“DEF IN ING THE RELAT ION BETWEEN NEUROSCIENCE AND L INGUIST ICS” DAVID POEPPEL AND DAVID EMBICK

*MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK * PENN* 2005

SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS DR. DAVE MEDEIROS

ELAINE YEE 2 APRIL 2015

FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS, (1990-2005 ) WE CAN SEE A RESEARCH EXPLOSION,

CALLED “CROSS-FERTIL IZATION” BETWEEN F IELDS OF NEUROSCIENCE & L INGUIST ICS

•  Is progress being made to bridge these two domains of linguistics and brain sciences? —Given the plethora of published studies, it’s natural to think there must be a “viable and successful research program.” The answer, says P&E, is a that little progress is being made.

•  These many studies suggest “explanatorily significant progress is already being made” and the authors argue that what is really happening is the opposite of this misleading appearance of progress which they term “cross-sterilization,” => meaning, a growing disciplinarily divide.

THE LURE OF DOMAIN BRIDGING

•  (1) revealing aspects of the structure of linguistic knowledge

•  (2) language can be used to investigate the nature of computation

•  (X) it is implicitly assumed that combined research will uncover new knowledge

•  not entirely true, and more to the point, it is an unquestioned and un-interrogated belief => sloppy

STANDARD RESEARCH PROGRAM

“THE CANONICAL ASSUMPTION OF THE SRP ABOUT RESEARCH ON BRAIN AND LANGUAGE IS THAT NEUROBIOLOGICAL

METHODS ARE USED TO VALIDATE CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES INTRODUCED TO THE EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH PROGRAM BY

L INGUIST IC THEORY.” (P&E, 5 )

THE (OFTEN IMPLICIT ) “BEL IEF THAT L INGUIST IC CATEGORIES ARE NOT ‘REAL’ UNTIL DETECTED IN THE BRAIN SUBJECTS

L INGUIST IC INVESTIGATIONS TO A K IND OF METHODOLOGICAL STRICTURE THAT CANNOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.” (6 )

O N E P R O B L E M | N E U R O L I N G U I S T I C R E S E A R C H I S I S O L A T E D ( F R O M O T H E R P R O G R A M S O F I N Q U I R Y ) ; B U T S T I L L , A C O G N I T I V E N E U R O S C I E N C E O F L A N G U A G E R E P R E S E N T S A G O O D I D E A

THERE ARE TWO MAIN WAYS TO DESCRIBE THE PROBLEMS WITH THE STANDARD RESEARCH PARADIGM AS IT IS CURRENTLY DESIGNED

(1 ) GRANULARITY MISMATCH PROBLEM (GMP) (2 ) ONTOLOGICAL INCOMMENSURABIL ITY PROBLEM (OIP )

L INGUIST ICS | NEUROSCIENCE | (NON) MATCHING |

•  distinctive feature

•  syllable

•  morpheme

•  noun phrase

•  clause

•  dendrites, spines

•  neuron

•  cell assembly / ensemble

•  population

•  cortical column

I SSUE 1 WITH CURRENT RESEARCH MODELS | GMP

GRANULARITY MISMATCH PROBLEM: IN TREATING OBJECTS OF DIFFERENT S IZES AND DISS IMILAR PRIMIT IVES, WE NEED CLEAR

COMPATIB IL ITY IN THEORY, B IOLOGY AND COMPUTATION. DEALING WITH OBJECTS OF DIFFERENT S IZES LEADS TO THESE

CURRENT INCOMPATIB IL IT IES : WHAT NEEDS TO EMERGE IS CLEAR MOTIVATION / GROUNDING / EXPL ICIT COMPUTATION

•  Granularity Mismatch Problem: dealing with objects of different sizes means currently incompatibilties: needs CLEAR motivation / grounding / explicit computation

FUNDAMENTAL OPERATIONS ON PRIMIT IVES “MATCHING”

CONCATENATION L INEARIZATION

PHRASE-STRUCTURE GENERATION SEMANTIC COMPOSIT ION

L O N G - T E R M P O T E N T I A T I O N R E C E P T I V E F I E L D

O S C I L L A T I O N S Y N C H R O N I Z A T I O N

I S S U E 2 : W I T H P R E S E N T M O D E L I N G

ONTOLOGICAL INCOMMENSURABIL ITY PROBLEM: EXPL ICATED IN PART AS “ INTERFACE PROBLEMS” OR “CONTACT PROBLEMS”

SO, THE TROUBLE THAT NEEDS RESOLUTION IS TO KNOW “HOW NEUROLOGICAL STRUCTURES COULD BE SPECIAL IZED TO

PERFORM SPECIF IC TYPES OF COMPUTATIONS, L INGUIST IC OR

OTHERWISE.” (3 )

BROCA’S AREA;

IMAGING SEEMS TO OFFER GOOD DATA … WHAT MIGHT IMAGING DO FOR US?

“ONE CONSEQUENCE OF THE FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THE COARSENESS OF THE CATEGORIES EMPLOYED IN THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF

LANGUAGE IS THAT THERE ARE INSTANCES OF FALSE CONVERGENCE .” (7) …

IMAGING IS NOT MAKING VERY MUCH PROGRESS IN THE STANDARD RESEARCH PARADIGM; DATA IS BEING MINED BUT NOT PROPERLY

ANALYZED; SO PEOPLE “CHOOSE TO BELIEVE” THAT BA IS A CORTICAL AREA THAT COMPUTES SYNTAX.

THIS IS A MONOLITHIC BELIEF THAT DOES NOT HOLD UP TO ANALYSIS. FOR EXAMPLE, BA IS ACTIVE IN LINGUISTIC TASKS THAT ARE NOT

SYNTACTIC, LIKE AUDITORY LEXICAL DECISION AND PROCESSING OF RAPID PHONETIC TRANSITIONS

FOR A SECOND EXAMPLE, BA IS ACTIVE IN NON-LINGUISTIC TASKS, LIKE MOTOR ACTIVATION, MOTOR IMAGERY, AND RHYTHMIC PERCEPTION.

T H E S Y N T A X R E G I O N ?

A B I T O F G O O D N E W S … ?

•  Let’s review

•  the central, important question | how is the grammar of human language computed in the human brain?

•  e.g., what computations are performed in the brain?

•  suppose … we use language to learn how the brain works?

Y A Y !

YAY YAY YAY

D IST INCTIVE FEATURE SEEMS TO WORK! IT PROVIDES A “REASONABLE L INKING HYPOTHESIS …

OR DOES IT? WHAT DO YOU SAY?

L INEARIZATION: MOST L INGUISTS THINK IT ’S A GOOD IDEA BUT WE DON’T : )

TO REVIEW:

THE GOING PARADIGM IS EXTERNALIZATION; MERGE

BUT THEN; MEDEIROS …STACK SORTING PROPOSES SOMETHING DIFFERENT

AND…WE LEARN OF INTERNALIZATION;

THE PROPOSAL OF STACK-SORTING

•  makes a step forward in aligning brain science and syntax, in the following way: by “proposing an algorithmically explicit characterization of (one part of) the computation.” (Stack-Sorting Syntax: linking sound and meaning without trees or movement, 3)