Two case studies in phonological universals: A view from artificial grammars (original) (raw)
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Phonology in Universal Grammar
The Oxford Handbooks of Universal Grammar, 2017
In order to investigate the phonological component of Universal Grammar (UG), we must first clarify what exactly the concept of UG involves. 1 The terms 'Universal Grammar' and 'Language Acquisition Device' (LAD) are often treated as synonymous, 2 but we believe that it is important to distinguish between the two. We take a grammar to be a computational system that transduces conceptual-intentional representations into linear (but multidimensional) strings of symbols to be interpreted by the various physical systems employed to externalize linguistic messages. It thus includes the traditional syntactic, morphological, and phonological components, but not phonetics, which converts the categorical symbols output by the grammar into gradient representations implementable by the body. Bearing the above definition of 'grammar' in mind, we take 'Universal Grammar' to refer specifically to the initial state of this computational system that all normal humans bring to the task of learning their first language (cf. Hale and Reiss 2008:2; and chapters 5, 10, and 12). The phonological component of this initial state may contain, inter alia, rules (the 'processes' of Natural Phonology Stampe 1979), violable constraints (as in Calabrese's 1988, 1995 marking statements or Optimality Theory (OT)'s markedness and
Cognition, universal grammar, and typological generalizations
Lingua, 2013
We consider here two potential arguments for Universal Grammar other than that based on poverty of the stimulus. One stems from the limited number of notions that are grammatically encoded in the languages of the world. The other rests on the fact that of all mathematically possible orders of constituents only a subset is actually attested. Neither limitation appears to follow naturally from cognitive, historical, cultural, processing, or other factors; which makes it plausible to think of them as forced upon us by Universal Grammar, perhaps as a consequence of how it crystallized at some distant point of the evolution of our species.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Everett (2016b) criticizes The Phonological Mind thesis (Berent, 2013a,b) on logical, methodological and empirical grounds. Most of Everett's concerns are directed toward the hypothesis that the phonological grammar is constrained by universal grammatical (UG) principles. Contrary to Everett's logical challenges, here I show that the UG hypothesis is readily falsifiable, that universality is not inconsistent with innateness (Everett's arguments to the contrary are rooted in a basic confusion of the UG phenotype and the genotype), and that its empirical evaluation does not require a full evolutionary account of language. A detailed analysis of one case study, the syllable hierarchy, presents a specific demonstration that people have knowledge of putatively universal principles that are unattested in their language and these principles are most likely linguistic in nature. Whether Universal Grammar exists remains unknown, but Everett's arguments hardly undermine the viability of this hypothesis.
Cognition, typological generalizations, and Universal Grammar 1
We consider here two potential arguments for Universal Grammar other than that based on poverty of the stimulus. One stems from the limited number of notions that are grammatically encoded in the languages of the world. The other rests on the fact that of all mathematically possible orders of constituents only a subset is actually attested. Neither limitation appears to follow naturally from cognitive, historical, cultural, processing, or other factors; which makes it plausible to think of them as forced upon us by Universal Grammar, perhaps as a consequence of how it crystallized at some distant point of the evolution of our species.