Foundations of Language: A Biological Paradigm
Author: Ashraf Bhat
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Published: 2011
Total Pages: 37
ISBN-13: 3656026688
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Ashraf Bhat
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Published: 2011
Total Pages: 37
ISBN-13: 3656026688
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Angela D. Friederici
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 327
ISBN-13: 3642599672
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The second edition of the book on language comprehension in honor of Pim Levelt's sixtieth birthday has been released before he turns sixty-one. Some things move faster than the years of age. This seems to be especially true for advances in science. Therefore, the present edition entails changes in some of the chapters and incorporates an update of the current literature. I would like to thank all contributors for their cooperation in making a second edition possible such a short time after the completion of the first one. Angela D. Friederici Leipzig, November 23, 1998. Preface to the first edition Language comprehension and production is a uniquely human capability. We know little about the evolution of language as a human trait, possibly because our direct ancestors lived several million years ago. This fact certainly impedes the desirable advances in the biological basis of any theory of language evolution. Our knowledge about language as an existing species-specific biological sys tem, however, has advanced dramatically over the last two decades. New experi mental techniques have allowed the investigation of language and language use within the methodological framework of the natural sciences. The present book provides an overview of the experimental research in the area of language com prehension in particular.
Author: Eric H. Lenneberg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 1967-01-15
Total Pages: 518
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"The study of language is pertinent to many fields of inquiry. It is relevant to psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and medicine. It encroaches upon the humanities, as well as upon the social and natural sciences. We may pursue investigations that concentrate on what man has done with or to specific languages; or we may regard language as a natural phenomenon- an aspect of his biological nature, to be studied in the same manner as, for instance, his anatomy. Which of these approaches is to be chosen is entirely a matter of personal curiosity. This book is concerned with the biological aspects of language." -- Preface
Author: Dieter Hillert
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2014-04-30
Total Pages: 205
ISBN-13: 1493906097
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Nature of Language addresses one of the most fundamental questions of mankind: how did language evolve, and what are the neurobiological and cognitive foundations of language processing? These questions are explored from different perspectives to discuss the building blocks of language evolution and how they developed in the way they can be found in modern humans. Primarily, neural mapping methods of cognition presented in this research provide extremely valuable data about the neural circuitries that are involved in language processing. Thus, the book explores and illustrates cortical mapping in typical language patterns, but also cortical mapping in atypical populations that fail to process particular language aspects. A neurobiological stance is used to inquire about how language abilities of our species evolved to communicate for the purposes of conveying information such as ideas, emotions, goals, and humor. The evolutionary language model presented builds on the cognitive abilities of our ancestors, and it allows readers to draw a variety of expansive conclusions from that, including the idea that human language as an interface system provides the basis for consciousness.
Author: Angela D. Friederici
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-12-06
Total Pages: 324
ISBN-13: 3642977340
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Language comprehension and production is a uniquely human capability. We know little about the evolution of language as a human trait, possibly because our direct ancestors lived several million years ago. This fact certainly impedes the desirable advances in the biological basis of any theory of language evolution. Our knowledge about language as an existing species-specific biological sys tem, however, has advanced dramatically over the last two decades. New experi mental techniques have allowed the investigation of language and language use within the methodological framework of the natural sciences. The present book provides an overview of the experimental research in the area of language com prehension in particular. A biological perspective on language appears to be the common ground for all the contributors. Their research view is based on the conviction that knowledge about the language system can be gained on the basis of empirical research guided by modifiable theories. Each of the contributors reports and discusses the relevant work in hers or his specific field of research. Each of the nine chapters in this book focuses on a different level or aspect of language comprehension thereby covering the level of input processes and word recognition, the level of sentence processing as well as the level of text processing. Aspects of structural representation, and access to this representation are also discussed. One chapter finally attempts to describe the neurobiological basis of the different aspects of the language compre hension process.
Author: Ruth Garrett Millikan
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Published: 2005-08-18
Total Pages: 239
ISBN-13: 0191536431
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Guiding the work of most linguists and philosophers of language today is the assumption that language is governed by prescriptive normative rules. Many believe that it is of the essence of thought itself to follow rules, rules of inference determining the intentional contents of our concepts, and that these rules originate as internalized rules of language. However, exactly what it is for there to be such things as normative rules of language remains distressingly unclear. From what source do these norms flow? What sanctions enforce them? What happens, exactly, if you don't follow the rules? How do children learn the rules? Ruth Millikan presents a radicallly different way of viewing the partial regularities that language displays, the norms and conventions of language. The central norms applying to language, like those norms of function and behavior that account for the survival and proliferation of biological traits, are non-evaluative norms. Specific linguistic forms survive and are reproduced together with co-operative hearer responses because, in a critical mass of cases, these patterns of production and response benefit both speakers and hearers. Conformity is needed only often enough to ensure that the co-operative use constituting the norm - the convention - continues to be copied and hence continues to characterize some interactions of some speaker-hearer pairs. What needs to be reproduced for discursive language forms to survive, it turns out, is not specific conceptual roles but only satisfaction conditions coupled to essential elements of hearer responses. An uncompromising rejection of conceptual analysis as a tool in philosophy results. At the same time the distinction between the propositional content and the force of a linguistic utterance comes into very sharp focus, force emerging as essential to the creation of content rather than as something added to content. The distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary force, the distinction between linguistic meaning and speaker meaning, and the semantics/pragmatics distinction are each illuminated in new and crisper ways. On the model proposed, neither the intentionality of thought nor the intentionality of language is derived from the other. Processes involved in understanding language are not Gricean but more like direct perception of the world as mediated, for example, through the natural signs contained in the structured light that allows vision. There are also startling implications for pragmatics, and for how children learn language.
