Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax

Table Of Contents

The Ernst Strungmann Forum vii
List of Contributors ix
Preface xiii
Background
1 Syntax for Non-syntacticians: A Brief Primer 3
Derek Bickerton
2 The Biological Background of Syntax Evolution 15
Anna Fedor, Peter Ittzes, and Eors Szathmary
3 Functional Neuroimaging and the Logic of Brain Operations: Methodologies, Caveats, and Fundamental Examples from Language Research 41
Balazs Gulyas
Syntactics
4 Some Elements of Syntactic Computations 63
Luigi Rizzi
5 The Adaptive Approach to Grammar 89
T. Givon
6 Fundamental Syntactic Phenomena and Their Putative Relation to the Brain 117
Edith Kaan
7 What Kinds of Syntactic Phenomena Must Biologists, Neurobiologists, and Computer Scientists Try to Explain and Replicate? 135
Maggie Tallerman, Frederick Newmeyer, Derek Bickerton, Denis Bouchard, Edith Kaan, and Luigi Rizzi
Evolution 
8 Possible Precursors of Syntactic Components in Other Species 161
Austin T. Hilliard and Stephanie A. White
9 What Can Developmental Language Impairment Tell Us about the Genetic Bases of Syntax? 185
Dorothy V.M. Bishop
10 What Are the Possible Biological and Genetic Foundations for Syntactic Phenomena? 207
Szabolcs Szamado, James R. Hurford, Dorothy V.M. Bishop, Terrence W. Deacon, Francesco d’Errico, Julia Fischer, Kazuo Okanoya, Eors Szathmary, and Stephanie A. White
Brain
11 Brain Circuits of Syntax 239
Angela D. Friederici
12 Neural Organization for Syntactic Processing as Determined by Effects of Lesions: Logic, Data, and Difficult Questions 253
David Caplan
13 Reflections on the Neurobiology of Syntax 275
Peter Hagoort
14 What Are the Brain Mechanisms Underlying Syntactic Operations? 299
Anna Fedor, Csaba Pleh, Jens Brauer, David Caplan, Angela D. Friederici, Balazas Gulyas, Peter Hagoort, Tatjana Nazir, and Wolf Singer
Modeling
15 Syntax as an Adaptation to the Learner 325
Simon Kirby, Morten H. Christiansen, and Nick Chater
16 Cognition and Social Dynamics Play a Major Role in the Formation of Grammar 345
Luc Steels
17 What Can Formal or Computational Models Tell Us about How (Much) Language Shaped the Brain? 369
Ted Briscoe
18 What Can Mathematical, Computational, and Robotic Models Tell Us about the Origins of Syntax? 385
Herbert Jaeger, Luc Steels, Andrea Baronchelli, Ted Briscoe, Morten H. Christiansen, Thomas Griffiths, Gerhard Jager, Simon Kirby, Natalia L. Komarova, Peter J. Richerson, and Jochen Triesch
Glossary 411
Bibliography 417
Subject Index 465