John A Hawkins
Biographic Data
| ID | 3823966 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John A Hawkins |
| GIVEN NAMES | John A |
| FAMILY NAME | Hawkins |
| SIGNATURE | HAWKINS J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2943-9397 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 187 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Solving Transfer Puzzles: Multi-Factor Explanations
Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This article proposes a multi-factor model of second language learning and bilingualism, CASP (an acronym for Complex Adaptive System Principles), which can help solve some puzzles in language transfer, involving when it occurs and when it does not. The key goal is to try to move the field beyond discussions that are focused on just one or two of the many factors of relevance (e.g., typological simi…
Relative Clauses and their Equivalents in German and English: Comparing Tight and Loose Form–Meaning Mappings in Language Use
This study compares postnominal finite relative clauses and their translation equivalents in a parallel corpus of German and English. Of particular interest are cases where one language, generally English, used a syntactically and semantically reduced nominal modifier instead of the finite relative. Such contrasts in language use are linked to contrasts in their grammars whereby German has been described as having a “tighter fit” in general betwe…
The ‘Bilingualism Factor’ in Language Change: The Consequences of Language Contact Within and Across Bilingual Minds 1
Building on Uriel Weinreich's pioneering (1953) Languages in Contact and on Peter Matthews' insightful commentary on it (2006, this volume) this paper discusses the crucial role of bilingualism, and specifically different types of bilingualism, in understanding whether and how the initial changes at the level of Saussure's parole can eventually become changes in grammatical conventions, Saussure's langue , in one or the other language in contact.…
Bilingualism-induced language change: What can change, when, and why
Contact between languages has become increasingly recognized as a major source of historical change, as linguistic properties are introduced from one language into another. Yet contact does not necessarily lead to such changes. In fact, arguably most of the properties that contrast between two languages in contact at a given place and time do not change. This paper argues that historical and contact linguistics should now look more systematically…
Prediction in SVO and SOV languages: Processing and Typological Considerations
In this study, we tested the possibility that different word orders engender different processing preferences. Our key hypothesis was that a head-initial language like English (SVO) allows more prediction compared to a head-final language like Japanese (SOV). In Experiment 1, English and Japanese native speakers completed a cloze task in which they heard a sentence fragment (SV_ in English and SO_ in Japanese) and had to complete it with the word…
English fragments, Minimize Domains, and Minimize Forms
We offer an account of preposition drop under clausal ellipsis in terms of two language processing principles: Minimize Domains and Minimize Forms. We argue that when Minimize Domains operates within the PP domain, it disfavors preposition drop due to the preferred independent processability of the PP fragment. When it operates within the VP domain it favors preposition drop in proportion to the number and strength of semantic dependencies betwee…
The Complex Adaptive System Principles model for bilingualism: Language interactions within and across bilingual minds
Aims and objectives/purpose/research question: We propose a model that captures general patterns in bilingual language processing, based on empirical evidence elicited in a variety of experimental studies. We begin by considering what linguistic outputs are logically possible when bilingual speakers communicate based on the typological features of two languages in the bilingual mind. Our aim is to explain why some outputs are more frequent or mor…
Problems in the Language Form and Function Debate and a Way Forward
A much debated issue in linguistics involves the extent to which the forms of languages (phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases and syntactic structures) have been shaped by the functions that languages perform. This paper begins by defining what these "functions" are: the forms of language must express (i.e. be capable of being paired with) an infinite set of meanings in a consistent way; these form-meaning pairings must be readily processable by l…
Cross-Linguistic Variation and Efficiency
This book argues that major patterns of variation across languages are structured by general principles of efficiency in language use and communication. Evidence for these comes from languages permitting structural choices from which selections are made in performance, e.g. between competing word orders and between relative clauses with a resumptive pronoun versus a gap. The preferences and patterns of performance within languages are reflected i…
Multiple factors in second language acquisition: The Casp model
We propose a new model of second language acquisition consisting of multiple interacting principles and inspired by work on complex adaptive systems. The model is referred to as CASP, short for complex adaptive system principles for second language acquisition. It is informed by a broad range of linguistic and psycholinguistic research and supported empirically by recent second language research studies based on a learner corpus. The novelty of o…
Language and music as cognitive systems
The past 15 years have witnessed an increasing interest in the comparative study of language and music as cognitive systems. Languages and music are uniquely human traits, so it is not surprising that this interest spans practically all branches of cognitive science, including psychology, computer science, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and education. Underlying the study of language and music is the assumption that the comparison of these …
Performance Theory of Order and Constituency
Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars
John Hawkins demonstrates a clear link between how languages are used and the conventions of their grammars. He sets out a theory in which performance shapes grammars and accounts for the variation patterns found in the world's languages.
