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Some Maladaptive Traits of Natural LanguageAritz IrurtzunCNRS-IKEROne of the biggest issues in current biolinguistics concerns the discussion of theputative adaptive nature of human language. Thus, a range of authors defend the view thatlanguage is an eminently adaptive tool that evolved for communication purposes (cf. Pinkerand Bloom (1990); Pinker and Jackendoff (2005); Givón (2009), and, basically, any major workof any functionalist trend), whereas on the opposite view, there is also a number ofresearchers who are sceptical to the adaptationist view and who defend an exaptationistorigin of natural language (cf. Piattelli-Palmarini (1989); Uriagereka (1998); Hauser et al.(2002); Boeckx and Piattelli-Palmarini (2005); Chomsky (2005); Fitch et al. (2005)).In this talk, I provide a number of arguments in favour of the exaptationist view bydiscussing the dysfunctional nature of some well-known features of natural language. Themain goal will not be just to point towards some traits that have no clear evolutionaryhistory but rather, to argue that, teleonomically, all these traits should be considered asmaladaptive traits, given that they do not lead to the highest relative fitness among thepossible candidates. In other words, they actually make language a worse tool forcommunication.The traits that I will discuss include 'universal' features such as (i) the filler-gapdependencies generated by displacements, (ii) the movement of superfluous material, (iii)the ban on particular clitic or agreement clusters (the so-called Person Case Constraint), (iv)the morphological lacuna of verbal Wh-words, as well as some language-particular features.Due to space limitations, here I will only comment the four I just mentioned.• Displacement & Filler-Gap Dependencies: As Chomsky and others have argued, thelinearization 'dilemma' of displacement structures is resolved by a deletion of all butthe highest copies, however, deletion of lower copies generates filler-gapdependencies and parsing difficulties. Here, we would have a scenario with a conflictbetween computational efficiency (remerge) and communicative efficiency (fullyspecified chains), the former being the one that is guaranteed to the detriment ofcommunicative efficiency. This, I will argue, is a signature of the fact that languagedid not evolve for externalization and communication.• Generalized Pied-Piping: Displacement affects more material than the specific target forthe movement. A Wh-feature on e.g. an element can trigger the movement of thewhole DP containing it, and in some languages like Basque it can even trigger themovement of CPs. This feature extends to answers, which have to match the Whphrasein the question in syntactic type, as can be seen in 1. Here, too, computationalefficiency is guaranteed (attracting the closest element with the Wh/focus feature(after percolation)), not communicative efficiency (expressing just the sufficientinformation to identify the variable in the Wh-question).(1) A. Which girl came late? (in a situation where we have to decidebetween a girl with a red coat and a girl with a blue coat)B. *Red./The girl with a red coat.
• The lack of verbal Wh-words: All natural languages appear to have Wh-words forarguments (who, what) and adjuncts (where, why). However, crosslinguistically, wefind no purely monomorphemic verbal Wh-words like 2. This restricts the range ofpossible expressions of natural languages. Again, no clear functionalist scenario canbe imagined for the development of such a lacuna; I will argue that it is due to ageneral formal requirement for DPs to get θ-roles.(2) Whxyzed Brutus Caesar?Wh.VERB Brutus CaesarWhat type of event has Brutus as the subject and Caesar as the object?• The Person Case Constraint: In languages with agreement morphology or clitics, thecombination of dative agreement/clitic with 1 st or 2 nd person accusativeagreement/clitic is banned (3) (cf. Bonet (1994)). Again, this restriction on what are thepossible expressions of natural languages has no possible communicative origin but aplausible computatinal one (cf. Ormazabal (2000)).(3) *Pedro le me envía.Pedro cl.3D cl.1A sendPedro sends me to him/her/itThe corollary of my presentation will be that there is a wide range of features ofnatural language that are maladaptive stricto sensu (cf. Crespi (2000)), and hence, naturallanguage cannot be considered a tool evolved under communicative pressures, but rather theproduct of a complex emergence with exapted traits.ReferencesBoeckx, C., and M. Piattelli-Palmarini. 2005. Language as a natural object, linguistics as anatural science. The Linguistic Review 22: 447-466.Bonet, E. 1994. The PCC: A morphological approach. MITWPL 22: 33-52.Chomsky, N. 2005. Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry 36.1: 1-22.Crespi, B. J. 2000. The evolution of maladaptation. Heredity 84: 623-629.Fitch, W. T. , M. D. Hauser, and N. Chomsky. 2005. The evolution of the language faculty:clarifications and implications. Cognition 97: 179-210.Givón, T. 2009. The adaptive approach to grammar. In Biological foundations and origin ofsyntax, eds. D. Bickerton & E. Szathmary, 89-116. Cambridge: Cascadilla.Hauser, M. D. , N. Chomsky, and W. T. Fitch. 2002. The faculty of language: What is it, whohas it, and how did it evolve? Science 298: 1569-1579.Ormazabal, J. 2000. A conspiracy theory of case and agreement. In Step by step, eds. R. Martinand J. Uriagereka, 235-260. Cambridge: MIT Press.Piattelli-Palmarini, M. 1989. Evolution, selection and cognition: from 'learning' to parametersetting in biology and in the study of language. Cognition 31: 1-44.Pinker, S., and P. Bloom. 1990. Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and BrainSciences 13: 707-726.Pinker, S., and R. Jackendoff. 2005. The faculty of language: what's special about it? Cognition95: 201-236.Uriagereka, J. 1998. Rhyme and reason. Cambridge: MIT Press.
