Wolfram Hinzen

The philosophy of universal grammar

1. The project of a science of language 2. Before there was grammar 3. The content of grammar 4. Deriving the formal ontology of Language 5. Cross-linguistic variation 6. The rationality of case 7. Language and speciation 8. Biolinguistic variation 9. Thought, language, and reality

On the Absence of X-within-X Recursion in Human Grammar

We make these observations: (a) The direct embedding of a syntactic category X in itself (X-within-X) is surprisingly rare in human language, if it exists at all. (b) Indirect self-embedding (mediated by a sequence of other categories, and usually a phase boundary) systematically goes along with intensionality effects; the embedding and the embedded XP exhibit different behavior at the semantic interface. We argue that these constraints on recursion follow from the way in which single-cycle derivations organize semantic information in grammar.

The linguistics of schizophrenia: thought disturbance as language pathology across positive symptoms

We hypothesize that linguistic (dis-)organization in the schizophrenic brain plays a more central role in the pathogenesis of this disease than commonly supposed. Against the standard view, that schizophrenia is a disturbance of thought or selfhood, we argue that the origins of the relevant forms of thought and selfhood at least partially depend on language. The view that they do not is premised by a theoretical conception of language that we here identify as ‘Cartesian’ and contrast with a recent ‘un-Cartesian’ model. This linguistic model empirically argues for both (i) a one-to-one correlation between human-specific thought or meaning and forms of grammatical organization, and (ii) an integrative and co-dependent view of linguistic cognition and its sensory-motor dimensions. Core dimensions of meaning mediated by grammar on this model specifically concern forms of referential and propositional meaning. A breakdown of these is virtually definitional of core symptoms. Within this model the three main positive symptoms of schizophrenia fall into place as failures in language-mediated forms of meaning, manifest either as a disorder of speech perception (Auditory Verbal Hallucinations), abnormal speech production running without feedback control (Formal Thought Disorder), or production of abnormal linguistic content (Delusions). Our hypothesis makes testable predictions for the language profile of schizophrenia across symptoms; it simplifies the cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia while not being inconsistent with a pattern of neurocognitive deficits and their correlations with symptoms; and it predicts persistent findings on disturbances of language-related circuitry in the schizophrenic brain.

Narrow syntax and the language of thought

A traditional view maintains that thought, while expressed in language, is non-linguistic in nature and occurs in non-linguistic beings as well. I assess this view against current theories of the evolutionary design of human grammar. I argue that even if some forms of human thought are shared with non-human animals, a residue remains that characterizes a unique way in which human thought is organized as a system. I explore the hypothesis that the cause of this difference is a grammatical way of structuring semantic information, and I present evidence that the organization of grammar precisely reflects the organization of a specific mode of thought apparently distinctive of humans. Since there appears to be no known non-grammatical structuring principle for the relevant mode of thought, I suggest that grammar is that principle, with no independent “Language of Thought” needed.

The image of mind in the language of children with autism

While it is widely agreed today that autism involves a cognitive change (Baron-Cohen, 1988), the main psychological models have put the explanatory weight on changes in such non-linguistic neurocognitive variables as “theory of mind” (ToM), weak central coherence, or executive functioning. Linguistic deficits, including ones identified as “pragmatic” and taken to be universal in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (Tager-Flusberg, 1996; Lord and Paul, 1997; Tager-Flusberg et al., 2001), or even the absence of functional language could then be seen as a secondary consequence of a primary defect in non-linguistic (particularly social) cognition (Mundy and Markus, 1997). A “modular” perspective, which separates language from cognition, has been widely adopted with regard to the internal organization of language itself, which is taken to comprise phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics as relatively independent components. In this regard, Tager-Flusberg (1981) formulates the classical view that “phonological and syntactic development follow the same course as in normal children and in other disordered groups, though at a slowed rate, while semantic and pragmatic functioning may be specially deficient in autism.”

