It's been a looooong time since I studied linguistics, so excuse me if I'm a little rusty regarding Chomsky's theories.... I still have his "On Language" sitting on my shelf, maybe it's time to finish it....
Historical linguistics and universals are what make linguistics so much fun.
I could not agree more.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Unfortunately, once I get going with linguistics, I don't shut up. :) No reply is needed to this, I'm just babbling now and have to get this out or I'll be thinking about it all week.
Honestly, do not give up the idea that a universal grammar exists. It just may have dimensions to it we haven't considered. (Kind of like the English grammar rule i before e, except after c. You could set up a rule stating recursion occurs in all human languages except in those where the people have this other construction, or this specific view regarding time, etc.)
You can always use this important linguistic rule: When all else fails, set up a word class. (Kind of a cop-out, but it does come in handy.) You have two groups of nouns that follow completely different phonological rules? Set up word classes. You have two languages that treat recursion differently? Set up grammar classes and see what other research comes in. :)
All right, I'll stop.
But just because a language doesn't actively use something doesn't mean the "universal" rule governing it is meaningless.
Well, no, but it does suggest that what we think is hardware is really software and learned behaviour.
To use a crude analogy - just because your processor does floating point maths doesn't mean that your software has to use the floating point feature.
The gotcha is the 'universal' concept. It seems to be a bit of a blunt instrument for describing a complex set of related phenomena.
In this case there's not enough information to decide if there genetic differences, which would be interesting enough in itself, or whether the differences are learned.
Perhaps a more interesting question is - whose perceptual grammar is more complex? Ours, or theirs?
If only we knew more about language history and proto-languages, which was the one (or were the few) from which other languages evolved, we could see how and when various proposed rules popped up. Wishful thinking, I know. Well, with efforts to save theories like glottochronology, maybe we'll eventually learn something....
Another theory for the hell of it-- maybe the Piranha language once had recursion, but eventually got rid of it because the concept wasn't needed, kind of like a language shedding noun declension endings because the prepositions alone were enough.
I would consider this a bombshell if the linguists were saying "wow, these people are using language in a way we've never seen with structures we've never seen" rather than saying "these people don't use particular language structures that we believed all languages did in fact use." As it is I'm not too impressed because lack of use of a structure in the brain does not prove lack of presence in the brain (along the lines of your theory). I believe the brain is quite malleable, but with some very, very hard constraints.
you are the media you consume.
(My post sounds kind of snippy, but it's not meant to be-- I'm honestly trying to clear up what I'm not understanding. Really.)
And if those three or four five things do not happen.. ok I will mind my busniess doing other things.. but then do not expect any relevant input on this or that function..
SO language could be similar.. but more disperse and networked that the primary visual cortex...I can do a lot of stuff.. you culture pick up.
Broca's Area is associated with the motor cortex. Dysfunction in this area produces difficulty in enunciating words and sentence production. Reading and comprehension do not seem to be affected.
Wernicke's Area is associated with the sensory cortex. Dysfunction produces garbled, profuse, inaccurate, rapid, and incomprehensible speech. Patients can talk fluently, what they say makes no sense.
What this suggests is Language Processing, in toto, is an Emergent Phenomena absolutely requiring a basis in the brain's neurology ('hardware') but also ancillary higher-order psycho-cultural ('software') structures. A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run
"Emergent Property" is an ontological descriptive term of an observable end-result of a process requiring necessary observable or definable initial conditions AND observable or definable necessary praxiological operations on those conditions. A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run
This two areas you describe are ver well known and do indeed perform certainly clear fucntions in language
But language processing , from writing to devleopment of sentences includes vast areas of the cortex not realted with those two.
Broca andd Wernicke are some kind of focal points for the movement of the mouths/language physcial apparatus and for audotory input.
They are the most external parts of speech processing... something like the primary and final points of the process... Generally, the brain has very specific target areas before proceeding (or the first point of reception from external areas) to project activity to non-brain areas... moto cortex, visual priamry cortex and so on...
So, the ability to speak and process auditory cues comes from the ability of certain parts of the brain to do their primary fucntions by training. If you do not train those areas, they just mind their own business... and still it is only the surface of language processing since it is the part related with output-movement and input-auditory (people do nto know that but a fundamental part of speech is to understand auditory cues, this is why two areas are needed to link the external apparatus with the more complex language processing). But this is only the surface of the processing.. in the same sense the primary visual cortex is only the first stage of visual pattern recognition.
It is my understanding _f_MRI has disproved the old reductionist axiom of a specific location for a specific process. Instead there is a heirarchy of processing where specific areas, such as Broca's, are dedicated to doing the predominate amount of the work while relying or shunting various 'subsidary' tasks to other neuological features, areas. Some of these latter are 'specialists' and some are 'generalists.'
(As always, correction requested.)
A pleasure, indeed. A doo run-run-run, a doo run-run
It seems that the most perpherial parts of the brain must be hihgly trained at the first stages of development.. and then proceed to get fairly fixed activity. Those areas can be studied in great detail..and the effects of the environment on this areas (learning) can be studied by doing experiments.
Since these specific areas have a high plasticity and highly depend on external input we just guess that the other parts that we see light-up in the fMRI are like mega-complex network of subunits workign hierarchialy and much more plastic than those peripherial areas.
It is really as amazing as you indicate... and more :)
