Advances In Biolinguistics

Author : Koji Fujita,Cedric A. Boeckx
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2016-02-12
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781317486190

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Advances in Biolinguistics by Koji Fujita,Cedric A. Boeckx Pdf

Biolinguistics is a highly interdisciplinary field that seeks the rapprochement between linguistics and biology. Linking theoretical linguistics, theoretical biology, genetics, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, this book offers a collection of chapters situating the enterprise conceptually, highlighting both the promises and challenges of the field, and chapters focusing on the challenges and prospects of taking interdisciplinarity seriously. It provides concrete illustrations of some of the cutting-edge research in biolinguistics and piques the interest of undergraduate students looking for a field to major in and inspires graduate students on possible research directions. It is also meant to show to specialists in adjacent fields how a particular strand of theoretical linguistics relates to their concerns, and in so doing, the book intends to foster collaboration across disciplines. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Author : Anna Maria Di Sciullo,Cedric Boeckx
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 576 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2011-03-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780199553273

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The Biolinguistic Enterprise by Anna Maria Di Sciullo,Cedric Boeckx Pdf

This book, by leading scholars, represents some of the main work in progress in biolinguistics. It offers fresh perspectives on language evolution and variation, new developments in theoretical linguistics, and insights on the relations between variation in language and variation in biology. The authors address the Darwinian questions on the origin and evolution of language from a minimalist perspective, and provide elegant solutions to the evolutionary gap between human language and communication in all other organisms. They consider language variation in the context of current biological approaches to species diversity - the 'evo-devo revolution' - which bring to light deep homologies between organisms. In dispensing with the classical notion of syntactic parameters, the authors argue that language variation, like biodiversity, is the result of experience and thus not a part of the language faculty in the narrow sense. They also examine the nature of this core language faculty, the primary categories with which it is concerned, the operations it performs, the syntactic constraints it poses on semantic interpretation and the role of phases in bridging the gap between brain and syntax. Written in language accessible to a wide audience, The Biolinguistic Enterprise will appeal to scholars and students of linguistics, cognitive science, biology, and natural language processing.

Author : Lyle Jenkins
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0521003911

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Biolinguistics by Lyle Jenkins Pdf

Argues that biology plays a more central role in language acquisition than teaching or learning.

Author : Anna Maria Di Sciullo
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2016-11-24
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9789027266309

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Biolinguistic Investigations on the Language Faculty by Anna Maria Di Sciullo Pdf

The papers assembled in this volume aim to contribute to our understanding of the human capacity for language: the generative procedure that relates sounds and meanings via syntax. Different hypotheses about the properties of this generative procedure are under discussion, and their connection with biology is open to important cross-disciplinary work. Advances have been made in human-animal studies to differentiate human language from animal communication. Contributions from neurosciences point to the exclusive properties of the human brain for language. Studies in genetically based language impairments also contribute to the understanding of the properties of the language organ. This volume brings together contributions on theoretical and experimental investigations on the Language Faculty. It will be of interest to scholars and students investigating the properties of the biological basis of language, in terms the modeling of the language faculty, as well as the properties of language variation, language acquisition and language impairments.

Author : Cedric Boeckx,Kleanthes K. Grohmann
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 692 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2018-03-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1108454100

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The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics by Cedric Boeckx,Kleanthes K. Grohmann Pdf

Biolinguistics involves the study of language from a broad perspective that embraces natural sciences, helping us better to understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive state-of-the-field survey of the subject available. A team of prominent scholars working in a variety of disciplines is brought together to examine language development, language evolution and neuroscience, as well as providing overviews of the conceptual landscape of the field. The Handbook includes work at the forefront of contemporary research devoted to the evidence for a language instinct, the critical period hypothesis, grammatical maturation, bilingualism, the relation between mind and brain and the role of natural selection in language evolution. It will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

Author : Cedric Boeckx,María del Carmen Horno-Chéliz
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2012-03-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781443838429

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Language, from a Biological Point of View by Cedric Boeckx,María del Carmen Horno-Chéliz Pdf

The present volume offers a collection of essays covering a broad range of areas where currently a rapprochement between linguistics and biology is actively being sought. Following a certain tradition, we call this attempt at a synthesis “biolinguistics.” The nine chapters (grouped into three parts: Language and Cognition, Language and the Brain, and Language and the Species) offer a comprehensive overview of issues at the forefront of biolinguistic research, such as language structure; language development; linguistic change and variation; language disorders and language processing; the cognitive, neural and genetic basis of linguistic knowledge; or the evolution of the Faculty of Language. Each contribution highlights exciting prospects for the field, but they also point to significant obstacles along the way. The main conclusion is that the age of theoretical exclusivity in Linguistics, much like the age of theoretical specificity, will have to end if interdisciplinarity is to reign and if biolinguistics is to flourish.

Author : Cedric Boeckx
Publisher : Language Science Press
Page : 76 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2024-06-11
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783961103287

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Reflections on language evolution by Cedric Boeckx Pdf

This essay reflects on the fact that as we learn more about the biological underpinnings of our language faculty, the dominant evolutionary narrative coming out of the linguistic tradition most explicitly oriented towards biology ("biolinguistics") appears increasingly implausible. This text offers ways of opening up linguistic inquiry and fostering interdisciplinarity, taking advantage of new opportunities to provide quantitative, testable hypotheses concerning the complex evolutionary path that led to the modern human language faculty. The essay is structured around three main themes: (i) renewed appreciation for the comparative method applied to cognitive questions, leading to the identification of elementary but fundamental abstractions in non-linguistic species relevant to language; (ii) awareness of the conceptual gaps between disciplines, and the need to carefully link genotype and phenotype without bypassing any "intermediate" levels of description (certainly not the brain); and (iii) adoption of a "philosophical" outlook that puts the complexity of biological entities front and center.

