The Parallel Architecture and its Components

Course Description

The basic premise of the Parallel Architecture is that knowledge of language is to be described in terms of three independent levels of structure–semantics, syntax, and phonology–plus the interfaces that link them to each other and to the rest of the mind. It contrasts with mainstream generative grammar, in which all combinatorial structure arises in syntax. Its semantic component is Conceptual Semantics, which, unlike traditional truth-conditional semantics, is a thoroughly mentalistic account of meaning, including interfaces to perception and social cognition. Because of the independence of semantic structure from syntax, it becomes possible to reframe much of the complexity of mainstream syntax in terms of semantics and the syntax-semantics interface, resulting in the far leaner Simpler Syntax. A third component in the theory is Relational Morphology, in which the lexicon is no longer merely a receptacle of irregularities, but a rich network of relations among lexical entries, and in which the lexicon and the grammar are unified into a single component. The resulting view of the grammar lends itself to direct implementation in theories of language processing and language acquisition and offers the prospect of integrating knowledge of language with knowledge in other cognitive domains. Finally, the Parallel Architecture presents the possibility of languages in which syntax plays no role, and instead there is a direct mapping between phonology and meaning, with implications for the evolution of the language faculty.

Area Tags: Semantics, Syntax, Morphology, Architecture of Grammar, Cognitive Science, Evolution of Language

Instructor: Ray Jackendoff