A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language

This paper argues that various important results of formal language theory (e.g., the so-called Chomsky Hierarchy) may in fact be illusory as far as the human language faculty is concerned, as has been repeatedly emphasized by Chomsky himself. The paper takes up nested dependencies and cross-serial...

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Autor principal:	Fukui Naoki
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Sciendo 2015
Materias:	weak generation strong generation merge-generability cross-serial dependencies mildly context-sensitive 弱生成強生成合併生成力跨序列依存溫和的語境制約 Chinese language and literature PL1001-3208
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/0f78ac1484414562b7185069cb2301b5
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:0f78ac1484414562b7185069cb2301b52021-12-02T19:10:00ZA Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language1017-127410.1515/scl-2015-0004https://doaj.org/article/0f78ac1484414562b7185069cb2301b52015-12-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1515/scl-2015-0004https://doaj.org/toc/1017-1274This paper argues that various important results of formal language theory (e.g., the so-called Chomsky Hierarchy) may in fact be illusory as far as the human language faculty is concerned, as has been repeatedly emphasized by Chomsky himself. The paper takes up nested dependencies and cross-serial dependencies, the two important dependencies that typically show up in the discussion of the central classes of grammars and languages, and specifically shows that the fact that nested dependencies abound in human language while cross-serial dependencies are rather limited in human language can be naturally explained if we shift our attention from dependencies defined on terminal strings to abstract structures behind them. The paper then shows that nested dependencies are readily obtained by Merge, applying phase-by-phase, whereas cross-serial dependencies are available only as a result of copying Merge, which requires a constituency of the relevant strings. These results strongly suggest that dependencies are possible in human language only to the extent that they are the results from the structures that can be generated by Merge, leading to the conclusion that it is Merge-generability that determines various dependencies in human language, and that dependencies defined on the terminal strings are indeed illusory. A possible brain science experiment to demonstrate this point is also suggested.Fukui NaokiSciendoarticleweak generationstrong generationmerge-generabilitycross-serial dependenciesmildly context-sensitive弱生成強生成合併生成力跨序列依存溫和的語境制約Chinese language and literaturePL1001-3208ENStudies in Chinese Linguistics, Vol 36, Iss 2, Pp 59-68 (2015)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	weak generation strong generation merge-generability cross-serial dependencies mildly context-sensitive 弱生成強生成合併生成力跨序列依存溫和的語境制約 Chinese language and literature PL1001-3208
spellingShingle	weak generation strong generation merge-generability cross-serial dependencies mildly context-sensitive 弱生成強生成合併生成力跨序列依存溫和的語境制約 Chinese language and literature PL1001-3208 Fukui Naoki A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language
description	This paper argues that various important results of formal language theory (e.g., the so-called Chomsky Hierarchy) may in fact be illusory as far as the human language faculty is concerned, as has been repeatedly emphasized by Chomsky himself. The paper takes up nested dependencies and cross-serial dependencies, the two important dependencies that typically show up in the discussion of the central classes of grammars and languages, and specifically shows that the fact that nested dependencies abound in human language while cross-serial dependencies are rather limited in human language can be naturally explained if we shift our attention from dependencies defined on terminal strings to abstract structures behind them. The paper then shows that nested dependencies are readily obtained by Merge, applying phase-by-phase, whereas cross-serial dependencies are available only as a result of copying Merge, which requires a constituency of the relevant strings. These results strongly suggest that dependencies are possible in human language only to the extent that they are the results from the structures that can be generated by Merge, leading to the conclusion that it is Merge-generability that determines various dependencies in human language, and that dependencies defined on the terminal strings are indeed illusory. A possible brain science experiment to demonstrate this point is also suggested.
format	article
author	Fukui Naoki
author_facet	Fukui Naoki
author_sort	Fukui Naoki
title	A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language
title_short	A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language
title_full	A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language
title_fullStr	A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language
title_full_unstemmed	A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language
title_sort	note on weak vs. strong generation in human language
publisher	Sciendo
publishDate	2015
url	https://doaj.org/article/0f78ac1484414562b7185069cb2301b5
work_keys_str_mv	AT fukuinaoki anoteonweakvsstronggenerationinhumanlanguage AT fukuinaoki noteonweakvsstronggenerationinhumanlanguage
_version_	1718377072228827136

A Note on Weak vs. Strong Generation in Human Language

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