{"id":11502,"date":"2018-10-10T06:02:12","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T10:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whamit.mit.edu\/?p=11502"},"modified":"2018-10-09T21:11:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T01:11:52","slug":"ling-lunch-1011-ljiljana-progovac-wayne-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/2018\/10\/10\/ling-lunch-1011-ljiljana-progovac-wayne-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Ling-Lunch 10\/11 - Ljiljana Progovac (Wayne State)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Speaker:<\/b> Ljiljana Progovac<\/a>\u00a0 (Wayne State)<\/div>\n
Title: <\/b><\/b>What use is half a clause? The Five Problems facing language evolution research<\/div>\n
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Date and time:<\/strong> Thursday, 10\/11, 12:30-1:50pm<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Location:<\/strong> 32-D461<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Abstract:<\/b><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

I have proposed that human languages reconstruct back to an intransitive absolutive-like grammar, which provides the foundation and common denominator for crosslinguistic variation in the expression of transitivity (e.g. Progovac 2015, 2016). The proposal is based both on an\u00a0internal reconstruction<\/em>\u00a0using syntactic theory (in particular, Chomsky\u0092s 1995 Minimalism), and on\u00a0comparative<\/em>\u00a0typological considerations, in an attempt to directly bring together formal, typological, and evolutionary considerations.<\/p>\n

The internal reconstruction\u00a0is achieved by peeling off, from the top, the syntactic layers postulated to form the\u00a0basic skeleton of the modern sentence\/clause (CP>TP > vP > VP\/SC), leading to reconstructing the initial, ancestral grammar as intransitive, featuring only the VP\/SC layer with one single argument.\u00a0Approximations<\/em>\u00a0of such one-argument grammars are arguably found in the absolutive and middle constructions across a variety of languages, as well as in certain verb-noun compounds, both of which will be illustrated and discussed. Rather than staying with general, vague claims, I will use specific data and detail in an attempt to make this proposal testable, and will report the results of an fMRI experiment designed to test some predictions of this proposal (Progovac\u00a0et al<\/em>. 2018:\u00a0doi: 10.3389\/fpsyg.2018.00278).<\/p>\n

I will furthermore introduce The Five Problems\/Challenges\u00a0<\/strong>routinely encountered in language evolution research (Progovac, In Press), and will use the proposal above as a test case to demonstrate how these challenges can begin to be addressed.<\/p>\n

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  1. Identification of the initial stage(s) of language (The Decomposition Problem)<\/u><\/li>\n
  2. The genetic basis for language, i.e. how genetic basis for language came to be (The Selection Problem<\/u>)<\/li>\n
  3. The language-brain-genes linkage (The Loop Problem<\/u>)<\/li>\n
  4. Compatibility with the parameters of language variation and change (The Variation Problem<\/u>)<\/li>\n
  5. Grounding in linguistic theory and analysis (The Theoretical Grounding Problem)<\/u><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    Especially thorny are The Decomposition and The Selection Problems, partly because they are intertwined, in the sense that only a successful decomposition will reveal utility, which can in turn identify possible reasons for natural\/sexual selection. Consistent with the proposal above, I will explore a specific natural\/sexual selection scenario which attempts to disentangle the two, while addressing the question of \u0093What use is half a clause?\u0094<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Speaker: Ljiljana Progovac\u00a0 (Wayne State) Title: What use is half a clause? The Five Problems facing language evolution research Date and time: Thursday, 10\/11, 12:30-1:50pm Location: 32-D461 Abstract: \u00a0 I have proposed that human languages reconstruct back to an intransitive absolutive-like grammar, which provides the foundation and common denominator for crosslinguistic variation in the expression […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-talks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11502"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11529,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11502\/revisions\/11529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}