The Minimalist Program in generative syntax has been the subject of much rancour, a good proportion of it stoked by Noam Chomsky’s suggestion that language may represent “a ‘perfect solution’ to minimal design specifications.” A particular flash point has been the application of Minimalist principles to speculations about how language evolved in the human species. This paper argues that Minimalism is well supported as a plausible approach to language evolution. It is claimed that an assumption of minimal design specifications like that employed in MP syntax satisfies three key desiderata of evolutionary and general scientific plausibility: Physical Optimism, Rational Optimism, and Darwin’s Problem. In support of this claim, the methodologies employed in MP to maximise parsimony are characterised through an analysis of recent theories in Minimalist syntax, and those methodologies are defended with reference to practices and arguments from evolutionary biology and other natural sciences.
{"title":"Optimality and Plausibility in Language Design","authors":"Michael R. Levot","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9053","url":null,"abstract":"The Minimalist Program in generative syntax has been the subject of much rancour, a good proportion of it stoked by Noam Chomsky’s suggestion that language may represent “a ‘perfect solution’ to minimal design specifications.” A particular flash point has been the application of Minimalist principles to speculations about how language evolved in the human species. This paper argues that Minimalism is well supported as a plausible approach to language evolution. It is claimed that an assumption of minimal design specifications like that employed in MP syntax satisfies three key desiderata of evolutionary and general scientific plausibility: Physical Optimism, Rational Optimism, and Darwin’s Problem. In support of this claim, the methodologies employed in MP to maximise parsimony are characterised through an analysis of recent theories in Minimalist syntax, and those methodologies are defended with reference to practices and arguments from evolutionary biology and other natural sciences.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the Minimalist Program, language competence is seen to stem from a fundamental ability to construct hierarchical structure, an operation dubbed ‘Merge’. This raises the problem of how to view hierarchical concept-combination. This is a conceptual operation which also builds hierarchical structure. We can conceive of a garden that consists of a lawn and a flower-bed, for example, or a salad consisting of lettuce, fennel and rocket, or a crew consisting of a pilot and engineer. In such cases, concepts are put together in a way that makes one the accommodating element with respect to the others taken in combination. The accommodating element becomes the root of a hierarchical unit. Since this unit is itself a concept, the operation is inherently recursive. Does this mean the mind has two independent systems of hierarchical construction? Or is some form of integration more likely? Following a detailed examination of the operations involved, this paper shows there are three main ways in which Merge might be linked to hierarchical concept-combination. Also examined are the architectural implications that arise in each case.
{"title":"Three Ways to Link Merge with Hierarchical Concept-Combination","authors":"C. Thornton","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9051","url":null,"abstract":"In the Minimalist Program, language competence is seen to stem from a fundamental ability to construct hierarchical structure, an operation dubbed ‘Merge’. This raises the problem of how to view hierarchical concept-combination. This is a conceptual operation which also builds hierarchical structure. We can conceive of a garden that consists of a lawn and a flower-bed, for example, or a salad consisting of lettuce, fennel and rocket, or a crew consisting of a pilot and engineer. In such cases, concepts are put together in a way that makes one the accommodating element with respect to the others taken in combination. The accommodating element becomes the root of a hierarchical unit. Since this unit is itself a concept, the operation is inherently recursive. Does this mean the mind has two independent systems of hierarchical construction? Or is some form of integration more likely? Following a detailed examination of the operations involved, this paper shows there are three main ways in which Merge might be linked to hierarchical concept-combination. Also examined are the architectural implications that arise in each case.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"92 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Documented examples from neuroethology have revealed species-specific neural encoding mechanisms capable of mapping highly variable, but lawful, visual and auditory inputs within neural columns. By virtue of the entire column being the functional unit of both representation and processing, signal variation is collectively ‘absorbed’, and hence normalized, to help form natural categories possessing an underlying physically-based commonality. Stimulus-specific ‘tolerance ranges’ define the limits of signal variation, effectively shaping the functionality of the columnar-based processing. A conceptualization for an analogous human model utilizing this evolutionarily conserved neural encoding strategy for signal variability absorption is described for the non-invariance issue in stop place perception.
