Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:23:33.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does kinship terminology provide evidence for or against universal grammar?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2010

Christina Behme
Christina Behme
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4P9, Canada. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Jones introduces an intricate machinery of kin classification that overcomes limitations of previous accounts. I question whether such a machinery is plausible. Because individuals never need to learn the entire spectrum of kin terminology, they could rely on data-driven learning. The complexity of Jones's machinery for kin classification casts doubt on the existence of innate structures that cover the complete linguistic domain.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 5 , October 2010 , pp. 381 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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.)

References

Arbib, M., Liebal, K. & Pika, S. (2008) Primate vocalization, gesture, and the evolution of human language. Current Anthropology 49:1053–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Behme, C. & Deacon, H. (2008) Language learning in infancy: Does the empirical evidence support a domain specific language acquisition device? Philosophical Psychology 21(5):641–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botha, R. (1999) On Chomsky's “fable” of instantaneous language evolution. Language and Communication 19:243–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, M. & Chater, N. (2008) Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31:489–558.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deacon, T. (2007) The evolution of language systems in the human brain. Evolution of Nervous Systems 4:529–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, S. & Waterfall, H. (2007) Behavioral and computational aspects of language and its acquisition. Physics of Life Reviews 4:253–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elman, J., Bates, E., Johnson, M., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D. & Plunkett, K. (1996) Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Evans, N. & Levinson, S. (2009) The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32:429–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (2005) Language evolution and human development. In: Origins of the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and child development, ed. Bjorklund, D. & Pellegrini, A., pp. 383–410. Guilford.Google Scholar
Monahagan, P. & Christiansen, M. (2008) Integration of multiple probabilistic cues in syntax acquisition. In: Corpora in language acquisition research, ed. Behrens, H., pp. 139–63. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redington, M., Chater, N. & Finch, S. (1998) Distributional information: A powerful cue for acquiring syntactic categories. Cognitive Science 22:425–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sagae, K., MacWhinney, B. & Lavie, A. (2004) Automatic parsing of parent–child interactions. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 36:113–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solan, Z., Horn, D., Ruppin, E. & Edelman, S. (2005) Unsupervised learning of natural languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 102:11629–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1998) The particulate origins of language generativity. In: Approaches to the evolution of language, ed. Hurford, J., Studdert-Kennedy, M. & Knight, C., pp. 202–21. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003) Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2006) Acquiring linguistic constructions. In: Handbook of child psychology, ed. Kuhn, D. & Siegler, R., pp. 255–98. Wiley.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2008) Origins of human communication. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar