Universal Grammar and Biological Variation: An EvoDevo Agenda for Comparative Biolinguistics

Abstract

Recent advances in genetics and neurobiology have greatly increased the degree of variation that one finds in what is taken to provide the biological foundations of our species-specific linguistic capacities. In particular, this variation seems to cast doubt on the purportedly homogeneous nature of the language faculty traditionally captured by the concept of “Universal Grammar.” In this article we discuss what this new source of diversity reveals about the biological reality underlying Universal Grammar. Our discussion leads us to support (1) certain hypotheses advanced in evolutionary developmental biology that argue for the existence of robust biological mechanisms capable of canalizing variation at different levels, and (2) a bottom-up perspective on comparative cognition. We conclude by sketching future directions for what we call “comparative biolinguistics,” specifying which experimental directions may help us succeed in this new research avenue.

Labels, cognomes, and cyclic computation: an ethological perspective

“…This brings us to the conclusions drawn in Boeckx’s (2014 , p. xii) recent study, the central thesis of which is that “it is the lexicon that depends on syntax and not the other way around.” The asymmetries found in language such as the external/internal argument distinction and the binder-bindee relation rely on c-command, whose asymmetry emerges from labeling. Boeckx (2014 , p. 38) attempts to derive labeling effects and all linguistic asymmetries from cyclic transfer, a worthwhile project to undertake, as Marantz’s (2007) suggestion that roots are categorized at the “phase” level (that is, at the point of transfer, typically assumed to be DP, v *P and CP, but see Murphy, 2015b ) would suggest. But given the possibly language-independent (and CI/SM-independent) nature of labeling, I suggest that a separate computational procedure is required, not just a freeing of concepts from their selectional restrictions as Boeckx argues for.…”

“…If α and β are identical, Self Merge would yield {α,α} = {α}. As Boeckx (2014 , p. 47) summarizes, Self Merge “in effect turns one of the atomic elements into a phrase, allowing the merger of two atomic lexical items to comply with … the H-α schema.” Following the lead of Distributed Morphology, if we assume that every LI has a “root” ( Marantz, 1997 ) then every sentence is constructed by roots being Self Merged with themselves. This occurs because bare roots cannot be “seen” by the labeling algorithm.…”

It is an organ, it is new, but it is not a new organ. Conceptualizing language from a homological perspective

“…In (2), however, in addition to the verb-adverb dependency we have another one between the proper noun Mary and the pronoun her, yielding a crossed pattern, since the verb-adverb dependency is only resolved after the antecedent-pronoun dependency. Now, these observations conform to a robust enough collection of facts about the structural complexity of human languages that define a frame of reference against which the complexity of other cognitive abilities, human and non-human, may be assessed ; see however Boeckx, 2013a;Benítez-Burraco and Boeckx, 2014, for some skeptical remarks). To be sure, it is from comparative evidence of this kind that most uniqueness claims come, inasmuch as when FLT is applied to assess, for example, the communicative behavior of birds or monkeys, nothing beyond linear regular patterns is actually observed (Berwick et al, , 2012Filippi, 2014;Hauser et al, 2014).…”

Commentary on: Labels, cognomes, and cyclic computation: an ethological perspective

“…While Murphy's critical remarks toward the “Chomsky hierarchy” as a tool to build biologically-sound cognitive phylogenies (Fitch, 2015) echoes some of our own concerns (Boeckx, 2013; Benítez-Burraco and Boeckx, 2014), we find his appeal to computational principles like Labeling to be equally inadequate. Quite apart from our skepticism coming from narrowly linguistic considerations surrounding Labeling (Boeckx, 2014), our main reason for not siding with Murphy is that issues of cognitive phylogenies must be firmly grounded in comparative studies.…”