39 Citations
On the parallel evolution of syntax and lexicon: A Merge-only view
- LinguisticsJournal of Neurolinguistics
- 2017
Syntax, action, comparative cognitive science, and Darwinian thinking
- LinguisticsFront. Psychol.
- 2014
In a recent exchange, Moro (2014) and Pulvermuller (2014) re-open a long-standing debate in the language sciences. Ever since the 1975 Royaumont encounter that set the agenda for linguistics and the…
Structures, Not Strings: Linguistics as Part of the Cognitive Sciences
- LinguisticsTrends in Cognitive Sciences
- 2015
When syntax meets action: Brain potential evidence of overlapping between language and motor sequencing
- PsychologyCortex
- 2018
Word Order, Action, and the Brain: A Reply to Arbib
- LinguisticsLang. Linguistics Compass
- 2015
In a recent paper in this journal, I argued that the crosslinguistic prevalence of subject-object-verb and subject-verb-object word orders reflects the sequential and hierarchical representation of…
Syntax in language and music: what is the right level of comparison?
- LinguisticsFront. Psychol.
- 2015
This paper suggests that a fruitful comparison between the two domains could benefit from taking the grammar of action into account, and suggests that what is called “syntax” can be investigated in terms of goal of action, action planning, motor control, and sensory-motor integration.
Do we represent intentional action as recursively embedded? The answer must be empirical. A comment on Vicari and Adenzato (2014)
- LinguisticsConsciousness and Cognition
- 2015
Labels, cognomes, and cyclic computation: an ethological perspective
- BiologyFront. Psychol.
- 2015
It is shown that the operation Label, not Merge, constitutes the evolutionary novelty which distinguishes human language from non-human computational systems; a proposal lending weight to a Weak Continuity Hypothesis and leading to the formation of what is termed Computational Ethology.
The geometry of predication: a configurational derivation of the defining property of clause structure
- LinguisticsPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
- 2019
This article proposes a configurational approach to predication based on the notion of symmetry as derived by purely compositional mechanisms and addresses some theoretical and empirical consequences of this generalization including those pertaining to neurolinguistics.
Syntactic theory is also a metaphor
- LinguisticsFront. Psychol.
- 2015
It is fair to say that Pulvermuller's proposal for the action-syntax analog in full scale, while promising in its spirit, is not rigorously argued, given the elusive relation between action and syntax which underlies the inquiry.
References
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The discovery of language invariance and variation, and its relevance for the cognitive sciences
- LinguisticsBehavioral and Brain Sciences
- 2009
Abstract Modern linguistics has highlighted the fundamental invariance of human language: A rich invariant structure has emerged from comparative studies nourished by sophisticated formal models;…
Cortical representation of the constituent structure of sentences
- BiologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2011
In several inferior frontal and superior temporal regions, activation was delayed in response to the largest constituent structures, suggesting that nested linguistic structures take increasingly longer time to be computed and that these delays can be measured with fMRI.
The Equilibrium of Human Syntax: Symmetries in the Brain
- Linguistics
- 2012
Part 1: Symmetry (Breaking) in Syntax: Toward a Unified theory of copular sentences; part 2: The Boundaries of Babel: How the Brain Shapes Grammars.
A closer look at the turtle's eyes
- PsychologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2011
Evidence is provided that a set of brain regions responds monotonically to the hierarchical constituent structure of sentences, thus shedding light on the cortical implementation of a central aspect of language, arguably the one marking the watershed between human and nonhuman communication codes.
“A Running Back” and Forth: A Review of Recursion and Human Language
- PhilosophyBiolinguistics
- 2011
Contrary to a(n apparently) widespread belief, it is simply not true that recursive structures in languages “suggest recursive mechanisms in the grammar” (at least not in the sense that is usually intended in the literature — see infra).
The Neural Cost of the Auditory Perception of Language Switches: An Event-Related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study in Bilinguals
- Psychology, LinguisticsThe Journal of Neuroscience
- 2007
The results indicate that switching engages an extensive neural network, including bilateral prefrontal and temporal associative regions, and suggests that switching into a less-exposed language requires controlled processing resources.
Active perception: sensorimotor circuits as a cortical basis for language
- Psychology, BiologyNature Reviews Neuroscience
- 2010
Data show that language comprehension benefits from frontocentral action systems, indicating that action and perception circuits are interdependent.