Knowledge of language: its elements and origins

1981 ◽  
Vol 295 (1077) ◽  
pp. 223-234 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Knowledge Of Language ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
The One ◽  
Structural Descriptions

My approach to the study of language is based on the assumption that knowledge of language can be properly characterized by means of a generative grammar, i.e. a system of rules and principles that assigns structural descriptions to linguistic expressions. On this view, the basic concepts are those of ‘grammar’ and ‘knowledge of grammar’. The concepts of language’ and ‘knowledge of language’ are derivative: they involve a higher level of abstraction from psychological mechanisms and raise additional (though not necessarily important) problems. Of central concern, from this point of view, will be to determine the biological endowment that makes it possible for a grammar of the required sort to develop in human beings provided that they are exposed to some appropriate body of experience. This biological endowment may be regarded as a function that maps a body of experience into a particular grammar. The function itself is commonly referred to as universal grammar (u.g.) and can be expressed, in part, as a system of principles that determine the class of accessible particular grammars and their properties. Recent work suggests that u.g. consists, on the one hand, of a theory of so-called core grammar and, on the other, of a theory of permissible extensions and modifications of core grammar. Given the intricate internal structure of u.g., it can account for the superficially highly diverse grammars and languages that do in fact exist. Thus, what appear to be quite different systems of knowledge may arise from relatively little experience. A number of subsystems of u.g. have now been explored, each with its distinctive properties and possibilities of variation. Some current proposals concerning these systems are sketched, and some consequences considered with regard to the nature and acquisition of cognitive systems (including systems of knowledge) more generally.

El Protagonismo Dialéctico-Social del Ser Humano en el Desarrollo Intelectual de Rodolfo Mondolfo

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Jesús Víctor Alfredo Contreras Ugarte
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Academic Work ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One ◽  
Descriptive Method

Summary: Reflecting on the role humans take into nowadays society, should be of interest in all our social reflections, even for those that refer to the field of law. Any human indifferent and unconscious of the social role that he ought to play within society, as a member of it, is an irresponsible human detached from everything that surrounds him, regarding matters and other humans. Trying to isolate in an irresponsible, passive and comfortable attitude, means, after all, denying oneself, denying our nature, as the social being every human is. This is the reflection that this academic work entitles, the one made from the point of view of the Italian philosopher Rodolfo Mondolfo. From a descriptive development, starting from this renowned author, I will develop ideas that will warn the importance that human protagonism have, in this human product so call society. From a descriptive development, from this well-known author, I will be prescribing ideas that will warn the importance of the protagonism that all human beings have, in that human product that we call society. I have used the descriptive method to approach the positions of the Italian humanist philosopher and, for my assessments, I have used the prescriptive method from an eminently critical and deductive procedural position. My goal is to demonstrate, from the humanist postulates of Rodolfo Mondolfo, the hypothesis about the leading, decision-making and determining role that the human being has within society. I understand, to have reached the demonstration of the aforementioned hypothesis, because, after the analyzed, there is no doubt, that the human being is not one more existence in the development of societies; its role is decisive in determining the human present and the future that will house the next societies and generations of our historical future.

The Molotov – Ribbentrop pact as fateful sentence of the European continent

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-74
Author(s):  
Yulia Ryzhkova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Main Body ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Face ◽  
Rules And Principles ◽  
Future Potential ◽  
The One

Problem setting. Many decades have passed since the Pact was signed, and the essential nature of the it continues to spark debate among historians and scholars. The main criterion that continues debates is the fact that the signing of the act resulted in a change of the entire European continent and a change in the geopolitical balance. Therefore, the relevance of the topic is that today there is no clear political and moral assessment of the pact on the basis of which a rational international significance of the document could be established. Target of research. The purposes of this study are to establish the legal characteristics and nature of the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact; to analyze the consequences of which the document has been signed; to distinguish the positive and negative sides of the act in combination with the proposal of its international significance. Analysis of resent researches and publications. The following scientists were engaged in research of the specified question: M. Shvagulak, S. Pron, I. Khalupa, Nicolas Burns and Andreas Ortega. Article’s main body. This publication discusses the document – the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which has had a significant impact on both political and social development and the future potential of dozens of countries across the European continent. The Pact still defines many geopolitical realities in modern Europe. Discussions about the historic role of the non-aggression treaty and secret protocols are still relevant. The article deals with the legal characterization and essence of an international act of political and legal nature. The consequences of the signature of the “fateful sentence” are analyzed, as well as the positive and negative sides of this document, in combination with the establishment of its international significance, are highlighted and presented in detail. Conclusions and prospects for the development. Thus, as can be seen from all the work, the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact has a rather contradictory character, both in relation to the countries it has in some way concerned and to history in general. So, on the one hand, this treaty was really beneficial and needed by the countries that signed it, namely Germany and the Soviet Union. However, the benefits in each of these countries were different. Discussions are still ongoing about the legal force of the treaty, as well as its international legal assessment. But from the point of view of international law, the Pact should be regarded as a huge violation that has influenced the development of new rules and principles in modern society. That is why the author believes that it is the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact that became the signature of both states in the face of the forthcoming explosion of the largest Second world war.

