Related links

Web search: Google Web Search   ::   Google Scholar

Abstract

Using the preceding chapter as a point of departure, this chapter offers a critical perspective on the notion of innate universals. It presents a 'minimal nativism' view, according to which a brain area should be seen as embodying a kind of language universal if it is genetically predisposed toward fulfilling a certain sufficiently general linguistic function, for example by virtue of its strategic connectivity. On this view, Broca's area could still count as the brain locus of a linguistic universal, even if it supports other functions beside language.

Keywords: human brain; Broca's area; innate universals; minimal nativism; language universals

@incollection{clark09LUchapter,
  author={Andy Clark and Jennifer B. Misyak},
  title={Language, Innateness, and Universals},
  year={2009},
  pages={253-261},
  chapter={12},
  editor={M.H. Christiansen and C. Collins and S. Edelman},
  publisher={Oxford University Press},
  booktitle={Language Universals},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/clark09LUchapter.html},
  keywords={human brain; Broca's area; innate universals; minimal nativism; language universals}
}