The language capacity: architecture and evolution

There is substantial evidence that the human language capacity (LC) is a species-specific biological property, essentially unique to humans, invariant among human groups, and dissociated from other cognitive systems. Each language, an instantiation of LC, consists of a generative procedure that yields a discrete infinity of hierarchically structured expressions with semantic interpretations, hence a kind of “language of thought” (LOT), along with an operation of externalization (EXT) to some sensory-motor system, typically sound. There is mounting evidence that generation of LOT observes language-independent principles of computational efficiency and is based on the simplest computational operations, and that EXT is an ancillary process not entering into the core semantic properties of LOT and is the primary locus of the apparent complexity, diversity, and mutability of language. These conclusions are not surprising, since the internal system is acquired virtually without evidence in fundamental respects, and EXT relates it to sensory-motor systems that are unrelated to it. Even such properties as the linear order of words appear to be reflexes of the sensory motor system, not available to generation of LOT. The limited evidence from the evolutionary record lends support to these conclusions, suggesting that LC emerged with Homo sapiens or not long after, and has not evolved since human groups dispersed

How Could Language Have Evolved?

The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language “phenotype.” According to the “Strong Minimalist Thesis,” the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain) is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000–100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}

Language: UG or Not to Be, That Is the Question

Lieberman’s commentary [1] nicely illustrates our original argument [2] that analysis of language evolution is complicated by a lack of agreement about the concepts of both “language” and “evolution.” Here we address each in turn. First, Lieberman argues against the existence of a language faculty in the sense in which we defined it: a domain- and species-specific computational cognitive system that can generate arbitrarily complex hierarchical syntactic structure. In contrast, Lieberman defines language functionally, as a means of “communication,” with human speech as a “key attribute.” However, as we originally argued [2], while externalized language may be used for communication, the two cannot be equated. Language is a computational operation occurring in the mind of an individual, independent of its possible communicative use, while speech is one possible externalization of language (among others such as sign) and is not an essential aspect of it. Lieberman’s arguments are a prime example of fallaciously confounding the function(s) of a trait with its mechanism [3,4]

TRANSFORMATIONAL ANALYSIS

Abstract not availabl

Erratum to: The Responsibilities of Privilege: an Interview with Noam Chomsky on the Role of the Public Intellectual

In the original publication, the author Noam Chomsky was missing. The complete list of authors is given above. The original version was corrected

Transformational Analysis

Abstract not availabl

Some Core Contested Concepts

Core concepts of language are highly contested. In some cases this is legitimate: real empirical and conceptual issues arise. In other cases, it seems that controversies are based on misunderstanding. A number of crucial cases are reviewed, and an approach to language is outlined that appears to have strong conceptual and empirical motivation, and to lead to conclusions about a number of significant issues that differ from some conventional beliefs

The Responsibilities of Privilege: an Interview with Noam Chomsky on the Role of the Public Intellectual

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10767-016-9218-6.The interview below was conducted on January 16th 2015. The purpose of this research is to understand how Professor Noam Chomsky became a prominent public intel-lectual. In particular, it explores his early political interventions, and his own reflections on his role within the anti-Vietnam War movement. Furthermore, it explores Chomsky’s insights into the responsibilities and privileges that intellectuals are afforded within socie-ty. In this respect, the interview contributes to the sociological literature aimed at under-standing the role that academics can play outside of the ivory tower