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Introduction

Bridget D. Samuels

in Phonological Architecture: A Biolinguistic Approach

‘Introduction’ provides an introduction to biolinguistics and a roadmap of the topics to be discussed in the remainder of the work.

Conclusions

Bridget D. Samuels

in Phonological Architecture: A Biolinguistic Approach

‘Conclusions’ summarizes the work and suggests directions for future research.

Grammaticalization from a biolinguistic perspective *

Elly van Gelderen

in The Prehistory of Language

Estimates about the origin of modern human language range from 50,000 to 150,000 years ago. These estimates are based on archeological findings, the presence of tools and beads in e.g. the Blombos ... More

Estimates about the origin of modern human language range from 50,000 to 150,000 years ago. These estimates are based on archeological findings, the presence of tools and beads in e.g. the Blombos cave at 70,000 years ago, and mutations in a gene connected to speech (FOXP2) at about 120,000 years ago. Genetics and archeology work well together and suggest a homeland for modern humans in Africa. What can linguistics contribute to this picture? This chapter shows that a biolinguistic approach has much to offer. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 12.2 presents a very general picture of the Minimalist Program, and in particular its biolinguistic focus. This framework is elaborated on in Section 12.3, especially where the operation Merge is concerned. Sections 12.4 and 12.5 focus on grammaticalization, discussing how it follows from economy and how it is relevant to language evolution; Section 12.6 concludes.Less

Phonology in Evolutionary Perspective

Bridget D. Samuels

in Phonological Architecture: A Biolinguistic Approach

‘Phonology in Evolutionary Perspective’ discusses the evolution of language, the properties of phonological computation, and the linguistic externalization system, using animal cognition studies to ... More

‘Phonology in Evolutionary Perspective’ discusses the evolution of language, the properties of phonological computation, and the linguistic externalization system, using animal cognition studies to identify which components of phonology may not be unique to humans and/or to language. It demonstrates on the basis of behavioral and physiological studies on primates, songbirds, and a wide variety of other species that the cognitive abilities underlying human phonological representations and operations are present in creatures other than humans and in domains other than language.Less

Representations and Primitive Operations

Bridget D. Samuels

in Phonological Architecture: A Biolinguistic Approach

‘Representations & Primitive Operations’ begins with a discussion of the organization of phonological structures such as features, segments, and syllables. It then presents a theory of phonological ... More

‘Representations & Primitive Operations’ begins with a discussion of the organization of phonological structures such as features, segments, and syllables. It then presents a theory of phonological rule application and morphological concatenation based on formalization of the primitive operations search, copy, and delete, illustrated with examples of affixation, reduplication, harmony, and other phonological rules. The possible evolutionary origins of these primitive operations are also discussed.Less

Introduction

Juan Uriagereka

in Spell‐Out and the Minimalist Program

This introductory chapter outlines the overall argument that the book will deploy. It starts by reflecting on the derivational approach to syntax, and then moves into considering different ways in ... More

This introductory chapter outlines the overall argument that the book will deploy. It starts by reflecting on the derivational approach to syntax, and then moves into considering different ways in which computational theories for language have been interpreted. When the matter is seen from a biolinguistic perspective, interesting issues arise about whether syntactic computations are to be taken as biologically real, and ultimately what this might mean. The issue is particularly puzzling once it is assumed, as is customary within syntax and reviewed in Section 3, that derivations work their way ‘bottom-up’, while of course processing is ‘from-before-to-after’. Section 4 suggests that derivational cycles can be rationalized in terms of addressing this orthogonality (between syntax and processing), an idea that recalls traditional concerns of the Analysis-by-Synthesis sort, from a contemporary perspective coloured by minimalism. From the minimalist viewpoint one of the central questions, addressed in Section 5, is what one might mean by ‘structural’ conditions — in current parlance, ‘3rd factor’ considerations. Noam Chomsky has rationalized these in terms of issues arising via ‘computational complexity’, but this way of thinking is not traditional within computational linguistics, which as Section 6 shows has led to much debate. The present work suggests, in Sections 7 and 8, a different take on these matters, which coalesces into the sketch of a model of grammar in Section 9, to be developed at the end of the book. Section 10 outlines some questions that this approach poses — which go beyond linguistics — whereas Section 11 centres the discussion in more familiar terms.Less

Introduction: The Pains of Being Owenians/Chomskyans/Cartesians at Heart

Sergio Balari and Guillermo Lorenzo

in Computational Phenotypes: Towards an Evolutionary Developmental Biolinguistics

There exists a gap between linguistics and biology, in that the degree of resolution of observations coming from the latter are completely mismatched relative to the extremely detailed analyses of ... More

