Variation and universals in biolinguistics /

Cover 1
Related Elsevier Books 2
Related Elsevier Journals 2
Contributors 7
Contents 9
Introduction 17
References 23
Acknowledgements 25
Variation in Typology, Acquisition and Change 27
Antisymmetry and Japanese* 29
Introduction 29
Japanese 31
The Position of Objects 31
Relative Pronouns 32
Head-Finality 33
Additional Cross-Linguistic 'Gaps' 35
Serial Verbs 35
Aux V vs. V Aux 35
Adverbs and ('Heavy') Objects 36
OVX Languages 38
Subordinating Conjunctions 39
Negation and Auxiliaries 40
DP 40
Some Modifications 40
Word Order in Adjuncts vs. in Complements 40
Adpositions and Complementizers 41
(Remnant) VP-Movement 43
Postpositions 45
Prepositional Complementizers 47
Non-Prepositional Complementizers 49
Final Complementizers 54
Conclusion 55
References 56
Toward a Theory of Language Growth 63
Endowment and Experience 63
The Variational Model of Language Acquisition 65
Triggering and Typological Thinking 65
A Variational Interpretation of Child Language 66
Variations in Child Grammar 68
Subject Drop as Topic Drop 68
Optionality in Wh-questions 71
From Data to Grammar 72
Not all Parameters are Set Early 73
Parameters and Frequencies 74
Toward Language Growth 76
Variation and Universal Grammar 76
Variation and Selectionist Growth 78
References 79
Phase Transitions in Language Evolution 83
Abstract 83
Introduction 83
The Conceptual Framework of Language Evolution 85
Example 1 87
An Example of Lexical Change 90
Example 2 92
Linguistic Background 92
Computational Analysis 93
The Grammatical Setting 93
Learning and Evolution 94
Bifurcations and Syntactic Change 95
Outlook 98
References 99
Variation in Genetics and Domain Specificity 101
Genetic Differences and Language Affinities 103
Human Evolution: The Results of Paleontology 103
Paleontology, Archaeology, Linguistics and Population Genetics: Different Dates, But One Human History 106
The Beginnings of Human Population Genetics 107
Genetic Relationships Between Living Primates 108
Origin of Modern Humans 109
The Peopling History of Europe 111
Correlation Between Linguistic and Genetic Diversity 112
Linguistic Boundaries and Genetic Barriers: Blood Group and Protein Data 113
Molecular Genetic Data and Linguistic Groups 115
A Different Time Scale for the Evolution of DNA Data and Languages 117
References 118
Beyond Narrow Syntax* 121
The Place of the C-I Interface 122
Some Theoretical Observations 123
Some Experimental Observations 124
The Model 125
Referentially Dependent Elements 127
Information Structure and the Distribution of Pronominals 130
Special Registers 133
Omissions in Child and Aphasic Speech 135
Open Questions 138
Summary and Conclusions 139
References 139
Evidence for and Implications of a Domain-Specific Grammatical Deficit 143
Relations between Genes, Cognitive Systems, Development and Grammatical Deficits 144
Grammatical-SLI 148
Non-Verbal Cognitive Abilities 148
Non-Grammatical Language Abilities 150
Grammatical Abilities 152
Morpho-Syntax 152
The Representational Deficit for Dependent Relations(RDDR) Account of G-SLI 154
Testing the Predictions of the RDDR Hypothesis 156
Predicted Deficits 156
Predictions for Wh-Questions 157
Predicting G-SLI Subjects' Strengths: Negation 158
Cross-Linguistic Evidence for the RDDR 158
Phonological Representations and G-SLI Children 160
Autonomy, Interaction or Cause: Evidence from Regular and Irregular Morphology 161
Conclusion 164
References 164
Neurological Variation and Language Emergence 171
The Representation of Grammatical Knowledge in the Brain 173
Introduction 173
Initial Observations 174
What Constitutes Evidence? 177
Studying Grammatical Categories 177
Grammatical-Category Specific Deficits 178
Modality-Specific Deficits 178
Modality-Specific Deficits: A Broader View 180
Nouns and Verbs: A Grammatical or Semantic Deficit? 184
Nouns and Verbs: Morphosyntax and Grammatical Categories 185
Neuroanatomicat Correlates of Noun and Verb Production 188
Evidence from Neuroimaging and TMS 189
Discussion 191
What is the Function of the Left Frontal Cortex? 191
Different Categories or Different Morphosyntactic Mechanisms? 192
Acknowledgments 193
References 193
Variation in Broca's Region: Preliminary Cross-Methodological Comparisons 197
Modularity in Anatomy and Linguistics 198
From Neurology to Neurolinguistics 199
A Typology of Neurolinguistic Arguments 200
Lesion/Aphasia Studies through the Measurement and Analysis of Error 200
Electrophysiological Correlates of Cognitive Activity through ERP and MEG 201
Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) Signal as Monitored in PET and fMRI 201
Damage to LIFG Results in a Receptive Deficit to XP-Movement 202
Trace-Deletion: The Basics 202
Chance Comprehension 203
Above-Chance Comprehension 203
Failed Determination of Grammatical Status 203
Successful Determination of Grammatical Status 203
Mapping Representations onto Performance 203
Cross Linguistic Variation 205
Individual Variation and Quantitative Syntax 207
Summary 210
Finely Tuned Receptive Syntactic Operations in the Healthy Brain: Role of LIFG in Movement 211
Anatomical Variation: A Caveat 211
Step I: Imaging \ 212
Step II: Movement Activates Broca's Region in fMRI 212
Step III: Double Objects 214
An Afterthought 215