Recursion and Truth

The paper describes reasons for departing from a traditional ‘T-model’ architecture of grammar and moving towards the ‘no interface’ view, on which grammar, inherently, organizes certain kinds of semantic information which are hypothesized to not exist in the absence of grammatical organization. In this sense, these are forms of grammatical meaning, and the claim is that there is no such meaning in some pre-linguistic ‘semantic component’, located on the other side of some ‘interface’. The paper particularly articulates this view with regards to reference and truth as inherent aspects of grammatical semantics, and argues that apparent constraints on recursion fall out from the way in which grammar organizes the forms of intent/sional reference that we universally find in human language.

The linguistic roots of natural pedagogy.

Natural pedagogy is a human-specific capacity that allows us to acquire cultural information from communication even before the emergence of the first words, encompassing three core elements: (i) a sensitivity to ostensive signals like eye contact that indicate to infants that they are being addressed through communication, (ii) a subsequent referential expectation (satisfied by the use of declarative gestures) and (iii) a biased interpretation of ostensive-referential communication as conveying relevant information about the referent’s kind (Csibra and Gergely, 2006, 2009, 2011). Remarkably, the link between natural pedagogy and another human-specific capacity, namely language, has rarely been investigated in detail. We here argue that children’s production and comprehension of declarative gestures around 10 months of age are in fact expressions of an evolving faculty of language. Through both declarative gestures and ostensive signals, infants can assign the roles of third, second, and first person, building the ‘deictic space’ that grounds both natural pedagogy and language use. Secondly, we argue that the emergence of two kinds of linguistic structures (i.e., proto-determiner phrases and proto-sentences) in the one-word period sheds light on the different kinds of information that children can acquire or convey at different stages of development (namely, generic knowledge about kinds and knowledge about particular events/actions/state of affairs, respectively). Furthermore, the development of nominal and temporal reference in speech allows children to cognize information in terms of spatial and temporal relations. In this way, natural pedagogy transpires as an inherent aspect of our faculty of language, rather than as an independent adaptation that pre-dates language in evolution or development (Csibra and Gergely, 2006). This hypothesis is further testable through predictions it makes on the different linguistic profiles of toddlers with developmental disorders.

Semantics between cognitive neuroscience and linguistic theory: Guest editors' introduction

This special issue provides a selection of some current approaches to the cognitive neuroscience of semantic processing. These have been selected with a view to identifying an area of inquiry under the label of “semantics” that allows for a rich interface between neurolinguistics and linguistic theory. A look at these papers makes clear that the term “semantics” as used in cognitive neuroscience covers a wide range of inquiries, encompassing the study of topics as diverse as: perception-based conceptual structures, the impact of specific concepts such as animacy on syntactically determined aspects of sentential meaning, the unification of all incoming information in the construction of a discourse model, and the neural correlates of basic formal operations of sentence-level semantic composition. In this paper, we aim to contextualise the approaches collected here, identify what they are about, and to what extent they are compatible with the aim of delineating commonalities between them and what might be a well-circumscribed area of research in semantic processing in the context of current of linguistic theory over the coming decades.

Deictic and Propositional Meaning—New Perspectives on Language in Schizophrenia

Emerging linguistic evidence points at disordered language behavior as a defining characteristic of schizophrenia. In this article, we review this literature and demonstrate how a framework focusing on two core functions of language—reference and propositional meaning—can conceptualize schizophrenic symptoms, identify important variables for risk assessment, diagnosis, and treatment, and inform cognitive behavioral therapy and other remedial approaches. We introduce the linguistic phenomena of deictic anchoring and propositional complexity, explain how they relate to schizophrenic symptoms, and show how they can be tracked in language behavior.

Your theory of the evolution of morality depends upon your theory of morality.

Baumard et al. attribute to humans a sense of fairness. However, the properties of this sense are so underspecified that the evolutionary account offered is not well-motivated. We contrast this with the framework of Universal Moral Grammar, which has sought a descriptively adequate account of the structure of the moral domain as a precondition for understanding the evolution of morality.