For the past forty years, linguistics has been dominated by the idea that language is categorical and linguistic competence discrete. It has become increasingly clear, however, that many levels of representation, from phonemes to sentence structure, show probabilistic properties, as does the language faculty. Probabilistic linguistics conceptualizes categories as distributions and views knowledge of language not as a minimal set of categorical constraints but as a set of gradient rules that may be characterized by a statistical distribution. Whereas categorical approaches focus on the endpoints of distributions of linguistic phenomena, probabilistic approaches focus on the gradient middle ground. Probabilistic linguistics integrates all the progress made by linguistics thus far with a probabilistic perspective.
This book presents a comprehensive introduction to probabilistic approaches to linguistic inquiry. It covers the application of probabilistic techniques to phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics. It also includes a tutorial on elementary probability theory and probabilistic grammars.

This volume investigates the linguistic development of children with regard to their knowledge of the verb and its grammar. The selection of papers gives empirical evidence from a wide variety of languages including Hebrew, German, Croatian, Japanese, English, Spanish, Dutch, Indonesian, Estonian, Russian and French. Findings are interpreted with a focus on cross-linguistic similarities and differences, without subscribing to either a UG-based or usage-based approach. Currently debated topics, such as the role of frequency, as well as traditional ones such as bootstrapping are integrated into the presentation of language-specific, learner-specific and more general properties of the acquisition process. The papers are united by their focus on discovering what determines rule-governed behavior in language learners who are coming to terms with the grammar of verbs.

Modern Physics - An Introductory Text

An undergraduate textbook for students who have completed first-year physics and mathematics, covering modern physics in terms accessible to non-physics majors. Covers three main subject areas: general and special relativity, quantum theory, and the nuclear atom. Covers a selection of topics in detail, such as the design and use of lasers.

Geo-Data: World Geographical Encyclopedia (3rd Edition)
It achieves its purpose in an easy-to-use alphabetical arrangement for all of the world's 207 countries and dependencies. Each entry begins with the key facts about that country including longest rivers and highest mountains and other key statistics. All place-names and geographical features such as mountains and lakes have been listed in the most easily recognized versions of their names.