24.1003, Review: Linguistic Theories; Semantics; Syntax: Di Sciullo (2012)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-24-1003. Tue Feb 26 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.1003, Review: Linguistic Theories; Semantics; Syntax: Di Sciullo (2012)

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Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:16:41
From: Kent Lee [kentlee7 at gmail.com]
Subject: Towards a Biolinguistic Understanding of Grammar

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-4296.html

EDITOR: Anna Maria  Di Sciullo
TITLE: Towards a Biolinguistic Understanding of Grammar
SUBTITLE: Essays on interfaces
SERIES TITLE: Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 194
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Kent A. Lee, Korea University

SUMMARY

This volume containing 14 papers attempts to develop a theory of interface of
the language system with systems external to the language faculty,
particularly semantics and phonetic implementation. It attempts to do so
primarily within the theoretical orientation of the Minimalist Program. The
papers are organized into five sections: (1) three essays on the
syntax-semantics interface; (2) three essays on the role of syntactic features
in derivations and interfaces; (3) two papers on phonology and the
phonology-syntax interface; (4) two papers on language development and
acquisition; and (5) four papers on experimental studies. The book is not
about biological foundations of language, but rather aims to formulate
Minimalist accounts of interface with non-linguistic faculties that might
inform future attempts to integrate linguistic theory with other fields.

Howard Lasnick’s paper, ‘Single cycle syntax and a constraint on quantifier
lowering,’ deals with the problem of lowered quantifiers, e.g., “Nobody is
certain to pass the test” is not necessarily equivalent to “It is certain that
nobody will pass the test.” The lowered readings do not work with negatives
and other sentences, but rather with indefinites, e.g., “Some politician is
likely to address John’s constituency.” Lasnick argues that single cycle
syntax prevents quantifier lowering rather than allowing it; quantifier scope
is determined cyclically, and lowered readings of indefinites come from scope
assignment without quantifier raising.

Tim Hunter’s article, ‘A constraint on remnant movement,’ proposes a “Just
Outside Constraint” (JOC) in island effects to rule out extraction from
adjuncts and moved constituents. For example, “Who did you send a big heavy a
picture of [t] to London?” does not allow for extraction from heavy NPs, and
hence, “*Who did you sent [t] to London a big heavy picture of [t]?” is ruled
out. Hunter also discusses the JOC with regard to fronting in German and word
order in SVO, SOV and VSO languages.

Paul M. Pietroski’s article on ‘Language and conceptual reanalysis’ argues
that natural languages juxtapose words into phrases to introduce semantically
monadic concepts, e.g., the phrase “chase cows” is regarded as an instruction
to form a single concept of “chase + cows-PATIENT” rather than just a conjunct
of “cow” and “chase.” Pietroski develops arguments for this from Fregean
logical and Chomskyan syntax. Thus, natural languages essentially use phrasing
and lexicalization to freely convey distinctive concepts, rather than for
communicating abstract and conventionalized phrases.

The next section on features and interfaces begins with Daniela Isac’s work on
‘Decomposing force,’ which deals with pragmatic force types of sentences, such
as declarative, interrogative, imperative, or exclamatory. She argues that
force is not encoded as a simple, primitive syntactic feature, but rather
derives from other components such as modality. She argues that imperative
force derives from modality and the second person, as seen in the behavior of
true imperative forms and surrogate imperatives, i.e., subjunctives and
infinitives used as imperatives in Romance languages, Greek, German, Slavic
languages, and others. This is compared with the root meanings of modal verbs
(e.g. “You must go now”), whose interpretation is in reference to the sentence
subject, and non-root meanings (e.g. “He must be happy”), which involve
reference to the speaker’s mental state. In this sense, imperatives pattern
with non-root modals and true and surrogate imperatives derive their force
differently from different syntactic Merge operations.

