Universals of Human Nature

Human Universals, Human Nature, Human Culture

Human universals--of which hundreds have been identified--consist of those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and mind that, so far as the record has been examined, are found among all peoples known to ethnography and history. After presenting some of the basic conceptions and problems concerning such universals per se--their kinds and causes and the methodological and disciplina...

History and Human Nature: Cross-cultural Universals and Cultural Relativities

Language universals in human brains.

Do speakers know universal restrictions on linguistic elements that are absent from their language? We report an experimental test of this question. Our case study concerns the universal restrictions on initial consonant sequences, onset clusters (e.g., bl in block). Across languages, certain onset clusters (e.g., lb) are dispreferred (e.g., systematically under-represented) relative to others ...

Mathematics, Recursion, and Universals in Human Languages

There are many scientific problems generated by the multiple and conflicting alternative definitions of linguistic recursion and human recursive processing that exist in the literature. The purpose of this article is to make available to the linguistic community the standard mathematical definition of recursion and to apply it to discuss linguistic recursion. As a byproduct, we obtain an insigh...

Human nature theologically and philosophically viewed

This article has no abstract.