chertok%ucbkim%Berkeley@sri-unix.UUCP (09/27/84)
From: chertok%ucbkim@Berkeley (Paula Chertok)
BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM
Fall 1984
Cognitive Science Seminar -- IDS 237A
TIME: Tuesday, October 2, 11 - 12:30
PLACE: 240 Bechtel Engineering Center
DISCUSSION: 12:30 - 2 in 200 Building T-4
SPEAKER: Jerry Sadock, Center for the Advanced Study
in the Behavioral Sciences; Linguistics
Department, University of Chicago
TITLE: Linguistics as Anatomy
ABSTRACT: The notion of modularity in linguistic sys-
tems is often supported by invoking an ana-
tomical metaphor in which the various sub-
systems of the grammar are the analogues of
the organs of the body. The primitive view
of anatomy that is employed supposes that
the organs are entirely separate in internal
structure, nonoverlapping in function, shar-
ply distinguished from one another, and
entirely autonomous in their internal opera-
tion.
There is a great deal of suggestive evidence
from language systems that calls many of
these assumptions into question and indi-
cates that there are transmodular `systems'
that form part of the internal structure of
various modules, that there is a good deal
of redundancy of function between grammati-
cal components, that the boundaries of the
modules are unsharp, and that the workings
of one module can be sensitive to the work-
ings of another. These facts do not speak
against either the basic notion of modular-
ity of grammar or the anatomical analogy,
but rather suggest that the structure of
grammatical systems is to be compared with a
more sophisticated view of the structure of
physical organic systems than has been popu-
larly employed.
The appropriate analogy is not only biologi-
cally more realistic, but also holds out the
hope of yielding better accounts of certain
otherwise puzzling natural language
phenomena.