Biolinguistics 136 Architecture of Human Language from the (original) (raw)
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The Human Oscillome and Its Explanatory Potential
My intention in this piece is to briefly outline a novel hypothesis regarding the neurobiological implementation of feature-set binding, the labeling of feature-sets, and the resolution of linguistic dependencies arising from the cyclic combination of these labeled objects. One of the numerous motivations for this was reading Robert C. Berwick & Noam Chomsky's (B&C) recent book Why Only Us: Language and Evolution (Berwick & Chomsky 2016; henceforth WOU), which struck me as moderately comprehensive in its interdisciplinary scope (including good critical commentary on recent work in comparative neuroprimatology and theoretical biology) but severely impoverished in its range of linking hypotheses between these disciplines.
More on the Relations among Categorization, Merge and Labeling, and Their Nature
Biolinguistics, 2019
Concerning (i), I will claim that the two apparently distinct modes of operation of categorization stem from differences of ‘extraction patterns’ and thus as a precursor of Merge the particular mode of categorization such as IntCat should not be stipulated. As for (ii), I will make clear the relation between the low-order categorization involving a series of entities and the higher-order categorization involving a series of category sets in humans and non-human animals, in connection with the qualitative difference of the two types of categorization between them in the context of the evolution of human language.
An oscillomic approach to the human cognitive phenotype
York Papers in Linguistics, 2016
Exploring recent work in systems neuroscience and comparative biolinguistics, it is argued that only by decomposing the computational operations of language into their generic sub-operations will an explanatory neurolinguistics emerge. Methods of investigating the brain mechanisms of language comprehension are discussed, and the prospects for Dynamic Cognomics are explored alongside more fundamental considerations of top-down versus bottom-up studies of cognitive phylogenies. It is shown that the translational approach advocated by Dynamic Cognomics, promoting computational-oscillatory cross-talk, can establish a degree of alignment between core computational properties of the human cognitive phenotype (including the establishment of featural covariance) and a set of generic, domain-general neuronal mechanisms (including phase-amplitude coupling).
A pragmatic oscillome: Aligning visual attentional mechanisms with language comprehension
A growing body of work over the last decade has investigated the potential functional role of neural oscillations in language comprehension . I will explore how a number of recent developments in the field, and related domains of systems neuroscience, can generate much-needed linking hypotheses between the language sciences and neuroscience. To this end, I will focus on an area of linguistics whose existence has barely been acknowledged by the oscillation literature-pragmatics-and argue that elementary principles of discourse interpretation (though not more complex, peripheral aspects of pragmatic knowledge) can be implemented via generic, domain-general mechanisms elsewhere argued to be responsible for particular aspects of visual cognition. It will be suggested that these two systems share a number of striking computational/representational properties, and hence may share homologous dynamic and connectomic substrates.
Neural substrates of copredication: When an unstoppable scan meets an impossible object
This paper reviews a number of studies mapping the neural substrates of abstract and concrete word processing, using them as a guide in proposing a project to map the brain regions implicated in copredication. This is the phenomenon of two apparently incompatible properties being attributed to a single object, creating an “impossible” entity. Licencing conditions on copredication are discussed, and the paper concludes by suggesting some new directions for exploring the brain areas implicated in conceptual representations.
Phasal Eliminativism, Anti-Lexicalism, and the Status of the Unarticulated
This paper explores the prospect that grammatical expressions are propo-sitionally whole and psychologically plausible, leading to the explanatory burden being placed on syntax rather than pragmatic processes, with the latter crucially bearing the feature of optionality. When supposedly unarti-culated constituents are added, expressions which are propositionally distinct , and not simply more specific, arise. The ad hoc nature of a number of pragmatic processes carry with them the additional problem of effectively acting as barriers to implementing language in the brain. The advantages of an anti-lexicalist biolinguistic methodology are discussed, and a bi-phasal model of linguistic interpretation is proposed, Phasal Eliminativism, carved by syntactic phases and (optionally) enriched by a restricted number of pragmatic processes. In addition, it is shown that the syntactic operation of labeling (departing from standard Merge-centric evolutionary hypotheses) is responsible for a range of semantic and pragmatic phenomena, rendering core aspects of syntax and lexical pragmatics commensurable.
2017
This paper aims to re-evaluate the legacy of Eric Lenneberg’s monumental Biological Foundations of Language, with special reference to his biolinguistic framework and view on (child) aphasiology. The argument draws from the following concepts from Lenneberg’s work: (i) language (latent struc- ture vs. realized structure) as independent of externalization; (ii) resonance theory; (iii) brain rhythmicity; and (iv) aphasia as temporal dysfunction. Specifically, it will be demonstrated that Lenneberg’s original version of the critical period hypothesis and his child aphasiology lend themselves to elucidating a child aphasia of epileptic origin called Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS), thereby opening a possible hope for recovery from the disease. Moreover, it will be claimed that, to the extent that the language disorder in LKS can be couched in these terms, it can serve as strong “liv- ing” evidence in support of Lenneberg’s critical period hypothesis and his view on child aphasiology.