It has been suggested that hierarchically structured symbols, a remarkable feature of human language, are produced via the operation of recursive combination. Recursive combination is frequently observed in human behavior, not only in language but also in action sequences, mind-reading, technology, et cetera.; in contrast, it is rarely observed in animals. Why is it that only humans use this operation? What is the adaptability of recursive combination? We aim (1) to identify the environmental feature(s) in which recursive combination is effective (...) for survival and reproduction, and that has facilitated the evolution of this ability, and (2) to demonstrate the possible evolutionary processes of recursive combination. To achieve this, we constructed an evolutionary simulation of agents that generated products using recursive combination and used the results to explore the types of fitness functions (that reflect the kinds of adaptive environments) that give rise to this ability. We identified two types of adaptability of the recursive combination: (1) diversifiability of production and (2) diversifiability of products. Through the former, recursive combination promotes robustness against failure of production caused by inaccurate manipulations or irreversible changes. In an environment in which diversified products are preferable, sharing a portion of the production process for these products entails producing multiple products in which recursive combination plays a key role. We suppose that recursive combination works as a driving force of material culture. Finally, we discuss the possible evolutionary scenarios of recursive combination that is later generalized to encompass many aspects of human cognition, including human language. (shrink)

The theory of language must predict the possible thought—signal (or meaning—sound or sign) pairings of a language. We argue for a Meaning First architecture of language where a thought structure is generated first. The thought structure is then realized using language to communicate the thought, to memorize it, or perhaps with another purpose. Our view contrasts with the T-model architecture of mainstream generative grammar, according to which distinct phrase-structural representations—Phonetic Form (PF) for articulation, Logical Form (LF) for interpretation—are generated within (...) the grammar. At the same time, our view differs from early transformational grammar and generative semantics: We view the relationship between the thought structure and the corresponding signal as one of compression. We specify a formal sketch of compression as a choice between multiple possible pronounciations balancing the desire to transmit information against the effort of pronounciation. The Meaning First architecture allows a greater degree of independence between thought structures and the linguistic signal. We present three arguments favoring this type of independence. First we argue that scopal properties can be better explained if we only compare thought structures independent of the their realization as a sentence. Secondly, we argue that Meaning First architecture allows contentful late insertion, an idea that has been argued for in Distributed Morphology already, but as we argue is also motivated by the division of the logical and socio-emotive meaning content of language. Finally, we show that only the Meaning First architecture provides a satisfying account of the mixing of multiple languages by multilingual speakers, especially for cases of simultaneous articulation across two modalities in bimodal speakers. Our view of the structure of grammar leads to a reassessment of priorities in linguistic analyses: while current mainstream work is often focused on establishing one-to-one relationships between concepts and morphemes, our view makes it plausible that primitive concepts are frequently marked indirectly or unpronounced entirely. Our view therefore assigns great value to the understanding of logical primitives and of compression. (shrink)

We present computational modeling results based on a self‐paced reading study investigating number attraction effects in Eastern Armenian. We implement three novel computational models of agreement attraction in a Bayesian framework and compare their predictive fit to the data using k‐fold cross‐validation. We find that our data are better accounted for by an encoding‐based model of agreement attraction, compared to a retrieval‐based model. A novel methodological contribution of our study is the use of comprehension questions with open‐ended responses, so that (...) both misinterpretation of the number feature of the subject phrase and misassignment of the thematic subject role of the verb can be investigated at the same time. We find evidence for both types of misinterpretation in our study, sometimes in the same trial. However, the specific error patterns in our data are not fully consistent with any previously proposed model. (shrink)

One of the central debates in the cognitive science of language has revolved around the nature of human linguistic competence. Whether syntactic competence should be characterized by abstract hierarchical structures or reduced to surface linear strings has been actively debated, but the nature of morphological competence has been insufficiently appreciated despite the parallel question in the cognitive science literature. In this paper, in order to investigate whether morphological competence should be characterized by abstract hierarchical structures, we conducted the crowdsourced acceptability (...) judgment experiment on morphologically complex words and evaluated five computational models of morphological competence against human acceptability judgments: Character Markov Models (Character), Syllable Markov Models (Syllable), Morpheme Markov Models (Morpheme), Hidden Markov Models (HMM), and Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars (PCFG). Our psycholinguistic experimentation and computational modeling demonstrated that "morphous" computational models with morpheme units outperformed "amorphous" computational models without morpheme units and, importantly, PCFG with hierarchical structures most accurately explained human acceptability judgments on several evaluation metrics, especially for morphologically complex words with nested morphological structures. Those results strongly suggest that human morphological competence should be characterized by abstract hierarchical structures internally generated by the grammar, not reduced to surface linear strings externally attested in large corpora. (shrink)

Categorical predictions have been proposed as the key mechanism supporting the fast pace of syntactic composition in language. Accordingly, grammar-based expectations are formed—e.g., the determiner “a” triggers the prediction for a noun—and facilitate the analysis of incoming syntactic information, which is then checked against a single or few other word categories. Previous functional neuroimaging studies point towards Broca’s area in the left inferior frontal gyrus as one fundamental cortical region involved in categorical prediction during incremental language processing. Causal evidence for (...) this hypothesis is however still missing. In this study, we combined Electroencephalography and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to test whether Broca’s area is functionally relevant in predictive mechanisms for language. We transiently perturbed Broca’s area during the first word in a two-word construction, while simultaneously measuring the Event-Related Potential correlates of syntactic composition. We reasoned that if Broca’s area is involved in predictive mechanisms for syntax, disruptive TMS during the first word would mitigate the difference in the ERP responses for predicted and unpredicted categories in basic two-word constructions. Contrary to this hypothesis, perturbation of Broca’s area at the predictive stage did not affect the ERP correlates of basic composition. The correlation strength between the electrical field induced by TMS and the ERP responses further confirmed this pattern. We discuss the present results considering an alternative account of the role of Broca’s area in syntactic composition, namely the bottom-up integration of words into constituents, and of compensatory mechanisms within the language predictive network. (shrink)

