Language universals in human brains

Abstract

Do speakers know universal restrictions on linguistic elements that are absent from their language? We report an experimental test of this question. Our case study concerns the universal restrictions on initial consonant sequences, onset clusters (e.g., bl in block). Across languages, certain onset clusters (e.g., lb) are dispreferred (e.g., systematically under-represented) relative to others (e.g., bl). We demonstrate such preferences among Korean speakers, whose language lacks initial C1C2 clusters altogether. Our demonstration exploits speakers' well known tendency to misperceive ill-formed clusters. We show that universally dispreferred onset clusters are more frequently misperceived than universally preferred ones, indicating that Korean speakers consider the former cluster-type more ill-formed. The misperception of universally ill-formed clusters is unlikely to be due to a simple auditory failure. Likewise, the aversion of universally dispreferred onsets by Korean speakers is not explained by English proficiency or by several phonetic and phonological properties of Korean. We conclude that language universals are neither relics of language change nor are they artifacts of generic limitations on auditory perception and motor control-they reflect universal linguistic knowledge, active in speakers' brains.optimality theory ͉ phonology ͉ sonority ͉ syllable T he ''nature vs. nurture'' debate concerns the origin of speakers' knowledge of their language. Both sides of this controversy presuppose that people have some knowledge of abstract linguistic regularities. They disagree on whether such regularities reflect the properties of linguistic experience, auditory perception, and motor control (1, 2) or universal, possibly innate, and domain-specific restrictions on language structure (3-5, **). Empirical support for such restrictions comes from linguistic universals: regularities exhibited across the world's languages. These universals, for example, assert that the sound sequence lbif makes a poor word, whereas the sequence blif is better: Languages always make use of words like blif before (as in Russian) resorting to words like lbif. But the significance of such observations is unclear. One view holds that language universals form part of the language faculty of all speakers (5-7). The alternative denies that speakers have knowledge of language universals. Rather, speakers simply know regularities (either structural or statistical) concerning words in their own language. Language universals are not mentally represented-they are only statistical tendencies, shaped by generic (auditory and motor) constraints on language evolution (8). For example, words beginning with lb have a tendency to decline relative to those beginning with bl because the former are more frequently mispronounced or misperceived. The question at hand, then, is whether language universals are active in the brains of all speakers, or mere relics of systematic language change and its distal generic causes?The matter is difficult to resolve bec...

Amodal Aspects of Linguistic Design

“…We thus conclude that nonsigners were biased to associate signed syllables with movement. This result converges with past findings to suggest that signed [14,15,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26] and spoken [7,8,16,18,19,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] languages are constrained by a common restriction that requires a syllable to exhibit a single sonority/energy peak.…”

“…Our findings that sonority peaks define syllables in ASL converge with past experimental and linguistic results from spoken language [7,8,[16][17][18][19][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] and the linguistic evidence from sign languages [14,15,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26] to suggest that sonority constrains the structure of the syllable across modalities. Why do different languages converge on this restriction?…”

“…For example, linguistic analysis [7,8] suggests that syllables like bnif are preferred to lbif, as their sonority profile is better formed. Remarkably, similar preferences have been documented experimentally among speakers of various languages (English [34,[36][37][38][39]43,44], Spanish [40] and Korean [35]) despite no experience with either type of syllable. Such observations suggest that people encode broad phonological restrictions on the syllable structure of spoken language.…”

“…While it is unlikely that participants relied on conscious analogical reasoning, as our subsequent studies found that people have great difficulties to deliberately analogize the structure of signs to English examples (e.g., ''what complex sign relates to its base as kidney to kid''), it is quite possible that participants in the present experiments relied on implicit knowledge of English phonology. Nonetheless, speakers have been shown to apply broad sonority restrictions on structures that are unattested in their language [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. Moreover, sign languages, complete with both phonological and morphological patterns, emerge de novo in the human species [69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76].…”

“…Furthermore, there is evidence that people are sensitive to broad sonority restrictions, and they extend this knowledge even to syllable types that are unattested in their language [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. For example, linguistic analysis [7,8] suggests that syllables like bnif are preferred to lbif, as their sonority profile is better formed.…”