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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Rule learning by zebra finches in an artificial grammar learning task: which rule?
Caroline A. A. van Heijningen,Jiani Chen,Irene van Laatum,Bonnie van der Hulst,Carel ten Cate +4 more
TL;DR: The results demonstrate only a limited degree of abstract rule learning but highlight the need for extensive and critical probe testing to examine the rules that animals (and humans) use to solve artificial grammar learning tasks and underline that rule learning strategies may differ between individuals.
Journal ArticleDOI
A multimodal parallel architecture: A cognitive framework for multimodal interactions.
TL;DR: A broad theoretical framework for multimodal interactions is outlined by expanding on Jackendoff's (2002) parallel architecture for language by characterizing interactions between varying complexity in the verbal, bodily, and graphic domains.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reading Words in Discourse: The Modulation of Lexical Priming Effects by Message-Level Context:
TL;DR: Examples of the ways in which eye tracking and event-related potentials might be used to further explore priming effects in discourse are provided, which suggest the interaction of information at different levels in online language comprehension.
Journal ArticleDOI
The ontogeny of scale-free syntax networks: phase transitions in early language acquisition
TL;DR: The first analysis of the emergence of syntax in terms of complex networks is shown to occur around two years of age, showing a nonlinear dynamical pattern where the global topology of syntax graphs shifts from a hierarchical, tree-like pattern, to a scale-free organization.
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.