Author: Derek Bickerton
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2023-09-19
Total Pages: 491
ISBN-13: 0262549123
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Interdisciplinary perspectives on the evolutionary and biological roots of syntax, describing current research on syntax in fields ranging from linguistics to neurology. Syntax is arguably the most human-specific aspect of language. Despite the proto-linguistic capacities of some animals, syntax appears to be the last major evolutionary transition in humans that has some genetic basis. Yet what are the elements to a scenario that can explain such a transition? In this book, experts from linguistics, neurology and neurobiology, cognitive psychology, ecology and evolutionary biology, and computer modeling address this question. Unlike most previous work on the evolution of language, Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax follows through on a growing consensus among researchers that language can be profitably separated into a number of related and interacting but largely autonomous functions, each of which may have a distinguishable evolutionary history and neurological base. The contributors argue that syntax is such a function.The book describes the current state of research on syntax in different fields, with special emphasis on areas in which the findings of particular disciplines might shed light on problems faced by other disciplines. It defines areas where consensus has been established with regard to the nature, infrastructure, and evolution of the syntax of natural languages; summarizes and evaluates contrasting approaches in areas that remain controversial; and suggests lines for future research to resolve at least some of these disputed issues. Contributors Andrea Baronchelli, Derek Bickerton, Dorothy V. M. Bishop, Denis Bouchard, Robert Boyd, Jens Brauer, Ted Briscoe, David Caplan, Nick Chater, Morten H. Christiansen, Terrence W.Deacon, Francesco d'Errico, Anna Fedor, Julia Fischer, Angela D. Friederici, Tom Givón, Thomas Griffiths, Balázs Gulyás, Peter Hagoort, Austin Hilliard, James R. Hurford, Péter Ittzés, Gerhard Jäger, Herbert Jäger, Edith Kaan, Simon Kirby, Natalia L. Komarova, Tatjana Nazir, Frederick Newmeyer, Kazuo Okanoya, Csaba Plèh, Peter J. Richerson, Luigi Rizzi, Wolf Singer, Mark Steedman, Luc Steels, Szabolcs Számadó, Eörs Szathmáry, Maggie Tallerman, Jochen Triesch, Stephanie Ann White
Author: Thomas T. Ballmer
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Published: 1982-01-01
Total Pages: 172
ISBN-13: 9027225206
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This is the second of two volumes the first volume being Waltraud Brennenstuhl's Control and Ability (P&B III:4) treating biocybernetical questions of language. This book starts out from an investigation of the (neuro-)biological relevancy of natural language from the point of view of grammar and the lexicon. Furthermore, the basic mechanisms of the self-organization of organisms in their environments are discussed, in so far as they lead to linguistic control and abilities.
Author: Prakash Mondal
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2019-07-29
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9783030237141
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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: David Caplan
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1984
Total Pages: 436
ISBN-13: 9780262031011
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Profoundly influenced by the analyses, of contemporary linguistics, these original contributions bring a number of different views to bear on important issues in a controversial area of study. The linguistic structures and language-related processes the book deals with are for the most part central (syntactic structures, phonological representations, semantic readings) rather than peripheral (acousticphonetic structures and the perception and production of these structures) aspects of language. Each section contains a summarizing introduction. Section I takes up issues at the interface of linguistics and neurology: The Concept of a Mental Organ for Language; Neural Mechanisms, Aphasia, and Theories of Language; Brain-based and Non-brain-based Models of Language; Vocal Learning and Its Relation to Replaceable Synapses and Neurons. Section II presents linguistic and psycholinguistic issues: Aspects of Infant Competence and the Acquisition of Language; the Linguistic Analysis of Aphasic Syndromes; the Clinical Description of Aphasia (Linguistic Aspects); The Psycholinguistic Interpretation of Aphasias; The Organization of Processing Structure for Language Production; and The Neuropsychology of Bilingualism. Section III deals with neural issues: Where is the Speech Area and Who has Seen It? Determinants of Recovery from Aphasia; Anatomy of Language; Lessons from Comparative Anatomy; Event Related Potentials and Language; Neural Models and Very Little About Language. David Caplan, M.D. edited Biological Studies of Mental Processes(MIT Press 1980), and is a member of the editorial staff of two prestigious journals, Cognition and Brain & Behavorial Sciences, He works at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Andreacute; Roch Lecours is Professor of Neurology and Allan Smith Professor of Physiology, both at the University of Montreal. The book is in the series, Studies in Neuropsychology and Neurolinguistics.