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Compositionality in animals and humans
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Townsend, Simon W., Engesser, Sabrina, Stoll, Sabine, Zuberbühler, Klaus and Bickel, Balthasar (2018) Compositionality in animals and humans. PLoS Biology, 16 (8). e2006425. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2006425 ISSN 1545-7885.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2006425
Abstract
A key step in understanding the evolution of human language involves unravelling the origins of language’s syntactic structure. One approach seeks to reduce the core of syntax in humans to a single principle of recursive combination, merge, for which there is no evidence in other species. We argue for an alternative approach. We review evidence that beneath the staggering complexity of human syntax, there is an extensive layer of nonproductive, nonhierarchical syntax that can be fruitfully compared to animal call combinations. This is the essential groundwork that must be explored and integrated before we can elucidate, with sufficient precision, what exactly made it possible for human language to explode its syntactic capacity, transitioning from simple nonproductive combinations to the unrivalled complexity that we now have.
Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Subjects: | P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics Q Science > QL Zoology |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | |||||||||||||||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Language and languages, Animal calls | |||||||||||||||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | PLoS Biology | |||||||||||||||||||||
Publisher: | Public Library of Science | |||||||||||||||||||||
ISSN: | 1545-7885 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Official Date: | 15 August 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Number: | 8 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Article Number: | e2006425 | |||||||||||||||||||||
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pbio.2006425 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||||||||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | |||||||||||||||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 17 August 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 17 August 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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