Cognitive invariants and linguistic variability

To English speakers, the distinctions between blue and green, cup and glass, or cut and break seem self-evident. The intuition is that these words label categories that have an existence independent of language, and language merely captures the pre-existing categories. But cross-linguistic work shows that the named distinctions are not nearly as self-evident as they may feel. There is diversity in how languages divide up domains including color, number, plants and animals, drinking vessels and household containers, body parts, spatial relations, locomotion, acts of cutting and breaking, acts of carrying and holding, and more. Still, studies documenting variability across languages also uncover striking commonalities. Such commonalities indicate that there are sources of constraint on the variation. Both the commonalities and divergences carry important lessons for Cognitive Science. They speak to the causal relations among language, thought, and culture; the possibility of cross-culturally shared aspects of perception and cognition; the methods needed for studying general-purpose, non-linguistic concepts; and how languages are learned.

Studies in Language, 2009

This chapter addresses the dialectic relation between E (= external) language and I (= internal) language. On the one hand, E-language is the product of the I-language of individual speakers; at the same time, the I-language of individual speakers is the product of their exposure to E-language. Given this relation, it is argued that certain features of E-language need to be incorporated into, and form an essential part of Ilanguage: the frequency of occurrence of its various items, their collocations and co-occurrence patterns, their contextual situatedness, and the ubiquity of the idiomatic and the formulaic. I use the metaphor of the ‘mental corpus’ as a way of characterizing the nature of what it is that speakers of a language have learned and what they access in language performance. The approach is contrasted with what is perhaps the dominant view of I-language, which seeks to compartmentalize linguistic knowledge into the lexicon and a set of rules for combining items from the lexicon.

Universals and variation in language and thought: Concepts, communication, and semantic structure Why do languages parcel human experience into categories in the ways they do, and to what extent do these categories in language shape our view of the world? Both language and nonlinguistic cognition vary across cultures, but not arbitrarily, suggesting that there may be universal constraints on how we talk and think. This dissertation explores the sources and consequences of universals and variation in language and thought in four parts.

Language 77.1 (2000). 207-208.