The next paper, ‘Function without content,’ by Christina Christodoulou and
Martina Wiltschko, proposes a unified analysis of the Greek subjunctive marker
‘na,’ which is associated with many different contexts, such as realis and
counterfactual conditionals, future oriented clauses, requests, orders,
wishes, and others. This is done by having ‘na’ spell out INFL (Inflection)
before being associated with any content, and thus, the functions of
functional categories can be independent of their contents and associated
features.

Atushi Fujimori’s essay on ‘The association of sound with meaning’ argues for
a correspondence of the non-low vowels /e/ and /u/ with telicity in Japanese
verbs, and /i/ and /o/ with atelicity. This is shown with native Japanese
verbs, by carefully controlling for context, and also by means of an
experiment with Japanese subjects and their intuitions about nonce words
containing these vowels. The experiment shows binary features for lexical
aspect in Japanese, and the author proposes instances of such alternations in
other languages.

The next section on phonology and syntax begins with Charles Reiss’ paper,
‘Towards a bottom up approach to phonological typology,’ which argues for
underspecification in phonology, in accord with Chomsky’s recent, simpler
bottom-up approach to Universal Grammar (UG). These trends represent an
attempt to simplify linguistic theory so that a more powerful theory with
underspecification requires less detail that is genetically predetermined, in
order to more readily integrate linguistic theory into a biolinguistic
program. For example, a simpler UG would align with so-called evo-devo
biology, or the recent attempts to better integrate developmental biology and
genetics into an evolutionary framework. In this vein, Reiss shows
mathematically that a simpler, underspecified system leads to greater possible
combinations of features and phenomena, i.e., less is more. For example,
starting with four binary features (and leaving the remaining features
unspecified) leads to seven septillion possible inventories. However, this
does not impose an undue computational demand on language learners, since they
make parsing decisions as they encounter each segment with a modest number of
associated features.

Bridget Samuel’s paper, ‘The emergence of phonological forms,’ argues that
phonology, in a sense, preceded syntax or general language abilities in human
evolution in that phonological production would have been first developed and
used for other functions before being paired with syntax in language
development. Samuels draws upon animal cognition and sign language for
evidence that phonological signals predate external language development. This
includes studies on the development of perceptual categories and category
perception in young children and animals, as well as phonological category
perception in humans (e.g. voice onset time categories). According to the
author, the evolution of the vocal tract and larger sensorimotor areas in the
human brain were developments that were subsequently exploited by sign and
gesture systems. Contrary to what some innatist and generative linguists have
assumed, linguistic features may have arisen from phonetic cues or abilities
rather than vice versa. That is, these phonetic functions came first and were
co-opted by the language faculty.

The section on language development begins with Calixto Aguero-Bautista’s
paper on ‘Non-native acquisition and language design,’ which addresses the
age-old controversy regarding whether final attainment of a second language
(L2) is constrained by UG, which rejects the critical period hypothesis (CPH).
For example, past studies have shown that learners can successfully learn an
L2 with the Obligatory Pronoun Constraint (OPC), even though it is lacking in
their L1, which some have used as evidence against the CPH. The author argues
that the OPC arises as a computational and interface effect of the weak
crossover effect (WCO), and is thus not part of the UG, but rather independent
of the L2 principles to be learned.

The next paper, ‘Interface ingredients of dialect design,’ by Kleanthes K.
Grohmann and Evelina Leivada, deals with acquisition of dialects. This study
deals with young learners of Cypriot Greek as their native language who later
encounter standard Greek in formal schooling, where they encounter issues
because the two forms differ in direct object clitic placement. The authors
reported their previous studies with Greek speaking children in Cyprus using
picture elicitation tasks. Children’s productions of clitics in these studies
showed variation in clitic choice, a progression based on grade levels,
code-mixing patterns in clitic placement in the prestige dialect (standard
Greek), and variation in their clitic use based on test version (i.e. standard
or Cypriot Greek). They propose a socio-syntax of development hypothesis
(SSDH) to describe this sociolinguistic variation.

