What is language?

William S-Y. Wang 王士元wsywang@ee.cuhk.edu.hk

5th PGRF on Linguistics

CUHK 2008.3.15

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It is difficult to know the true nature of Language because we are always totally

immersed in it.

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Herrmann, Esther et al. 2007. Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis. Science 317.1360-.

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Herrmann, Esther et al. 2007. Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis. Science 317.1360-.

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Lenneberg, E. 1967. Biological Foundations of Language.

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Patricia K. Kuhl. 2004. EARLY LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: CRACKING THE SPEECH CODE. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE 5.831- 843.

7Patricia K. Kuhl. 2004. EARLY LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: CRACKING THE SPEECH CODE. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE 5.831- 843.

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Patricia K. Kuhl. 2004. EARLY LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: CRACKING THE SPEECH CODE. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE 5.831- 843.

“Rivera-Gaxiola and colleagues recorded ERP’s in typically developing infants in response to native and non-native speech sounds … One group responded to both contrasts with positive-going brainwave changes, whereas the second group responded to both contrasts with negative-going brainwave changes. Both groups could neurally discriminate the foreign language sound at 11 months of age, whereas total group analyses had

obscured this result.” from p.839.

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Loss of endings in Putonghua

Cantonese

-p

-t

-k

-m

-n

-ng

Putonghua

-

-

-

-

-n

-ng

Cf : English: bee, beep, beet, beak beam, bean, being.

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Klima, Edward S., Ursula Bellugi et al. 1979. The Signs of Language. Harvard University Press.

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Klima, Edward S., Ursula Bellugi et al. 1979. The Signs of Language. Harvard University Press.

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Ramachandran, Vilayanur S. & Edward M. Hubbard. 2003. Hearing colors, tasting shapes. Scientific American 288.42-9.

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/n-/ 5 10 (shared: 1) /l-/ 33 18 (shared: 11) “v” 12 22 (shared: 5)

南京 n l 男人 n l 西南 n l 发难 n l 归纳 n n

Ke, Jinyun. 2004. Sound change and variation within individuals Data from monozygotic twins:

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Individual difference in language:

I think it is you who confused. isare

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Sentences used to elicit linguistic judgment: from Ross, John Robert. 1979. Where's English? in C.J. Fillmore, D. Kempler & W.S-Y. Wang, eds.1. Under no circumstance would I accept that offer.

2. Nobody that I get along with is here who I want to talk to.

3. We don’t believe the claim that Jimison ever had any money.

4. The fact he wasn’t in the store shouldn’t be forgotten.

5. What will the grandfather clock stand between the bed and?

6. I urge that anything he touch be burned.

7. All the further we got was to Sudbury.

8. That is a frequently talked about proposal.

9. Nobody is here who I get along with who I want to talk to.

10. The doctor is sure that there will be no problems.

11. We have barely $500 in our account.

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Instructions for subjects:from Ross, John Robert. 1979. Where's English? in C.J. Fillmore, D. Kempler & W.S-Y. Wang, eds.

Please rate the following sentences as to their grammaticality, using the following numerical prefixes:

1. The sentence sounds perfect. You would use it without hesitation.

2. The sentence is less than perfect – something in it just doesn’t feel comfortable. Maybe lots of people could say it, but you never feel quite comfortable with it.

3. Worse than 2, but not completely impossible. Maybe somebody might use the sentence, but certainly not you. The sentence is almost beyond hope.

4. The sentence is absolutely out. Impossible to understand, nobody would say it. Un-English.

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Based on data from Ross, John Robert. 1979. Where's English? C.J. Fillmore, D. Kempler & W.S-Y. Wang, eds.

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Ross, John Robert. 1979:160. Where's English? in C.J. Fillmore, et al, eds.

“The view of language that seems most plausible to me is that the sentences of a language are points in an n-space … An idiolect is a vector in this n-space … And each speaker’s vector, or path, through the space will, I expect, be as

individual as his or her face – a linguistic fingerprint.”

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… an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting pattern of subpatterns. Sherrington, Charles. 1953.

The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. 2nd ed.

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Visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves:

by frequency and wave length.

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Gazzaniga et al.2002:152.

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Kay, Paul, et al. 2008. Lateralized Whorf: Language influences perceptual decision in the right visual field. In Minett and Wang, eds.

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Kay, Paul, et al. 2008. Lateralized Whorf: Language influences perceptual decision in the right visual field. In Minett and Wang, eds.

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Tan, Lihai, et al. 2008. Language affects patterns of brain activation associated with perceptual decision. PNAS 105.10.4004-9.

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Tan, Lihai, et al. 2008. Language affects patterns of brain activation associated with perceptual decision. PNAS 105.10.4004-9.

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Tan, Lihai, et al. 2008. Language affects patterns of brain activation associated with perceptual decision. PNAS 105.10.4004-9.

