What's special about human language? The contents of the "narrow language faculty" revisited.
What's special about human language? The contents of the "narrow language faculty" revisited.
复制标题
人类语言有什么特别之处?
DOI:
10.1002/lnc3.355
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发表时间:
2012
影响因子:
2.5
通讯作者:
Loudermilk,Jessica
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Traxler,MatthewJ;Boudewyn,Megan;Loudermilk,Jessica
In this review, we re‐evaluate the recursion‐only hypothesis, advocated by Fitch, Hauser and Chomsky (Fitch et al. 2005; Hauser et al. 2002). According to the recursion‐only hypothesis, the property that distinguishes human language from animal communication systems is recursion, which refers to the potentially infinite embedding of one linguistic representation within another of the same type. This hypothesis predicts (1) that non‐human primates and other animals lack the ability to learn recursive grammar, and (2) that recursive grammar is the sole cognitive mechanism that is unique to human language. We first review animal studies of recursive grammar, before turning to the claim that recursion is a property of all human languages. Finally, we discuss other views on what abilities may be unique to human language.