Projects / Programmes
Probing the cognitive basis of the cartographic hierarchy of functional projections in the noun phrase
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.05.02 |
Humanities |
Linguistics |
Theoretical and applied linguistics |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H350 |
Humanities |
Linguistics |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.02 |
Humanities |
Languages and Literature |
cartography, syntactic hierarchy, language acquisition, concept acquisition, relation between language and cognition
Researchers (7)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
The proposed project investigates the potential cognitive underpinnings of the Cartographic model of natural language syntax. The main goal of the project is to gather empirical psycholinguistic data which will enable us to weigh in on the ongoing debate in linguistics about the choice between two (/several) models of natural language and about the justification of the cartographic approach to natural language syntax.
The cartographic model proposes a highly articulated syntactic structure with a large number of functional projections that are arranged in a fixed, universal hierarchy. Universal grammar is seen as determining the hierarchical ordering of not only what is widely understood as functional structure but also the hierarchical ordering of, for example, different types of adverbial and adjectival modifiers, which are assumed to be merged in specifiers of various functional projections. In this project, we will investigate the possibility of a cognitive underpinning for cartography's posited universal hierarchy. If a cognitive basis exists, one would expect that there will be a connection between the posited syntactic functional projections on the one hand and the concepts expressed by the adjectives which are located in these fuctional projections on the other hand. Further, it is often argued that the acquisition of the elements hosted by the hierarchically ordered functional projections proceeds step-by-step bottom-up, from the lower projections to the higher ones (cf. Radford 1990, 1996, Schafer & de Villiers 2000, Schlyter 2006, etc.). This naturally leads to the question whether these concepts – e.g. the concepts expressed by various adjectives – are acquired step by step and in the relative order which reflects cartography's proposed universal hierarchy.
The investigation of this question will be approached through a study of three separate concepts: color, shape and size. According to the cartographic research into adjective ordering, adjectives expressing these three concepts are claimed to be positioned inside the noun phrase in functional projections with the following hierarchical arrangement: size ) shape ) color (Scott 2002, cf. also Toporišič 1976). The study will be based on an experiment with preschool children which will be conducted to determine the order in which children acquire these three concepts, and more specifically, if the order of acquisition of these three concepts matches the proposed hierarchy of functional projections hosting the respective adjectives.
If the acquisition sequence of these concepts matches the proposed hierarchy of functional projections, this can be taken as evidence that the proposed universal hierarchy of functional projections has a cognitive basis, which would justify the cartographic approach to natural language syntax, and at the same time also uncover a new aspect of the intensively researched relation between language and general cognition.
Significance for science
As discussed in the project description, the project addresses a very relevant and topical scientific question from:
- linguistic theory (verifying a theoretical model that has great theoretical appeal and has had a big influence in the field, but has also, with respect to certain aspects, met with considerable opposition)
- more broadly from human cognition, and the place that language holds in it (probing potential cognitive underpinnings for an aspect of a linguistic model that is usually refused the posibility of having any cognitive grounding, though so far mostly on the basis of conceptual rather than experimental arguments)
At the same time, the project is important for the development of the linguistics in Slovenia. The subfield of language acquisition based in formal linguistic theory as well as formally-couched psycholinguistics in general, which have formed a very prominent and vibrant subfield of linguistics in the past several decades, are very weak in Slovenia. With the exception of a few occasional case studies, there has been no steady research in these subfields. Building on recently initiated collaboration between formal linguists from U. of Nova Gorica and psychologists from U. of Ljubljana (in the context of the project on the relation of acquisition of grammatical and mathematical number, which is in its closing stages), the project will strengthen the foundation for a lasting and more concrete collaboration between psychologists and linguists in Slovenia and will hopefully also attract students who would, through participation in the experiments, set off on career paths to becoming full-fledged psycholinguists. Similarly, the project will also provide an additional strengthening influence on the spread of psycholinguistics in Slovenia through our collaboration with dr. Barner’s lab from a top-ranking US psychology department – at UCSD.
Significance for the country
As a basic scientific project addressing theoretical questions of linguistics and more generally human cognition, the proposed project has no direct impact on the economy and society. However, as a direct result of the testing/data collection carried out for the study, we will obtain a collection of systematic data revealing at what age parents can expect the acquisition of certain concepts, and also certain Slovenian words related to these concepts, when tested with the type of simple tests that will be used in the study. These are questions that typically rate fairly high in the curiosity of preschool children's parents. Our results will also be contrasted with the less detailed assessment tests of concept and word learning used in Slovenian daycares (based on Ivić et al. 2002, Kavčič 2004, Nemec & Krajnc 2011). These aspects of the collected data will be presented to the general public through information brochures and popular science articles (cf. Section 16/Project managment).
Most important scientific results
Final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Interim report,
final report
