Claire Lefebvre - Böcker

Categorization, the basic cognitive process of arranging objects into categories, is a fundamental process in human and machine intelligence and is central to investigations and research in cognitive science. Until now, categorization has been approached from singular disciplinary perspectives with little overlap or communication between the disciplines involved (Linguistics, Psychology, Philosophy, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Cognitive Anthropology). Henri Cohen and Claire Lefebvre have gathered together a stellar collection of contributors in this unique, ambitious attempt to bring together converging disciplinary and conceptual perspectives on this topic.

"Categorization is a key concept across the range of cognitive sciences, including linguistics and philosophy, yet hitherto it has been hard to find accounts that go beyond the concerns of one or two individual disciplines. The Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science provides just the sort of interdisciplinary approach that is necessary to synthesize knowledge from the different fields and provide the basis for future innovation." Professor Bernard Comrie, Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany

"Anyone concerned with language, semantics, or categorization will want to have this encyclopedic collection."Professor Eleanor Rosch, Dept of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA

Relabeling is a process that assigns a lexical entry of language-x a new label derived from a phonetic string drawn from language-y. This process plays a central role in the formation of contact languages such as mixed languages, pidgins and creoles, and New Englishes. In this book, Claire Lefebrve offers a coherent picture of research on relabeling over the last 15 years, and replies to the questions that have been directed at the relabeling-based theory of creole genesis presented in Lefebvre (1998) and related work. It addresses such questions as: how does relabeling apply across language contact situations and across lexicons, and what constraints act upon it? What other processes apply in language genesis and how do they interact with relabeling? Can a relabeling-based theory of creole genesis really account for all of the features that a theory of creole genesis must be able to account for? Since relabeling applies to the lexical component of the grammar, different theories of the lexicon should make different predictions as to the nature of the lexical items to which the process can apply. Lefebvre discusses the predictions of a Construction Grammar framework and how they compare to those of the Principles and Parameters framework, and how each framework accounts for data. She analyzes how word order is established within a relabeling-based account of creole genesis, and the role that relabeling plays in accounting for the differences between creoles. Other topics discussed include the contribution of the superstrate language to a creole within a relabeling-based account of creole genesis, and the predictions of relabeling in terms of the typological classification of creoles. Lefebvre ultimately demonstrates how the relabeling-based theory of creole genesis constitutes a strong alternative to the Bioprogram Hypothesis.

Relabeling is a process that assigns a lexical entry of language-x a new label derived from a phonetic string drawn from language-y. This process plays a central role in the formation of contact languages such as mixed languages, pidgins and creoles, and New Englishes. In this book, Claire Lefebrve offers a coherent picture of research on relabeling over the last 15 years, and replies to the questions that have been directed at the relabeling-based theory of creole genesis presented in Lefebvre (1998) and related work. It addresses such questions as: how does relabeling apply across language contact situations and across lexicons, and what constraints act upon it? What other processes apply in language genesis and how do they interact with relabeling? Can a relabeling-based theory of creole genesis really account for all of the features that a theory of creole genesis must be able to account for? Since relabeling applies to the lexical component of the grammar, different theories of the lexicon should make different predictions as to the nature of the lexical items to which the process can apply. Lefebvre discusses the predictions of a Construction Grammar framework and how they compare to those of the Principles and Parameters framework, and how each framework accounts for data. She analyzes how word order is established within a relabeling-based account of creole genesis, and the role that relabeling plays in accounting for the differences between creoles. Other topics discussed include the contribution of the superstrate language to a creole within a relabeling-based account of creole genesis, and the predictions of relabeling in terms of the typological classification of creoles. Lefebvre ultimately demonstrates how the relabeling-based theory of creole genesis constitutes a strong alternative to the Bioprogram Hypothesis.

This study focuses on the cognitive processes involved in creole genesis - relexification, reanalysis and direct levelling - processes which the author demonstrates play a significant role in language genesis and change in general. Dr Lefebvre argues that the creators of pidgins/creoles use the parametric values of their native languages in establishing those of the language that they are creating and the semantic principles of their own grammar in concatenating morphemes and words in the new language. This theory is documented on the basis of a uniquely detailed comparison of Haitian creole with its contributing French and West African languages. Summarizing more than twenty years of funded research, the author examines the input of adult, as opposed to child, speakers and resolves the problems in the three main approaches, universalist, superstratist and substratist, which have been central to the recent debate on creole development.

This study focuses on the cognitive processes involved in creole genesis - relexification, reanalysis and direct levelling - processes which the author demonstrates play a significant role in language genesis and change in general. Dr Lefebvre argues that the creators of pidgins/creoles use the parametric values of their native languages in establishing those of the language that they are creating and the semantic principles of their own grammar in concatenating morphemes and words in the new language. This theory is documented on the basis of a uniquely detailed comparison of Haitian creole with its contributing French and West African languages. Summarizing more than twenty years of funded research, the author examines the input of adult, as opposed to child, speakers and resolves the problems in the three main approaches, universalist, superstratist and substratist, which have been central to the recent debate on creole development.