There exists a gap between linguistics and biology, in that the degree of resolution of observations coming from the latter are completely mismatched relative to the extremely detailed analyses of the former. Besides, linguistic analyses usually contain complex technicalities motivated by theory-internal reasons, which have very little to do with an explication of the Faculty of Language (FL) from a true naturalistic stance. The impact of these considerations on the evolutionary study of language is clear: how could such a complex and intricate system as FL, with no obvious connections with the cognition of other species, have evolved and in such little time as language seems to have been around? The starting point of this book is the identification of a level of analysis that the authors consider “neutral” between those traditionally considered by linguists and biologists and that can favor the development of biolinguistics as a fruitful discipline.Less

The Boundaries of Babel

Andrea Moro

in Impossible Languages

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 ... More

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

Living with Platonism, if Necessary

John Bolender

in The Self-Organizing Social Mind

This chapter argues that the relational models are not brain states resulting from self-organization in neural activity but are, rather, abstract objects akin to numbers and sets. However, even if ... More

This chapter argues that the relational models are not brain states resulting from self-organization in neural activity but are, rather, abstract objects akin to numbers and sets. However, even if this turns out to be true, it would not invalidate the naturalism of earlier chapters. This chapter addresses the compatibility of biophysical approach and Platonism. It considers the empirical approach for discrete infinity of social structures. It illustrates that the relational models constitute an infinite collection of abstract objects. It also suggests that Platonist linguistics corresponds to the deepest level of necessity, with regard to the study of language. Biolinguistics corresponds to a somewhat more shallow level of necessity.Less

The Loneliness of Biolinguistics

Nirmalangshu Mukherji

in The Primacy of Grammar

This chapter introduces the important yet complex subject of biolinguistics and the state of language research based on the theories of Chomsky, which explains classical issues and traditions that ... More

This chapter introduces the important yet complex subject of biolinguistics and the state of language research based on the theories of Chomsky, which explains classical issues and traditions that were under study, as well as the specific limitations of cognitive inquiry. It also delves into the enterprise called biolinguistics, the overview of the subject, the seemingly connection of language and biology, and related body of doctrines. It also discusses mind-internal system, a science that extends human understanding of some aspect of the world in general. It also presents, if not briefly, studies by Plato, Descartes, and Russell, among others on the subject. This chapter presents the intellectual reflections of Chomsky after a decade of painstaking work in the principles-and-parameters framework.Less

Biolinguistics and Information

Cedric Boeckx and Juan Uriagereka

in Information and Living Systems: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives

This chapter focuses on biolinguistics and how it seeks to uncover the laws that determine the nature of the faculty of language, the principles behind its development, and the ways in which it is ... More

This chapter focuses on biolinguistics and how it seeks to uncover the laws that determine the nature of the faculty of language, the principles behind its development, and the ways in which it is put to use. The main goal of biolinguists is to contribute to our understanding of how such a capacity is realized in neural terms, and even how it evolved in the species. In biolinguistic terms, language can be referred to as “I-language,” where I- signifies individual, internalist, and intensional. Individual and internalist, because the faculty of language obviously resides inside someone’s head. Intensional, because one of the key, and still very surprising, properties of human language is a kind of infinity—our faculty of language makes it possible to produce and understand an unbounded range of expressions, in principle.Less

What Principles and Parameters got wrong

Cedric Boeckx

in Linguistic Variation in the Minimalist Framework

This chapter claims that some of the most deeply‐embedded tenets of the Principles and Parameters approach, and in particular the idea of Parameter (in the classical sense), have outlived their ... More

This chapter claims that some of the most deeply‐embedded tenets of the Principles and Parameters approach, and in particular the idea of Parameter (in the classical sense), have outlived their usefulness. It offers strong evidence to back up its claim that if minimalism and biolinguistics are taken seriously, the notion of Parameter should be abandoned, the more so given its diminishing empirical validity.Less

Merge and the lexicalization of concepts

Anne Reboul

in Cognition and Communication in the Evolution of Language

Chapter 4 is basically dedicated to outlining the kind of syntax that is characteristic of the human Language of Thought, and to the effect of the lexicalization process on concepts. It begins with ... More

Chapter 4 is basically dedicated to outlining the kind of syntax that is characteristic of the human Language of Thought, and to the effect of the lexicalization process on concepts. It begins with the kind of syntax that might have emerged to organize atomic concepts and argues for an exo-skeletal syntax, in which neither lexical items nor concepts bear any information apart from their extensions. It proposes Merge, as a self-organizing and single syntactic operation for conceptual thought, in keeping with Boeckx’s Minimalist account, accompanied by transfer processes leading to hierarchical syntactic asymmetry. It also offers a few hints as to what happens in externalization relative to functional words and morphology. It then turns to what happens in lexicalization, discussing recent neuroscientific works, and proposes that lexicalization leads to a delocalization of concepts in the left hemisphere of the brain, but does not alter conceptual atomicity.Less