1. Universal Grammar and the Mind vs the Brain
Elly van Gelderen
6 April 2012

2. Outline Some current developments regarding Universal Grammar (UG):
What is (UG) and what is 3rd factor?
Status of features
Mind over matter: can linguistics contribute to the renewed interest in dualism?

3. Some current issues in Minimalism
How much to attribute to Universal Grammar?
Earlier: parameters in the syntax (e.g. head-initial) but now all variation is in the lexicon by means of features; syntax is `merge’
Lexical learning and the Poverty of the Stimulus suggest the need for innate concepts

4. From early Generative Grammar to Minimalism
Universal Grammar UG and Third factors
(= Principles & Parameters)
Input Input
(Scottish English, Western Navajo, etc)
= =
I-language I-language
E-language E-Language

5. Three Factors relevant to the FL
“(1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby making language acquisition possible;
(2) external data, converted to the experience that selects one or another language within a narrow range;
(3) principles not specific to FL [the Faculty of Language]. Some of the third factor principles have the flavor of the constraints that enter into all facets of growth and evolution.... Among these are principles of efficient computation”. (Chomsky 2007: 3)

6. The actual features are not third factor
Chomsky (1965: 142): “semantic features ... too, are presumably drawn from a universal ‘alphabet’ but little is known about this today and nothing has been said about it here.”
Chomsky (1993: 24) vocabulary acquisition shows poverty of the stimulus.

7. The importance of various features
Chomsky (1965: 87-88): lexicon contains information for the phonological, semantic, and syntactic component.
Sincerity (+N, -Count, +Abstract...)
Chomsky (1995: 230ff; 236; 277ff):
semantic (e.g. abstract object),
phonological (e.g. the sounds), and
formal features:
intrinsic or optional.

8. Features of airplane and build (adapted from Chomsky 1995: 231)
Semantic would be innate; formal needs to be learned!
airplane build
semantic: e.g. [artifact] e.g. [action]
phonological: e.g. [begins with a vowel; e.g. [one syllable]
two syllables]
formal:
intrinsic optional intrinsic optional
[nominal] [number] [verbal] [phi]
[3 person] [Case] [assign accusative] [tense]
[non-human]

9. Categories/semantic features
Humans and non-humans are excellent at categorization, e.g. prairie dogs have colors, shape, size.
Words are not the problem; morphology is!

10. Innate vs learned shapes grammatical gender
negatives grammatical number
`if’
modals
mass-count
Another question: much more speculative!

11. Free will vs determinism
“Les idées ... ne tirent en aucune sorte leur origine des sens ... Notre ame a la faculté de les former de soi-même.”
`Ideas do not in any fashion have their origin in the senses ... Our mind has the faculty to form those on its own.’ (Arnauld & Nicole 1662 [1965]: 45)
Language is about the mind not the world!

12. Is the `mind’ purely material?
De la Mettrie Descartes
Skinner Eccles/Popper
Churchland Sperry (mentalism)
Dennett Chalmers
Consciousness and subjectivity?
The problem of reference: unicorn, circle
The mind thinks about that which is not; we can’t know what others think.

13. For Baker (2011) FL is an ideal testing ground
Vocabulary and grammar vs creative aspect (CALU). CALU: unbounded, stimulus-free, and appropriate use.
a) Is there an area in the brain for CALU?
Wernicke and Broca’s aphasia: no evidence that CALU is affected. Lichtheim (1885): no aphasia with concept center affected.
b) Is there a CALU gene?
c) OCD therapy (Schwarz): mind tells the brain to stop

14. In short Recent changes in what UG is:
from Principles and Parameters > features
Now the question is: are concepts and features innate and third factor?
New focus: CALU and dualism