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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Autocatalytic networks in cognition and the origin of culture
Liane Gabora,Mike Steel +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a simple and explicit cognitive model that gives rise naturally to autocatylatic networks, and thereby provides a possible mechanism for the transition from a pre-cultural episodic mind to a mimetic mind was proposed.
Book ChapterDOI
Language and literacy from a cognitive neuroscience perspective
TL;DR: Petersson as mentioned in this paper presented a general perspective on cognitive neuroscience in which they use natural language as an example to illustrate various issues involved in understanding the human brain from a cognitive point of view.
Journal ArticleDOI
Is math lateralised on the same side as language? Right hemisphere aphasia and mathematical abilities.
Carlo Semenza,Margarete Delazer,Laura Bertella,Alessia Granà,Ileana Mori,Fabio M. Conti,Riccardo Pignatti,Lisa Bartha,Frank Domahs,Thomas Benke,Alessandro Mauro +10 more
TL;DR: The results suggest that, as a rule, language and calculation share the same hemisphere, and a primitive computational mechanism capable of recursion may be the precursor of both functions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Language against the odds, or rather not: the weak central coherence hypothesis and language
TL;DR: In this paper, the Weak Central Coherence (WCC) hypothesis of autism was used to explain the simultaneous co-occurrence of cognitive strengths and weaknesses in a child with Asperger syndrome.
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.