The next section on experimental studies begins with ‘What sign languages
show,’ by Evie Malaia and Ronnie B. Wilbur. They review studies on whether
motion differences in signs for telic and atelic verbs in systems like
American Sign Language are phonological features, as these involve differences
in velocity and acceleration of hand gestures. They also look at neuroimaging
studies showing that such signs are processed in a manner neurologically
similar to phonological processing. They conclude that signers process such
signs as abstract phonological features, similar to prosodic lengthening, such
that motion changes in the signs can signal telicity. This points to
grammaticalization of distinctions in physical motion in language.

‘Indeterminacy and coercion effects,’ by Roberto G. de Almeida and Levi Riven,
examines the comprehension of indeterminate but grammatical sentences like
“The man began the book,” in terms of whether the complement is necessarily
construed as an event (coercion), and how much pragmatics contributes to the
interpretation. Past psycholinguistic processing studies found that
indeterminate sentences are processed differently from more determinate ones
(e.g. “The man read a book”) in that the former takes longer to process.
Related structures involving structural or semantic gaps include indeterminate
middle voice verbs and compounds with potentially ambiguous aspectual
structures (e.g. “He is a book-reader on Saturdays”). The authors summarize
their previous fMRI study, showing that neural activation patterns in
processing indeterminates are similar to and in between the patterns for
determinate sentences and pragmatically infelicitous sentences. Comprehension
of indeterminates patterns neurologically with pragmatic processes, but also
involves brain regions involved in decision-making. Linguistic cues and
literal readings are used, and these in turn invoke extralinguistic processes
for inferencing.

‘Computation with doubling constituents,’ by Sandiway Fong and Jason Ginsburg,
describes a computational implementation of classical Binding Theory in a
Minimalist framework for pronoun-antecedent relations. They propose a model
for coreference that they claim is simpler, more efficient, and able to
account for more data than previous models. Simple, multi-clausal, possessive,
and picture determiner phrase (DP) sentences are discussed.

In ‘Concealed reference-set computation,’ by Thomas Graf, reference
constraints -- well-formedness constraints on transderivational comparisons --
are appealed to in order to disconfirm a strong hypothesis that syntax is
uniquely determined by interface constraints. Some reference constraints can
be used in syntax without being too computationally costly, and syntax can
avoid obeying some interface requirements without necessarily violating them.

EVALUATION

The general theme of many of the articles in this volume is interface, and as
such, this book will be of interest to those interested in the interface of
linguistic components, particularly within a Minimalist framework. The volume
overall deals fairly consistently with this general theme. This book may not
be of interest to those interested in evolutionary psychology, evolutionary
biology, neurolinguistics, or experimental psycholinguistics, since it is more
theoretically oriented and is specifically from a Minimalist framework.

Although grammaticalization is not specifically addressed in this volume, some
articles will be of interest to those working in this field, and there exists
good fodder here for future research. For example, the Fujimori article on
telicity in Japanese, the Pietroski article on lexical concepts, the Isac
article on imperative force, the Grohmann and Leivada article on Greek
clitics, the Christodoulou and Wiltschko article on the Greek subjunctive, and
the Malaia and Wilbur article on sign language phonology all have implications
for grammaticalization, lexicalization, and related processes in language
development.

However, in terms of a theory of interface, a noticeable omission is the
failure to consider fairly well developed models of interface in previous
literature, most notably, Jackendoff’s ideas of language architecture and
interface (Jackendoff 1997, 2002). The Jackendoff model describes interface
components in the architecture and makes use of a parallel processing
architecture, which is consistent with what is known in neuroscience about
brain functioning and processing, as are some connectionist models (e.g. Elman
et al. 1996). For interface theory, more processing studies would also be in
order. One of the few processing studies here, the Almeida and Riven article
on semantic indeterminacy, interestingly shows the pragmatics-semantics
interface as seen in effects on processing times. This fits with a number of
other psycholinguistic studies showing processing times (1) for semantically
anomalous sentences, and (2) when so-called bridging inferences must be made
in discourse interpretation (e.g. Kintsch 1993).

