Journal ArticleDOI
The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?
TLDR
It is argued that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation and how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience is suggested.Abstract:
We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience. We submit that a distinction should be made between the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB)and in the narrow sense (FLN) . FLB includes a sensory-motor system, a conceptual-intentional system, and the computational mechanisms for recursion, providing the capacity to generate an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of elements. We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Confrontational scavenging as a possible source for language and cooperation
Derek Bickerton,Eörs Szathmáry +1 more
TL;DR: It is argued that confrontational scavenging was a triggering episode unique to human ancestors and likely necessary for the emergence of language and the high degree of cooperation found among humans.
Journal ArticleDOI
Music and Evolution: Consequences and Causes
TL;DR: In this paper, it is suggested that music may have arisen in the course of evolution in part as a result of processes of progressive altricialisation (a lengthening of the pre-reproductive juvenile period) in the primate and hominid lineages.
Journal ArticleDOI
Unity and diversity in human language
TL;DR: This work reviews the literature on linguistic diversity and language universals, suggesting that an adequate notion of ‘formal universals’ provides a promising way to understand the facts of language acquisition, offering order in the face of the diversity of human languages.
Journal ArticleDOI
Combinatoriality in the vocal systems of nonhuman animals.
TL;DR: An overview of the current evidence for combinatorial structures found in the vocal system of diverse species is provided and it is suggested that a fine-grained classification and differentiation of combinatorsiality is a useful approach permitting systematic comparisons across animals.
Journal ArticleDOI
Relative clause constructions in children with specific language impairment.
Pauline Frizelle,Paul Fletcher +1 more
TL;DR: Children with specific language impairment who are close to 7 years of age have significantly greater difficulty with relative clauses than their age peers and typically developing children who are on average 2 years younger.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
Ann S. Ferebee,Noam Chomsky +1 more
TL;DR: Methodological preliminaries of generative grammars as theories of linguistic competence; theory of performance; organization of a generative grammar; justification of grammar; descriptive and explanatory theories; evaluation procedures; linguistic theory and language learning.
Book
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax
TL;DR: Generative grammars as theories of linguistic competence as discussed by the authors have been used as a theory of performance for language learning. But they have not yet been applied to the problem of language modeling.
Book
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
TL;DR: In this paper, secondary sexual characters of fishes, amphibians and reptiles are presented. But the authors focus on the secondary sexual characteristics of fishes and amphibians rather than the primary sexual characters.
Book
The Minimalist Program
TL;DR: This twentieth-anniversary edition reissues Noam Chomsky's classic work The Minimalist Program with a new preface by the author, which emphasizes that the minimalist approach developed in the book and in subsequent work "is a program, not a theory."
Journal Article
The descent of man and selection in relation to sex: documento
TL;DR: Part I. Sexual Selection (continued): Secondary sexual characters of fishes, amphibians and reptiles, and secondarySexual characters of birds.