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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Journal Article
A Turing Program for Linguistic Theory
TL;DR: The great challenge for the TPLT is to precisify (formalize) the definitions of linguistic primitives in order that ‘linking hypotheses’ (not mere correlations) to as yet undiscovered neurobiological primitives can be formed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Self-similarity and recursion as default modes in human cognition
Florian Ph. S. Fischmeister,Mauricio Martins,Mauricio Martins,Mauricio Martins,Roland Beisteiner,W. Tecumseh Fitch +5 more
TL;DR: The results suggest that human hierarchical information processing using recursion is supported by the Default Mode Network, in particular, the representation of recursion seems to constitute an internally-biased mode of information-processing that is mediated by both the core and dorsal-medial subsystems of the DMN.
The causal impact of common native language on international trade: Evidence from a spatial regression discontinuity design: evidence from a spatial regression discontinuity design
Peter Egger,Andrea Lassmann +1 more
TL;DR: This article studied the effect of sharing a common native language on international trade and found that the impact of common native rather than spoken language on transaction-level imports from neighbouring countries was negligible.
Proceedings ArticleDOI
Item Based Constructions and the Logical Problem
TL;DR: The authors showed that if one assumes that children learn through item-based constructions, there is an abundance of positive evidence, and that children can rely on competition, cue construction, monitoring and probabilistic identification to derive information from positive data to recover from overgeneralization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Current state-of-the-art of auditory functional MRI (fMRI) on zebra finches: Technique and scientific achievements
TL;DR: The introduction of fMRI in songbirds has opened new research avenues that permit experimental analysis of complex sensorimotor and cognitive processes underlying vocal communication in this animal model.
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.