Several computational experiments in this volume aim to show the computational
feasibility of particular analyses. One caution to bear in mind is that
demonstrating one form of computational feasibility shows that a particular
model is computationally possible. It does not necessarily mean that that is
how the human mind or language faculty does things; the mental architecture
might take a different route than what a mathematical model assumes. This
potential pitfall can be clearly seen, for example, in some earlier amodular
connectionist experiments, that is, in connectionist models that assume no
modularity within the language faculty and that the language faculty is
distributed and unidimensional (as in Elman et al. 1996). Such experiments
lead to successful machine learning or implementation of small bits of syntax
or phonology, but without empirical validation or analysis of what happens
inside the network, the results are not definitive, as they may not reflect
what the brain actually does. As with the computational studies in this
volume, empirical validation would be needed with controlled experiments of
language production and processing in human subjects.

A few articles in this volume attempt to address language evolution,
particularly the Samuels article (‘The emergence of phonological forms’),
which posits that vocal or phonetic capabilities evolved first, which were
later co-opted by the grammatical system for linguistic expression. It seems
plausible that phonology and syntax co-evolved in tandem, or that vocalization
developed first and was co-opted by syntax. Or it is plausible that
vocalization arose first, but the process of being co-opted by the language
faculty caused vocalization to co-evolve into a formal phonological component
in the language architecture. Language evolution research is difficult, since
little hard evidence is available today. Samuels looks for evidence in the
“fossil record” of the modern human language faculty, and animal and human
cognition, and this thesis is one that merits further research in evolutionary
psychology. Also, the articles on language development and evolution (e.g. the
Samuels article on phonology, the Reiss article on underspecification, the
Pietroski article on lexical concepts) raise interesting questions on how
phonology, syntax, the mental lexicon, and semantics might have co-evolved.

Other than a few articles, a thorough discussion of language evolution seems
lacking in this volume. Jackendoff (2002), for example, describes the
evolutionary hurdles to be overcome in language evolution, which deserve more
attention here (these hurdles include the use of linguistic symbols such as
words and segmental phonology, to allow for a larger and more productive
lexicon, linear position of words for syntax and semantics, phrase structure,
grammatical categories, and morphology). The theory of group selection from
sociobiology also deserves serious attention in discussing the biological
foundations of language and language architecture. Group selection posits that
genes are selected because of the advantages they confer upon a whole group,
not just individuals (e.g. Wilson 2006). For a cognitive faculty such as
language, the role of group selection (if truly a mechanism of evolution) in
language development merits serious research and discussion, as it could help
us understand how language arose as a communicative tool in social contests.
For such a volume, more on the evolution behind syntactic structure and
interface would also be desirable. More cross-disciplinary work is needed in
language evolution, such as evolutionary genetics (e.g. regarding the
expression of the FOXP2 “language gene” in humans and our ancestors) and
evolutionary psychology to better address questions of how language arose in
humans.

Overall, the various articles in this volume will be of interest to those
working within the Minimalist framework, Minimalist approaches to interface,
and computational linguistics, and to those interested in language evolution,
grammaticalization, and related issues of language development.

REFERENCES

Elman, Jeffrey; Karmiloff-Smith, Annette; Bates, Elizabeth; & Johnson, Mark.
1996. Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jackendoff, Ray. 2002. Foundations of Language. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

Jackendoff, Ray. 1997. The Architecture of the Language Faculty. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.

Kintsch, Walter. 1993. Information accretion and reduction in text processing:
Inferences. Discourse Processes, 16:1-2, 193-202

Wilson, D. S. 2006. Human groups as adaptive units: toward a permanent
consensus. In P. Carruthers, S. Laurence & S. Stich (Eds.), The Innate Mind:
Culture and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Kent Lee is a Research Professor at the Center for Teaching and Learning at
Korea University, Seoul, Korea. His research interests include cognitive
foundations of language, language education, psycholinguistics, writing
studies, and phonology.








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