Volume 22, Issue 2-4

This theme issue is the third in a series of special Review (double or triple) issues that focus on much debated topics, or offer critiques of current-day approaches in the area of linguistics. The approach of these special issues has been to select a recent book or article that discusses a topic or theory in question and to then invite a number of other scholars to use this book or article as a jumping off point from which each contributor can extrapolate further on the benefits or shortcomings of the subject at hand and discuss the overall impact such topic or approach has on the field at large. As is the case for non-thematic issues, each contribution is subjected to independent anonymous reviews so that peer-reviewed quality is guaranteed.

In the last fifty or so years, the field of linguistics has become concerned with the study of language as a means for understanding how the mind works. Linguistic theories that advocate the idea that structure-building computations underlie human grammar have been assumed to reveal the same type of computational operations present in theories of other modules of the mind. At the same time, with the emergence of new scientific technical advances, more concrete and tangible light is being shed on how the brain actually operates in terms of both its mechanisms and the loci of activity that correspond to specific functions. In MRI studies of language in use (and other similar studies using different types of techniques), various areas of the brain have been shown to exhibit activity, rather than just one central location, and the idea of language emerging out of a network of interconnected distinct brain circuits or systems has become, for the most part, widely acceptable. Yet, generative grammarians, assuming a level of analysis that is not primarily concerned with such neurological findings, continue to consider language to be an autonomous and homogeneous entity unto itself in the mind, namely, a module, an innate organic whole, the maturational process of which is shaped by triggers in the environment, and which is, in essence, a computational system of combining or merging building block-like elements together in a recursive fashion to form hierarchical structures. This approach appears to be removed from the aforementioned findings regarding the physically scattered locales of language in the brain (but, cf. Marantz’s contribution to this special issue which finds no tension between current findings from brain science and generative linguistic theory).

If we accept the view that language first evolved from the conceptual structure of our pre-linguistic ancestors, several questions arise, including: What kind of structure? Concepts about what? Here we review research on the vocal communication and cognition of nonhuman primates, focusing on results that may be relevant to the earliest stages of language evolution. From these data we conclude, first, that nonhuman primates’ inability to represent the mental states of others makes their communication fundamentally different from human language. Second, while nonhuman primates’ production of vocalizations is highly constrained, their ability to extract complex information from sounds is not. Upon hearing vocalizations, listeners acquire information about their social companions that is referential, discretely coded, hierarchically structured, rule-governed, and propositional. We therefore suggest that, in the earliest stages of language evolution, communication had a formal structure that grew out of its speakers’ knowledge of social relations.

Generative (Chomskyan) linguistics has a number of conceptual problems impeding its acceptance into modern cognitive science. A major issue centers on Uniformitarianism, the assumption that the supposed innate core of language – Universal Grammar – has remained the same since its instantaneous origin and remains basically the same (exhibits “continuity”) throughout ontogeny. Other problems, noted by George Miller, are emphasis on structure rather than function, on competence rather than performance, as well as the tendency to regard simplifications as explanations. We illustrate these problems in the domain of speech acquisition, which, rather than exhibiting continuity, involves a progression from a syllable reduplication mode to an opposite syllable variegation mode. We present an alternative Neodarwinian conceptualization – the Frame/Content theory – in which the time domain is central for both phylogeny and ontogeny. According to this theory the reduplication-to-variegation progression in the ontogeny of speech (from syllabic Frames to segmental Content) is considered to recapitulate its phylogeny.

Generative grammar retained from American structural linguistics the ‘formal’ approach, which basically effaces the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of grammar. This creates serious problems for an account of language acquisition, most especially the problem of how to link universal grammar to some particular language (the linking problem). Parameters do not help the situation, as they depend on a prior linking of the lexical and functional categories of a language to universal grammar. In contrast, usage-based accounts of language acquisition do not posit an innate universal grammar and so have no linking problem. And if children’s cognitive and social skills are conceptualized in the right way, there is no poverty of the stimulus in this approach either. In general, the only fully adequate accounts of language acquisition are those that give a prominent role to children’s comprehension of communicative function in everything from words to grammatical morphemes to complex syntactic constructions.

Universal Grammar offers a set of hypotheses about the biases children bring to language-learning. But testing these hypotheses is difficult, particularly if we look only at language-learning under typical circumstances. Children are influenced by the linguistic input to which they are exposed at the earliest stages of language-learning. Their biases will therefore be obscured by the input they receive. A clearer view of the child’s preparation for language comes from observing children who are not exposed to linguistic input. Deaf children whose hearing losses prevent them from learning the spoken language that surrounds them, and whose hearing parents have not yet exposed them to sign language, nevertheless communicate with the hearing individuals in their worlds and use gestures, called homesigns, to do so. This article explores which properties of Universal Grammar can be found in the deaf children’s homesign systems, and thus tests linguistic theory against acquisition data.

