Biolinguistics

Metatheoretical Linguistics: A Philosopher’s Guide

Konstantinos Voudouris — 2024-11-08

In this article, we summarise and critically evaluate Ryan Nefdt’s The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics: A Contemporary Outlook (2024). In this book, Nefdt brings the tools of philosophy to bear on contemporary linguistics, targeting perennial debates in syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, and the evolution of language. In so doing, Nefdt sketches several tantalising paths for progress on these topics. Although some of Nefdt’s arguments are underdeveloped, this book serves as a worthwhile introduction to the philosophy of linguistics.

Language Is a “Quite Useless” Tool: A Rejoinder to Fedorenko, Piantadosi, and Gibson’s “Language Is Primarily a Tool for Communication Rather Than Thought”

Jeffrey Watumull — 2024-10-31

Contrary to the prevailing assumption that language is “primarily a tool for communication rather than thought”, I argue that language is, to invoke Oscar Wilde, “quite useless”. Arguing from aesthetic philosophy and the minimalist program for linguistic theory, I conject that language, like art, is not “for” anything—it simply is, conforming to aesthetic rather than utilitarian principles. Of course, like art, language can be a powerful instrument of communication, but its function is not that of expressing thought; it creates thoughts, “primarily” for communicating with oneself, engaging in Popperian critical rationalism, making thoughts (e.g., sentences, constructive proofs) to match Platonic objects (e.g., propositions, classical proofs).

Creative Minds Like Ours? Large Language Models and the Creative Aspect of Language Use

Vincent J. Carchidi — 2024-10-29

Descartes famously constructed a language test to determine the existence of other minds. The test made critical observations about how humans use language that purportedly distinguishes them from animals and machines. These observations were carried into the generative (and later biolinguistic) enterprise under what Chomsky in his Cartesian Linguistics, terms the “creative aspect of language use” (CALU). CALU refers to the stimulus-free, unbounded, yet appropriate use of language—a tripartite depiction whose function in biolinguistics is to highlight a species-specific form of intellectual freedom. This paper argues that CALU provides a set of facts that have significant downstream effects on explanatory theory-construction. These include the internalist orientation of linguistics, the invocation of a competence-performance distinction, and the postulation of a generative language faculty that makes possible—but does not explain—CALU. It contrasts the biolinguistic approach to CALU with the recent wave of enthusiasm for the use of Transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs) as tools, models, or theories of human language, arguing that such uses neglect these fundamental insights to their detriment. It argues that, in the absence of replication, identification, or accounting of CALU, LLMs do not match the explanatory depth of the biolinguistic framework, thereby limiting their theoretical usefulness.

Across the Boundary: The Formalization of the Interface Between Episodic Memory and Narrow Syntax Computation of Human Language

Edward Ruoyang Shi — 2024-08-06

A growing number of studies indicate that the hippocampus plays an essential role in language processing as well as episodic memory. However, there is no consensus on how it is engaged in both domains and how it connects the two domains. From a theoretical perspective, this paper delves into the intricate relationship between episodic memory and the narrow syntax of human language. To be more specific, I focus on the functions of the hippocampus in event processing and propose that hippocampal phasic activity supports the cyclic interaction between episodic memory and narrow syntax. Through such cyclic interaction, the event in the episodic memory is assigned a linguistic format that can be communicated, while narrow syntax is provided with an interpretative engine that underlies reference. This hypothesis predicts that when episodic memory is impaired, corresponding abnormalities appear in linguistic reference.

On Hilbert’s Epsilon Operator in FormSequence

Chenchen Song — 2024-07-23

This paper examines Chomsky’s recently proposed and abandoned FormSequence operation and presents a middle-ground implementation of it in a way that conforms to the Strong Minimalist Thesis. Special attention is paid to the role of Hilbert’s epsilon (ϵ) operator in this operation. I argue that while the ϵ-operator can give FormSequence its desired effect, the sequence-choosing mechanism should more adequately be attributed to the cognitive-computational context (mainly the interfaces) instead of Narrow Syntax. In other words, FormSequence is not entirely syntactic in nature but only partly so. I implement its syntactic part as repeated Pair Merge of a coordinator with a number of conjuncts, which yields a partially ordered set as output instead of a sequence. This implementation reconciles FormSequence with the Strong Minimalist Thesis and maintains a purely hierarchical syntactic module of human language. Furthermore, I compare the use of the ϵ-operator in FormSequence and its more established use in formal semantics and eventually promote a domain-general perspective on the fundamental cognitive procedure of sequence formation.

Review of Merge and the Strong Minimalist Thesis

Elly van Gelderen — 2024-06-21

This review first provides a summary of the central ideas in Merge and the Strong Minimalist Thesis and then presents a discussion of the more controversial points. The book offers an introduction to the Minimalist Program. The focus is on Merge, which plays a central role in the Faculty of Language because it is “the primary structure-building device of the syntax” (p. 2). The book clarifies the status of Theta Theory, Search, and Workspace, and provides a novel account of passives and obligatory control.

A Theory That Never Was: Wrong Way to the “Dawn of Speech”

Axel G. Ekström — 2024-04-26

Recent literature argues that a purportedly long-standing theory—so-called “laryngeal descent theory”—in speech evolution has been refuted (Boë et al., 2019, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw3916). However, an investigation into the relevant source material reveals that the theory described has never been a prominent line of thinking in speech-centric sciences. The confusion arises from a fundamental misunderstanding: the argument that the descent of the larynx and the accompanying changes in the hominin vocal tract expanded the range of possible speech sounds for human ancestors (a theory that enjoys wide interdisciplinary support) is mistakenly interpreted as a belief that all speech was impossible without such changes—a notion that was never widely endorsed in relevant literature. This work aims not to stir controversy but to highlight important historical context in the study of speech evolution.

Evaluating the Language Abilities of Large Language Models vs. Humans: Three Caveats

Evelina Leivada — 2024-04-19

We identify and analyze three caveats that may arise when analyzing the linguistic abilities of Large Language Models. The problem of unlicensed generalizations refers to the danger of interpreting performance in one task as predictive of the models’ overall capabilities, based on the assumption that because a specific task performance is indicative of certain underlying capabilities in humans, the same association holds for models. The human-like paradox refers to the problem of lacking human comparisons, while at the same time attributing human-like abilities to the models. Last, the problem of double standards refers to the use of tasks and methodologies that either cannot be applied to humans or they are evaluated differently in models vs. humans. While we recognize the impressive linguistic abilities of LLMs, we conclude that specific claims about the models’ human-likeness in the grammatical domain are premature.

Uniformity and Diversity of Language in an Evolutionary Context

Stefanie Bode — 2024-02-08

The paper explores a view on language that is in line with the Strong Minimalist Thesis and that derives an evolutionary scenario predicting language variation in time and space. A stable and uniform UG making available recursive Merge shaped by laws of nature such as simplicity and efficiency has been integrated by a sudden rewiring of the brain into an existing biological system which is comparable to the concept of the faculty of language in the broad sense. The basic oppositions such as symmetry and asymmetry, internal language/thought and externalization, uniformity and diversity, universality and particular languages are derived as an automatic consequence of the architecture of the grammar as it evolved in the human species in concert with general principles of nature. A stable and simple system can be reconciled with a dynamic complex one.

Biolinguistics End-Of-Year Notice 2023

Kleanthes K. Grohmann — 2023-12-22