Language, chaos and entropy: A physical take on biolinguistics

Abstract

In this paper we will try to provide arguments for the thesis that language is
a physical system aiming at justicative adequacy: what architectural properties
license the occurrence of certain emergent phenomena. We will claim that the
derivational dynamics that can be found in language (and other systems of the
mind) should be analyzed from the perspective of complex non-linear systems,
as an open dynamic system. We will propose an oscillatory engine for linguistic
computations, which yields cycles as a natural emergent property given mutually
incompatible tendencies between output conditions: global semantic eects and
local linearization requirements. This architecture, in which structure building is
conditioned by irreconciliable conditions, congures a kind of dynamical system
well known in physics: a dynamical frustration. We will attempt to show that
interesting eects arise when we consider that there is a dynamical frustration at
the core of cognitive dynamics.