrer Cancho, Ramon|||0000-0002-7820-923X
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/28305
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/28305
https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00501009
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Mathematical linguistics
Clitics
Units of measurement
Headedness
Language evolution
Word order
Principles and parameters theory
Lingüística matemàtica
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Intel·ligència artificial::Llenguatge natural
Descripción
Sumario:Here we respond to some comments by Alday concerning headedness in linguistic theory and the validity of the assumptions of a mathematical model for word order. For brevity, we focus only on two assumptions: the unit of measurement of dependency length and the monotonicity of the cost of a dependency as a function of its length. We also revise the implicit psychological bias in Alday’s comments. Notwithstanding, Alday is indicating the path for linguistic research with his unusual concerns about parsimony from multiple dimensions.