Internal merge im merges a set x with a term y of x where a term is a subset of x or a subset of a term of x. A binary merge operation is assumed to put together arbitrary linguistic constituents in. His research and teaching is focused on biolinguistic theory, specifically on language as an organ of the human brain. Spacetime matter quantum mechanics 1216 september 2016, castiglioncello, italy. Massimo piattelli palmarini, and the title of a recent book surveying the field and proposing new directions by lyle jenkins 2002. It is important as it seeks to yield a framework by which we can understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. Presented by chomsky in 1968, the argument holds that children do not receive enough evidence to infer the existence of core aspects of language, such as the. Piattellipalmarini and uriagereka 2008, medeiros 2008,piattellipalmarini and vitiello submitted and leads us to inquire whether whatever is behind the natural ubiquity of such phenomena, in other domains, might possibly be at work in language as well. Massimo piattellipalmarini, university of arizona, linguistics psychology department, faculty member. Philosophy can sometimes help other areas of inquiry. At this meeting, piaget raised an important criticism of chomskyan generative.
Published under licence by iop publishing ltd journal of physics. Scattered shots against fodor and piattellipalmarini. Remarks on the nature of headedness and compositionality. If you notice any inaccuracies, please sign in and mark papers as correct or incorrect matches. Piattellipalmarini 12 4 the philosophical foundations of biolinguistics james. Remarks on the nature of headedness and compositionality in. The minimalist program the minimalist program is an effort to discover the degree to which the human language faculty is determined by sensorimotor and conceptualintentional interface conditions together with. Finally, i will speculate and present some evidence that languages like chinese do not display any clauseinternal restrictions on pro drop because they lack lexical c categories in their clausal left periphery, thus not showing any cintervention effects on cedge linking. Three factors in language design mit press journals. He has specialties in syntax, semantics and psycholinguistics. If you identify any major omissions or other inaccuracies in the publication list, please let us know.
The minimalist program represents the most significant, perhaps the paramount, feature of biolinguistics, showing how the hierarchical buildup of linguistic structure is an instance. Pdf quantum field theory and the linguistic minimalist program. Pdf linguistics and some aspects of its underlying. This conclusion is damaging to the view hauser et al. Syntax as a natural result of the laws of the universe and. There is considerable variation in current conceptions of the exact nature of ug, ranging from being close to. It is a highly interdisciplinary as it related to various fields such as biology, linguistics, psychology, mathematics, and neurolinguistics to explain the formation of language. Internal merge im merges a set x with a term y of x where a term is a subset of x or a subset of a term of x, yielding y,x with two copies of y, one the copy merged with x and one the term y of x, which remains, because. Massimo piattellipalmarini university of arizona academia. The biolinguistic perspective began to take shape over 20 years before in. In recent years, central components of a new approach to linguistics, the minimalist program mp have come closer to physics. Rich languages from poor inputs massimo piattellipalmarini. Biology, computation, and language from the bottomup robert c. Internal merge im merges a set x with a term y of x where a term is a subset of x or a subset of a term of x, yielding y,x with two copies of y, one the copy merged with x and one the term y of x, which remains, because x is unchanged by the operation.
A physical take on biolinguistics diego gabriel krivochen natural language in cognition as a physical system. Pdf on jan 15, 2003, donald terence langendoen and others published merge find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. There is considerable variation in current conceptions of the exact nature of ug, ranging from being close to the principle and parameter theory ppt. Biolinguistics can be defined as the study of biology and the evolution of language. Jerry fodor and massimo piattelli palmarini s bold treatise, what darwin got wrong, convincingly shows that natural selection is not that theory. Massimo piattelli palmarini, robert c berwick this book addresses one of the most famous and controversial arguments in the study of language and mind, the poverty of the stimulus.
Yet those who wish to help their neighbors are well advised to spend a little time discovering just what it is that those. This paper examines the nature of the operation merge, the recursive pro cedure at. The second, internal merge, creates binary sets out of objects whereby one object has been previously merged as part of the other. Features of the minimalist program, such as the unconstrained nature of recursive merge, the operation of the labeling.
There is good reason to suppose that there is also a second operation, pair merge, that yields an orderedpair, not a set, but still not imposing any linear order. Chapters by leading researchers in linguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, cognitive neuroscience, comparative cognitive psychology, and evolutionary. Language architecture and its import for evolution. Richie kayne, andrea moro, massimo piattellipalmarini, and juan uriagereka for many helpful. Piattellipalmarini and uriagereka 2008 with no label, no projection, no linear order, and independently of the categories of. I would prefer that claims about optimization and economy were attached to mechanistic explanations for how such systems are developed, rather than as consequences of systems that are presumed to exist. Massimo piattellipalmarini, juan uriagereka, pello salaburu. Nov 27, 2019 merge builds a discrete infinity of structured expressions that are interpretable in a definite way by the conceptualintentional system of thought and action, and by a sensorymotor system for. Im sure this debate will be brought to the fore at this years evolang, with chomsky berwick piattellipalmarini and many of the biolinguistic crowd in attendance, and its a shame ill almost certainly miss it unless someone wants to pay for my ticket just hit the donate button in the lefthand corner. Optimal growth in phrase structure 155 analyses propose that individual structures are not wellbehaved with respect to projection. Remarks on the nature of headedness and compositionality in bare phrase structure hiroki narita waseda institute for advanced study.
