R. M. Frank. “Entrenched
Conceptual Integration Networks in 19th Century Evolutionary Biology
and Comparative-Historical Philology: The Language-Species-Organism Analogy.”
Revised
Abstract: In recent years the relationship between language
change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators
operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and
A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha
1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of
the object under study, namely, ‘language’ itself, to the debate. Over the centuries, meanings associated with
the expression ‘language’ have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames
and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as
‘language’. At the same time the prestige of the ‘science of linguistics’
created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of ‘language’, at each
stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the
emergent structure(s) of the resulting ‘blend’. While significant energy has
been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to
concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed
to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in
the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be
brought to bear on the ‘blends’ that have been created, focusing primarily on
examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the
‘language-species-organism analogy’ in the emerging field of
comparative-historical philology.
Resource Guide and Commentaries:
1.1 As Bowers has emphasised:
"Cultures, it seems, are based on root
metaphors (or what can be called meta-narratives,
world views and now paradigms --though this term seems to be
more appropriate to a Kuhnian-type discussion). The root metaphor (plural in
the case of Western cultures) has changed over time; and if we examine various
periods of Western history we find that the creation myth of the Book of
Genesis served as a root metaphor that had a profound influence on subsequent
cultural patterns....” (Bowers 1993: 93). Moreover, for our purposes here, it
is important to stress that “our primary goal is to clarify how metaphorical
thinking works as a process of cultural storage, reproduction, and (because
thought is metaphorical) re-working old patterns into 'new' (in the weakest
sense of the word) ones that will be conceptually coherent with the dominant
root metaphor of the cultural group” (Bowers 1993: 93).
1.2. “For twenty-five
hundred years a single metaphoric conception of change has dominated Western
thought. Drawn from the analogy between society and organism, more specifically
between social change and the life-cycle of the organism, this metaphor very
early introduced into Western European philosophy assumptions and
preconceptions regarding change in society that have at no time been without
profound influence on Western man’s contemplation of past, present and future”
(Nisbet 1969: 211).
1.3. In summary, we can state that once particular
metaphors become part of the very fabric of scientific discourses, i.e., once
they become deeply embedded metaphors that have taken up permanent residence in
the generic space and hence backgrounded knowledge of a community of speakers,
a knowledge community or epistemic culture, then, as Bono (1990: 81) has alleged,
the capacity of individuals, or even scientific communities to control them is,
at best, limited. Rather than subjecting themselves to unerring conscious
design and authorial control, such scientific metaphors adapt themselves to a
larger ecology of affirming or contesting social and cultural values, interests
and ideologies. Or Lily Kay has phrased this situation: “Some [metaphors], like
the information and code metaphors, are exceptionally potent due to the
richness of their symbolism, their synchronic and diachronic linkages, and
their scientific and cultural valences” (Kay 2000:3). The same can be said of
the staying power of the 19th century language-species-organism
metaphor: it is a conceptual blend or integration network that resonated with the
times (and continues to do so (cf. Christiansen 1994; Christiansen and Chater
forthcoming). In this sense, the 19th century
language-species-organism analogy should be understood is an offspring of the
larger overarching conceptual network represented by the organic root metaphor
of Western culture. Thus, in the 19th century, Social Darwinism
succeeded in temporalizing the hierarchically organized, atemporal Great Chain
of Being or scala naturae. It was
through the Great Chain of Being metaphor which, previously, the associated
conceptual networks of the organic root metaphor had been given visual force.
That visual aid would be replaced, in part, by another, the genealogical tree
of the Indo-European languages and races (cf. quotes under Texual Examples,
below, from Schleicher 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and Haeckel 6.5).
2.0
Discussions of Metaphoric Exchange between Comparative-Historical Philology and
the Natural Sciences (e.g., comparative anatomy, geology, botany and biology)
have been dominated by the following literalist conceptual model of the role of
metaphor in scientific discourse (cf. Rudwick quote).
This
has given rise to what I call the Standard Analysis of Intrascientific
Metaphoric Exchange (exchanges of metaphor between scientific fields), namely,
the two-space literalist model of ‘Creative Analogies’.
2.1 ‘Creative Analogies.’