Language, 2000

NOTICES fragments of Japanese (233-68) and English (269-325). Finally, it should be noted that C does not compare DP with the current dominant theory in generative phonology, optimality theory (OT). In part, this is because OT is a theory of constraint combination, not phonological representation, and thus OT can benefit from the theoretical advances made by C. Conversely, much of the early literature demonstrating the superiority of OT to derivational approaches does not reflect on DP, either. The primary difference between theories is the violability of constraints in OT. Since DP is the more restrictive theory, the burden of proof is on practitioners of OT, who would greatly benefit from a careful reading of this exceptional volume. [STEFAN FRISCH, University of Michigan.] Linguistic structure and linguistic change: Explanation from language processing. By THOMAS BERG. Oxford & New York: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 336. The objective of this formidable book is to establish a relationship between psycholinguistic processing and linguistic patterns. Berg's approach is to derive predictions from psycholinguistic research and to test them against an impressively wide array of linguistic patterns and diachronic processes as well as those found in poetics. B's case is compelling, though he acknowledges that a successful outcome means that the psycholinguistic approach is merely plausible as it is impossible to eliminate all alternative analyses (65). Although B admits that language is a multifaceted phenomenon that is real at the neurological, physical, sociological, and psychological levels, he adopts a psycholinguistic approach because it bears on all of these levels and because it is a priori feasible given that speaking and hearing are psychological activities so fundamental that productive and perceptual processes are likely to exert influence on the information to be processed, namely, language (54); clearly, B believes that language is NOT autonomous, contrary to many generativists' views. Further, B cautions against eclecticism, as principles that are adopted from one framework are couched in larger, coherent theories, and their explanatory force is eviscerated when that context disappears. B heeds his own advice and seeks to determine how far a single model can take us in explaining language. B's answer is, quite far, although when the relevant disciplines advance enough to be able to assess their contributions, B conjectures that linguistic patterns will undoubtedly be understood as the result of multicausal efforts (279). In Ch. 1, 'On the "art" of explanation' (1-17), B discusses explanation in scientific theory and in fragments of Japanese (233-68) and English (269-325). Finally, it should be noted that C does not compare DP with the current dominant theory in generative phonology, optimality theory (OT). In part, this is because OT is a theory of constraint combination, not phonological representation, and thus OT can benefit from the theoretical advances made by C. Conversely, much of the early literature demonstrating the superiority of OT to derivational approaches does not reflect on DP, either. The primary difference between theories is the violability of constraints in OT. Since DP is the more restrictive theory, the burden of proof is on practitioners of OT, who would greatly benefit from a careful reading of this exceptional volume. [STEFAN FRISCH, University of Michigan.] Linguistic structure and linguistic change: Explanation from language processing. By THOMAS BERG. Oxford & New York: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 336. The objective of this formidable book is to establish a relationship between psycholinguistic processing and linguistic patterns. Berg's approach is to derive predictions from psycholinguistic research and to test them against an impressively wide array of linguistic patterns and diachronic processes as well as those found in poetics. B's case is compelling, though he acknowledges that a successful outcome means that the psycholinguistic approach is merely plausible as it is impossible to eliminate all alternative analyses (65). Although B admits that language is a multifaceted phenomenon that is real at the neurological, physical, sociological, and psychological levels, he adopts a psycholinguistic approach because it bears on all of these levels and because it is a priori feasible given that speaking and hearing are psychological activities so fundamental that productive and perceptual processes are likely to exert influence on the information to be processed, namely, language (54); clearly, B believes that language is NOT autonomous, contrary to many generativists' views. Further, B cautions against eclecticism, as principles that are adopted from one framework are couched in larger, coherent theories, and their explanatory force is eviscerated when that context disappears. B heeds his own advice and seeks to determine how far a single model can take us in explaining language. B's answer is, quite far, although when the relevant disciplines advance enough to be able to assess their contributions, B conjectures that linguistic patterns will undoubtedly be understood as the result of multicausal efforts (279). In Ch. 1, 'On the "art" of explanation' (1-17), B discusses explanation in scientific theory and in fragments of Japanese (233-68) and English (269-325). Finally, it should be noted that C does not compare DP with the current dominant theory in generative phonology, optimality theory (OT). In part, this is because OT is a theory of constraint combination, not phonological representation, and thus OT can benefit from the theoretical advances made by C. Conversely, much of the early literature demonstrating the superiority of OT to derivational approaches does not reflect on DP, either. The primary difference between theories is the violability of constraints in OT. Since DP is the more restrictive theory, the burden of proof is on practitioners of OT, who would greatly benefit from a careful reading of this exceptional volume. [STEFAN FRISCH, University of Michigan.] Linguistic structure and linguistic change: Explanation from language processing. By THOMAS BERG. Oxford & New York: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 336. The objective of this formidable book is to establish a relationship between psycholinguistic processing and linguistic patterns. Berg's approach is to derive predictions from psycholinguistic research and to test them against an impressively wide array of linguistic patterns and diachronic processes as well as those found in poetics. B's case is compelling, though he acknowledges that a successful outcome means that the psycholinguistic approach is merely plausible as it is impossible to eliminate all alternative analyses (65). Although B admits that language is a multifaceted phenomenon that is real at the neurological, physical, sociological, and psychological levels, he adopts a psycholinguistic approach because it bears on all of these levels and because it is a priori feasible given that speaking and hearing are psychological activities so fundamental that productive and perceptual processes are likely to exert influence on the information to be processed, namely, language (54); clearly, B believes that language is NOT autonomous, contrary to many generativists' views. Further, B cautions against eclecticism, as principles that are adopted from one framework are couched in larger, coherent theories, and their explanatory force is eviscerated when that context disappears. B heeds his own advice and seeks to determine how far a single model can take us in explaining language. B's answer is, quite far, although when the relevant disciplines advance enough to be able to assess their contributions, B conjectures that linguistic patterns will undoubtedly be understood as the result of multicausal efforts (279). In Ch. 1, 'On the "art" of explanation' (1-17), B discusses explanation in scientific theory and in fragments of Japanese (233-68) and English (269-325). Finally, it should be noted that C does not compare DP with the current dominant theory in generative phonology, optimality theory (OT). In part, this is because OT is a theory of constraint combination, not phonological representation, and thus OT can benefit from the theoretical advances made by C. Conversely, much of the early literature demonstrating the superiority of OT to derivational approaches does not reflect on DP, either. The primary difference between theories is the violability of constraints in OT. Since DP is the more restrictive theory, the burden of proof is on practitioners of OT, who would greatly benefit from a careful reading of this exceptional volume. [STEFAN FRISCH, University of Michigan.] Linguistic structure and linguistic change: Explanation from language processing. By THOMAS BERG. Oxford & New York: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp. xiii, 336. The objective of this formidable book is to establish a relationship between psycholinguistic processing and linguistic patterns. Berg's approach is to derive predictions from psycholinguistic research and to test them against an impressively wide array of linguistic patterns and diachronic processes as well as those found in poetics. B's case is compelling, though he acknowledges that a successful outcome means that the psycholinguistic approach is merely plausible as it is impossible to eliminate all alternative analyses (65). Although B admits that language is a multifaceted phenomenon that is real at the neurological, physical, sociological, and psychological levels, he adopts a psycholinguistic approach because it bears on all of these levels and because it is a priori feasible given that speaking and hearing are psychological activities so fundamental that productive and perceptual processes are likely to exert influence on the information to be processed, namely, language (54); clearly, B believes that language is...

2015

While there is large agreement that there must be a systematic relation between the cognition of single individuals and the public meaning of lingusitic expressions, there is no theory that could describe this relation systematically and formally. The aim of this paper is to describe a framework that is able to fill this gap. We will use frames as an adequate format to describe both mental representations and linguistic meaning. The central thesis is that the rich structures of individuals’ representations overlap in the sense that they share a common core. This core can be identified as the public meaning of the word associated with these mental representations (concepts). Both levels are systematically related by abstraction mechanisms (from cognition to language) and attunement mechanisms (from language to cognition).

De Gruyter eBooks, 2005

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

Language and thought are intimately related to one another, but the level or degree of connectedness between language and thought is not clear due to the fact that the influence of language over thought can be more context-specific or general (see Zlatev and Blomberg, 2015). This reflects general assumptions fromthe Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis (Whorf, 1956). If the influence of language over thought, thinking, and reasoning is very context-specific in being applicable to specific modes/modalities of cognition, such as color, space, visual motion, etc., this may suggest that the constraints of embodiment determine how modal linguistic symbols come to be grounded in neurally instantiated modality-specific systems (Barsalou, 2008).

Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature