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If language is a jungle, why are we all cultivating the same plot?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Maggie Tallerman
Maggie Tallerman
Affiliation:
Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences (CRiLLS), Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom. maggie.tallerman@ncl.ac.ukhttp://www.ncl.ac.uk/elll/staff/profile/maggie.tallerman
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Abstract

Evans & Levinson (E&L) focus on differences between languages at a superficial level, rather than examining common processes. Their emphasis on trivial details conceals uniform design features and universally shared strategies. Lexical category distinctions between nouns and verbs are probably universal. Non-local dependencies are a general property of languages, not merely non-configurational languages. Even the latter class exhibits constituency.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 5 , October 2009 , pp. 469 - 470
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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