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
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Free association transitions in models of cortical latching dynamics
TL;DR: It is shown here, with computer simulations, that latching transitions cluster in a number of distinct classes: effectively random transitions between weakly correlated attractors; structured, history-dependent transitions between attractors with intermediate correlations; and oscillations between pairs of closely overlapping attractors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evolutionary developmental linguistics: Naturalization of the faculty of language
TL;DR: It is argued that progress toward each of these goals can be facilitated by new programs of research, carried out within a new theoretical framework—one that could be called “evolutionary developmental linguistics” (EDL)—respecting current developments in biology, anthropology, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
A computational model of the emergence of early constructions
TL;DR: This thesis explores and formalizes the view that grammar learning is driven by meaningful language use in context, and presents a computational model in which all aspects of the language learning problem are reformulated in line with these assumptions.
Journal Article
Computational Phenotypes: Where the Theory of Computation Meets Evo-Devo
Sergio Balari,Guillermo Lorenzo +1 more
TL;DR: It is argued that the Chomsky Hierarchy can be reinterpreted as a developmental morphospace constraining the evolution of a discrete and finite series of computational phenotypes.
Book
Key Thinkers in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language
TL;DR: This book offers introductory entries on eighty ideas that have shaped the study of language up to the present day, the only single-volume reference book to focus specifically on ideas from both linguistics and the philosophy of language.
References
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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.