The question of whether generative grammar offers insights into the mind turns on whether and how a generative grammar is an account of what is in the mind. A potentially useful perspective on this question can be achieved by looking at a cognitive phenomenon that is similar in many respects to language but crucially different, namely jazz. Jazz performance is apparently rule-governed and improvisational, like language. It is useful to take jazz as the exemplar of a complex cognitive task and to think of language as different from jazz in several critical respects that may account for some of its special design features, as well as the fact that it is acquired naturally and without explicit instruction. One difference that may have considerable explanatory force is that language is used to encode and communicate Conceptual Structure, while in the case of jazz (and music in general), what is communicated is the form itself.

Jackendoff defends a mentalist approach to semantics that investigates conceptual structures in the mind/brain and their interfaces with other structures, including specifically linguistic structures responsible for syntactic and phonological competence. He contrasts this approach with one that seeks to characterize the intentional relations between expressions and objects in the world. The latter, he argues, cannot be reconciled with mentalism. He objects in particular that intentionality cannot be naturalized and that the relevant notion of object is suspect. I critically discuss these objections, arguing in part that Jackendoff’s position rests on questionable philosophical assumptions.

Anatomy Matters considers the shared concerns of cognitive science and linguistics, especially with respect to notions of modularity. In order to encourage interdisciplinary exploration of language phenomena, and a concomitant notion of “degrees of modularity” in the Jackendoff sense, the neurobiological basis of language and the emergence of language ability in the species is discussed. In humans (but not in other primates) the parietal-occipital-temporal junction with its connection to Broca’s area yields a plausible biological basis for Conceptual Structure, understood to be composed of hierarchically arranged, abstract meaning primitives derived from sensory perception. Consideration of the neuroanatomy, especially comparative primate neuroanatomy, leads to the expectation that evolutionary genetics must explain how the brain takes the necessary anatomical structure. The centrality of Conceptual Structure to these various concerns then connects to the question of whether linguists’ notions of modularity entail a realistic theory of mind.

The major “contribution” of generative grammar to cognitive science is negative. The hermetic disjuncture of linguistic research from biological principles and facts has influenced cognitive science. Linguists have followed the pied piper taking a different path from that pointed out by Charles Darwin. As Dobzhansky (1973) noted, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” The hermetic nature of much linguistic research is apparent even in phonology which must reflect biological facts concerning speech production. For example, studies dating back to 1928 show that tongue “features” do not specify vowel distinctions. However, the irrefutable findings of these cineradiographic and MRI studies are generally ignored by linguists. Chomsky’s central premise, that syntactic ability derives from an innate “Universal Grammar” common to all human beings constitutes a strong biological claim. But if a UG genetically similar for all “normal” individuals existed, one of the central premises of Darwinian evolutionary biology, genetic variation would be false. Concepts and processes borrowed from linguistics such as “modularity” have impeded our understanding of brain-behavior relations. Some aspects of behavior are regulated in specific localized “modules” in the brain, but current research demonstrates that the neural architecture regulating human language is also implicated in motor control, cognition, and other aspects of behavior. The neural bases of enhanced human language are not separable from cognition and motor ability. The supposed unique aspect of syntax, its “reiterative” productivity, appears to derive from subcortical structures that play a part in neural circuits regulating motor control. Natural selection aimed at enhancing adaptive motor control ultimately yielded a basal ganglia “sequencing engine” that can produce a potentially infinite number of novel actions, thoughts , or “sentences” from a finite number of basic elements. Recent studies suggest that the human FOXP2 gene, which differs from similar regulatory genes in chimpanzees and other mammals, acts on the basal ganglia and other subcortical structures to confer enhanced human reiterative ability in domains as different as syntax and dancing. The probable date of the critical mutations on FOXP2 is coincident with the appearance of anatomically modern human beings about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Humans thus can create more complex sentences than chimpanzees, but has anyone ever seen an ape dancing?

If the biological basis of language is to provide insight for linguistic theory, description of the aspects of language that play a role in the determination of language lateralization is essential. This article will summarize what is known about the distribution of language across the hemispheres using information from the Wada procedure and comparing those results with those from investigations using newer less invasive methods like fMRI. This article will also describe what is known about the limits of language in the isolated right hemisphere when acquired during normal language development. The profile of language in the isolated right hemisphere may qualify as one model of an evolutionarily older “protolanguage.” Questions posed in both of these areas provide a rich opportunity for interaction between linguists, psycholinguists, and neuropsychologists.

