Balari et al (2020). Language Acquisition and EcoDevo Processes

10 juny, 2020

Autors:

Balari, S., Lorenzo, G. & Sultan, S.E.

Títol:

Language Acquisition and EcoDevo Processes: The Case of the Lexicon-Syntax Interface. Biological Theory

Editorial: Springer
Data de publicació: Maig del 2020

Més informació
Text complet

Ecological developmental biology (EcoDevo) considers the phenotype as actively produced through an environmentally informed process of individual development, rather than predetermined by the genotype. Accordingly, the genotype is viewed as one among many interactants that contribute formative elements; it is understood to do so no differently from the way other organism-internal and environmental resources do. Although the EcoDevo approach is evidently particularly apt to inform approaches to human development, which mostly takes shape in rich cultural environments, it is remarkable that, at least within some highly influential circles of the linguistic sciences, the study of many distinctive human cognitive traits including language remains strongly anchored to a preformationist stance. This article brings an EcoDevo approach to the biologically focused study of language to argue that an aspect of language design commonly assumed to be “blueprinted,” namely, the lexicon-syntax interface, may instead be explained as a plastic effect of ongoing developmental processes in the mind of the child, in which designated aspects of the environment fulfill a key constructive role.

Balari & Lorenzo (2021). Evo-Devo of language and cognition

14 abril, 2020

balari 2021

Autors:

Sergio Balari & Guillermo Lorenzo

Títol:

Evo-Devo of language and cognition. In L. Nuño de la Rosa & Gerd B. Müller, eds. Evolutionary Developmental Biology. A Reference Guide.

Editorial: Springer
ISBN13: 978-3-319-33038-9

Més informació

Historically, the task of disentangling the evolutionary origins of language has been obscured by a number of difficulties that may be diagnosed as the problem of ontology (what the evolved phenotype is), the problem of computation (what kinds of cognitive processes subserve linguistic activity), the problem of representation (what is the nature of the objects of computation), the problem of homology/novelty (how language relates with animal cognition at large), and the problem of selection (how language has been fixed as a species-typical trait). While assuming that facets of these problems remain as recalcitrant as ever, this chapter explains how the adoption of the developmental perspective offers the promise of gaining a degree of explanatory accuracy hitherto unknown in this field of specialization.

Bonet (2023). Phonologically conditioned allomorphy (The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Morphology, ed.)

24 novembre, 2023

Autors:

Eulàlia Bonet

Títol:

Phonologically conditioned allomorphy (dins P.Ackema, S.Bendjaballah, E.Bonet & A.Fábregas (eds.). The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Morphology)

Editorial: Wiley-Blackwell
Data de publicació: 22 de setembre del 2023
ISBN13: 9781119693574

Text complet

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology is an authoritative, state-of-the-art overview the data that have been central to the development of morphological theory in the past decades. Featuring contributions from an international panel of linguists, this unparalleled collection brings together both seminal work and recent morphological research on topics including derivational and inflectional processes, concatenative and non-concatenative types of morphology, and the interfaces of morphology with syntax, phonology, and semantics.

In-depth case studies describe important morphological phenomena, discuss how they have shaped different theoretical proposals, and analyze and contextualize the data behind well-established empirical studies. Organized alphabetically, each chapter explores a specific set of empirical data relating to a morphological problem or issue central to both past and current theoretical debates.

· Provides detailed and comprehensive information about morphology and its interfaces
· Describes main morphological phenomena based on a large, cross-linguistically varied body of data
· Offers a balanced presentation of different morphological approaches, analytical proposals, and academic perspectives
· Covers a wide range of topics and a large number of subdomains of morphology

Available both as a five-volume set and as an online resource, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology is an essential reference tool for scholars in the field of morphology and linguistics more generally , and will also be a very useful tool in advanced undergraduate as well as graduate courses in these fields.