Syntax as an Emergent Characteristic of the Evolution of Semantic Complexity

Minds and Machines 9 (3):309-346 (1999)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

It is commonly argued that the rules of language, as distinct from its semantic features, are the characteristics which most clearly distinguish language from the communication systems of other species. A number of linguists (e.g., Chomsky 1972, 1980; Pinker 1994) have suggested that the universal features of grammar (UG) are unique human adaptations showing no evolutionary continuities with any other species. However, recent summaries of the substantive features of UG are quite remarkable in the very general nature of the features proposed. While the syntax of any given language can be quite complex, the specific rules vary so much between languages that the truly universal (i.e. innate) aspects of grammar are not complex at all. In fact, these features most closely resemble a set of general descriptions of our richly complex semantic cognition, and not a list of specific rules. General principles of the evolutionary process suggest that syntax is more properly understood as an emergent characteristic of the explosion of semantic complexity that occurred during hominid evolution. It is argued that grammatical rules used in given languages are likely to be simply conventionalized, invented features of language, and not the result of an innate, grammar-specific module. The grammatical and syntactic regularities that are found across languages occur simply because all languages attempt to communicate the same sorts of semantic information

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Semantics and syntax: parallels and connections.J. E. Miller - 1985 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The semantics of syntax: a minimalist approach to grammar.Denis Bouchard - 1995 - Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.
A grammar systems approach to natural language grammar.M. Dolores Jiménez López - 2006 - Linguistics and Philosophy 29 (4):419 - 454.
Narrow syntax and the language of thought.Wolfram Hinzen - 2013 - Philosophical Psychology 26 (1):1-23.
What knowledge must be in the head in order to acquire language.William P. Bechtel - 1996 - In B. Velichkovsky & Duane M. Rumbaugh (eds.), Communicating Meaning: The Evolution and Development of Language. Hillsdale, Nj: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 45.
Lexical semantics without thematic roles.Yael Ravin - 1990 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Semantic syntax.Pieter A. M. Seuren - 1996 - Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.
Cognition needs syntax but not rules.Terence E. Horgan & John L. Tienson - 2006 - In Robert J. Stainton (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 147--158.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
75 (#201,018)

6 months
2 (#670,035)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Language as shaped by the brain.Morten H. Christiansen & Nick Chater - 2008 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (5):489-509.
The evolution of enhanced conceptual complexity and of Broca’s area.P. Thomas Schoenemann - 2018 - Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systemsinteraction Studies / Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systemsinteraction Studies 19 (1-2):336-351.

View all 10 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Language and Mind.Noam Chomsky - 1968 - Cambridge University Press.
The Language of Thought.J. A. Fodor - 1978 - Critica 10 (28):140-143.
The Architecture of Complexity.Herbert A. Simon - 1962 - Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106.
Evolution and ontogeny of neural circuits.Sven O. E. Ebbesson - 1984 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7 (3):321-331.

View all 12 references / Add more references