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Research Seminar - June 21, 2000
|
| Title: | Lecture 3: A Critique of Universal Grammar |
| Speaker: | Professor Michael Arbib |
| Adjunct Professor of Computer Science | |
| Date: | Wednesday 21st June, 2000 |
| Time: | 2.00 - 4.00 pm |
| Venue: | Seminar Room 1.24 |
Abstract
What evolved that allows humans to learn languages so readily?
Many accept Chomsky's answer of "Universal Grammar",
a parameterized master grammar which reduces the task of learning
the syntax (as distinct from the lexicon) of a language to a mere
"setting of parameters". We shall review arguments put
forward for this view and then demolish [!] them. We will then
briefly review alternative views as a basis for the argument to
be presented in the concluding lecture. In particular, we will
argue for a view of "protolanguage" very different from
that put forward by Bickerton, arguing that the naming of action-object
frames preceded the discovery of "words" in the modern
sense of units for the compositional formation of utterances.
Calvin, W.H., and Bickerton, D., 2000, Lingua ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the Human Brain, Cambridge, MA: A Bradford Book/The MIT Press.
Foley, W.A., and van Valin, R.D., Jr., 1984, Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar, (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 38), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gopnik, A., and Meltzoff, A.N., 1997, Words, Thoughts, and Theories, Cambridge, MA: A Bradford Book/The MIT Press.
Gopnik, M., Ed., 1997, The Inheritance and Innateness of Grammars, (Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science 6), New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural Language and Natural Selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences: 13, 707-784.
