UG or not UG: Where is Recursion?
Keywords:
Recursion, Merge, Minimalism, UG, Conceptual Necessity, EvolutionAbstract
The operation Merge, applying to two syntactic objects to produce a third and instantiating the property of recursion, has been a fundamental and largely uncontroversial feature in the development of the Minimalist Programme. In early formulations, such as Chomsky (1995a, b), Merge is cited as a feature of the human language faculty that illustrates virtual conceptual necessity, and it is an examination of this characterisation that stimulates the concerns addressed here, where we argue that neither of the familiar routes (satisfaction of interface conditions or computational economy) provides a justification for the conceptually necessary status of Merge. A third route, via considerations of ‘languages as such,’ a notion that includes human and artificial languages, may provide the required justification, but, as Chomsky (1980) urges, the study of ‘languages as such’ is unlikely to yield empirically interesting results. Specifically, this route to justification will not locate Merge in UG if the content of UG is an empirical matter. This conclusion is damaging to the view (Hauser et al., 2002) that the emergence of recursion (and Merge) is the single development crucial to the evolution of language, an empirical proposal, albeit in a different discourse, that firmly places Merge in UG.
Downloads
References
Al-Mutairi, Fahad. 2011. The Strong Minimalist Thesis: Its nature and plausibility. Colchester: University of Essex PhD Thesis.
Boeckx, Cedric. 2006. Linguistic Minimalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boeckx, Cedric. 2009. The nature of Merge: consequences for language, mind
and biology. In Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini et al. (eds).
Carnie, Andrew & David Medeiros. 2005. Tree maximization and the Extended
Projection Principle. Coyote Working Papers in Linguistics 14. 51—55.
Cherniak, Christopher. 2005. Innateness and brain-wiring optimization: non- genomic nativism. In A. Zhilao (ed.), Evolution, Rationality and Cognition. London & New York: Routledge.
Cherniak, Christopher. 2009. Brain wiring optimization and non-genomic nativism., In Piattelli-Palmarini et al. (eds).
Chomsky, Noam. 1968. Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace & World, Inc.
Chomsky, Noam. 1980. Rules and Representations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chomsky, Noam. 1995a. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1995b. Bare Phrase Structure. In Gert Webelhuth (ed.), Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chomsky, Noam. 1995c. Language and nature. Mind 104. 1—61.
Chomsky, Noam. 2000a. Minimalist inquiries: the framework. In Roger Martin, David Michaels & Juan Uriagereka (eds), Step by Step: Essays in Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2000b. New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.).
Chomsky, Noam. 2002. On Nature and Language. Edited by Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2004. Beyond explanatory adequacy. In Adriana Belletti (ed.), Structures and Beyond: Volume 3: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 2005. Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry 36. 1—22.
Chomsky, Noam. 2007. Approaching UG from below. In Uli Sauerland and Hans-Martin Gärtner (eds), Interfaces + Recursion = Language?: Chomsky’s Minimalism and the View from Syntax-Semantics. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Chomsky, Noam. 2010. Some simple evo-devo theses: how true might they be for language? In Richard Larson, Viviane Déprez & Hiroko Yamakido (eds), The Evolution of Human Language: Biolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Epstein, Samuel & Daniel Seeley. 2002. Introduction: on the quest for explanation. In Samuel Epstein & Daniel Seeley (eds), Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program. Oxford: Blackwell.
Everett, Daniel. 2005. Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã. Current Anthropology 46. 621—646.
Everett, Daniel. 2009 Pirahã culture and grammar: a response to some criticisms. Language 85. 405—442.
Fitch, W. Tecumseh., Marc D. Hauser & Noam Chomsky. 2005. The evolution of the language faculty: clarifications and implications. Cognition 97. 279— 310.
Fodor, Jerry. A. 1987. Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA; MIT Press.
Freidin, Robert & Jean-Roger Vergnaud. 2001. Exquisite connections: some remarks on the evolution of linguistic theory. Lingua 111. 639—666.