“Crucially, perceptual discrimination of easy-to-name colors evoked stronger activation in … two regions responsible for word finding processes…. This finding suggests that the language processing areas of the brain are directly involved in visual perceptual decision, thus providing neuroimaging support for the Whorf hypothesis.”

from the abstract

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W.S-Y.Wang.Feb.1973.Scientific American.

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The Mandarin tones are relatively compact and discretely distributed, which allows for more successful tone recognition.

Peng, Gang and Wang, W. S-Y. (2005). “Tone recognition of continuous Cantonese speech based on support vector machines.” Speech Communication, 45:49-62.

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Wang, W.S-Y. 1976. Language change. Annals of the N.Y. Academy of Science 280.61-72.

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Wang, W.S-Y. 1976. Language change. Annals of the N.Y. Academy of Science 280.61-72.

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Gazzaniga et al.2002:133

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EEG: Electroencephalography. The electrical activity is recorded from human brains by the electrodes on

the scalp. (Ref. Luck, 2005) Strength: A direct brain response measurement. Its good temporal

resolution helps to answer the ‘when’ question. Facility: EGI 128-Channel EEG system

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The experiments reported by Kay and Tan and their colleagues, both reaction time and fMRI, show that visual perception is strongly influenced by the linguistic categories which code the colors.

The experiments in progress by Zheng show that even with attention focused elsewhere, the brain responds differently to auditory stimuli within tonal categories and stimuli across tonal categories.

These experiments complement each other in showing that language shapes how the brain responds to sensory stimuli.

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To recapitulate …

A language is a system of forms for communication, internally and externally, mostly acquired since our early months of life. These forms are closely networked with cognition and culture. Since the acquisition process depends on individual experiences, there are significant differences even since early infancy. Linguistic systems per se are supra-modal, but change in time according to the constraints of the particular mode.

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While many dimensions of our physical world are analog/continuous, linguistic forms are digital/discrete. Language converts these physical continua into small numbers of categories, as in the case of color words or lexical tones. These categories are part of the language we learn, and our brain is shaped in this learning process.

It has become possible only very recently to study the brain directly as it performs various linguistic tasks, visual and auditory, opening up new opportunities for linguistic research.

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Language as shaped by the brain. (in press). Christiansen, M. H. & N. Chater. Behavioral and Brain Sciences

It is not surprising that a language must be easily and universally learnable; otherwise it would not survive. More interestingly, current research is beginning to suggest that the brain is shaped by differences between languages. The evolution of language and the brain is an interactive, symbiotic process.

The invention of writing several thousand years ago must have had a major impact on the nature of language, and on the brain. With technology fundamentally re-shaping human communication, how will language evolve in the future ?

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Selected References:1. Christiansen, Morten H. and Nick Chater. 2008. Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences

(in press).2. Fillmore, C.J., D. Kempler & W.S-Y. Wang (eds) 1979. Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language

Behavior: Academic Press.3. Gleitman, Henry Gleitman and Lila. 1979. Language use and language judgment. In C.J. Fillmore, D. Kempler & W.S-

Y. Wang, eds4. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1971. Is language like a chess game? Pp.330-351 in Language, Culture and Communication.

Stanford University Press.5. Herrmann, Esther, Josep Call, María Victoria Hernández-Lloreda, Brian Hare & Michael Tomasello. 2007. Humans

Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis. Science 317.1360-.6. Kay, Paul, Terry Regier, Aubrey L. Gilbert, Richard B. Ivry. 2008. Lateralized Whorf: Language influences perceptual

decision in the right visual field. In Minett and Wang, eds.7. Minett, J.W. & W.S-Y. Wang, eds. 2008. Language, Evolution, and the Brain: City University of Hong Kong Press.8. Ross, John Robert. 1979. Where's English? In C.J. Fillmore, D. Kempler & W.S-Y. Wang, eds.9. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de Linguistique Générale. English translation by Wade Baskin ; published in

1959. New York : Philosophical Library.10. Shuai, L. & W. S-Y. Wang. 2008. Tone Lateralization under Noisy Conditions. Proceedings of 4th International

Conference on Speech Prosody, 2008.11. Tan, Lihai, Alice H. D. Chan, Paul Kay, Pek-Lan Khong, Lawrance K. C. Yip & Kang-Kwong Luke. 2008. Language

affects patterns of brain activation associated with perceptual decision. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105.10.4004-9. 12. Wang, W.S-Y. 1976. Language change. Annals of N.Y. Academy of Science 280.61-72.13. Wang, W.S-Y. 2007. The language mosaic and its biological bases. Journal of Bio-Education 2.8-16.14. Zheng, Hongying. 2008. Categorical perception of lexical tones : correlation between electric brain response and

behavioral performance. To be presented at this forum.