Paul Thagard (ed) - Mind Readings-4. Rules of Language. Steven Pinker.资料.pdfVIP

4 Rules of Language Steven Pinker Language and cognition have been explained as the products of a homogeneous asso- ciative memory structure or alternatively, of a set of genetically determined computa- tional modules in which rules manipulate symbolic representations. Intensive study of one phenomenon of English grammar and how it is processed and acquired suggests that both theories are partly right. Regular verbs (walk -walked) are computed by a suffixation rule in a neural system for grammatical processing, irregular verbs (run- ran) are retrieved from an associative memory. Every normal human can convey and receive an unlimited number of discrete messages through a highly structured stream of sound or , in the case of signed languages , manual gestures. This remarkable piece of natural engineering depends upon a complex code or grammar implemented in the brain that is deployed without conscious effort and that develops, without explicit training , by the age of four . Ex- plaining this talent is an important goal of the human sciences. Theories of language and other cognitive processes generally fall into two classes. Associationism describes the brain as a homogeneous network of interconnected units modified by a learning mechanism that records correlations among frequently co-occurring input pat- terns (1). Rule - and- representation theories describe the brain as a computational device in which rules and principles operate on sym- bolic data structures (2, 3). Some rule theories further propose that the brain is divided into modular computational systems that have an orga