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GLOW Newsletter #70, Spring 2013Edi
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INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the 70 th GL
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Welcome to GLOW 36, Lund!The 36th G
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REIMBURSEMENT AND WAIVERSThe regist
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STATISTICS BY COUNTRYCountry Author
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15:45-16:00 Coffee break16:00-17:00
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14:00-15:00 Adam Albright (MIT) and
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17:00-17:30 Anna Maria Di Sciullo (
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16.10-16.50 Peter Svenonius (Univer
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GLOW 36 WORKSHOP PROGRAM IV:Acquisi
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The impossible chaos: When the mind
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17. Friederici, A. D., Trends Cogn.
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Second, tests replicated from Bruen
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clusters is reported to be preferre
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occur (cf. figure 1). Similar perfo
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argument that raises to pre-verbal
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Timothy Bazalgette University of
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. I hurt not this knee now (Emma 2;
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Rajesh Bhatt & Stefan Keine(Univers
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SIZE MATTERS: ON DIACHRONIC STABILI
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ON THE ‘MAFIOSO EFFECT’ IN GRAM
Page 44 and 45: The absence of coreferential subjec
Page 46 and 47: PROSPECTS FOR A COMPARATIVE BIOLING
Page 48 and 49: A multi-step algorithm for serial o
Page 50 and 51: Velar/coronal asymmetry in phonemic
Page 52 and 53: On the bilingual acquisition of Ita
Page 54 and 55: Hierarchy and Recursion in the Brai
Page 56 and 57: Colorful spleeny ideas speak furiou
Page 58 and 59: A neoparametric approach to variati
Page 60 and 61: Lexical items merged in functional
Page 62 and 63: Setting the elements of syntactic v
Page 64 and 65: Language Faculty, Complexity Reduct
Page 66 and 67: Don’t scope your universal quanti
Page 68 and 69: Restricting language change through
Page 70 and 71: 4. Conclusion This micro-comparativ
Page 72 and 73: 2. Central Algonquian feature hiera
Page 74 and 75: availability of the SR reading in (
Page 76 and 77: Repairing Final-Over-Final Constrai
Page 78 and 79: a PF interface phenomenon as propos
Page 80 and 81: (b) Once the learner has determined
Page 82 and 83: cognitive recursion (including Merg
Page 84 and 85: can be null, or lexically realized,
Page 86 and 87: feature on C and applies after Agre
Page 88 and 89: Nobu Goto (Mie University)Deletion
Page 90 and 91: Structural Asymmetries - The View f
Page 92 and 93: FROM INFANT POINTING TO THE PHASE:
Page 96 and 97: Constraints on Concept FormationDan
Page 98 and 99: More on strategies of relativizatio
Page 100 and 101: ReferencesBayer, J. 1984. COMP in B
Page 102 and 103: Improper movement and improper agre
Page 104 and 105: Importantly, while there are plausi
Page 106 and 107: This hypothesis makes two predictio
Page 108 and 109: (3) a. Það finnst alltaf þremur
Page 110 and 111: (2) Watashi-wa hudan hougaku -wa /*
Page 112 and 113: However when the VP (or IP) is elid
Page 114 and 115: More specifically, this work reflec
Page 116 and 117: modality, or ii) see phonology as m
Page 118 and 119: (I) FWHA The wh-word shenme ‘what
Page 120 and 121: 1The historical reality of biolingu
Page 122 and 123: Rita Manzini, FirenzeVariation and
Page 124 and 125: Non-counterfactual past subjunctive
Page 126 and 127: THE GRAMMAR OF THE ESSENTIAL INDEXI
Page 128 and 129: Motivating head movement: The case
Page 130 and 131: Limits on Noun-suppletionBeata Mosk
Page 132 and 133: Unbounded Successive-Cyclic Rightwa
Page 134 and 135: Same, different, other, and the his
Page 136 and 137: Selectivity in L3 transfer: effects
Page 138 and 139: Anaphoric dependencies in real time
Page 140 and 141: Constraining Local Dislocation dial
Page 142 and 143: A Dual-Source Analysis of GappingDa
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[9] S. Repp. ¬ (A& B). Gapping, ne
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of Paths into P path and P place is
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Deriving the Functional HierarchyGi
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Reflexivity without reflexivesEric
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Reuland, E. (2001). Primitives of b
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on v, one associated with uϕ and t
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Merge when applied to the SM interf
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1 SachsThe Semantics of Hindi Multi
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Covert without overt: QR for moveme
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Morpho-syntactic transfer in L3 acq
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one where goals receive a theta-rel
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51525354555657585960616263646566676
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follow Harris in assuming a ranked
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changing instances of nodes 7 and 8
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Sam Steddy, steddy@mit.eduMore irre
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Fleshing out this model further, I
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(5) Raman i [ CP taan {i,∗j}Raman
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properties with Appl (introduces an
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econstruct to position A then we ca
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(5) Kutik=i ez guret-a.dog=OBL.M 1S
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sults summarized in (2) suggest tha
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Building on Bhatt’s (2005) analys
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Underlying (derived from ON) /pp, t
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out, as shown in (3) (that the DP i
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Word order and definiteness in the
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Visser’s Generalization and the c
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the key factors. The combination of
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Parasitic Gaps Licensed by Elided S
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Stages of grammaticalization of the
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