Some fifteen years ago, the British historian of
science Martin Rudwick noted the following about the desirability of
investigating what he terms ‘creative analogies’ in the development of a field
of research, especially in its formative stage (cf. Koerner 1995: 48):
It is at least arguable that
major cognitive innovation is most likely to emerge in the scientific work of
individuals who choose to employ analogies that […] are strongly ‘external’:
that is, analogies that are furthest removed from the ‘normal practice’ of the
discipline concerned. This may happen when a scientific field scarcely yet
deserves the name of ‘discipline’, because its practice is not yet strongly
insulated and institutionalized (Rudwick 1979:67).
2.2 Two-Space Intrascientific Metaphoric Exchanges
a. Pilot Discipline: Source-Input Organizing
Frame.
A field that serves, in its own right, as a source
for lending terminology and organizing concepts to other fields, e.g., in
matters of methodology as well as, at times, epistemology. According to Konrad
Koerner, a pilot discipline is a field that, “owing to its well-established
framework of scientific research and the prestige that it enjoys in the eyes of
the informed public, provides a model to other fields of study” (Koerner 1995:
70-71; 1980), by “offering its
insights, procedures and results to other disciplines” (Koerner 1989: 254;
emphasis added).
A field that is not fully established as an
autonomous discipline or subdiscipline, and that, therefore, seeks legitimacy.
As a result, it borrows and/or adopts cognitive model(s), important concepts
and procedures of investigation from what is perceived to be an established
‘pilot discipline’. As such, it is “a field of study that [is] ready to follow,
at times to a considerable degree, the lead of other [pilot] fields … [by] borrowing terms, concepts and methods
from other fields” (Koerner 1989: 246, 254; emphasis added).
“[There are cases] in which metaphorical
expressions constitute, at least for a time, an irreplaceable part of the
linguistic machinery of a scientific theory: cases in which there are metaphors
which scientists use in expressing theoretical claims for which no adequate
literal paraphrase is known. Such metaphors are constitutive of the theories
they express, rather than merely exegetical” (Boyd 1979:360).
As an example, Boyd points to the proliferation of
metaphors drawn from computer science and information theory in the ‘relatively
young science’ of cognitive psychology. Furthermore, Boyd argues that
scientific metaphors, as opposed to literary ones, do not generate ‘strategies for
future research’ nor do they undergo any ‘sort of public articulation and
development’. In contrast, according to Boyd, theory-constitutive metaphors
become “the property of the entire scientific community.” As a result the
explication of scientific metaphors ‘is an essential part of the task of
scientific inquiry.’ In short, for
Boyd, ‘scientific metaphors are chosen for their aptness in capturing an as yet
unspecified range of interconnections among potential features of the empirical
world which observations lead us to believe exist’ (cf. Bono 1990: 65).
As is well known, Black’s ‘interaction theory of
metaphor’ explicitly opposes views such as the ‘substitution theory’ in which
metaphors can be replaced by literal statements. The ‘substitution theory’
argues that only in the early stages of consolidation does a scientific
discipline turn to metaphor as an explanatory and or heuristic device. Later,
the metaphors are either abandoned or made explicit, i.e., given discursive
definitions based on the insights and theoretical foundations established at
that stage by the field in question (cf. Bono 1990: 65).
Leaving aside his literalist bias, Boyd (1979),
nonetheless, admitted, that metaphors have a significant role to play even
within the highly specialized and precise languages of mature sciences.
Specifically, he classified these recurring metaphors, analogies as and
juxtapositions under the rubric of ‘theory-constitutive metaphors’.
3.0 Standard Classification and Functions of
Scientific Metaphor (not mutually exclusive categories):
a. Illustrative, pedagogical, exegetical: local
and transient, used to introduce beginners to complex scientific concepts,
e.g., a teacher might such a metaphor to explain to the uninitiated a
well-established notion in a mature science.
b. Critical-persuasive: Pilot – pirate
intrascientific metaphorical exchange, typical of young disciplines, transfers
of status and prestige from one field to another and hence, credibility and
legitimacy.
c. Theory-constitutive metaphor with heuristic
value directs the attention of the researchers and leads to productive insights
in newly established as well as mature disciplines. No discussion is directed
to the avenues of investigation closed of by the non-investigation of disanalogies,
i.e., the role of negative selection and projections in guiding research.
d. Theory-constitutive metaphor with
disciplinary-wide conventionalized meanings, typically found in mature
disciplines.
In this standard classification no discussion is
made of extrascientific metaphoric exchange.
