Attention and empirical studies of grammar
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Andriy Myachykov
Abstract
How is the generation of a grammatical sentence implemented by the human brain? A starting place for such an inquiry lies in linguistic theory. Unfortunately, linguistic theories illuminate only abstract knowledge representations and do not indicate how these representations interact with cognitive architecture to produce discourse. We examine tightly constrained empirical methods to study how grammar interacts with one part of the cognitive architecture, namely attention. Finally, we show that understanding attention as a neural network can link grammatical choice to underlying brain systems. Overall, our commentary supports a multilevel empirical approach that clarifies and expands the connections between cognitive science and linguistics thus advancing the interdisciplinary agenda outlined by Jackendoff.
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial preface
- On the status of linguistics as a cognitive science
- Constraints and preadaptations in the earliest stages of language evolution
- Functional organization of speech across the life span: A critique of generative phonology
- Beyond formalities: The case of language acquisition
- What language creation in the manual modality tells us about the foundations of language
- Linguistics, cognitive science, and all that jazz
- The nature of semantics: On Jackendoff’s arguments
- Anatomy matters
- The pied piper of Cambridge
- Lateralization of language: Toward a biologically based model of language
- The science of language
- Attention and empirical studies of grammar
- Psycholinguistics, formal grammars, and cognitive science
- Alternatives to the combinatorial paradigm of linguistic theory based on domain general principles of human cognition
- Subject-auxiliary inversion: A natural category
- Generative linguistics within the cognitive neuroscience of language
- Language as a natural object – linguistics as a natural science
- Contributors
- Publications received
- Language index
- Subject index
- Contents of volume 22
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial preface
- On the status of linguistics as a cognitive science
- Constraints and preadaptations in the earliest stages of language evolution
- Functional organization of speech across the life span: A critique of generative phonology
- Beyond formalities: The case of language acquisition
- What language creation in the manual modality tells us about the foundations of language
- Linguistics, cognitive science, and all that jazz
- The nature of semantics: On Jackendoff’s arguments
- Anatomy matters
- The pied piper of Cambridge
- Lateralization of language: Toward a biologically based model of language
- The science of language
- Attention and empirical studies of grammar
- Psycholinguistics, formal grammars, and cognitive science
- Alternatives to the combinatorial paradigm of linguistic theory based on domain general principles of human cognition
- Subject-auxiliary inversion: A natural category
- Generative linguistics within the cognitive neuroscience of language
- Language as a natural object – linguistics as a natural science
- Contributors
- Publications received
- Language index
- Subject index
- Contents of volume 22
