Naoki Fukui

Surface linear (left-to-right) arrangements of human languages are actually an amalgam of the core language system and systems that are not inherently related to language. It has been widely recognized that an unbounded array of hierarchically structured linguistic expressions is generated by the simplest combinatorial operation “Merge,” and the notion of Merge-generability has been proposed as a key feature that characterizes structural dependencies among linguistic elements. Here we tested Merge-generable dependencies by using a Subject-Predicate matching task, which required both linguistic capacity and short-term memory. We used three types of dependency: Nesting, Crossing, and Grouping as the control. The Nesting dependency is totally Merge-generable, while the Crossing dependency requires some additional processes for memory-based ordering. In order to identify the regions employed for these two dependencies, we directly compared cortical responses to the sentence stimuli (with noun phrases and an adverb as the first half of stimuli, and with verbs as the latter) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and the following results were obtained. First, for the Nesting – Crossing contrast, significant activations were observed in the bilateral lateral premotor cortices (LPMCs) and inferior frontal gyri, left middle temporal gyrus, and bilateral angular/supramarginal gyri, indicating engagement of the syntax-related networks. In contrast, the Crossing – Nesting contrast showed focal activations in the left fusiform gyrus, lingual gyrus, and middle occipital gyrus (L. FG/LG/MOG). Secondly, for the first half of the Nesting stimuli, signal changes in the bilateral LPMCs were well fitted with the estimates of computational costs to search the workspace and to select items (Σ operations). Moreover, for the latter half of the Crossing stimuli, the signal changes in the L. FG/LG/MOG were differentially fitted with the estimates of loads related to the ordering of elements/words (numbers of Ordering). Thirdly, these fitting models were by far more likely than the exchanged estimates between bilateral LPMCs and L. FG/LG/MOG, confirming a double dissociation for primary processes with Σ and Ordering. In conclusion, these results indicate that separate cortical networks are differentially employed, and their careful elucidation will provide further insights and challenges.

This article discusses how the theory of generative grammar has developed in such a way that it deals with 'why' questions concerning the nature human language, departing from its primitive, descriptive stages typically characterized by the 'what' questions it raises.

A brief history of modern linguistics is presented, with an emphasis on the driving force that has prompted the development of contemporary linguistic theory, i. e., the search for a deeper and more elegant explanatory theory of the language faculty. It is then argued that current linguistic theory ought to be expanded and modified in such a way as to be more directly linked to speech pathology. Two specific proposals to that end are made. First, it is necessary to break Merge (a primitive recursive operation in linguistic theory) into two distinct sub-operations, Combination and Labeling, and to claim that Combination is attributed to general cognitive capacities not specific to language, while Labeling is, for the moment at least, quite specific to language. Thus, in Broca's aphasics, the former operation seems to be retained whereas the latter operation is quite easily lost. Second, in order to account for the existence of linguistic diversity vis-à-vis linguistic universals, it is necessary to incorporate, over and above the invariant biological principles of human language, the effects of social interactions into the mathematical model of language acquisition. A game-theoretic approach is suggested as an optimal way to achieve this goal.