It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to derive from a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but communicatively arbitrary, principles of language structure (a Universal Grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non-adaptationist genetic processes, resulting in a logical problem of language evolution. Specifically, as the processes of language change (...) are much more rapid than processes of genetic change, language constitutes a both over time and across different human populations, and, hence, cannot provide a stable environment to which language genes could have adapted. We conclude that a biologically determined UG is not evolutionarily viable. Instead, the original motivation for UG arises because language has been shaped to fit the human brain, rather than vice versa. Following Darwin, we view language itself as a complex and interdependent which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms. That is, languages themselves are shaped by severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners. This suggests that apparently arbitrary aspects of linguistic structure may result from general learning and processing biases deriving from the structure of thought processes, perceptuo-motor factors, cognitive limitations, and pragmatics. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effects of 10 factors on the choice between alternative ba sentences and SVO sentences in Mandarin Chinese. These factors are givenness, definiteness, animacy and pronominality of NP2s, NP2 length, VP length, verb sense, syntactic parallelism, dependency distance, and surprisal. Using corpus data and mixed-effects logistic regression modeling, we find that on the one hand, givenness, syntactic parallelism, and the log-transformed ratio of NP2 length and VP length are significant predictors of the choice between ba sentences and (...) SVO sentences. A new NP2, a large length ratio and a parallel construction predict an SVO sentence rather than a ba sentence. On the other hand, dependency distance and surprisal estimated by the trigram model are effective in predicting the choice between naturally occurring ba/svo sentences and their alternatives. Naturally occurring sentences are more likely to have shorter dependency distances and smaller surprisal values than the converted sentences. The effects of these five factors on syntactic choice are congruent with results of previous studies, which suggests that some determinants of syntactic choice are shared among languages. (shrink)

It is well established that language production and comprehension are influenced by information status, for example, whether information is given, new, topical, or predictable, and many scholars suggest that an important component of information status is keeping track of what information is in common ground, and what is not. Information status affects both speakers' choices and how listeners interpret the speaker's meaning. Although there is a wealth of scholarly work on information status, there is no consensus on the mechanisms by (...) which it is used, and in fact relatively little discussion of the underlying representations and psycholinguistic mechanisms. Moreover, a major challenge to understanding information status is that its effects are notoriously variable. This study considers existing proposals about information status, focusing on two questions: how is it represented; and by what mechanisms is it used? I propose that it is important to consider whether representations and mechanisms can be classified as either explicit or emergent. Based on a review of existing evidence, I argue that information status representations are most likely emergent, but the mechanisms by which they are used are both explicit and emergent. This review provides one of the first considerations of information status processing across multiple domains. (shrink)

Much previous work has suggested that word order preferences across languages can be explained by the dependency distance minimization constraint (Ferrer‐i Cancho, 2008, 2015; Hawkins, 1994). Consistent with this claim, corpus studies have shown that the average distance between a head (e.g., verb) and its dependent (e.g., noun) tends to be short cross‐linguistically (Ferrer‐i Cancho, 2014; Futrell, Mahowald, & Gibson, 2015; Liu, Xu, & Liang, 2017). This implies that on average languages avoid inefficient or complex structures for simpler structures. But (...) a number of studies in psycholinguistics (Konieczny, 2000; Levy & Keller, 2013; Vasishth, Suckow, Lewis, & Kern, 2010) show that the comprehension system can adapt to the typological properties of a language, for example, verb‐final order, leading to more complex structures, for example, having longer linear distance between a head and its dependent. In this paper, we conduct a corpus study for a group of 38 languages, which were either Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) or Subject–Object–Verb (SOV), in order to investigate the role of word order typology in determining syntactic complexity. We present results aggregated across all dependency types, as well as for specific verbal (objects, indirect objects, and adjuncts) and nonverbal (nominal, adjectival, and adverbial) dependencies. The results suggest that dependency distance in a language is determined by the default word order of a language, and crucially, the direction of a dependency (whether the head precedes the dependent or follows it; e.g., whether the noun precedes the verb or follows it). Particularly we show that in SOV languages (e.g., Hindi, Korean) as well as SVO languages (e.g., English, Spanish), longer linear distance (measured as number of words) between head and dependent arises in structures when they mirror the default word order of the language. In addition to showing results on linear distance, we also investigate the influence of word order typology on hierarchical distance (HD; measured as number of heads between head and dependent). The results for HD are similar to that of linear distance. At the same time, in comparison to linear distance, the influence of adaptability on HD seems less strong. In particular, the results show that most languages tend to avoid greater structural depth. Together, these results show evidence for “limited adaptability” to the default word order preferences in a language. Our results support a large body of work in the processing literature that highlights the importance of linguistic exposure and its interaction with working memory constraints in determining sentence complexity. Our results also point to the possible role of other factors such as the morphological richness of a language and a multifactor account of sentence complexity remains a promising area for future investigation. (shrink)