{"title":"A Functional Role for Neural Columns: Resolving F2 Transition Variability in Stop Place Categorization","authors":"H. Sussman","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9049","url":null,"abstract":"Documented examples from neuroethology have revealed species-specific neural encoding mechanisms capable of mapping highly variable, but lawful, visual and auditory inputs within neural columns. By virtue of the entire column being the functional unit of both representation and processing, signal variation is collectively ‘absorbed’, and hence normalized, to help form natural categories possessing an underlying physically-based commonality. Stimulus-specific ‘tolerance ranges’ define the limits of signal variation, effectively shaping the functionality of the columnar-based processing. A conceptualization for an analogous human model utilizing this evolutionarily conserved neural encoding strategy for signal variability absorption is described for the non-invariance issue in stop place perception.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076291","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Plea for Why Only Us (Berwick & Chomsky 2016)","authors":"W. Sperlich","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9063","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores the prospect that grammatical expressions are propositionally whole and psychologically plausible, leading to the explanatory burden being placed on syntax rather than pragmatic processes, with the latter crucially bearing the feature of optionality. When supposedly unarticulated constituents are added, expressions which are propositionally distinct, and not simply more specific, arise. The ad hoc nature of a number of pragmatic processes carry with them the additional problem of effectively acting as barriers to implementing language in the brain. The advantages of an anti-lexicalist biolinguistic methodology are discussed, and a bi-phasal model of linguistic interpretation is proposed, Phasal Eliminativism, carved by syntactic phases and (optionally) enriched by a restricted number of pragmatic processes. In addition, it is shown that the syntactic operation of labeling (departing from standard Merge-centric evolutionary hypotheses) is responsible for a range of semantic and pragmatic phenomena, rendering core aspects of syntax and lexical pragmatics commensurable.
{"title":"Phasal Eliminativism, Anti-Lexicalism, and the Status of the Unarticulated","authors":"Elliot Murphy","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9047","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the prospect that grammatical expressions are propositionally whole and psychologically plausible, leading to the explanatory burden being placed on syntax rather than pragmatic processes, with the latter crucially bearing the feature of optionality. When supposedly unarticulated constituents are added, expressions which are propositionally distinct, and not simply more specific, arise. The ad hoc nature of a number of pragmatic processes carry with them the additional problem of effectively acting as barriers to implementing language in the brain. The advantages of an anti-lexicalist biolinguistic methodology are discussed, and a bi-phasal model of linguistic interpretation is proposed, Phasal Eliminativism, carved by syntactic phases and (optionally) enriched by a restricted number of pragmatic processes. In addition, it is shown that the syntactic operation of labeling (departing from standard Merge-centric evolutionary hypotheses) is responsible for a range of semantic and pragmatic phenomena, rendering core aspects of syntax and lexical pragmatics commensurable.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
My intention in this piece is to briefly outline a novel hypothesis regarding the neurobiological implementation of feature-set binding, the labeling of featuresets, and the resolution of linguistic dependencies arising from the cyclic combination of these labeled objects. One of the numerous motivations for this was reading Robert C. Berwick & Noam Chomsky’s (BC henceforth WOU), which struck me as moderately comprehensive in its interdisciplinary scope (including good critical commentary on recent work in comparative neuroprimatology and theoretical biology) but severely impoverished in its range of linking hypotheses between these disciplines. While the authors are correct to point out that the Strong Minimalist Thesis follows the ‘divide-and-conquer’ approach which helps narrow the gap between disciplines, their actual implementation of this approach is fairly mild and uninstructive. There is lots of talk about how language is “an ‘organ of the body’, more or less on a par with the visual or digestive or immune system” and how it is “a subcomponent of a complex organism” (p. 56), accompanied by the usual discussion of the Newtonian dispelling of the mind–body problem—all of which is true, unequivocal, undeniable, but directionless and intensely vague. B&C discuss Lenneberg’s early work on language evolution, deeming it “a model of nuanced evolutionary thinking” (p. 5), but as Lenneberg (1964: 76) himself noted, “[n]othing is gained by labeling the propensity for language as biological unless we can use this insight for new research directions—unless more specific correlates can be uncovered”. The absence of concrete linking hypotheses between the domains of the life, cognitive, and biological sciences in WOU, and its concern with isolated and disparate sources of evidence which lend support to an emergentist model of language evolution, whatever its merits, does not promote this kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration. I think that from the perspective of brain dynamics, what the authors call the “Basic Property” (Merge) can be explored in a number of interesting and fruitful ways, promoting further interdisciplinary work and relying on a neurolinguistic perspective which, unlike WOU, goes beyond the cortex and examines the important role of subcortical structures like the thalamus and basal ganglia. To set the scene for what follows, it is useful to consider the framework in Boeckx & Theofanopolou (2015), which highlights the inadequacy of standard
