Applications: Cognitive and Physical Modelling

Abstract

Humans learn to speak and understand language without apparent effort, barring a severe physical or cognitive deficit. The capacity, the potential, for language behaviour is said to be ‘innate’ (Chomsky 1965, Lorenz 1965, Givon 2001, Jackendoff 2002). Properties which are innate are seen as an essential feature of the mind and have not themselves been the result of some obvious learning processes. Language is the result of the exposure of this cognitive capacity to the individual’s language environment. The term ‘language’ is sometimes seen as ambiguous: it can be the collective result of speaking or writing (a traditional use), or the set of processes by which that result is achieved (a more contemporary use).