Biolinguistics (E-Journal)
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Optimal Growth in Phrase Structure
No full textThis article claims that some familiar properties of phrase structure reflect laws of form. It is shown that optimal sequencing of recursive Merge operations so as to dynamically minimize c-command and containment relations in unlabeled branching forms leads to structural correlates of projection. Thus, a tendency for syntactic structures to pattern according to the X-bar schema (or other shapes exhibiting endocentricity and maximality of ‘non-head daughters’) is plausibly an emergent epiphenomenon of efficient computation. The specifier-head-complement configuration of X-bar theory is shown to be intimately connected to the Fibonacci sequence, suggesting connections with similar mathematical properties in optimal arboration and optimal packing elsewhere in nature
On the Nature of Syntax
No full textThere is a tendency in science to proceed from descriptive methods towards an adequate explanatory theory and then move beyond its conclusions. Our purpose is to discover the concepts of computational efficiency in natural language that exclude redundancy, and to investigate how these relate to more general principles. By developing the idea that linguistic structures possess the features of other biological systems this article focuses on the third factor that enters into the growth of language in the individual. It is suggested that the core principles of grammar can be observed in nature itself. The Faculty of Language is an efficient mechanism designed for the continuation of movement in compliance with optimization requirements. To illustrate that, a functional explanation of syntactic Merge is offered in this work, and an attempt is made to identify some criteria that single out this particular computational system as species-specific
Some Questions about Determining Causal Inference and Criteria for Evidence: Response to Ladd, Dediu, and Kinsella (2008)
No full textSymmetry in Visual and Linguistic Perception
No full textLike linguistic perception, visual perception is an active process in which the mind makes use of innate structural principles in the computational process. It is therefore useful to ask whether the visual and linguistic computational systems make use of the same or similar principles. This article describes the role played by principles of symmetry in visual perception as suggested by researchers in that field, and suggests that a subset of those principles play a strong role in the perception of linguistic structure. It is claimed that a distinction should be made between the construction of linguistic structure and its perception in the computational system, and that principles of symmetry apply in subtly different ways in each. It is argued that movement’s inherent locality, successive-cyclicity, has a bipartite nature, being sensitive only to certain barrier nodes in the construction of structure while adjoining to every intermediate projection in the perception of structure
From Spatial Cognition to Language
No full textThe evolution of language has been linked in the recent research to the evolution of a number of different capacities, from the theory of mind to the type-recursive computation. In this paper, I examine the possibility that language has evolved from the capacity of spatial computation. Similarities, but also certain differences, between the two capacities are outlined and discussed, including the following. From the aspect of neuro-cognitive science, it cannot stay unnoticed that some of the central computations both in the language faculty and in the spatial cognition are located in the same brain area - the hippocampus. On the cognitive side, direct counterparts of the central components of the language faculty can be identified within the domain of spatial cognition. In particular, this is argued for the recursive computation and its categorial base, for the use of two types of information, the descriptive and the geometric, in establishing reference, for the process of update of a mental representation of the relevant context based on the sensory input, and for several other aspects. Since humans and other vertebrates have spatial cognitive capacities of approximately the same nature and complexity, this narrows down the set of possible answers to the question what distinguishes humans and their language faculty from the cognitive capacities present in other species. The hypothesis proposed is that this difference is three-fold, and involves: 1) the domain-general use of the otherwise similar computational capacities as opposed to the use in animals which is bound to the spatial domain, and perhaps one or two others; 2) the serialization of the computations of the descriptive and the geometric means of reference in humans, resulting in a combined aggregate information, as opposed to a strict separation in other animals and 3) the increased use and importance of the update of the relevant mental representation of the context by a group of humans rather than just an individual
Human Uniqueness, Cognition by Description, and Procedural Memory
No full textEvidence will be reviewed suggesting a fairly direct link between the human ability to think about entities which one has never perceived — here called “cognition by description” — and procedural memory. Cognition by description is a uniquely hominid trait which makes religion, science, and history possible. It is hypothesized that cognition by description (in the manner of Bertrand Russell’s “knowledge by description”) requires variable binding, which in turn utilizes quantifier raising. Quantifier raising plausibly depends upon the computational core of language, specifically the element of it which Noam Chomsky calls “internal Merge”. Internal Merge produces hierarchical structures by means of a memory of derivational steps, a process plausibly involving procedural memory. The hypothesis is testable, predicting that procedural memory deficits will be accompanied by impairments in cognition by description. We also discuss neural mechanisms plausibly underlying procedural memory and also, by our hypothesis, cognition by description
The Asymmetry of Merge
No full textThis paper addresses the following question: What kind of properties must the structure-building operation Merge have such that, given a Numeration, the grammar will build the ‘right’ structure and avoid generating ill-formed configurations? The answer we will propose is that Merge should be seen as an asymmetric operation in the sense of relating two items whose sets of morpho-syntactic features are in a proper inclusion relation. In addition, we propose a partition of features into two stacks: categorial features and operator features. This distinction is independently motivated as it feeds into the definition of External Merge and Internal Merge (Chomsky’s 2001). The proper inclusion condition will be assumed to hold for both of these operations, but the set of features under consideration for the evaluation of the proper inclusion relation differs: strictly categorial features for External Merge, and the whole set of features of lexical items for Internal Merge