scholarly journals Retskrivningsordbog mellem to stole

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (50) ◽  
pp. 127
Author(s):  
Sven Tarp
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Electronic Version ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
New Information ◽  
Previous Edition ◽  
Knowledge Of Language ◽  
The One ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
And Linguistics

In November 2012, the fourth edition of the official Danish orthographic dictionary, Retskrivningsordbogen, was published by the Danish Language Board which, according to national law, is authorised to establish the official Danish orthography and publish its decisions in the form of a dictionary, now available in both a printed and an electronic version. In order to be high quality, a work of this sort requires knowledge of language policy and linguistics, on the one hand, and lexicography, on the other hand. The article analyses the Retskrivningsordbogen exclusively from the point of view of lexicographic theory and practice, based upon a similar analysis of the previous edition (cf. Tarp 2002). It registers a number of improvements but also some stagnation and new problems in other aspects. The general conclusion is that the Danish Language Board could benefit from lexicographic knowhow as well as the new information technologies, especially with a view to developing the electronic version which should no longer be conceived as a copy of its printed counterpart but as a user-friendly extension with more lemmata and additional data.

scholarly journals The Role of Canalization and Plasticity in the Evolution of Musical Creativity

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Podlipniak
Keyword(s):  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
Musical Activity ◽  
Genetic Perturbations ◽  
Musical Creativity ◽  
The One

Creativity is defined as the ability to generate something new and valuable. From a biological point of view this can be seen as an adaptation in response to environmental challenges. Although music is such a diverse phenomenon, all people possess a set of abilities that are claimed to be the products of biological evolution, which allow us to produce and listen to music according to both universal and culture-specific rules. On the one hand, musical creativity is restricted by the tacit rules that reflect the developmental interplay between genetic, epigenetic and cultural information. On the other hand, musical innovations seem to be desirable elements present in every musical culture which suggests some biological importance. If our musical activity is driven by biological needs, then it is important for us to understand the function of musical creativity in satisfying those needs, and also how human beings have become so creative in the domain of music. The aim of this paper is to propose that musical creativity has become an indispensable part of the gene-culture coevolution of our musicality. It is suggested that the two main forces of canalization and plasticity have been crucial in this process. Canalization is an evolutionary process in which phenotypes take relatively constant forms regardless of environmental and genetic perturbations. Plasticity is defined as the ability of a phenotype to generate an adaptive response to environmental challenges. It is proposed that human musicality is composed of evolutionary innovations generated by the gradual canalization of developmental pathways leading to musical behavior. Within this process, the unstable cultural environment serves as the selective pressure for musical creativity. It is hypothesized that the connections between cortical and subcortical areas, which constitute cortico-subcortical circuits involved in music processing, are the products of canalization, whereas plasticity is achieved by the means of neurological variability. This variability is present both at the level of an individual structure’s enlargement in response to practicing (e.g., the planum temporale) and within the involvement of neurological structures that are not music-specific (e.g., the default mode network) in music processing.

scholarly journals Innate mechanism or acquired instrument: nature of language as basis for understanding cognitive abilities of human beings

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-91
Author(s):  
O. V. Gorodovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Review ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Noam Chomsky ◽  
Cognitive Revolution ◽  
Knowledge Of Language

The article contains a critical review of modern problems of Universal Grammar theory by Noam Chomsky. It examines the origins of the theory, the process of its development, the transition to the ‘Second Cognitive Revolution’ and some recent objections to Chomsky’s hypothesis about the innate status of our knowledge of language.

scholarly journals The Issues of Bio- and Psychopolitics in Pandemic Times as Reminiscences of the Romantic Glorification of Life

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Józef Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Short Description ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Friedrich Schiller ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Romantic Era ◽  
The One

The present coronavirus pandemic has confronted each of us individually and our society at large with new existential and theoretical-practical challenges. In the following article I present a look at the pandemic from the point of view of biopolitics (Michael Foucault, Giorgio Agamben) and psychopolitics (Byung-Chul Han). The reflections on biopolitics and psychopolitics, on top of the terms they used, make us aware of the fragility of human life on the one hand, and on the other hand, they encourage us to look for historical equiva­lents to our current struggle with the pandemic. For me, such an equivalent would be the culture of Romanticism: for example, works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Juliusz Słowacki, and Friedrich von Schelling. Starting from a short description of the Romantic era, I proceed to my goal which is to show how, during the pandemic, fundamental questions asked by biotechnology and psychopolitics come to the fore as questions about us, human beings, and our individual and social survival.

