Search

After comments with laudatory and clarifying intent on the Chomskyan revolution, I make some critical remarks on Eörs Szathmáry's views on the evolution of language and its relation to the brain. This is followed by a brief sketch of the theory of one-dimensional syntax in the biolinguistic context, leading to the conclusion that the item-organizing specificity of human language may not be due to a qualitative change in narrow syntactic ability. This unique property may instead be a consequence of the possession of an interpretive module capable of parallel processing of numerous simple onedimensional syntactic structures - which individually have no more configurational complexity than birdsong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years linguists have gained new insight into human language capacities on the basis of results from linguistics and biology. The so-called BIOLINGUISTIC ENTERPRISE aims to fill in the explanatory gap between language and biology, on both theoretical and experimental grounds, hoping to reach a deeper understanding of language as a phenomenon rooted in biology. This research program is taking its first steps, and it has already given rise to new insights on the human language capacity, as well as to controversies, echoing debates that go back to the earlier days of generative grammar. The present discussion piece provides a high-level characterization of biolinguistics. It highlights the main articulation of this research program and points to recent studies linking language and biology. It also compares the BIOLINGUISTIC PROGRAM, as defined in Chomsky 2005 and Di Sciullo & Boeckx 2011, to the view of the human language faculty presented in Jackendoff 2002 and Culicover & Jackendoff 2005, and to the discussion in Jackendoff 2011.* [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous authors treat the term ‘biolinguistics’ as synonymous with the generative enterprise. Although undeniably Chomskyan in orientation, biolinguistics should not be equated with generative grammar, as the latter does not often seek to go beyond the level of cognition and establish linking hypotheses with the brain. This article attempts to clarify the nature of biolinguistics, highlighting departures from the research agenda routinely assumed by generative practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article is about the relationship between Dependency Phonology and Government Phonology in general, and the more specific question how exactly a dependency relation may incarnate. The latter issue is raised by the genuine contribution of Government Phonology to phonological theory, i.e. lateral relations among syllabic constituents. Government and licensing describe a dependency relationship between a head and a dependent, but are non-arboreal. Their application therefore mechanically leads to the elimination of trees (deforestation). Arboreal syllable structure, however, is the spine of Structural Analogy, since it parallels syntactic arboreal structure. The question is thus whether arboreal and lateral descriptions of syllable structure are just notational variants (in which case Structural Analogy with syntactic trees can be maintained), or whether they are really different. It is shown that the latter is the case, and that the different expression of dependency relations in syntax and phonology is due to two things: a design property of syntax, concatenation (which is absent from phonology), and an input condition to phonological computation, linearity (which is absent from syntax). Hierarchical structure is thus implemented in module-specific ways: concatenation in syntax (the minimalist device Merge) produces trees (while invalidating the lateral option). It is therefore argued that the arboreal means of expressing dependency relations is the result of concatenation, and of nothing else: no concatenation, no trees. It thus follows from the fact that phonology does not concatenate anything that there cannot be any tree-building device in this module. An appreciable side-effect of this perspective is an explanation of a long-standing observation, i.e. the absence of recursion in phonology: no trees, no recursion. On the other hand, linearity in phonology produces lateral relations (and makes trees unworkable). A related issue discussed is what kinds of third factor explanation are desirable, given that everybody is after “more general, language-unspecific” motivations for the workings of grammar: Chomskian minimalism/biolinguistics as much as anti-chomskian “Cognitive” Grammar and the work by John Anderson. Candidates are global notions such as cognitive salience on the one hand, or more concrete things such as linearity and concatenation on the other. It appears that the current striving for the former is an attempt at turning back the clocks: the evolution of Cognitive Science since Franz-Joseph Gall’s 19th century phrenology was in the opposite direction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Although variation and heterogeneity are generally recognized as a characteristic of linguistic usage, they are hardly conceived as a fundamental dimension of grammar. Introducing a distinction between an exemplum linguistics and a datum linguistics, we show that the history of the language sciences, both conceptually and descriptively, is organized around opposing conceptions of what a linguistic fact is. While Generative Grammar and its practitioners are clearly examples of the first, corpus linguistics illustrates the second conception. The upsurge of datum linguistics and of usage based models since the beginning of the 21st century allows for a fundamental reassessment of the functional role of variation in language. We show that while the biolinguistic program rests on the negation of the sociocultural framing of the language faculty and denies any functional impact of communicational competence in shaping language and grammars, constructional approaches and usage-based linguistics make room for a Darwinian sociocultural conception. In such a conception, communication is a leading force in the emergence and stabilization of human linguistic competence, both diachronically and synchronically. In this approach, variation and heterogeneity are to be seen as core factors in shaping language. Thus, as argued some 50years ago by Weinreich, variation and heterogeneity are to be regarded as structurally functional, and as fundamental dimensions of language. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The study of language acquisition within the Chomskyan tradition has moved from a stage in which the developmental path of languages in the mind of children was ignored to a stage in which theoreticians accept that their proposals must be compatible with developmental facts, yet without really explaining them. This article suggests that generative linguistics has now attained the degree of maturity required to surpass old idealizations and carry out the task of explaining how core properties of languages grow in the mind of infants, instead of presupposing them as directly given in the genetic makeup of the species. This transition from 'taking development into account' to 'taking development seriously' is a necessary step for generative linguistics to gain credibility as a biolinguistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Despite a strong commitment to the aim of explaining how children attain the knowledge of their mother tongue, it is far from obvious that generative grammarians have really achieved this ambitious goal. This paper offers an interpretation of this circumstance by critically examining Principles and Parameters Theory from a developmentalist point of view. Some proposals are also offered in order to incorporate into the research agenda of Generative Grammar the understanding of how children really develop as grammatical experts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper considers the role of recursion in syntactic theory, and three particular aspects of this broad topic are addressed. The use of recursive devices in formal grammars in the 1950s is summarised, and the work of Bar-Hillel and Chomsky from this period is analysed in some detail. Having established this historical context, the role of recursive definitions within the Minimalist Program is discussed at length, and the main focus falls upon comparatively recent claims concerning the centrality of recursion in the context of biolinguistics. Specifically, the hypothesis that recursion constitutes a species-specific property of the human language faculty that is particularly associated with natural language is (re)assessed, and it is suggested that, in the context of syntactic theory, the problematic term ‘recursion’ should be abandoned and replaced by less ambiguous terminology such as ‘inductive definition’. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents grammar and languages and syntax in the "Minimalist syntax" and "Core syntax" textbooks. It states that although the Minimalist Program has opened up new research avenues for Principles and Parameters theory, it has left the analytical part of the theory in poor condition. The theoretical flaws in the mentioned textbooks are symptomatic of problems in the Minimalist Program at large and the books are used to look for underlying problems with the programmatic Minimalist approach to P&P theory.