The book is an effort to emphasize the value of investigating cognition in terms of mental structures. In 1960s the most prevailing theme was that some aspects of linguistics are not learned but rather form the basis of the child’s learning; this unlearned component is the Universal Grammar. The book shows how linguistics has gradually evolved as a discipline since then and how still it can contribute more to cognitive science. In this book Jackendoff points out the short comings of themes of generative grammar and makes an attempt to suggest an integral approach in order to restore its value to other cognitive sciences by bringing together three founding themes of generative grammar i.e. mentalism, combinatoriality, and acquisition. Phonology also has its autonomous structure. Some approaches to semantics also take meaning to be deeply combinatorial. It is necessary to grant semantics an independent generative organization, and to include in the theory of grammar some interface components that correlate semantic structures with syntactic and phonological structures. Thus the relation of syntax to semantics is qualitatively parallel to the relation of syntax to phonology.

The book brings out the contribution of phonological structure in determining the linguistic structure.  The syllabic structure is viewed as hierarchically organized where syntactic primitives such as noun, verbs and determiners. The author is of the view that the hierarchical structures are not built out of syntactic primitives but their units are intrinsically phonological. And the structures are not recursive, in that, unlike syntactic structures they can be embedded indefinitely deeply in other structures of the same type.  He holds that intonation phrase also plays a role in the assignment of intonation contours and the distribution of stress, which are correlated to stress are important. Semantic is not an independent generative organization. There is a need to include an interface component in the theory of grammar that correlates semantic structures like object, events, actions, properties, time and quantifiers etc. with semantic and phonological structures. All the structures are qualitatively parallel. In such case, a sentence is well formed when all three of its structures are independently well formed and a well formed correspondence among them has been established by the interfaces.

The author claims that in a true language the semantic relations among the words are conveyed by syntactic and morphological structure. Productivity and compositionality are implemented by the instantiations of variables in the stored structure through the process of unification, which applies in phonology, syntax and semantics. Syntactic rules or principles are regarded as general constructions with maximally unrestricted variables, sometimes but not always without meaning. A relation between language and consciousness is also dwell upon. The author holds that we experience language as perceived sound. When one is experiencing language, the form of awareness, the qualia, more closely mirror phonological structure. He concludes that phonology is necessary for linguistic qualia, and meaning is neither necessary nor sufficient. Our linguistic images have a phonological form. They come in words with syllables, stress, rhythm and even intonation. We are aware of the content of our linguistically expressed thoughts only by virtue of experiencing phonological images associated with them, plus other images that are inferentially non-efficacious. And the form of thought is itself always unconscious. And our linguistic images provide most of our evidence that we are thinking. The claim is that the functional correlate of consciousness is something as seemingly peripheral as a phonological structure. Still a more detailed analysis of the functional organization of an entire mental faculty is needed.

The author also argues that our social cognition or the ability to interact socially must involve a combinatorial system of principles in each individual’s mind/brain which make it possible to build up understanding of particular situation from some finite stock of stored elements. That is to hold that there are some principles of interaction and social understanding that like ‘rules of language’ are accessible to consciousness. This means that the child must be actively creating interpretations that lead to acquiring principles of social interaction. There must be inherent sources in the child’s brain that make this learning possible.

Interestingly, the author has taken anti-philosophical positions at various point throughout the book. His arguments tend to disagree with classical Fregean position, but also contemporary Searlean and Fodorian positions. Arguing against philosophical understanding of belief structure as ‘intentional states’, the author maintains that what is in the mind can not be thought of as a representation or a symbol of anything because the words ‘representation’ and ‘symbol’ imply an interpreter or a perceiver. This means there is an implicit interpretation and representation. He claims that person perceives a linguistic utterance by virtue of having syntactic structures. The only thing that perceives the syntactic structures is the faculties of mind that possess and store syntactic structures. The neurons inside the brain that are responsible for cognition have no privileged access to the real world. To conclude, the author’s basic premise is that linguistic semantics is to be conceived as part of a larger psychological theory of how humans understand the world, and that the object of investigation is a form of mental structure called conceptual structure. This approach contrasts with Fregean approach as it does not take conceptual structure to directly map onto real world rather he says that conceptual structure encodes the world as human beings conceptualize it. Conceptual structure is constrained by the external world but indirectly, via the complex mappings between sensation and cognition that are established by the perceptual systems by the brain. He is trying to study human concepts not ultimate reality, he emphasizes.

The book discusses many interesting observations and arguments. Jackendoff can be appreciated for his clarity of thought and simplistic approach which has an appeal for people other than linguistics. Such elaborate argumentation and such a holistic approach is what Jackendoff is all about. The book is strongly recommended for those who are working in any of the areas of cognitive science or are concerned with conceptual structures.

© 2007 Richa Yadav

Richa Yadav recently completed her PhD in philosophy of mind from IIT, Kanpur, India. Her dissertation is on individuation of mental states, with especial reference to the individualist and the non-individualist debate. Her research interest lies in philosophical issues in cognitive science, philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, translation studies and metaphors. She is also a creative writer.  

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Categories: Psychology, Philosophical