Inner speech emerges in early childhood, in parallel with the maturation of the dorsal language stream. To date, the developmental relations between these two processes have not been examined. We review evidence that the dorsal language stream has a role in supporting the psychological phenomenon of inner speech, before considering paediatric studies of the dorsal stream’s anatomical development and evidence for its emerging functional roles. We examine possible causal accounts of the relations between these two developmental processes, and consider their (...) implications for phylogenetic theories about the evolution of inner speech and the accounts of the ontogenetic relations between language and cognition. (shrink)

We show that, contrary to long-standing assumptions, syntactic traits, modeled here within the generative biolinguistic framework, provide insights into deep-time language history. To support this claim, we have encoded the diversity of nominal structures using 94 universally definable binary parameters, set in 69 languages spanning across up to 13 traditionally irreducible Eurasian families. We found a phylogenetic signal that distinguishes all such families and matches the family-internal tree topologies that are safely established through classical etymological methods and datasets. We have (...) retrieved “near-perfect” phylogenies, which are essentially immune to homoplastic disruption and only moderately influenced by horizontal convergence, two factors that instead severely affect more externalized linguistic features, like sound inventories. This result allows us to draw some preliminary inferences about plausible/implausible cross-family classifications; it also provides a new source of evidence for testing the representation of diversity in syntactic theories. (shrink)

Em linguística gerativa, distinguem-se várias propriedades formais dos sistemas representacionais: a infinidade discreta, a finitude discreta e a infinidade do contínuo. Não é frequente filósofos aplicarem essas distinções ao estudo da forma lógica. O fato de essas distinções serem raramente aplicadas resultou em os filósofos pressuporem, geralmente sem discutir, que todas as formas lógicas apresentam una infinidade discreta, como o faz a linguagem natural. Este artigo defende a existência de outros tipos de forma lógica, além daquela que apresenta infinidade discreta. (...) Na representação mental é possível encontrar formar apresentando infinidade contínua e finitude discreta, além da infinidade discreta. Além disso, tais representações mantêm relações lógicas entre si, parcialmente em virtude dessas formas. Isso equivale à alegação de que o estudo da lógica natural precisa ir além da faculdade de linguagem, abrangendo formas lógicas pertinentes a representações mentais que não se assemelham a sentenças. Isso incluiria formas lógicas pictóricas. O ponto final é que, no estudo da lógica natural, é preciso considerar as formas lógicas representadas a sistemas mentais que antecedem a evolução da linguagem. (shrink)

Advances in biology, at least over the past two centuries, have mostly relied on theories that were subsequently revised, expanded or eventually refuted using experimental and other means. The field of theoretical biology used to primarily provide a basis, similar to theoretical physics in the physical sciences, to rationally examine the frameworks within which biological experiments were carried out and to shed light on overlooked gaps in understanding. Today, however, theoretical biology has generally become synonymous with computational and mathematical biology. (...) This could in part be explained by a relatively recent tendency in which a "data first", rather than a "theory first", approach is preferred. Moreover, generating hypotheses has at times become procedural rather than theoretical, therefore perhaps inadvertently leading some hypotheses to become perfunctory in nature. This situation leaves our understanding enmeshed in data, which should be disentangled from much noise. Given the many unresolved questions in biology and medicine, big and small, ranging from the problem of protein folding to unifying causative frameworks of complex non-Mendelian human diseases, it seems apt to revive the role of pure theory in the biological sciences. This paper, using the current biomedical literature and historical precedents, makes the case for a "philosophical biology" (philbiology), distinct from but quite complementary to philosophy of biology (philobiology), which would entail biological investigation through philosophical approaches. Philbiology would thus be a reincarnation of theoretical biology, adopting the true sense of the word "theory" and making use of a rich tradition of serious philosophical approaches in the natural sciences. A philbiological investigation, after clearly defining a given biological problem, would aim to propose a set of empirical questions, along with a class of possible solutions, about that problem. Importantly, whether or not the questions can be tested using current experimental paradigms would be secondary to whether the questions are inherently empirical or not. These issues will be illustrated using a range of specific examples. The final goal of a philbiological investigation would be to develop a theoretical framework that can lead observational and/or interventional experimental studies of the defined problem, a framework that is structured, generative and expandable, and, crucially, one that simplifies some aspect(s) of the said problem. (shrink)

The mantra that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" (attributed to the computer scientist Alan Kay) exemplifies some of the expectations from the technical and innovative sides of biomedical research at present. However, for technical advancements to make real impacts both on patient health and genuine scientific understanding, quite a number of lingering challenges facing the entire spectrum from protein biology all the way to randomized controlled trials should start to be overcome. The proposal in (...) this chapter is that philosophy is essential in this process. By reviewing select examples from the history of science and philosophy, disciplines which were indistinguishable until the mid-nineteenth century, I argue that progress toward the many impasses in biomedicine can be achieved by emphasizing theoretical work (in the true sense of the word 'theory') as a vital foundation for experimental biology. Furthermore, a philosophical biology program that could provide a framework for theoretical investigations is outlined. (shrink)