Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T08:19:00.299Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Niche-construction, co-evolution, and domain-specificity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

James R. Hurford
James R. Hurford
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences, and Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9LL, United Kingdom. [email protected]://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~jim
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

That language is shaped to fit the human brain is close to the Chomskyan position. The target article by Christiansen & Chater (C&C) assumes an entity, “(the) language,” outside individual heads. What is the nature of this entity? Linguistic niche-construction and co-evolution of language and genes are possible, with some of what evolved being language-specific. Recent generative theory postulates much less than the old Universal Grammar (UG).

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 5 , October 2008 , pp. 526
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)