Andrea Moro
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262034890
- eISBN:
- 9780262335621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034890.003.0005
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
One of the major discoveries of modern linguistics is that languages do not vary arbitrarily: for example, all syntactic rules must be based on hierarchical structure generated by recursive procedure ...
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One of the major discoveries of modern linguistics is that languages do not vary arbitrarily: for example, all syntactic rules must be based on hierarchical structure generated by recursive procedure rather than linear order. Neuroimaging techniques have shown that these formal restrictions constituting the boundaries of Babel are in fact represented in the brain for people who learn non-recursive artificially designed rules do not involve those neural circuits that underpin language computation. The boundaries of Babels cannot be cultural and arbitrary.Less
One of the major discoveries of modern linguistics is that languages do not vary arbitrarily: for example, all syntactic rules must be based on hierarchical structure generated by recursive procedure rather than linear order. Neuroimaging techniques have shown that these formal restrictions constituting the boundaries of Babel are in fact represented in the brain for people who learn non-recursive artificially designed rules do not involve those neural circuits that underpin language computation. The boundaries of Babels cannot be cultural and arbitrary.