Acknowledgements 215
References 215
Language Emergence in a Language-Ready Brain: Acquisition* 221
Introduction 221
First-Language Acquisition 221
Learning from Native Language User Models 222
Creolization 223
Re-Creolization 224
Language Emergence de Novo 225
The Focus of This Paper 226
Availability of the Data 226
Notation 227
The Lexical and Sublexical Structure of ASL Signs 227
MOV-LOC Notation 228
Language 229
American Sign Language (Sublexical Morphology in Frozen Signs) 230
Encourage 231
Meet 233
Summary 235
Nicaraguan Sign Language (Sublexical Morphology in Productive Signs) 235
Summary 240
Gesture 240
Distinguishing Gesture from Signing 241
Characteristics of Gestural Communication 242
Gestures Shared by a Cultural Group 242
The Cooccurrence of Gesture and Language 243
Gesturers Influenced by Exposure to a Signed Language After the Critical Period 243
Repitition 243
Lexicon 243
Grammar 244
Summary 244
Language-Relevant Non-Language Input 245
Gestural Precursors to Typological Choices 246
Null Subjects 246
Role Prominence 246
Causative Markers 246
Spatial Agreement 247
Auxiliaries 249
Serial Verbs 250
Reduplication for Aspect Marking on Verbs 251
Nonmanual Markers for Questions 251
Topic Marking 251
Summary 251
Emergent Language Characteristics Not Evident in the Input 252
Nonmanual Grammatical Facial Expressions Over Syntactic Domains 252
Multiple Arguments Associated with a Single Verb 252
Three Distinct Morphological Classes of Verbs 252
Object Classifiers 253
Recursion 253
Typological Characteristics Divergent from the Input 254
A Noun Classifier System 254
Lip-Pointing as a Means of Deixis 256
Summary 258
Conclusion 258
References 260
Variation in Developmental Genetics and Language Disorders 263
Lenneberg's Dream: Learning, Normal Language Development, and Specific Language Impairment 265
The Computational System of Language 265
Inflection and Tense 267
Optional Infinitives in Children 269
Very Early Parameter Setting, Learning, and Imitation 271
OIs in English 277
Subject Case 279
Variation Across Languages in the OI Stage: The NS/OI Correlation 284
Crosslinguistic Variation in Development 285
Is the OI Stage Due to Learning? 287
Problems for the Hypothesis that Learning is the Cause of the Fading Away of the OI Stage 288
Is it Genetically-Guided Maturation? 290
Further Evidence that the OI Stage Dies away under Maturational Guidance 291
Additional Empirical Arguments That the UCC Is Genetically (Maturationally, Developmentally) Guided 292
Variables that Affect Learning 292
Behavioral Genetics 295
Specific Language Impairment 297
Clinical Markers for SLI: Crosslinguistic Variation 302
Genetics and SLI 306
References 306
Exploring the Phenotype of Specific Language Impairment: A Look at Grammatical Variability 311
Introduction 311
The Central Role of Variability 313
Ruling Out Random Use 314
Ruling Out Memorization as the Principal Source of Variability 314
Implications 315
Variability and the Extended Optional Infinitive Account 316
Variability and Sentence Formulation Demands 317
Sentence Formulation and Argument Structure 317
Facilitation of Sentence Formulation Through Priming 318
When Linguistic Knowledge and Processing Accounts are Compatible 319
Summary 321
References 322
The Investigation of Genetic Dysphasia 325
Introduction 325
Dysphasia 326
Genetic Evidence 326
Neurology 327
Alternative Explanations 327
Linguistic Data 329
Psycholinguistics 331
Conclusion 331
References 332
Bibliography on Genetic Dysphasia and Related Language Specific Impairment 333
Unification of Linguistics into the Natural Sciences 341
Unification in Biolinguistics 343
Introduction 343
FOXP2 and the Language Gene Discussion 344
Emergentism 345
Rethinking the Nature-Nurture Debate 348
Lieberman's Critique of the Biolinguistic Approach 351
On Language 351
\ 355
On Development 356
On Evolution 358
Beyond Explanatory Adequacy 360
Symmetry Breaking as an Origin of Species 361
Language as a Complex System 362
Conclusion 363
References 364
The Immune Syntax: The Evolution of the Language Virus1 367
What is Language that it may have Evolved? 368
Constituent Structure 368
Discrete Infinity and Recursion 368
Displacement 369
Locality 369
Redundancy 370
Limited Linguistic Differences 370
Learnability 371
Autonomy of Syntax 371
Full Interpretation and Compositionality 372
Conservativity 372
What is Evalution, that it may Apply to Language? 373
A Tendency to Depart Indefinitely 373
Some Dynamic Considerations 374
The Long-Term Effects of \ 374
Structural Perfection in Language 376
Other Optimal Solutions in Biological Evolution 377
Near-Perfect Foraging Strategies 378
Why (Narrow) Syntax May be \ 378
A 'Tri-Partive' Evolutionary Story 379
PS 380
CS 380
PS Meets NS 381
NS Meets CS 382
A Conjecture on the Evolution of (Narrow) Syntax 383
The Virus Theory 383
Other Consequences of (Real) Viral Interactions 385
Towards a Model for the Evolution of FLN 387
From Sub-symbolic to Symbolic 391
A Suggestion for Going Beyond the Metaphor 392
A Language Gene 393
A Proto-Language? 394
Proto-Variation? 395
Morphology as Frozen Syntax 396
Children are to Blame 398
References 400
Language and Mind: Current Thoughts on Ancient Problems 405
(Part 1) 405
(Part 2) 418
Persons 433
Languages 439
Subjects 441