The Basic Operations of Human Language: Theoretical and Experimental Studies

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17H02347
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Sophia University
• Principal Investigator: Fukui Naoki 上智大学, 言語科学研究科, 教授 (60208931)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 酒井 邦嘉 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 教授 (10251216)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 併合 / 入れ子依存 / 交差依存 / fMRI / 言語野 / 前頭葉

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Linguistic expressions are not merely ‘beads-on-a string,’ with terminal elements arranged from left to right; rather, they are intrinsically associated with invisible abstract hierarchical structures. Without precisely understanding the properties of the abstract structures, it is simply impossible to elucidate the nature of human language faculty. This research project attempted to put forth, and experimentally verify, a strong theoretical hypothesis that dependencies observed on terminal strings in human language are linguistically legitimate only to the extent that abstract structures behind the dependencies are generable by the structure-building operation (called Merge) of human language faculty. We demonstrated for the first time that artificial dependencies, which do not conform to structures generated by Merge, cannot fully activate the language areas in the left brain.

Free Research Field

理論言語学、統辞法、生成文法、言語脳科学、脳機能イメージング

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

人間言語が単なる「単語の列」であるという常識を覆し、言語の背景には抽象的な構造を作り出す能力が存在するという事実を科学的に実証することにより、人間の言語能力の本質に迫り、また「人間の本性」の科学的理解にも貢献できた。さらには、正しい科学的理解に基づく言語教育、人工知能による自然言語処理に対しても道を拓くことになったと言えよう。