Linguistic diversityand universals

Bickel, Balthasar

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139342872.006

Cited by 26 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(37 reference statements)

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“…However, if the factors leading to the presence (or absence) of this property can be determined, they may allow us to make predictions on which species or social contexts to focus our research effort to find these analogous or homologous properties in animal communication systems if they do exist. This focus fits with recent developments in linguistics that increasingly challenge the idea of a given set of properties defining all and only human languages, and instead probe into the social and biological factors that condition how specific properties of language arise, develop and disappear again in the course of time [65][66][67].…”

Section: (C) Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Language evolution: syntax before phonology?

et al. 2014

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Phonology and syntax represent two layers of sound combination central to language's expressive power. Comparative animal studies represent one approach to understand the origins of these combinatorial layers. Traditionally, phonology, where meaningless sounds form words, has been considered a simpler combination than syntax, and thus should be more common in animals. A linguistically informed review of animal call sequences demonstrates that phonology in animal vocal systems is rare, whereas syntax is more widespread. In the light of this and the absence of phonology in some languages, we hypothesize that syntax, present in all languages, evolved before phonology.

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Section: (C) Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Language evolution: syntax before phonology?

et al. 2014

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“…There will be misses, due to accidents of various sorts, but one ought to seek other evidence that a property is active, e.g. in language history (Bickel, 2014) or in (actual and artificial) acquisition. Interesting predictions could be obtained about words with other types (e.g.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gärdenfors, 2004, but see Gärdenfors, 2014 for an extension to cases beyond content words in the strict sense above). There are abundant exceptions (for a most recent critical approach, we refer to Hernández-Conde, 2017; see also Gauker, 2007), but there is also compelling evidence in favor of the role of such a constraint in the lexicons of natural languages (see Bickel, 2014 for discussion about linguistic universals and what arguments can be advanced, above and beyond the exceptions a potential universal may show).…”

Section: Content Words (Nouns and Adjectives): The Phenomenology Of Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connecting Content and Logical Words

Chemla

Buccola

Dautriche

2019

Journal of Semantics

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Content words (e.g. nouns and adjectives) are generally connected: there are no gaps in their denotations; no noun means ‘table or shoe’ or ‘animal or house’. We explore a formulation of connectedness which is applicable to content and logical words alike, and which compares well with the classic notion of monotonicity for quantifiers. On a first inspection, logical words satisfy this generalized version of the connectedness property at least as well as content words do — that is, both in terms of what may be observed in the lexicons of natural languages (although our investigations remain modest in that respect) and in terms of acquisition biases (with an artificial rule learning experiment). This reduces the putative differences between content and logical words, as well as the associated challenges that these differences would pose, e.g., for learners.

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“…Both absolute and statistical universalities are viewed as working hypotheses-theoretical speculations, not reality ( Bickel, 2014 ). Proponents of this standpoint see language as a bio-cultural phenomenon representing invariant mental mechanisms and variable cultural traditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Across-language masculinity of oceans and femininity of guitars: Exploring grammatical gender universalities

Dubenko

2022

Front. Psychol.

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This is the first cross-language study to reveal nouns with invariable masculine or feminine grammatical gender assignments in nine gendered languages from different groups of one linguistic family. It evidences that many cases of gender universality have semantic motivation-an entity’s grammatical gender correlates with either traditional masculine/feminine connotations, or cultural and symbolic implications. The study’s findings also testify thematic preferences: most masculine grammatical gender universalities are found for the nouns denoting artifacts, whereas most feminine universalities are identified for abstract concepts. The apparent existence of grammatical gender universalities has a cognitive significance. From a psycholinguistic perspective, grammatical gender is viewed as a built-in personification pattern for speakers’ mental representations. This research presents cross-linguistic constants in conceptualizing the natural kinds, artifacts, and abstract concepts denoted by the considered nouns, as “male” or “female”.

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Linguistic diversityand universals

Cited by 26 publications

References 60 publications

Language evolution: syntax before phonology?

Language evolution: syntax before phonology?

Connecting Content and Logical Words

Across-language masculinity of oceans and femininity of guitars: Exploring grammatical gender universalities

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