Evolution and Learning of Language: Insights Drawn from Modeling

This vivid term, " connectoplasm " is intended to allude to " cytoplasm " , and means a unstructured, homogeneous mass of neurons. 1 Introduction How can we characterize the dual contributions of biology and environment to language? This is one of the most hotly contested topics in linguistics, psychology, and related disciplines. Even the staunchest adherents to both ends of the " nature / nurture " spectrum must acknowledge that there are both components of genetics and learning to language: no one would claim that specific languages are encoded in genes, nor would anyone propose that humans learn to have brains. The question becomes where in that spectrum we draw the line. Strong nativists (Pinker & Bloom (1990) for example) hold that even aspects of grammar are genetically determined and thus can be selected for via natural selection. This accounts for the kind of cross-linguistic regularity that characterizes " Universal Grammar " – the linguistic knowledge that all humans possess. On the other end, strong developmentalists would maintain that the creation of neurons is as far as biology contributes; before the contribution of environment, the brain is just a ball of " connectoplasm " 1. Any regularity in language is the result of regularity in the environment and other physiological regularity (for example, we all have eyes and ears that respond to stimuli in highly structured and similar ways). Thelen & Smith (1993) is representative of the approach taken by researchers on this end of the spectrum.