The Nature and Limits of Variation across Languages and Pathologies
- Autores: EvÁngelia Leivada
- Directores de la Tesis: Joana Rosselló Ximenes (dir. tes.), Cedric Boeckx (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat de Barcelona ( España ) en 2015
- Idioma: inglés
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Arhonto Terzi (presid.), Faustino Diéguez Vide (secret.), Aritz Irurtzun Sviaguincheva (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ciencia Cognitiva y Lenguaje
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: TDX Dipòsit Digital de la UB
- Resumen
The aim of this dissertation is to explore the nature and limits of variation across different (i) linguistic phenotypes and (ii) cognitive phenotypes, showing that a strong parallel exists between the two. It is proposed that the same loci of variation can be identified across the two research programs: comparative linguistics, which deals with variation across languages and comparative biolinguistics, which has variation across pathologies among its research questions. In both cases, variation is shown to be confined to the externalization component of the language faculty. The picture on variation across pathologies is established on the basis of describing and comparing the grammars of aphasia, Specific Language Impairment, Down Syndrome, autism and schizophrenia. Variation is approached from a generative perspective. Arguments against presenting variation as syntactic or parametric are put forth on the basis of results obtained from a semi-automatic program analysis. The proposed analysis measures parametric relations in two pools of data that target the nominal domain and span over 32 contemporary and 5 ancient languages. In the absence of parameters, a novel acquisition algorithm is sketched out. This algorithm approaches the task of language acquisition from the very beginning and identifies the cognitive cues that guide the learner in each step of the acquisition process.
