Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2009 - Volume 32, Issue 05  

Open Peer Commentary

Unveiling phonological universals: A linguist who asks “why” is (inter alia) an experimental psychologist

Iris Berenta1

a1 Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115-5000. i.berent@neu.edu http://www.psych.neu.edu/people/faculty/berent.html

Abstract

Evans & Levinson (E&L) are right to hold theories of language accountable for language diversity, but typological data alone cannot determine the structure of mental phonological grammars. Grammatical universals are nonetheless testable by formal and experimental methods, and the growing research in experimental phonology demonstrates the viability of a comparative experimental evaluation of the Universal Grammar (UG) hypothesis.

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