Terrence W. Deacon | Neither nature nor nurture the semiotic basis of language universals | 2016 скачать в хорошем качестве

Terrence W. Deacon | Neither nature nor nurture the semiotic basis of language universals | 2016

University of Trento - Center for Mind/Brain Sciences - CIMEC Doctoral school Cognitive and Brain Sciences The CIMEC Colloquia series Neither nature nor nurture: the semiotic basis of language universals Friday, October 28, 2016 @ 12:00 p.m. Aula Magna, Palazzo Istruzione, Corso Bettini 84, Rovereto http://webmagazine.unitn.it/en/evento... http://www.polorovereto.unitn.it/serv... Welcome Francesco Pavani Speaker Terrence W. Deacon Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley Neither nature nor nurture: the semiotic basis of language universals Abstract The concept of a “universal grammar” has been hotly contested over the past half century. What is the source of the many highly convergent language structures in the world's many diverse languages? The usual lines of debate divide along nature/nurture lines: e.g. commonalities due to innate evolved cognitive predispositions or due to common discourse demands that become cultural conventions. But nature and nurture do not exhaust the possibilities. Many language universals are analogues to mathematical universals. These universal grammatical constraints are effectively “discovered” in the history of linguistic evolution, language change, and during process of language acquisition due to pragmatic feedback about failed or ambiguous reference. And many of the most critical semiotic constraints are discovered in prelinguistic and extralinguistic iconic and indexical communication. This makes both innate grammatical knowledge and the so-called poverty of the stimulus problem irrelevant.