{"title":"The Human Oscillome and Its Explanatory Potential","authors":"Elliot Murphy","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9061","url":null,"abstract":"My intention in this piece is to briefly outline a novel hypothesis regarding the neurobiological implementation of feature-set binding, the labeling of featuresets, and the resolution of linguistic dependencies arising from the cyclic combination of these labeled objects. One of the numerous motivations for this was reading Robert C. Berwick & Noam Chomsky’s (BC henceforth WOU), which struck me as moderately comprehensive in its interdisciplinary scope (including good critical commentary on recent work in comparative neuroprimatology and theoretical biology) but severely impoverished in its range of linking hypotheses between these disciplines. While the authors are correct to point out that the Strong Minimalist Thesis follows the ‘divide-and-conquer’ approach which helps narrow the gap between disciplines, their actual implementation of this approach is fairly mild and uninstructive. There is lots of talk about how language is “an ‘organ of the body’, more or less on a par with the visual or digestive or immune system” and how it is “a subcomponent of a complex organism” (p. 56), accompanied by the usual discussion of the Newtonian dispelling of the mind–body problem—all of which is true, unequivocal, undeniable, but directionless and intensely vague. B&C discuss Lenneberg’s early work on language evolution, deeming it “a model of nuanced evolutionary thinking” (p. 5), but as Lenneberg (1964: 76) himself noted, “[n]othing is gained by labeling the propensity for language as biological unless we can use this insight for new research directions—unless more specific correlates can be uncovered”. The absence of concrete linking hypotheses between the domains of the life, cognitive, and biological sciences in WOU, and its concern with isolated and disparate sources of evidence which lend support to an emergentist model of language evolution, whatever its merits, does not promote this kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration. I think that from the perspective of brain dynamics, what the authors call the “Basic Property” (Merge) can be explored in a number of interesting and fruitful ways, promoting further interdisciplinary work and relying on a neurolinguistic perspective which, unlike WOU, goes beyond the cortex and examines the important role of subcortical structures like the thalamus and basal ganglia. To set the scene for what follows, it is useful to consider the framework in Boeckx & Theofanopolou (2015), which highlights the inadequacy of standard","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Why Only Us (WOU) is a wonderful, slim, engaging, and clearly written book by Robert C. Berwick and Noam Chomsky (B&C). From the authors’ perspective, it is a book about language and evolution. And of course it is. However, I think it is actually about something much bigger. It is an argument about the evolution of thought itself, with language being not only one form of thought, but a domain that can impact thought itself, in ways that are truly unique in the animal kingdom. Seen in this light, WOU provides a framework for thinking about the evolution of thought and a challenge to Darwin’s claim that the human mind is only quantitatively different from other animals. Since this is an idea that I have cham
{"title":"Challenges to the What, When, and Why?","authors":"M. Hauser","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9059","url":null,"abstract":"Why Only Us (WOU) is a wonderful, slim, engaging, and clearly written book by Robert C. Berwick and Noam Chomsky (B&C). From the authors’ perspective, it is a book about language and evolution. And of course it is. However, I think it is actually about something much bigger. It is an argument about the evolution of thought itself, with language being not only one form of thought, but a domain that can impact thought itself, in ways that are truly unique in the animal kingdom. Seen in this light, WOU provides a framework for thinking about the evolution of thought and a challenge to Darwin’s claim that the human mind is only quantitatively different from other animals. Since this is an idea that I have cham","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2016-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Evidence from seemingly disparate areas of speech/language research is reviewed to form a unified theoretical account for why the left hemisphere is specialized for speech production. Research findings from studies investigating hemispheric lateralization of infant babbling, the primacy of the syllable in phonological structure, rhyming performance in split-brain patients, rhyming ability and phonetic categorization in children diagnosed with developmental apraxia of speech, rules governing exchange errors in spoonerisms, organizational principles of neocortical control of learned motor behaviors, and multi-electrode recordings of human neuronal responses to speech sounds are described and common threads highlighted. It is suggested that the emergence, in developmental neurogenesis, of a hard-wired, syllabically-organized, neural substrate representing the phonemic sound elements of one’s language, particularly the vocalic nucleus, is the crucial factor underlying the left hemisphere’s dominance for speech production.
