All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. In their Essay on the evolution of human language, Martins and B...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128753 |
| _version_ | 1826213444179722240 |
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| author | Berwick, Robert C Chomsky, Noam |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Berwick, Robert C Chomsky, Noam |
| author_sort | Berwick, Robert C |
| collection | MIT |
| description | This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. In their Essay on the evolution of human language, Martins and Boeckx seek to refute what they call the "half-Merge fallacy" - the conclusion that the most elementary computational operation for human language syntax, binary set formation, or "Merge," evolved in a single step. We show that their argument collapses. It is based on a serious misunderstanding of binary set formation as well as formal language theory. Furthermore, their specific evolutionary scenario counterproposal for a "two-step" evolution of Merge does not work. Although we agree with their Essay on several points, including that there must have been many steps in the evolution of human language and the importance of understanding how language and language syntax are implemented in the brain, we disagree that there is any justification, empirical or conceptual, for the decomposition of binary set formation into separate steps. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:49:18Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/128753 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:49:18Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1287532022-09-29T16:22:09Z All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax Berwick, Robert C Chomsky, Noam Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. In their Essay on the evolution of human language, Martins and Boeckx seek to refute what they call the "half-Merge fallacy" - the conclusion that the most elementary computational operation for human language syntax, binary set formation, or "Merge," evolved in a single step. We show that their argument collapses. It is based on a serious misunderstanding of binary set formation as well as formal language theory. Furthermore, their specific evolutionary scenario counterproposal for a "two-step" evolution of Merge does not work. Although we agree with their Essay on several points, including that there must have been many steps in the evolution of human language and the importance of understanding how language and language syntax are implemented in the brain, we disagree that there is any justification, empirical or conceptual, for the decomposition of binary set formation into separate steps. 2020-12-09T16:46:08Z 2020-12-09T16:46:08Z 2019-11 2019-07 2020-12-02T16:49:57Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1545-7885 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128753 Berwick, Robert C. and Noam Chomsky. "All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax." PLoS Biology 17, 11 (November 2019): e3000539 © 2019 Berwick and Chomsky en http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000539 PLoS Biology Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Public Library of Science (PLoS) PLoS |
| spellingShingle | Berwick, Robert C Chomsky, Noam All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax |
| title | All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax |
| title_full | All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax |
| title_fullStr | All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax |
| title_full_unstemmed | All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax |
| title_short | All or nothing: No half-Merge and the evolution of syntax |
| title_sort | all or nothing no half merge and the evolution of syntax |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128753 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT berwickrobertc allornothingnohalfmergeandtheevolutionofsyntax AT chomskynoam allornothingnohalfmergeandtheevolutionofsyntax |