NDLI: The language faculty that wasn't: a usage-based account of natural language recursion

Content Provider	PubMed Central
Author	Christiansen, Morten H. Chater, Nick
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	In the generative tradition, the language faculty has been shrinking—perhaps to include only the mechanism of recursion. This paper argues that even this view of the language faculty is too expansive. We first argue that a language faculty is difficult to reconcile with evolutionary considerations. We then focus on recursion as a detailed case study, arguing that our ability to process recursive structure does not rely on recursion as a property of the grammar, but instead emerges gradually by piggybacking on domain-general sequence learning abilities. Evidence from genetics, comparative work on non-human primates, and cognitive neuroscience suggests that humans have evolved complex sequence learning skills, which were subsequently pressed into service to accommodate language. Constraints on sequence learning therefore have played an important role in shaping the cultural evolution of linguistic structure, including our limited abilities for processing recursive structure. Finally, we re-evaluate some of the key considerations that have often been taken to require the postulation of a language faculty.
Related Links	http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01182
Starting Page	1182
File Format	PDF
ISSN	16641078
e-ISSN	16641078
Journal	Frontiers in Psychology
Volume Number	6
Language	English
Publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
Publisher Date	2015-08-27
Access Restriction	Open
Rights Holder	Frontiers Media S.A.
Subject Keyword	Research in Higher Education
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Psychology

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

The language faculty that wasn't: a usage-based account of natural language recursion

Liaison acquisition, word segmentation and construction in French: A usage based account

Editorial: Is the Language Faculty Nonlinguistic?

On the Structure and Source of Individual Differences in Toddlers' Comprehension of Transitive Sentences

Immigrant speech, creoles, and the ‘basic variety’: a usage-based account of some traits in the Portuguese-based creoles

The Case of the Infection that Wasn't !

From “cracking the orthographic code” to “playing with language”: toward a usage-based foundation of the reading process

When hype meets science: the asthma breakthrough that wasn't.

What in the World Makes Recursion so Easy to Learn? A Statistical Account of the Staged Input Effect on Learning a Center-Embedded Structure in Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL)

The language faculty that wasn't: a usage-based account of natural language recursion

Similar Documents

The language faculty that wasn't: a usage-based account of natural language recursion

Liaison acquisition, word segmentation and construction in French: A usage based account

Editorial: Is the Language Faculty Nonlinguistic?

On the Structure and Source of Individual Differences in Toddlers' Comprehension of Transitive Sentences

Immigrant speech, creoles, and the ‘basic variety’: a usage-based account of some traits in the Portuguese-based creoles

The Case of the Infection that Wasn't !

From “cracking the orthographic code” to “playing with language”: toward a usage-based foundation of the reading process

When hype meets science: the asthma breakthrough that wasn't.

What in the World Makes Recursion so Easy to Learn? A Statistical Account of the Staged Input Effect on Learning a Center-Embedded Structure in Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL)

The language faculty that wasn't: a usage-based account of natural language recursion