{"title":"Why the Left Hemisphere Is Dominant for Speech Production: Connecting the Dots","authors":"H. Sussman","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9035","url":null,"abstract":"Evidence from seemingly disparate areas of speech/language research is reviewed to form a unified theoretical account for why the left hemisphere is specialized for speech production. Research findings from studies investigating hemispheric lateralization of infant babbling, the primacy of the syllable in phonological structure, rhyming performance in split-brain patients, rhyming ability and phonetic categorization in children diagnosed with developmental apraxia of speech, rules governing exchange errors in spoonerisms, organizational principles of neocortical control of learned motor behaviors, and multi-electrode recordings of human neuronal responses to speech sounds are described and common threads highlighted. It is suggested that the emergence, in developmental neurogenesis, of a hard-wired, syllabically-organized, neural substrate representing the phonemic sound elements of one’s language, particularly the vocalic nucleus, is the crucial factor underlying the left hemisphere’s dominance for speech production.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2015-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
From the perspective of brain oscillations, an explanation is offered as to why external systems of language cannot deal with identical categorial elements in certain local domains. An equivalent locality effect in brain structure is argued for which causes a (cognitively problematic and ambiguous) synchronization of rhythms in the gamma, beta1, and beta2 bands. These rhythms can be related to different categories, and their limited patterns and interactions may explain syntactic constraints on phrases, phases, and Internal Merge.
{"title":"Locality in Language and Locality in Brain Oscillatory Structures","authors":"Javier Ramírez Fernández","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9031","url":null,"abstract":"From the perspective of brain oscillations, an explanation is offered as to why external systems of language cannot deal with identical categorial elements in certain local domains. An equivalent locality effect in brain structure is argued for which causes a (cognitively problematic and ambiguous) synchronization of rhythms in the gamma, beta1, and beta2 bands. These rhythms can be related to different categories, and their limited patterns and interactions may explain syntactic constraints on phrases, phases, and Internal Merge.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2015-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper discusses the existence of X-within-X structures in language. Constraints to same-category embedding have been the focus in a number of recent studies. These studies follow a long-standing tradition in linguistic theory that assumes a ban on the adjacency of same-category elements. In the present work, data drawn from a typologically broad variety of languages suggest that the postulated constraints are not so robust. It is shown that X-within-X structures do exist in language. In this context, an argument is made in favor of an unrestricted conceptualization of Merge, independent from category distributions, while recursion is taken to be a property of procedures and not of structures. The discussion of X-within-X patterns provides insights with respect to the attested category distributions, the nature of categories, and the language faculty, from a biologically plausible point of view.
{"title":"X-within-X Structures and the Nature of Categories","authors":"Evelina Leivada","doi":"10.5964/bioling.9029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.9029","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the existence of X-within-X structures in language. Constraints to same-category embedding have been the focus in a number of recent studies. These studies follow a long-standing tradition in linguistic theory that assumes a ban on the adjacency of same-category elements. In the present work, data drawn from a typologically broad variety of languages suggest that the postulated constraints are not so robust. It is shown that X-within-X structures do exist in language. In this context, an argument is made in favor of an unrestricted conceptualization of Merge, independent from category distributions, while recursion is taken to be a property of procedures and not of structures. The discussion of X-within-X patterns provides insights with respect to the attested category distributions, the nature of categories, and the language faculty, from a biologically plausible point of view.","PeriodicalId":54041,"journal":{"name":"Biolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2015-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71076428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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