Beyond Descriptivism
-
Denis Bouchard
Abstract
I present two views on what is unique to human language. Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002) hypothesize that the crucial property is a recursive system which links the Sensory-Motor system and the Conceptual-Intentional system. I assume that the distinctive property is that human language has signs: whereas an animal call is an immediate reflex response to a perceptual stimulation, a sign has a nonimmediate and potentially unlimited signifié. This expressive power comes from the arbitrariness of the sign, which has its source in the nature of the two substances involved: as Saussure compellingly argued, there is nothing in the nature of the perceptual substance or the conceptual substance to have any particular pairing. Recursion is a by-product of some of these substantive properties. This model has the advantage that it derives several other novel traits of language which appear to be unconnected in the HCF model. My model also leads to more explanatory analyses of basic syntactic constructions, as illustrated by five key constructions.
Abstract
I present two views on what is unique to human language. Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002) hypothesize that the crucial property is a recursive system which links the Sensory-Motor system and the Conceptual-Intentional system. I assume that the distinctive property is that human language has signs: whereas an animal call is an immediate reflex response to a perceptual stimulation, a sign has a nonimmediate and potentially unlimited signifié. This expressive power comes from the arbitrariness of the sign, which has its source in the nature of the two substances involved: as Saussure compellingly argued, there is nothing in the nature of the perceptual substance or the conceptual substance to have any particular pairing. Recursion is a by-product of some of these substantive properties. This model has the advantage that it derives several other novel traits of language which appear to be unconnected in the HCF model. My model also leads to more explanatory analyses of basic syntactic constructions, as illustrated by five key constructions.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
- A Polarity-Sensitive Disjunction 1
- Taking a Closer Look at Romance VN Compounds 13
- Beyond Descriptivism 27
- Do Subjects Have a Place in Spanish? 51
- On the Conceptual Role of Number 67
- The Diachronic Development of a French Indefinite Pronoun 83
- A Syntactic Analysis of Italian Deverbal-Nouns 97
- V-N Compounds In Italian 113
- A Reinterpretation of Quirky Subjects and Related Phenomena in Spanish 127
- Cognitive Constraints on Assertion Scope 143
- Avant que - or Avant de -Clauses 155
- Null Directional Prepositions in Romanian and Spanish 169
- A Unified Account for the Additive and the Scalar Uses of Italian Neppure 187
- Default Morphology in Second Language Spanish 201
- Early Object Omission in Child French and English 213
- Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses 229
- Italian Volerci 247
- Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicate 263
- Subject Index 279
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
- A Polarity-Sensitive Disjunction 1
- Taking a Closer Look at Romance VN Compounds 13
- Beyond Descriptivism 27
- Do Subjects Have a Place in Spanish? 51
- On the Conceptual Role of Number 67
- The Diachronic Development of a French Indefinite Pronoun 83
- A Syntactic Analysis of Italian Deverbal-Nouns 97
- V-N Compounds In Italian 113
- A Reinterpretation of Quirky Subjects and Related Phenomena in Spanish 127
- Cognitive Constraints on Assertion Scope 143
- Avant que - or Avant de -Clauses 155
- Null Directional Prepositions in Romanian and Spanish 169
- A Unified Account for the Additive and the Scalar Uses of Italian Neppure 187
- Default Morphology in Second Language Spanish 201
- Early Object Omission in Child French and English 213
- Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses 229
- Italian Volerci 247
- Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicate 263
- Subject Index 279