4.0 Examples of Application of Conceptual
Integration Network Theory to the Standard Interpretation:
a. Heuristic value derives from the
emergent structures of the blend: composition, completion and elaboration.
b. Optimality constraints
contribute increasingly to the creation of conceptual integration networks that
are conceptually ‘well-formed’ and explicit; repeatedly running the same
‘blend’ leads to insights as the relevant contents of the input spaces are
aligned; discipline wide acceptance results and hence to conventional (dead)
metaphors that might be viewed as disciplinarily specific entrenched conceptual
networks.
5.0 Extrascientific Metaphoric Exchange:
a.
“… all language is metaphoric…if we look at the implications of recent
discussions of the theory ladenness of observation, of realism and the use of
scientific models, we find that the use of language in scientific theory
conforms closely to the metaphoric model. Scientific revolutions are, in fact,
metaphoric revolutions, and theoretical models should be seen as metaphoric
redescription of the domain of phenomena” (Arbib & Hesse 1986: 150, 156).
b. “For twenty-five
hundred years a single metaphoric conception of change has dominated Western
thought. Drawn from the analogy between society and organism, more specifically
between social change and the life-cycle of the organism, this metaphor very
early introduced into Western European philosophy assumptions and
preconceptions regarding change in society that have at no time been without
profound influence on Western man’s contemplation of past, present and future”
(Nisbet 1969: 211).
c. The organic metaphor and orthogenesis: In the
17th and 18th centuries the organic analogy had been already
been linked to the expression ‘evolution’, the latter being understood as the
supposed series of changes that a species was predetermined to undergo, like an
embryo is preprogrammed to develop. Stated differently, organisms develop and
change through pre-programmed inner forces, a theory known in biology as orthogenesis: that evolutionary change
is predetermined by the constitution of the germ plasm and independent of
external factors. When applied to cultures, peoples, nations and languages, it
becomes a theory that alleges all cultures (and languages) pass through the
same sequential periods or stages of growth (and decay) in the same order. It
is the inner spiritus of the organism
that manifests itself, unfolding over time. Change is unidirectional and
uniform: determined by the inner nature of the organism, just as an embryo
passes through predetermined and irreversible stages, so do all other entities
defined as organisms, e.g., nations. Such views persisted into the first half
of the 20th century, despite Darwin’s own theory that asserted no
such predetermined series or stages. These deterministic views of the organic
analogy are called orthogenetic
theories ("straight line" theories of evolution) (Mayr 1982), and are
in great disfavor today. In the 19th century what Spencer and other
‘Social Darwinists’ added to the gamut of arguments supporting the organic
analogy, was the explicit notion of inevitable, orthogenetic, progress (a notion mainly stemming from
Spencer, not Darwin) through struggle
(interpreted as ferocious fighting and even warfare). The ‘fittest’ was not
defined by its reproductive success, but by its physical ability to overcome an
opponent. In the popular imagination of the time, Darwin’s term ‘fitness’
quickly lost its purely biological meaning of reproductive success, and over
time came to take on the almost exclusive meaning of physical strength or vigor
or aggressiveness while these were defined as innate qualities of the organism
linked to its inner spirit. If ‘fitness’ is incorrectly interpreted to mean
strength, then ‘survival of the fittest’ means ‘survival of the strongest’
rather than ‘propagation of those features which confer the most adaptive
advantage.’
d. “Initially, transmutation
of species [of a population] could mean one of several things. It generally
meant that a species as a whole changed into a more complex species through
some (unspecified or vague) process. Darwin had no such intention when he
introduced evolutionary theory in the Origin
of Species. For a start, he realized that change was not necessarily a
process of increasing complexity or perfection. Second, he had a mechanism
that explained why new species were different in appearance and behavior — natural selection. Third, Darwin saw
that the origin of a new species did not involve an entire species undergoing
change. He saw that the origination of a new species occurred in a part of the
parental species, in a population. The original species could remain as it was.
Species to Darwin were just permanent varieties” (Wilkins 1999; emphasis
added).
e. Nisbet, too, as well as Black and Pepper, holds
that ‘complex philosophical systems can proceed from metaphorical premises.’…
Both Black and Nisbet admit the tenacity as well as the potency of metaphors.
