Syntax, the brain, and linguistic theory: a critical reassessment

Syntax, the brain, and linguistic theory: a critical reassessment PDF Author:
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2832551815
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
Syntax refers both to the structure of sentences and the underlying combinatorial capacity to generate this structure. For some time, neurolinguistic research on syntax was heavily influenced by theoretical linguistic approaches, which characterize in detail the nature of syntactic representations. A rough consensus has been that the primary region supporting syntax is Broca’s area, and that syntactic deficits in aphasia exist primarily due to damage or degeneration of this region, commonly occurring in Broca’s aphasia and nonfluent/agrammatic PPA. With respect to temporal dynamics of syntactic processing, neurophysiological research on syntax focused on specific event-related potentials such as the ELAN and P600, thought to index phrase structure building and syntactic reanalyses. However, the research landscape has changed substantially in the last several years with new methodologies and theoretical perspectives, and there is little consensus on the neurobiological foundations of syntax or the role of linguistic theory in guiding research. The goal of this Research Topic is to reassess our understanding of syntax and the brain in light of these developments. Specifically, it is designed to address the following set of major questions:

Syntax, the brain, and linguistic theory: a critical reassessment

Syntax, the brain, and linguistic theory: a critical reassessment PDF Author:
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2832551815
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Get Book Here

Book Description
Syntax refers both to the structure of sentences and the underlying combinatorial capacity to generate this structure. For some time, neurolinguistic research on syntax was heavily influenced by theoretical linguistic approaches, which characterize in detail the nature of syntactic representations. A rough consensus has been that the primary region supporting syntax is Broca’s area, and that syntactic deficits in aphasia exist primarily due to damage or degeneration of this region, commonly occurring in Broca’s aphasia and nonfluent/agrammatic PPA. With respect to temporal dynamics of syntactic processing, neurophysiological research on syntax focused on specific event-related potentials such as the ELAN and P600, thought to index phrase structure building and syntactic reanalyses. However, the research landscape has changed substantially in the last several years with new methodologies and theoretical perspectives, and there is little consensus on the neurobiological foundations of syntax or the role of linguistic theory in guiding research. The goal of this Research Topic is to reassess our understanding of syntax and the brain in light of these developments. Specifically, it is designed to address the following set of major questions:

The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain

The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain PDF Author: Terrence W. Deacon
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393343022
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
"A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

Comparative Syntax and Language Acquisition

Comparative Syntax and Language Acquisition PDF Author: Luigi Rizzi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134608268
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
In this collection of essays, the author addresses the central issues in syntax theory, comparative syntax and the theoretically conscious study of language acquisition. Key topics are explored, including the properties of null elements and the theory of parameters. Some of the essays presented here have been highly influential in their field, while others are published for the first time.

Tutorials in Bilingualism

Tutorials in Bilingualism PDF Author: Annette M.B. de Groot
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317779398
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
The past fifteen years have witnessed an increasing interest in the cognitive study of the bilingual. A major reason why psychologists, psycholinguists, applied linguists, neuropsychologists, and educators have pursued this topic at an accelerating pace presumably is the acknowledgment by increasingly large numbers of language researchers that the incidence of monolingualism in individual language users may be lower than that of bilingualism. This alleged numerical imbalance between monolinguals and bilinguals may be expected to become larger due to increasing international travel through, for instance, tourism and trade, to the growing use of international communication networks, and to the fact that in some parts of the world (i.e., Europe), the borders between countries are effectively disappearing. In addition to the growing awareness that bilinguals are very common and may even outnumber monolinguals, there is the dawning understanding that the bilingual mind is not simply the sum of the cognitive processes associated with each of the two monolingual modes, and that the two languages of bilingual may interact with one another in complicated ways. To gain a genuinely universal account of human cognition will therefore require a detailed understanding of language use by both pure monolinguals as well as bilinguals, unbalanced and balanced, and of the representations and processes involved. These two insights, that bilingualism is a common human condition and that it may influence cognition, were presumably instrumental in putting bilingualism on the agendas of many researchers of cognition and language in recent years. But other reasons may have played a role too: The study of bilingualism also provides a unique opportunity to study the relation between language and thought. A final reason for the growing interest in this area of research is the awareness that bilingualism may confer the benefit of broadening one's scope beyond the limits of one's own country and culture. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the important topics in the psycholinguistic study of bilingualism. The chapters represent a comprehensive and interrelated set of topics that form the core of contemporary research on the psycholinguistics of bilingualism. The issues raised within this perspective not only increase our understanding of the nature of language and thought in bilinguals but also of the basic nature of the mental architecture that supports the ability to use more than one language.