The study of language is currently fractionated. Theoretical linguistics has largely ignored advances in psycholinguistics, which in turn remains largely unconstrained by advances in neurolinguistics. Moreover, all of these fields generally work in isolation from the study of other cognitive functions. This fractionation has resulted in an enormous loss of useful information, seriously impeding progress in the study of language. To achieve a fully coherent explanation of the representational, processing and biological bases of language, a true science of language will consider and integrate theories and methods from all disciplines of the mind and brain. Here we explore in some detail the utility of this approach in the study of the linguistic distinction between storage and computation, and demonstrate its effectiveness not only in elucidating previously unresolved problems, but also in generating new approaches and insights in the study of language.

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.

In the 1980s, Charles Clifton referred to a “psycholinguistic renaissance” in cognitive science. During that time, there was almost unanimous agreement that any self-respecting psycholinguist would make sure to keep abreast of major developments in generative grammar, because a competence model was essential, and the linguistic theory was the proper description of that competence. But today, many psycholinguists are disenchanted with generative grammar. One reason is that the Minimalist Program is difficult to adapt to processing models. Another is that generative theories appear to rest on a weak empirical foundation, due to the reliance on informally gathered grammaticality judgments. What can be done to remedy the situation? First, formal linguists might follow Ray Jackendoff’s recent suggestion that they connect their work more closely to research in the rest of cognitive science. Second, syntactic theory should develop a better methodology for collecting data about whether a sentence is good or bad. A set of standards for creating examples, testing them on individuals, analyzing the results, and reporting findings in published work should be established. If these two ideas were considered, linguistic developments might once again be relevant to the psycholinguistic enterprise.

It is argued that the principles needed to explain linguistic behavior are domain-general and based on the impact that specific experiences have on the mental organization and representation of language. This organization must be sensitive to both specific information and generalized patterns. In addition, knowledge of language is highly sensitive to frequency of use: frequently-used linguistic sequences become more frequent, more accessible and better integrated. The evidence adduced is mainly from phonology and morphology and addresses the issue of gradience and specificity found in postulated units, categories, and dichotomies such as regular and irregular, but the points apply to all levels of linguistic analysis including the syntactic, semantic, and discourse levels. Appropriate models for representing such phenomena are considered, including exemplar models and connectionist models, which are evolving to achieve a better fit with linguistic data. The major criticism of connectionist models often raised from within the combinatorial paradigm of much existing linguistic theory – that they do not capture ‘free combination’ to the extent that rule-based systems do, is regarded as a strength rather than a weakness. Recent connectionist models exhibit greater productivity and systematicity than earlier variants, but still show less uniformity of generalization than combinatorial models do. The remaining non-uniformity that the connectionist models show is appropriate, given that such non-uniformity is the rule in language structure and language behavior.

This article argues that subject auxiliary inversion in English (SAI) provides an example of a syntactic generalization that is strongly motivated by a family of closely related functions. Recognition of the functional properties of each subconstruction associated with SAI allows us to predict many seemingly arbitrary properties of SAI: e.g., its (partial) restriction to appear in main clauses, the fact that the inversion only involves the first auxiliary, and the fact that its use in comparatives is more limited. The dominant feature of SAI, being nonpositive, is also argued to motivate the syntactic form of SAI. It is suggested that attention to the rich data inherent in language and to findings in categorization research simultaneously serves to reinforce and benefit our understanding of both language and categorization more generally.

Standard practice in linguistics often obscures the connection between theory and data, leading some to the conclusion that generative linguistics could not serve as the basis for a cognitive neuroscience of language. Here the foundations and methodology of generative grammar are clarified with the goal of explaining how generative theory already functions as a reasonable source of hypotheses about the representation and computation of language in the mind and brain. The claims of generative theory, as exemplified, e.g., within Chomsky’s (2000) Minimalist Program, are contrasted with those of theories endorsing parallel architectures with independent systems of generative phonology, syntax and semantics. The single generative engine within Minimalist approaches rejects dual routes to linguistic representations, including possible extra-syntactic strategies for semantic structure-building. Clarification of the implications of this property of generative theory undermines the foundations of an autonomous psycholinguistics, as established in the 1970’s, and brings linguistic theory back to the center of a unified cognitive neuroscience of language.

The Chomskyan revolution in linguistics in the 1950s in essence turned linguistics into a branch of cognitive science (and ultimately biology) by both changing the linguistic landscape and forcing a radical change in cognitive science to accommodate linguistics as many of us conceive of it today. More recently Chomsky has advanced the boldest version of his naturalistic approach to language by proposing a Minimalist Program for linguistic theory. In this article, we wish to examine the foundations of the Minimalist Program and its antecedents and draw parallelisms with (meta-)methodological foundations in better-developed sciences such as physics. Once established, such parallelisms, we argue, help direct inquiry in linguistics and cognitive science/biology and unify both disciplines.

no abstract available