Author : Juan Uriagereka
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2018-06-14
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781351622264

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Biolinguistic Investigations and the Formal Language Hierarchy by Juan Uriagereka Pdf

This volume collects some of Juan Uriagereka’s previously published pieces and presentations on biolinguistics in recent years in one comprehensive volume. The book’s introduction lays the foundation for the field of biolinguistics, which looks to integrate concepts from the natural sciences in the analysis of natural language, situating the discussion within the minimalist framework. The volume then highlights eight of the author’s key papers from the literature, some co-authored, representative of both the architectural and evolutionary considerations to be taken into account within biolinguistic research. The book culminates in a final chapter showcasing the body of work being done on biolinguistics within the research program at the University of Maryland and their implications for interdisciplinary research and future directions for the field. This volume is essential reading for students and scholars interested in the interface between language and the natural sciences, including linguistics, syntax, biology, archaeology, and anthropology.

Author : Anne-Marie Di Sciullo
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Biolinguistics
ISBN : 1138859184

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Biolinguistics by Anne-Marie Di Sciullo Pdf

Author : Prakash Mondal
Publisher : Springer
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2019-07-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783030237158

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Language, Biology and Cognition by Prakash Mondal Pdf

This book examines the relationship between human language and biology in order to determine whether the biological foundations of language can offer deep insights into the nature and form of language and linguistic cognition. Challenging the assumption in biolinguistics and neurolinguistics that natural language and linguistic cognition can be reconciled with neurobiology, the author argues that reducing representation to cognitive systems and cognitive systems to neural populations is reductive, leading to inferences about the cognitive basis of linguistic performance based on assuming (false) dependencies. Instead, he finds that biological implementations of cognitive rather than the biological structures themselves, are the driver behind linguistic structures. In particular, this book argues that the biological roots of language are useful only for an understanding of the emergence of linguistic capacity as a whole, but ultimately irrelevant to understanding the character of language. Offering an antidote to the current thinking embracing ‘biologism’ in linguistic sciences, it will be of interest to readers in linguistics, the cognitive and brain sciences, and the points at which these disciplines converge with the computer sciences.

Author : Robert C. Berwick,Noam Chomsky
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2017-05-12
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780262533492

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Why Only Us by Robert C. Berwick,Noam Chomsky Pdf

Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

Author : Cedric Boeckx,Kleanthes K. Grohmann
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2013-02-14
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781107354531

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The Cambridge Handbook of Biolinguistics by Cedric Boeckx,Kleanthes K. Grohmann Pdf

Biolinguistics involves the study of language from a broad perspective that embraces natural sciences, helping us better to understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive state-of-the-field survey of the subject available. A team of prominent scholars working in a variety of disciplines is brought together to examine language development, language evolution and neuroscience, as well as providing overviews of the conceptual landscape of the field. The Handbook includes work at the forefront of contemporary research devoted to the evidence for a language instinct, the critical period hypothesis, grammatical maturation, bilingualism, the relation between mind and brain and the role of natural selection in language evolution. It will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

Author : Antonino Pennisi,Alessandra Falzone
Publisher : Springer
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2016-12-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783319476889

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Darwinian Biolinguistics by Antonino Pennisi,Alessandra Falzone Pdf

This book proposes a radically evolutionary approach to biolinguistics that consists in considering human language as a form of species-specific intelligence entirely embodied in the corporeal structures of Homo sapiens. The book starts with a historical reconstruction of two opposing biolinguistic models: the Chomskian Biolinguistic Model (CBM) and the Darwinian Biolinguistic Model (DBM). The second part compares the two models and develops into a complete reconsideration of the traditional biolinguistic issues in an evolutionary perspective, highlighting their potential influence on the paradigm of biologically oriented cognitive science. The third part formulates the philosophical, evolutionary and experimental basis of an extended theory of linguistic performativity within a naturalistic perspective of pragmatics of verbal language. The book proposes a model in which the continuity between human and non-human primates is linked to the gradual development of the articulatory and neurocerebral structures, and to a kind of prelinguistic pragmatics which characterizes the common nature of social learning. In contrast, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic skills that mark the learning of historical-natural languages are seen as a rapid acceleration of cultural evolution. The book makes clear that this acceleration will not necessarily favour the long-term adaptations for Homo sapiens.

Author : Montserrat Sanz,Itziar Laka,Michael K. Tanenhaus
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 518 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2013-08-30
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780191664823

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Language Down the Garden Path by Montserrat Sanz,Itziar Laka,Michael K. Tanenhaus Pdf

Thomas G. Bever's now iconic sentence, The horse raced past the barn fell, first appeared in his 1970 paper "The Cognitive Basis of Linguistic Structures". This 'garden path sentence', so-called because of the way it leads the reader or listener down the wrong parsing path, helped spawn the entire subfield of sentence processing. It has become the most often quoted element of a paper which spanned a wealth of research into the relationship between the grammatical system and language processing. Language Down the garden Path traces the lines of research that grew out of Bever's classic paper. Leading scientists review over 40 years of debates on the factors at play in language comprehension, production, and acquisition (the role of prediction, grammar, working memory, prosody, abstractness, syntax, and semantics mapping); the current status of universals and narrow syntax; and virtually every topic relevant in psycholinguistics since 1970. Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book will appeal to all those interested in understanding the questions that shaped, and are still shaping, this field and the ways in which linguists, cognitive scientists, psychologists, and neuroscientists are seeking to answer them.

Author : Talmy Givón
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1588112268

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Bio-linguistics by Talmy Givón Pdf

This book examines the parallels between language evolution and language diachrony. Sociality, co-operation and communication are shown to be rooted in a common evolutionary source, the kin-based hunting and gathering society of intimates.