Linear Syntax

Linear Syntax PDF Author: Andreas Kathol
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198237341
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
This volume makes a case for a critical reassessment of the wide-spread view that syntax can be reduced to tree structures, arguing for concepts that are defined in terms of linear order. By connecting the descriptive tools of modern phrase-structure grammar with traditional descriptive scholarship, Andreas Kathol offers a new perspective on many long-standing problems in syntactic theory.

The Oscillatory Nature of Language

The Oscillatory Nature of Language PDF Author: Elliot Murphy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108836313
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Develops a theory of how language is processed in the brain and provides a state-of-the-art review of current neuroscientific debates.

The Primacy of Grammar

The Primacy of Grammar PDF Author: Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262291630
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
A proposal that the biolinguistic approach to human languages may have identified, beyond the study of language, a specific structure of the human mind. The contemporary discipline of biolinguistics is beginning to have the feel of scientific inquiry. Biolinguistics—especially the work of Noam Chomsky—suggests that the design of language may be “perfect”: language is an optimal solution to conditions of sound and meaning. What is the scope of this inquiry? Which aspect of nature does this science investigate? What is its relation to the rest of science? What notions of language and mind are under investigation? This book is a study of such foundational questions. Exploring Chomsky's claims, Nirmalangshu Mukherji argues that the significance of biolinguistic inquiry extends beyond the domain of language. Biolinguistics is primarily concerned with grammars that represent just the computational aspects of the mind/brain. This restriction to grammars, Mukherji argues, opens the possibility that the computational system of human language may be involved in each cognitive system that requires similar computational resources. Deploying analytical argumentation and empirical evidence, Mukherji suggests that a computational system of language consisting of very specific principles and operations is likely to be involved in each articulatory symbol system—such as music—that manifests unboundedness. In that sense, the biolinguistics approach may have identified, after thousands of years of inquiry, a specific structure of the human mind.

Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis

Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis PDF Author: David Birdsong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135674892
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis is the only book on the market to provide a diverse collection of perspectives, from experienced researchers, on the role of the Critical Period Hypothesis in second language acquisition. It is widely believed that age effects in both first and second language acquisition are developmental in nature, with native levels of attainment in both to be though possible only if learning began before the closure of a "window of opportunity" – a critical or sensitive period. These seven chapters explore this idea at length, with each contribution acting as an authoritative look at various domains of inquiry in second language acquisition, including syntax, morphology, phonetics/phonology, Universal Grammar, and neurofunctional factors. By presenting readers with an evenly-balanced take on the topic with viewpoints both for and against the Critical Period Hypothesis, this book is the ideal guide to understanding this critical body of research in SLA, for students and researchers in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition.

Applied Linguistics and Materials Development

Applied Linguistics and Materials Development PDF Author: Brian Tomlinson
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441109439
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Applies applied linguistic theories to the development of materials for language learning to add new depth to the field.

Neurobiology of Language

Neurobiology of Language PDF Author: Gregory Hickok
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0124078621
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 1188

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Book Description
Neurobiology of Language explores the study of language, a field that has seen tremendous progress in the last two decades. Key to this progress is the accelerating trend toward integration of neurobiological approaches with the more established understanding of language within cognitive psychology, computer science, and linguistics. This volume serves as the definitive reference on the neurobiology of language, bringing these various advances together into a single volume of 100 concise entries. The organization includes sections on the field's major subfields, with each section covering both empirical data and theoretical perspectives. "Foundational" neurobiological coverage is also provided, including neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, genetics, linguistic, and psycholinguistic data, and models. - Foundational reference for the current state of the field of the neurobiology of language - Enables brain and language researchers and students to remain up-to-date in this fast-moving field that crosses many disciplinary and subdisciplinary boundaries - Provides an accessible entry point for other scientists interested in the area, but not actively working in it – e.g., speech therapists, neurologists, and cognitive psychologists - Chapters authored by world leaders in the field – the broadest, most expert coverage available