The Smalltalk-80 system is an integrated, graphical, and interactive programming environment with capabilities for producing highly functional contact with personal computer systems. This book introduces the Smalltalk-80 approach to information representation and manipulation; it also provides an overview of the syntax of the language. This book is intended for programmers or programming language designers interested in the Smalltalk-80 language and its development environment on a particular kind of hardware system. It assumes that the reader is familiar with at least one programming language and with sequencing of instruction in a computer.
"We use words and phrases creatively to express ourselves in ever-changing contexts, readily extending language constructions in new ways. Yet native speakers also implicitly know when a creative and easily interpretable formulation-such as "Explain me this" or "She considered to go"--Doesn't sound quite right. In this incisive book, Adele Goldberg explores how these creative but constrained language skills emerge from a combination of general cognitive mechanisms and experience. Shedding critical light on an enduring linguistic paradox, Goldberg demonstrates how words and abstract constructions are generalized and constrained in the same ways. When learning language, we record partially abstracted tokens of language within the high-dimensional conceptual space that is used when we speak or listen. Our implicit knowledge of language includes dimensions related to form, function, and social context. At the same time, abstract memory traces of linguistic usage-events cluster together on a subset of dimensions, with overlapping aspects strengthened via repetition. In this way, dynamic categories that correspond to words and abstract constructions emerge from partially overlapping memory traces, and as a result, distinct words and constructions compete with one another each time we select them to express our intended messages. While much of the research on this puzzle has favored semantic or functional explanations over statistical ones, Goldberg's approach stresses that both the functional and statistical aspects of constructions emerge from the same learning mechanisms."--Page 4 de la couverture
Focusing on the nature of generalization in language, the book explores how adults understand and children acquire language. It delves into the learning of constructions, examining the relationship between their forms and functions. Additionally, the text analyzes cross-linguistic influences and internal language dynamics, providing insights into the complexities of linguistic acquisition and understanding.