Pdf on jan 1, 2004, massimo piattellipalmarini and others published the immune syntax. Pdf on jan 1, 2004, massimo piattelli palmarini and others published the immune syntax. Boeckx 2014, both openly chomskian, have given two almost opposing assessments of the outcome of the debate piattellipalmarini, ed. Massimo piattellipalmarini, giuseppe vitiello submitted on 14 jun 2015 abstract. Features of the minimalist program, such as the unconstrained nature of recursive merge, the operation of the labeling algorithm that only operates at the interface of narrow syntax with the conceptualintentional and the sensorymotor interfaces, the difference. The mp seeks to be a mode of inquiry characterized by the flexibility of the multiple directions that its. We agree with the spirit behind this selfconception. Some principles follow for free from merge and some from general cognitive principles.
Chomsky 1981 of preminimalist generative grammar e. Likewise, piattellipalmarini and uriagereka 2005 emphasize the role of recursion and merge. The minimalist program the minimalist program is an effort to discover the degree to which the human language faculty. Since language is part of the natural world in a nontrivial way that is, it not only occurs in the universe, but is a system that can be assimilated to others in that universe, as chomsky and main. Merge builds a discrete infinity of structured expressions that are interpretable in a definite way by the conceptualintentional system of. At the conceptualintentional interface, however, all syntactic objects sos must be interpreted, so labels are needed. Three factors in language design 3 contemporary intellectual history here, but will simply assume that crucial aspects of language can be studied as part of the natural world, adopting the biolinguistic approach that took shape half a century ago and that has been intensively pursued since, along different paths. Quantum field theory and the linguistic minimalist program. If so, some deep peculiar aspects of human language recursive merge, the labeling. Combining the results of cuttingedge work in experimental biology with crystalclear philosophical arguments, fodor and piattelli. In linguistics, the minimalist program mp is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside generative grammar since the early 1990s, starting with a 1993 paper by noam chomsky chomsky presents mp as a program, not as a theory, following imre lakatoss distinction. Language as shaped by the brain cornell university.
The development of the minimalist program mp, noam chomskys most recent generative model of linguistics, has been highly influential over the last twenty years. Linguistics and some aspects of its underlying dynamics. The cambridge companion to chomsky edited by james mcgilvray. Recursive merge and human language evolution springerlink. The recursive syntactic computation by means of merge stands as one uniquely human capacity which in tandem with its interfaces with the meaning and sound systems the ci and sm interfaces defines a highly complex biological trait, the human language faculty. Merge in this form is a good candidate for the simplest computational operation. What darwin got wrong is a remarkable book, one that dares to challenge the theory of natural selection as an explanation for how evolution worksa devastating critique not in the name of religion but in the name of good science. Massimo piattellipalmarini, and the title of a recent book surveying the field and proposing new directions by lyle jenkins 2002.
Some suggestions from quantum field theory 4 massimo piattellipalmarini and giuseppe vitiello part ii the human mind and its study 153. It is the procedure central to any conceivable system of discrete infinity. It is shown that optimal sequencing of recursive merge operations so as to dynamically minimize ccommand and containment relations in unlabeled branching forms leads to structural correlates of. Phd dissertation, university of arizona linguistics department.
The incredible lightness of being an evolutionary argument 20. Drawing on scientific literature spanning the molecular, behavioral, and cognitive scales, with sophisticated excursions into evolutionarydevelopmental biology and the physics of complex systems, the. Berwick overture in recent years, there has been a resurgence of activity surrounding biolinguistics along with a parallel, renewed interest in the connections between language and evolution. The first section focuses on the aims of chomskys recent biologicalminimalist turn. In recent years, central components of a new approach to linguistics, the minimalist. Merge is a binary setformation operation that takes two syntactic objects sos, say. Department of linguistics, university of arizona, tucson, az, usa dipartimento di fisica e. Jun 14, 2015 in recent years, central components of a new approach to linguistics, the minimalist program mp have come closer to physics.
The first, external merge, creates binary sets out of unique syntactic objects. Fodor and piattellipalmarini take the role of philosophy to consist in part in minding other peoples business. When linguists talk mathematical logic pubmed central pmc. Conference series, volume 880, 8th international workshop dice2016. Basically, they approach the book from the perspective of both biology and philosophy, and fodor and piattellipalmarini. It is logically necessary that merge be of two kinds.
Massimo piattellipalmarini, robert c berwick this book addresses one of the most famous and controversial arguments in the study of language and mind, the poverty of the stimulus. This book presents a stateoftheart account of what we know and would like to know about language, mind, and brain. Inadequacy of set merge to represent argument structure when the objects. Richie kayne, andrea moro, massimo piattelli palmarini, and juan uriagereka for many helpful.
Chomsky has been rather clear that generative grammar developed within a particular mathematical theory, namely, recursive function theory for this very task p. Related content on a model for quantum field theory f a berezindouble universe and the arrow of time eleonora alfinito and giuseppe vitielloisomorphism of intermediate jacobians of some dual. Piattelli palmarini and uriagereka 2008, medeiros 2008, piattelli palmarini and vitiello submitted and leads us to inquire whether whatever is behind the natural ubiquity of such phenomena, in other domains, might possibly be at work in language as well. This completely new edition of the cambridge companion to chomsky surveys chomskys contributions to the science of language, to socioeconomicpolitical analysis and criticism, and to the study of the human mind.
Remarks on the nature of headedness and compositionality in bare phrase structure hiroki narita waseda institute for advanced study abstract the purpose of the present article is to highlight some of the contemporary issues surrounding the notion of headedness and compositionalityin bare phrase structure. We are testing a new system for linking publications to authors. Bare phrase structure a major development of mp inquiry is bare phrase structure bps, a theory of phrase structure sentence building prior to movement developed by noam chomsky. Errors and buffers essays in the economics of syntactic. For example, it is still customary to stipulate, following the lead of chomsky 1995.
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