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It has long been a dogma of linguistics that all languages are equally complex, based in particular on Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar. But this is being increasingly challenged by linguists, and this paper assembles a good deal of anthropological evidence that language, like all other aspects of social organization and culture, develops greater levels of complexity, especially in relation to literacy.
Of all the human sciences, linguistics has had perhaps the most success in pivoting itself towards the physical sciences, particularly in the past fifty years with the dominance of Universal Grammar, which is most closely associated with the work of Noam Chomsky. One of the most important implications of Universal Grammar has been that language production in its most natural and optimal state is organized analytically, and thus shares the same organizational logic of other knowledge systems in Western science, such as the binomial taxonomization of nature and analytic geometry. This essay argues that recent challenges to Universal Grammar represent more than just a theoretical dispute within a single discipline; they threaten to undermine the hegemony of analytical knowledge systems in general. While analytical logic has served Western science well, analogical knowledge systems may be able to address problems that analytical logic cannot, such as ecological crises, the limitations of artificial intelligence, and the problems of complex systems. Instead of studying languages as a means of modeling human thought in general, languages should also be studied and preserved as heteronomous knowledge systems which themselves exist as embodied objects within particular ecologies. Rethinking language as existing on a univocal plane with other ecological objects will provide us with new insight on the ethics and epistemology of analogical knowledge production.
We examine the question of which aspects of language are uniquely human and uniquely linguistic in light of recent suggestions by Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch that the only such aspect is syntactic recursion, the rest of language being either specific to humans but not to language (e.g. words and concepts) or not specific to humans (e.g. speech perception). We find
Abstract Everett (2005) has claimed that the grammar of Pirahã is exceptional in displaying'inexplicable gaps', that these gaps follow from a cultural principle restricting communication to'immediate experience', and that this principle has' severe'consequences for work on universal grammar. We argue against each of these claims.
Review of Daniel Everett's Language: The Cultural Tool In this very readable book, aimed at the general audience, Everett focuses his main attention on empirical findings about Pirahã and several other languages. He proposes a theory that can account for these findings and draws on research in anthropology, primatology, developmental psychology, and computational modeling to defend his proposal. This broad scope makes the volume an important contribution to the current debates in linguistics and cognitive science. Obviously, no 330-page volume aimed at the general reader can cover all or even the most important findings in the areas discussed by Everett. Hence, this work should not be considered in isolation but as ‘springboard’ into a fascinating body of literature, covering the same topics in more depth and arriving at times at different conclusions.
Usage-based approaches typically draw on a relatively small set of cognitive processes, such as categorization, analogy, and chunking to explain language structure and function. The goal of this paper is to first review the extent to which the “cognitive commitment” of usage-based theory has had success in explaining empirical findings across domains, including language acquisition, processing, and typology. We then look at the overall strengths and weaknesses of usage-based theory and highlight where there are significant debates. Finally, we draw special attention to a set of culturally generated structural patterns that seem to lie beyond the explanation of core usage-based cognitive processes. In this context we draw a distinction between cognition permitting language structure vs. cognition entailing language structure. As well as addressing the need for greater clarity on the mechanisms of generalizations and the fundamental units of grammar, we suggest that integrating culturally generated structures within existing cognitive models of use will generate tighter predictions about how language works.
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