Domain Minimization in English Verb-Particle Constructions
The placement of the particle before or after an object in the English verb-particle construction is influenced by a variety of factors. We argue that many of them can be subsumed under a single simple principle, motivated by considerations of processing efficiency: to the extent that the domains of syntactic and semantic dependencies can be minimized, processing is facilitated. We use a more precise formulation of this idea to make several predi…
Symmetries and asymmetries: Their grammar, typology and parsing
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
Issues at the Performance-Grammar Interface: Some Comments on the Commentaries
Why are categories adjacent
This paper presents patterns of adjacency in performance data and in cross-linguistic grammatical conventions. It is argued that a common principle of processing efficiency explains both: the more syntactic and semantic relations whose processing domains are minimized, and the greater the minimization preference in the processing of each relation, the more adjacency we find. The preferences of performance are quite systematic and it is suggested …
The relative order of prepositional phrases in English: Going beyond Manner–Place–Time
This article argues against Manner–Place–Time and other proposed grammatical principles of ordering for prepositional phrases (PPs) in postverbal position in English. Instead, greater empirical adequacy can be achieved by a theory of processing efficiency that defines a preference for minimal domains in the recognition of syntactic phrase structure and in the processing of lexical–semantic dependencies between verbs and prepositions. Some new ent…
Processing Complexity and Filler-Gap Dependencies across Grammars
This article examines crosslinguistic variation in FILLER-GAP DEPENDENCIES (WH-questions and relative clauses) from a processing perspective, and integrates research findings from psycholinguistics, language typology and generative grammar. Numerous implicational universals and hierarchies are proposed that receive a natural explanation in terms of processing and complexity. Filler-gap domains are complex in proportion to their size and in propor…
A Performance Theory of Order and Constituency
In this major new book John A. Hawkins presents a new theory of linear ordering in syntax. He argues that processing can provide a simple, functional explanation for syntactic rules of ordering, as well as for the selection among ordering variants in languages and structures in which variation is possible. Insights from generative syntax, typological studies of language universals, and psycholinguistic studies of language processing are combined …
Explaining Language Universals
Part 1 Introduction: explaining language universals, John A.Hawkins. Part 2 Innateness and Learnability: the innateness hypothesis, Teun Hoekstra and Jan G.Kooij language acquisitions - schemas replace universal grammar, Michael A.Arbib and Jane C.Hill the no negative evidence problem - how do children avoid constructing an overly general grammar?, Melissa Bowerman. Max-Planck Institut fur Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen). Part 3 Semantic and Pragmati…
On (in)definite articles: Implicatures and (Un)grammaticality Prediction
Since Paul Grice published 'Logic and conversation' in 1975, there have been a number of attempts to develop his programmatic remarks on conversational and conventional implicatures further (see Gazdar, 1979; Atlas & Levinson, 1981; Horn, 1985; Sperber & Wilson, 1986; and especially Levinson, 1983, and the references cited therein). The result has been a growing understanding of the relationship between semantics and pragmatics, and more generall…
Newhouse
A Comparative Typology of English and German
Prefixing and suffixing universals in relation to basic word order
On (in)definite articles: Implicatures and (Un)grammaticality Prediction
Since Paul Grice published 'Logic and conversation' in 1975, there have been a number of attempts to develop his programmatic remarks on conversational and conventional implicatures further (see Gazdar, 1979; Atlas & Levinson, 1981; Horn, 1985; Sperber & Wilson, 1986; and especially Levinson, 1983, and the references cited therein). The result has been a growing understanding of the relationship between semantics and pragmatics, and more generall…
Processing Complexity and Filler-Gap Dependencies across Grammars
This article examines crosslinguistic variation in FILLER-GAP DEPENDENCIES (WH-questions and relative clauses) from a processing perspective, and integrates research findings from psycholinguistics, language typology and generative grammar. Numerous implicational universals and hierarchies are proposed that receive a natural explanation in terms of processing and complexity. Filler-gap domains are complex in proportion to their size and in propor…
Prefixing and suffixing universals in relation to basic word order
On implicational and distributional universals of word order
This paper argues that the theory of Universal Grammar must include both implicational universals and universals of language distribution in the description and explanation of word order. Implicational universals are of the form: if a language has some property (or properties) P, then it will also have some property (or properties) Q. These ‘if P then Q’ statements require that a language must not have property P without property Q (*P –O)
Domain Minimization in English Verb-Particle Constructions
