Syntactic complexity : diachrony, acquisition, neuro-cognition, evolution / edited by T. Givon, Masayoshi Shibatani.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Givón, Talmy, 1936-

Shibatani, Masayoshi.

Series:

Typological studies in language ; v. 85.

Typological studies in language, 0167-7373 ; v. 85

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

vi, 553 p. : ill. (some col.).

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub., c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Complex hierarchic syntax is considered one of the hallmarks of human language. The highest level of syntactic complexity, recursive-embedded clauses, has been singled out by some for a special status as the apex of the uniquely-human language faculty – evolutionary but somehow immune to adaptive selection. This volume, coming out of a symposium held at Rice University in March 2008, tackles syntactic complexity from multiple developmental perspectives. We take it for granted that grammar is an adaptive instrument of communication, assembled upon the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic cognition. Most of the papers in the volume deal with the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony, the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic morpho-syntax; and ontogeny, the individual endeavor directly responsible for the acquisition of competent grammatical performance. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two developmental trends is considered alongside with the cognition and neurology of grammar and of syntactic complexity, and the evolutionary relevance of diachrony, ontogeny and pidginization is argued on general bio-evolutionary grounds. Lastly, several of the contributions to the volume suggest that recursive embedding is not in itself an adaptive target, but rather the by-product of two distinct adaptive gambits: the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on other clauses and the subsequent condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.

Contents:

Prelim pages

Table of contents

Introduction

Part I. Diachrony

From nominal to clausal morphosyntax

Re(e)volving complexity

Multiple routes to clause union

On the origins of serial verb constructions in Kalam

A quantitative approach to the development of complex predicates

Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn’t

Nominalization and the origin of subordination

The co-evolution of syntactic and pragmatic complexity

Two pathways of grammatical evolution

Part II. Child language

On the role of frequency and similarity in the acquisition of subject and non-subject relative clauses

‘ Starting small ’ effects in the acquisition of early relative constructions in Spanish

The ontogeny of complex verb phrases

Part III. Cognition and neurology

Syntactic complexity versus concatenation in a verbal production task

The emergence of linguistic complexity

Cognitive and neural underpinnings of syntactic complexity

Neural mechanisms of recursive processing in cognitive and linguistic complexity

Syntactic complexity in the brain

Part IV. Biology and evolution

Neural plasticity

Recursion

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612104244

9781282104242

1282104241

9789027290144

9027290148