Nisbet argues that what we usually call revolutions in thought are:
Quite
often no more than the mutational replacements, at certain critical points in
history, of one foundational-metaphor by another in man’s contemplation of
universe, society, and self. Metaphoric likening of the universe to an organism in its structure will yield one
set of derivations; derivations which become propositions in complex systems of
philosophy. [On the other hand,] as happened in the 17th century,
[when] the universe is likened instead to a machine,
not merely physical science but whole areas of moral philosophy and human
psychology are affected (Nisbet 1969: 6; cf. Turner [1974] 199:4 27).
f. Nisbet’s position is in stark contrast to the
literalist dichotomy between scientific and non-scientific discourse. This
polarity is reflected in Vicker’s remarks on the difference between
early-modern science and magic. Indeed, from the point of view of blending
theory, Vicker’s observations about metaphor and analogy in relation to magic
could also be applied to the discourse of science:
“In the
scientific tradition, I hold, a clear distinction is made between words and
things and between literal and metaphorical language. The occult tradition does
not recognize this distinction: Words are treated as if they are equivalent to
things and can be substituted for them. Manipulate the one and you manipulate
the other. Analogies, instead of being, as they are in the scientific
tradition, explanatory devices subordinate to argument and proof, or heuristic
tools to make models that can be tested, corrected, and abandoned if necessary,
are, instead, modes of conceiving relationships in the universe that reify,
rigidly, and ultimate come to dominate thought. One no longer uses analogies.
One is used by them. They become the only way in which one can think or
experience the world” (Vickers 1984:95).
g. In conclusion, the organic root metaphor of
Western thought and its off-spring, the language-species-organism analogy,
involved more than just intrascientific transfer and exchange of meanings
between biology and social sciences or between natural science and the emerging
field of comparative-historical linguistics, by means of which the prestige of
the source discipline enhanced that of the target discipline; or in which
metaphorical mimicry served as a rhetorical device to persuade the reader of
the credibility and, hence, correctness of the model proposed, whether
biological or linguistic. Rather over time such complex analogies or entrenched
conceptual networks, drawing upon the cultural stereotypes and popular
metaphors of their epoch (the background knowledge intrinsic to their
synchronic and diachronic generic space), act powerfully upon scientific
inquiry by constructing the very categories and hence ‘facts,’ that scientists
use to frame and test hypotheses. Thus, for Stefan (1986:271-274), metaphor or
analogy is constitutive both of scientific theory and of the categories of
experience that underlie scientific discovery –which both highlight and
suppress features of the perceived world (cf. Bono 1990: 71).
6.0
Textual Examples of Intrascientific and Extrascientific Metaphoric Exchange:
6.1. Bopp, F. [1827] 1836. Vocalismus…
“Languages
must be taken as organic natural bodies which form themselves according to
definite laws, develop carrying in themselves an internal life principle,
and gradually die, since they do not understand themselves any longer and shed
or mutilate or misuse, i.e., use for purposes for which they were not
originally meant, members and forms which initially were significant, but in
time have become a mass of largely external nature“ (Bopp [1827] 1836, cf.
Morpurgo Davies 1987: 84).
6.2. Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, The Preservation
of Favoured Races.
“In his
chapter on classification and systematics, for instance, Darwin observed, ‘If
we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the
races of man would afford the best classification of the various languages now
spoken throughout the world; and if all extinct languages, and all intermediate
and slowly changing dialects, had to be included, such an arrangement would, I
think, be the only possible one.’ In this passage, Darwin recognized the isomorphism between language
descent and human biological descent. Not
only could the human pedigree serve as a model for tracing linguistic
development, as he here emphasized, but also the reverse, as he implied, could
be the case: the descent of language might serve as a model for the descent of
man” (Richards 2002: 24; emphasis added).
6.3.
Schleicher, A. 1863. Die Darwinische
Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft (Darwinian
Theory and the Science of Language). The
title of its English translation which appeared in 1869, i.e., three years
before Darwin would publish his Descent
of Man (1971), was more openly provocative: Darwinism Tested by the Science of Language.
“Languages
are organisms of nature; they have never been directed by the will of man; they
rose, and developed themselves according to definite laws; they grew old, and
died out. They, too, are subject to that series of phenomena which we
embrace under the name of ‘life.’ The science of language is consequently a
natural science; its method is generally altogether the same as that of any
natural science. …
Now we
observe during historical periods how species and genera of speech
disappear, and how others extend themselves at the expense of the dead. I only
remind you, by way of illustration, of the spread of the Indo-European family…
‘If any
group has once been extinguished it can never appear again, because a chain in
the link of generation has been broken.’ ‘This explains how the extension of dominant species which admit of the greatest variation, peopled the
earth in the course of time with other forms of life, closely related though
modified; and how these generally succeed in supplanting those groups of
species which succumb to them in the struggle for existence’ [material
enclosed in quotes, i.e., the previous two sentence, is where Schleicher is
quoting directly from Darwin’s Origin].