The placement of the particle before or after an object in the English verb-particle construction is influenced by a variety of factors. We argue that many of them can be subsumed under a single simple principle, motivated by considerations of processing efficiency: to the extent that the domains of syntactic and semantic dependencies can be minimized, processing is facilitated. We use a more precise formulation of this idea to make several predi…
The relative order of prepositional phrases in English: Going beyond Manner–Place–Time
This article argues against Manner–Place–Time and other proposed grammatical principles of ordering for prepositional phrases (PPs) in postverbal position in English. Instead, greater empirical adequacy can be achieved by a theory of processing efficiency that defines a preference for minimal domains in the recognition of syntactic phrase structure and in the processing of lexical–semantic dependencies between verbs and prepositions. Some new ent…
The suffixing preference: A Processing Explanation
Cross-linguistic studies of morphology have demonstrated that there is an asymmetry in the type of affixation preferred: languages which would he predicted on independent structural grounds to prefer suffixes to prefixes do so, but languages which would be predicted to prefer prefixes to suffixes also show a tendency toward suffixation. In other words, independently of other structural considerations there is an overall preference for suffix morp…
Why are categories adjacent
This paper presents patterns of adjacency in performance data and in cross-linguistic grammatical conventions. It is argued that a common principle of processing efficiency explains both: the more syntactic and semantic relations whose processing domains are minimized, and the greater the minimization preference in the processing of each relation, the more adjacency we find. The preferences of performance are quite systematic and it is suggested …
A note on referent identifiability and co-presence
Cross-category harmony, X-bar and the predictions of markedness
In a recent paper in this journal, Hawkins (1980), it was observed that there was considerable, but quite principled, variation both in the types and in the quantities of word order co-occurrences found in Greenberg's (1966) data (cf. his Appendix I (AI) and Appendix II (AII), reproduced here as Tables 1 and 2 respectively). We formulated two types of universal statements to account for this data: implicational universals, which define permitted …
Implicational Universals as Predictors of Word Order Change
Implicational universals of the form ‘If a language has some word order P, then it also has word order(s) Q’ are widely used to explain word order change. A language which develops word order P without having Q is said to be universally inconsistent, and it is predicted that it will re-introduce consistency by subsequently acquiring Q. This paper, however, argues against the validity of such a paradigm. The current assumption that the early weste…
Multiple factors in second language acquisition: The Casp model
We propose a new model of second language acquisition consisting of multiple interacting principles and inspired by work on complex adaptive systems. The model is referred to as CASP, short for complex adaptive system principles for second language acquisition. It is informed by a broad range of linguistic and psycholinguistic research and supported empirically by recent second language research studies based on a learner corpus. The novelty of o…
Implicational universals as predictors of language acquisition
Modifier-head or function-argument relations in phrase structure
Prediction in SVO and SOV languages: Processing and Typological Considerations
In this study, we tested the possibility that different word orders engender different processing preferences. Our key hypothesis was that a head-initial language like English (SVO) allows more prediction compared to a head-final language like Japanese (SOV). In Experiment 1, English and Japanese native speakers completed a cloze task in which they heard a sentence fragment (SV_ in English and SO_ in Japanese) and had to complete it with the word…
On generative and typological approaches to universal grammar
Language universals and the logic of historical reconstruction
Definiteness and Indefiniteness: A Study in Reference and Grammaticality Prediction
Implicational Universals as Predictors of Word Order Change
Implicational universals of the form ‘If a language has some word order P, then it also has word order(s) Q’ are widely used to explain word order change. A language which develops word order P without having Q is said to be universally inconsistent, and it is predicted that it will re-introduce consistency by subsequently acquiring Q. This paper, however, argues against the validity of such a paradigm. The current assumption that the early weste…
On implicational and distributional universals of word order
This paper argues that the theory of Universal Grammar must include both implicational universals and universals of language distribution in the description and explanation of word order. Implicational universals are of the form: if a language has some property (or properties) P, then it will also have some property (or properties) Q. These ‘if P then Q’ statements require that a language must not have property P without property Q (*P –O)
Definiteness and Indefiniteness: A Study in Reference and Grammaticality Prediction
Cross-category harmony, X-bar and the predictions of markedness
