11/03/2013

Speaker: Riny Huijbregts (UiL OTS, UU)

Title: Linear order: A property dissociated from hierarchy

Abstract: Some of today’s approaches to language energetically aim at eliminating UG and therefore language itself. Their denial of the existence of language reflects a deep empiricist bias. They also ignore some important empirical and theoretical results in the study of language and language acquisition over the last 60 years of generative research. These “non-existence” accounts of language seriously underestimate the relevant linguistic knowledge (“constrained ambiguity”) or overestimate the power of domain-general learning. On their view language results from domain-general learning biases and general properties of other cognitive systems: a reductionist proposal to derive a cognitive system (competence of language) from use of language (performance). To provide one example, a recent proposal argues that sequential sentence structure has more relevance for language than hierarchical structure. We’ll argue that discrete infinity (the uniquely human and domain-specific property of human language) results from a combinatorial operation, Merge, which uniquely characterizes human language as an array of hierarchically structured expressions. An important question then is: What exactly do we mean by this operation and how special is it? Two views have been proposed: Chomsky’s “analytic” notion of Merge vs. Kayne’s “holistic” version of it. These notions are conceptually dissimilar and have different empirical consequences, some of which will be discussed and evaluated. We will argue basically that simplest Merge, dissociating defining properties of phrase structure, is a prime candidate for explanatory adequacy. As a corollary, linear order is not a property of the core generative procedure but enters later in the mapping to the sensory-motor system.

When? 15:30 – 17:00

Where? Janskerkhof 13a, 0.06