Not a word of Darwin’s need be changed here if we wish to apply this
reasoning to the languages. Darwin describes here with striking accuracy
the process of the struggle for existence in the field of human speech.
In the present period of the life of man the descendents of the
Indo-Germanic family are the conquerors in the struggle for existence; they are
engaged in continual extension, and
have already supplanted or dethroned numerous other idioms. The multitude of the Indo-Germanic species and
sub-species is illustrated by our genealogical tree” (Schleicher 1863:
20-21, 60, 63-64; emphasis added).
6.4.
Schleicher, A. 1865. Über die Bedeutung
der Srpach für Naturgeschichte des Menschen (On the Significance of Language in the Natural History of Mankind).
“How
inconstant are the formation of the skull and other so-called racial
differences. Language, by contrast, is always a constant trait. A German can
indeed display hair and prognathous jaw to match those of the most distinctive
Negro head, but he will never speak a Negro language with native fluency…. Animals
can be ordered according to their morphological character. For man, however,
the external form has, to a certain extent, been superseded; as an indicator of
his true being, external form is more or less insignificant. To classify human
beings we require, I believe, a higher criterion, one which is an exclusive
property of man. This, we find, as I have mentioned, in language” (Schleicher
1865: 16, 18-19; cited in Richards 2002: 30).
6.5. Haeckel, E. 1868. Die Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (The Natural History of Creation).
“We
must mention here one of the most important results of the comparative study of
languages, which for the Stammbaum
of the species of men is of the highest significance, namely, that human
languages probably had a multiple or polyphyletic origin. Human language as
such probably developed only after the species of speechless Urmenschen or Affenmenschen had split into several species or kinds. With each
of these human species, language developed on its own and independently of the
others. At least this is the view of Schleicher, one of the foremost
authorities on the subject. … If one views the origins of the branches of
language as the special and principal act of becoming human, and the species of
humankind as distinguished according to their language stem, then one can say
that the different species of men
arose independently of one another” (Haeckel 1868: 511; cited in Richards
2002: 45; emphasis added).
6.6
Whitney, W. D. 1867. Language and the
Study of Language.
“What
makes a physical science is that it deals with material substances, acted on by
material forces. In the formation of geological strata, the
ultimate cognizable agencies are the laws of matter: the substance affected is
tangible matter; the product is inert, insensible matter. In zoology, again, as
in anatomy and physiology, the investigator has to do with material
structure, whose formation is dependent on laws implanted in matter itself, and
beyond the reach of voluntary action. In language on the other hand, the
ultimate agencies are intelligent beings… What but an analogical
resemblance can there possibly be between the studies of things so
essentially dissimilar?” (Whitney 1967: 49, cited in Koerner 1992: 277-8).
“There
is yet a clear parallelism between the life of language and that of the animal
kingdom in general. The speech of each person is, as it were, an individual of
a species, with its general inherited conformity to the specific type, but also
with its individual peculiarities, its tendency to variation and the formation
of a new species. The dialects, languages, groups, families, stocks, set up
by the linguistic student, correspond with the varieties, species, genera, and
so on, of the zoologist. And the questions of which the students of nature
are so excitedly discussing at the present day [i.e., in 1867: K.K.] –the
nature of specific distinctions, the derivation of species, by individual
variation and natural selection, the unity of origin of animal– all are closely
akin with those which the linguistic student has constant occasion to treat”
(Whitney, 1867: 46-47; cited in Koerner 1992: 277).
6.7. Christiansen, M. H. 1994. Infinite Languages, Infinite Minds:
Connectionism, Learning and Linguistic Structure. [cf. also Christiansen,
M. H and Chater, N. (in preparation). Language
as an organism: A connectionist perspective on the acquisition, processing and
evolution of language. Oxford University Press].
“.... we must refocus by observing that natural
languages exist only because humans can produce, learn and process them. In
this connection, it is useful to construe language as an organism, adapted
through natural selection to fit a particular ecological niche: the human
brain. Darwin (1900) was one of the first to recognize this as is evident
from the following quote:
The
formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that
both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel: We
find in distinct languages striking homologies due to community of descent, and
analogies due to a similar process of formation. The
manner in which certain letters or sounds change when other change is very like
correlated growth … Languages, like organic beings, can be classed in groups
under groups; and they can be classed either naturally, according to descent,
or artificially by other characters. Dominant languages and dialects spread
widely and lead to the gradual extinction of other tongues. A language, like a
species, when once extinct, never … reappears… A struggle for life is constantly going on among the words and
grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier
forms are constantly gaining the upper hand… The survival and preservation
of certain favored words in the struggle for existence is natural selection
(Darwin [1871] 1900, p. 106).