In a recent paper in this journal, Hawkins (1980), it was observed that there was considerable, but quite principled, variation both in the types and in the quantities of word order co-occurrences found in Greenberg's (1966) data (cf. his Appendix I (AI) and Appendix II (AII), reproduced here as Tables 1 and 2 respectively). We formulated two types of universal statements to account for this data: implicational universals, which define permitted …
Language universals and the logic of historical reconstruction
A note on referent identifiability and co-presence
Modifier-head or function-argument relations in phrase structure
Complementary methods in Universal Grammar: A reply to Coopmans
This paper offers a reply to Coopmans' 1984 critique of Hawkins 1979, 1980, 1982. Hawkins had attempted, inter alia, to make typological word order universals relevant to concerns of generative grammar. Coopmans denies this relevance. His critique raises fundamental issues about the nature of language universals and their explanation, and about research methodology. Some of these issues are taken up in this reply. It is argued that Coopmans' dism…
The suffixing preference: A Processing Explanation
Cross-linguistic studies of morphology have demonstrated that there is an asymmetry in the type of affixation preferred: languages which would he predicted on independent structural grounds to prefer suffixes to prefixes do so, but languages which would be predicted to prefer prefixes to suffixes also show a tendency toward suffixation. In other words, independently of other structural considerations there is an overall preference for suffix morp…
Word Order Universals
A Semantic Typology Derived from Variation in Germanic
Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1986), pp. 413-424
Electra
Implicational universals as predictors of language acquisition
A Comparative Typology of English and German
Prefixing and suffixing universals in relation to basic word order
On generative and typological approaches to universal grammar
Newhouse
Explaining Language Universals
Part 1 Introduction: explaining language universals, John A.Hawkins. Part 2 Innateness and Learnability: the innateness hypothesis, Teun Hoekstra and Jan G.Kooij language acquisitions - schemas replace universal grammar, Michael A.Arbib and Jane C.Hill the no negative evidence problem - how do children avoid constructing an overly general grammar?, Melissa Bowerman. Max-Planck Institut fur Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen). Part 3 Semantic and Pragmati…
On (in)definite articles: Implicatures and (Un)grammaticality Prediction
Since Paul Grice published 'Logic and conversation' in 1975, there have been a number of attempts to develop his programmatic remarks on conversational and conventional implicatures further (see Gazdar, 1979; Atlas & Levinson, 1981; Horn, 1985; Sperber & Wilson, 1986; and especially Levinson, 1983, and the references cited therein). The result has been a growing understanding of the relationship between semantics and pragmatics, and more generall…
A Performance Theory of Order and Constituency
In this major new book John A. Hawkins presents a new theory of linear ordering in syntax. He argues that processing can provide a simple, functional explanation for syntactic rules of ordering, as well as for the selection among ordering variants in languages and structures in which variation is possible. Insights from generative syntax, typological studies of language universals, and psycholinguistic studies of language processing are combined …
The relative order of prepositional phrases in English: Going beyond Manner–Place–Time
This article argues against Manner–Place–Time and other proposed grammatical principles of ordering for prepositional phrases (PPs) in postverbal position in English. Instead, greater empirical adequacy can be achieved by a theory of processing efficiency that defines a preference for minimal domains in the recognition of syntactic phrase structure and in the processing of lexical–semantic dependencies between verbs and prepositions. Some new ent…
Processing Complexity and Filler-Gap Dependencies across Grammars
This article examines crosslinguistic variation in FILLER-GAP DEPENDENCIES (WH-questions and relative clauses) from a processing perspective, and integrates research findings from psycholinguistics, language typology and generative grammar. Numerous implicational universals and hierarchies are proposed that receive a natural explanation in terms of processing and complexity. Filler-gap domains are complex in proportion to their size and in propor…
Why are categories adjacent
This paper presents patterns of adjacency in performance data and in cross-linguistic grammatical conventions. It is argued that a common principle of processing efficiency explains both: the more syntactic and semantic relations whose processing domains are minimized, and the greater the minimization preference in the processing of each relation, the more adjacency we find. The preferences of performance are quite systematic and it is suggested …
Symmetries and asymmetries: Their grammar, typology and parsing
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
Issues at the Performance-Grammar Interface: Some Comments on the Commentaries
Linguistics (31 works) · Computer Science (26 works) · Philosophy (25 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (20 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Natural language processing (14 works) · Grammar (12 works) · Mathematics (12 works) · Natural Language Processing Techniques (12 works) · Artificial Intelligence (10 works)