Fukui, Naoki. 1996. On the nature of economy in language. Ninti Kagaku [Cognitive Studies] 3. 51—71.
Grohmann, Kleanthes. 2003. Symmetries in Locality. <http://www.punksinscience.org/kleanthes/papers/fest.pdf>. [14/04/2011]
Hauser, Marc D., Noam Chomsky & W. Tecumseh Fitch. 2002. The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298. 1569—1579.
Hopcroft, John & Jeffrey Ullman. 1979. Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Hornstein, Norbert, Jairo Nunes & Kleanthes Grohmann. 2005. Understanding Minimalism: An Introduction to Minimalist Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hornstein, Norbert & Paul Pietroski. 2009. Basic operations: minimal syntax- semantics. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 8. 113—139.
Jackendoff, Ray. 2011. What is the human language faculty?: two views. Language 87: 586—624.
Jackendoff, Ray & Steven Pinker. 2005. The nature of the language faculty and its implications for evolution of language. (reply to Fitch, Hauser and Chomsky). Cognition 97. 211—225
Kenstowicz, Michael (ed.). 2001. Ken Hale: A Life on Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Krivochen, Diego. 2011. An introduction to radical minimalism I: on Merge and Agree (and related issues). Iberia 3. 20—62.
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langendoen, Terence. 2003. Merge. In Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley & Mary Willie (eds), Formal Approaches to Function in Grammar. John Benjamins: Philadelphia.
Lewontin, Richard. 1998. The evolution of cognition: questions we will never answer. In Donald Scarborough & Saul Sternberg (eds). An Invitation to Cognitive Science, Vol 4: Methods, Models and Conceptual Issues. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Montague, Richard. 1970. English as a formal language. In B Visentini (ed.), Linguaggi nella Società e nella Tecnica. Milan: Edizioni di Comunità. Reprinted in Richmond Thomason (ed.), Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1974.
Nevins, Andrew, David Pesetsky & Cilene Rodrigues. 2009a. Pirahã exceptionality: a reassessment. Language 85. 355—404.
Nevins, Andrew, David Pesetsky & Cilene Rodrigues. 2009b. Evidence and argumentation: a reply to Everett (2009). Language 85. 671—681.
Parker, Anna. 2006. Evolution as a constraint on theories of syntax: The case against minimalism. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh PhD Thesis.
Pesetsky, David. & Esther Torrego. 2001. T-to-C movement: causes and consequences. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.).
Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo, Juan Uriagareka & Pello Salaburu (eds). 2009. Of Minds and Language: The Basque Country Encounter with Noam Chomsky. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pinker, Steven. & Ray. Jackendoff. 2005. The faculty of language: what’s special about it? Cognition 95. 201—236.
Postal, Paul. M. 2003. (Virtually) conceptually necessary. Journal of Linguistics 39. 599—620.
Pullum, Geoffrey & Barbara Scholz. 2010. Recursion and the infinitude claim. In Harry van der Hulst (ed.), Recursion and Human Language. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Smith, Neil. 2000. Foreword to Noam Chomsky. In Noam Chomsky (2000b).
Smith, Neil. 2004. Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sober, Eliot. 2001. What is the problem of simplicity? In Arnold Zellner, Hugo Keuzenkamp & Michael McAleer (eds), Simplicity, Inference and Modelling: Keeping it Sophisticatedly Simple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Uriagereka, Juan. 1998. Rhyme and Reason: An Introduction to Minimalist Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Downloads
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Las ediciones impresa y electrónica de esta Revista son editadas por el Secretariado de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, siendo necesario citar la procedencia en cualquier reproducción parcial o total.Salvo indicación contraria, todos los contenidos de la edición electrónica se distribuyen bajo una licencia de uso y distribución “Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivar 4.0 Internacional”
. Puede consultar desde aquí la versión informativa y el texto legal de la licencia. Esta circunstancia ha de hacerse constar expresamente de esta forma cuando sea necesario.