English as a verb-medial language has a short-before-long preference, whereas Korean and Japanese as verb-final languages show a long-before-short preference. In second language research, little is known regarding how L1 processing strategies affect the ultimate attainment of target structures. Existing work has shown that native speakers of Chinese strongly prefer to utter demonstrative-classifier phrases first in subject-extracted relatives and DCLs second in object-extracted relatives. But it remains unknown whether L2 learners with typologically different language backgrounds are able to acquire native-like (...) strategies, and how they deviate from native speakers or even among themselves. Using a phrase-assembly task, we investigated advanced L2-Chinese learners whose L1s were English, Korean, and Japanese, because English lacks individual classifiers and has postnominal relative clause, whereas Korean and Japanese have individual classifiers and prenominal RCs. Results showed that the English and Korean groups deviated from the native controls’ asymmetric pattern, but the Japanese group approximated native-like performance. Furthermore, compared to the English group, the Korean and Japanese groups favored the DCL-second configuration in SRs and ORs. No differences were found between the Korean and Japanese groups. Overall, our findings suggest that L1 processing strategies play an overarching role in L2 acquisition of asymmetric positioning of DCLs in Chinese RCs. (shrink)

A well‐established principle of language is that there is a preference for closely related words to be close together in the sentence. This can be expressed as a preference for dependency length minimization (DLM). In this study, we explore quantitatively the degree to which natural languages reflect DLM. We extract the dependencies from natural language text and reorder the words in such a way as to minimize dependency length. Comparing the original text with these optimal linearizations (and also with random (...) linearizations) reveals the degree to which natural language minimizes dependency length. Tests on English data show that English shows a strong effect of DLM, with dependency length much closer to optimal than to random; the optimal English grammar also has many specific features in common with English. In German, too, dependency length is significantly less than random, but the effect is much weaker than in English. We conclude by speculating about some possible reasons for this difference between English and German. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 45, Issue 11, November 2021.

We investigate the order in which speakers produce the proper names of couples they know personally in English and Japanese, two languages with markedly different constituent word orders. Results demonstrate that speakers of both languages tend to produce the name of the person they feel closer to before the name of the other member of the couple (N = 180). In this way, speakers’ unique personal histories give rise to a remarkably systematic linguistic generalization in both English and Japanese. Insofar (...) as closeness serves as an index of cognitive accessibility, the current work demonstrates that systematicity emerges from a domain-general property of memory. (shrink)

Our target article argued that a genetically specified Universal Grammar (UG), capturing arbitrary properties of languages, is not tenable on evolutionary grounds, and that the close fit between language and language learners arises because language is shaped by the brain, rather than the reverse. Few commentaries defend a genetically specified UG. Some commentators argue that we underestimate the importance of processes of cultural transmission; some propose additional cognitive and brain mechanisms that may constrain language and perhaps differentiate humans from nonhuman (...) primates; and others argue that we overstate or understate the case against co-evolution of language genes. In engaging with these issues, we suggest that a new synthesis concerning the relationship between brains, genes, and language may be emerging. (shrink)

Lexicalized theories of syntax often assume that verb-structure regularities are mediated by lemmas, which abstract over variation in verb tense and aspect. German syntax seems to challenge this assumption, because verb position depends on tense and aspect. To examine how German speakers link these elements, a structural priming study was performed which varied syntactic structure, verb position, and verb overlap.structural priming was found, both within and across verb position, but priming was larger when the verb position was the same between (...) prime and target. Priming was boosted by verb overlap, but there was no interaction with verb position. The results can be explained by a lemma model where tense and aspect are linked to structural choices in German. Since the architecture of this lemma model is not consistent with results from English, a connectionist model was developed which could explain the cross-linguistic variation in the production system. Together, these findings support the view that language learning plays an important role in determining the nature of structural priming in different languages. (shrink)