The elusory kingdoms of the mind: Glosses on José Luis Caivano’s paper

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Sonesson
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Mind

AbstractPeirce’s best idea, and the one least implemented by himself and his followers, is that of an ethics of terminology. Using this ethics as a tool, we suggest that many Peircean terms are in fact misleading, or, as he said himself at the end of his life, “injurious.” From the point of view of cognitive semiotics, there is no reason to abide by Peirce’s definition of semiosis, but, taking up the two quotes offered by Caivano, we demonstrate that they lead to different results, one being phenomenological and the other formalist. We go on to suggest that Peirce himself cannot have believed in the first definition, because then there could be no point in fallibilism and the community of scholars. In fact, we claim that what the different definitions of the “kingdoms” of nature show is precisely that human beings can liberate themselves from their

Propriétés des substances, conditions sur la syntaxe et explication en linguistique

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 119-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Bouchard
Keyword(s):  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Computational Approach ◽  
Efficient Computation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Computational System ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Perceptual Systems

AbstractIn linguistics, explanation is based on whatever initial conditions are imposed on language, and so it necessarily functions within the range of options allowed by the laws of nature. Thus, since syntax is a computational system, it is subject to principles of efficient computation. Moreover, the Faculty of Language is located in human beings, so this means that it is constrained by the conceptual and perceptual systems of human beings. In this context, three topics are presented that have been repeatedly discussed over the last 50 years: inversion in interrogatives, long-distance dependencies, and recursion. For these cases, the computational approach favoured by Generative Grammar leads one to inscribe lists of unexplained elements in Universal Grammar. This is but a measure of our ignorance. On the other hand, a fully biolinguistic approach that takes into account the conceptual and perceptual basis of language opens a way to a true explanation.

Understanding functional illiteracy from a policy, adult education, and cognition point of view: Towards a joint referent framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Bulajić ◽  
Miomir Despotović ◽  
Thomas Lachmann
Keyword(s):  
Adult Education ◽  
Operational Definition ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Functional Illiteracy ◽  
Scale Levels ◽  
Components Of Reading ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract. The article discusses the emergence of a functional literacy construct and the rediscovery of illiteracy in industrialized countries during the second half of the 20th century. It offers a short explanation of how the construct evolved over time. In addition, it explores how functional (il)literacy is conceived differently by research discourses of cognitive and neural studies, on the one hand, and by prescriptive and normative international policy documents and adult education, on the other hand. Furthermore, it analyses how literacy skills surveys such as the Level One Study (leo.) or the PIAAC may help to bridge the gap between cognitive and more practical and educational approaches to literacy, the goal being to place the functional illiteracy (FI) construct within its existing scale levels. It also sheds more light on the way in which FI can be perceived in terms of different cognitive processes and underlying components of reading. By building on the previous work of other authors and previous definitions, the article brings together different views of FI and offers a perspective for a needed operational definition of the concept, which would be an appropriate reference point for future educational, political, and scientific utilization.

A CASE STUDY OF NL INFLUENCE IN UNIS FKIP ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS' INTERLANGUAGE

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
Irmala Sukendra ◽  
Agus Mulyana ◽  
Imam Sudarmaji
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Similar System ◽  
The One ◽  
L1 Acquisition

Regardless to the facts that English is being taught to Indonesian students starting from early age, many Indonesian thrive in learning English. They find it quite troublesome for some to acquire the language especially to the level of communicative competence. Although Krashen (1982:10) states that “language acquirers are not usually aware of the fact that they are acquiring language, but are only aware of the fact that they are using the language for communication”, second language acquisition has several obstacles for learners to face and yet the successfulness of mastering the language never surmounts to the one of the native speakers. Learners have never been able to acquire the language as any native speakers do. Mistakes are made and inter-language is unavoidable. McNeili in Ellis (1985, p. 44) mentions that “the mentalist views of L1 acquisition hypothesizes the process of acquisition consists of hypothesis-testing, by which means the grammar of the learner’s mother tongue is related to the principles of the ‘universal grammar’.” Thus this study intends to find out whether the students go through the phase of interlanguage in their attempt to acquire second language and whether their interlanguage forms similar system as postulated by linguists (Krashen).

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