In this sense, natural language is akin to an
organism whose evolution has been constrained by the properties of human
learning and processing mechanisms. …
Following Darwin, I propose to view natural language as a kind of beneficial
parasite –i.e., a nonobligate symbiant-
that confers some selective advantage onto its human hosts without whom it
cannot survive “(Christiansen 1994: 125-126).
6.8. Language appears to be a complex adaptive
system that is constantly constructed and reconstructed by its users. In turn
the language users themselves must be modeled as grounded, distributed
autonomous agents. Hence, language must be considered an emergent phenomenon,
the result of the behavior of these agents. Population thinking must replace
the older typological or essential viewpoint, i.e., based on the language-species-organism
analogy (cf. Steels 1999, 2002).
“In theory, a species consists of all organisms
which have similar characteristics, specifically which can interbreed…. Darwin
proposed a profound paradigm shift from a typological view of species to a
population view (Mayr 1975). I will argue that such a shift of viewpoint is
also required in linguistics. The typological or essentialist view, exemplified
by the work of Linnaeus, considers all the members of a species as belonging to
a certain (ideal) type. …. Darwin
introduced instead a population viewpoint in biology, which considers every
organism as unique and undergoing change during its lifetime. Rather than
viewing a species as a type, it is seen as a relatively loose collection with
fuzzy boundaries that can only be circumscribed statistically. Natural
selection does not work on types but on individuals” (Steels 1999: 144).
Selected References:
Arbib,
M. A. and Hesse, M. B. 1986. The
Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [cf.
147-170]
Alter,
S. G. 1999. Darwinism and the Linguistic
Image: Language, Race, and Natural Theology in the Nineteenth Century.
Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press.
Bono,
J. J. 1990. “Science, discourse and literature: the role/rule of metaphor in
science.” In Peterfreund, S. (ed.), Literature
and Science: Theory and Practice. Boston: Northeastern University Press,
59-90.
Boyd,
R. 1993. “Metaphor and theory change: What is "metaphor" a metaphor
for?” In Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor
and Thought, 2nd ed.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
481-532.
Christiansen,
M. H.. 1994. Infinite Languages, Infinite
Minds: Connectionism, Learning and Linguistic Structure. Doctoral
Dissertationn. University of Edinburgh. URL: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/christiansen94infinite.html
Christiansen,
M. H and Chater, N. (in preparation). Language
as an organism: A connectionist perspective on the acquisition, processing and
evolution of language. Oxford University Press.
Croft,
W. 2000. Explaining Language change: An
Evolutionary Approach. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited. Longman
Linguistics Library.
Frank,
R. M. and Susperregi, M. 2001. “Conflicting identities: A comparative study of
non-commensurate root metaphors in Basque and European image schemata.” In
Dirven, R., Frank, R.M., and Ilie, C. (eds.), Language and Ideology. Vol. 2. Cognitive Descriptive Approaches.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 135-160. [expanded text version URL: http://ibs.lgu.ac.uk/icl/ROZMIKEL.PDF]
Hoenigswald,
H. M. and L. F. Wiener, (eds.). 1987. Biological
Metaphor and Cladistic Classification: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hull,
D. L. 2001. "Does Selection Add Anything to Linguistics”. Paper given at
The International Society for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of
Biology (ISHPSSB), Quinnipiac University, Hamden CT, July 18-22, 2001. To
appear in a special issue of Selection,
"Language Change as a Selection Process." Abstract:
http://www.phil.vt.edu/ishpssb/2001/abstract/language.htm
Koerner, E. F. K. 1995. “The
natural science impact on linguistic theory.” In Koerner, Professing Linguistic Historiography. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, 47-76.
Koerner,
E. F. K. 1992. “William Dwight Whitney and the influence of geology on
linguistic theory in the 19th century. In Naumann, B., Plank, F.,
and Hofbauer, G. (eds.). Language and
Earth: Elective Affiinities between the Emerging Sciences of Linguistics and
Geology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 271-287.
Koerner,
E. F. K. 1989. "Pilot and pirate disciplines in the development of
linguistic science." In Koerner, E. F. K. (ed.), Practicing Linguistic Historiography: Selected essays,
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 245-256.
Koerner,
E.F. K. 1983. Linguistics and
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