HYPER-REGULARISATION DURING THE ACQUISITION OF VERBAL LANGUAGE:
SIMILARITY AND SPACE CONTIGUITY AS NON
SPECIFIC MECHANISMS ANALYSIS OF THE NEURONAL NETWORK INVOLVED.
Renato COCCHI, neurologist and medical psychologist
Abstract.
Noting the regularity of the time course and
the forms of the hyper-regularisation phenomenon during the acquisition of the
language in infants, it is hypothesized that this event is produced by the
action of two extralanguage/prelanguage "logical" mechanisms, which
are peculiar of the functioning of the CNS neuronal network.
Such mechanisms drive to the construction/perception of identity by neuronal
overlapping (the so-called: Identity by similarity) and identity by space or
time neuronal contiguity. This hypothesis is supported by data deriving: From
researches on animals; Eg on bees; From basic neuro-physiological
investigations on the ways of the CNS neuronal network working; From researches
on human language, although performed with a different aim; From studies on
aphasic disintegration of the language and from studies on schizophrenic
language and thought.
Key words: Language acquisition;
linguistics; hyper-regularisation; Identity by similarity; identity by
contiguity; neuronal network; pre-verbal mechanisms.
Theoretical and research bases
(This article is
the soft rewriting of that appeared in the 1982 on Riv. Neurobiol. 28: 162-190, with the title
"Meccanismi "logici" nella acquisizione del linguaggio verbale:
una ipotesi esplicativa neurofisiologica degli ipercorrettismi", without
any updating of references).
Surely there are many biological determinants of the
oral language that acts in several levels [29] and, among them, it can be
interesting propose hypotheses that justify an aspect of the language learning
in the infant child.
The
purpose of this work is to try of throwing light upon the way the infant learns
the corrected morphological flexing when he is beginning to speak.
As
for it, I presume and I sustain that two "logical" prelinguistic
abilities help it. They would allow putting in action of a
constructive-perceptive process that can give to rise to the identity between
two perceived stimuli. The result, depending on the circumstances, would bring
to an identity by overlapping, - otherwise improperly known as identity by
similarity -, and to an identity by space contiguity.
For
a constructive-perceptive process I mean
either the working of a neuronal active mechanism, and its perception as a
within brain process.
It
may account not only of singular phenomena we can observe in infants, when they
are learning to speak, but even of neurophysiological results, of comparative
psychology, of the experimental studies on the language. Besides those, it may
justify a particular aspect of the pathology of the language during
Jargonaphasia and schizophasia.
As
for the child, I shall try to give a frame of reference to that particular
phenomenon that is said "hyper-regularisation".
Curiously it reveals, somehow, an exact
unintentional strategy puts in action by the child, when he is learning to
speak [6; 15; 20; 21; 41].
What happens in the Italian infant,
when he is learning to speak.
In
Italian the hyper-regularisation drives
to peculiar errors, usually in verbs conjugation.
Always for the Italian language, for example:
The pass participle of the third conjugation has, as distinctive morpheme, the
-ito suffix (Sentire /sentito; Udire/udito; Capire/capito).
The
child that learns to speak shows to know this
grammatical rule or he uses it to imitation, so he correctly says: Sentito,
udito, capito.
The hyper-regularisation introduces, as
Guillaume wrote since 1927 [20-21], a process of active construction. There is
an adaptation (a kind of arrangement, in Piaget's sense) in new linguistic
situations, independently, to all appearances, from purely mnemonic-imitative
behaviour.
It
happens that the child formulates equally in -ito the pass participle of
the irregular verbs, and so aprire / aprito, coprire / coprito. The same he does in -ato: Scrivere / scrivato, Leggere /
leggiato. To the first person of the indicative present they have the
hyper-regular forms [tenio], to hold, for [tengo]; [vieno]
and [venio] to come, for [vengo]; [salio], to climb, for [salgo],
etc.].
If
the child learned his verbal language by imitation, this would not happen since
he could learn and use the correct forms, which are irregular in Italian.
Instead the most Italian infants (if not all them) do this error type, which
then is not other that imagine regular, as it had to be, what it is irregular,
as it is really. It is the same error that the foreigners do when they learn
Italian "by practice".
The experts of the development of infant
language noted and recorded this phenomenon [6; 15; 41].
Usually it is considered as a peculiarity of
scarce weight. Nevertheless there is somebody who has asked whether the
language, in its learning and in its use, involves behaviour of "logical" type [13].
Slobin [49], in 1971, tried to enlighten
this phenomenon, by underlining that it
does not agree with the behaviourist hypothesis on the learning of the language. Differently
of my observations and of others by authors that are dealt of the Italian
learning, as the mother tongue, for the English and Russian, Slobin [49]
reported a very interesting variation. The infant, at the beginning, learns the
corrected but irregular forms. Then he
abandons them to pass to hyper-regular but wrong forms. In a third phase he
returns to the irregular but correct
forms.
For example, as for English:
- the first phase: He came
(irregular but correct form),
- the second phase: He comed (wrong hyper-regular form);
- the third phase: He came (correct
irregular form).
We
can explain this sequence by admitting that in the first phase the child learns
for imitation. In the second phase he
takes over an active construction, which has so much strength to be preferred to the correct imitation. Eventually
in the third phase it comes the awareness that the imitated form, although
heartfelt as "incorrect", nevertheless it is what people uses.
As for the Italian infant that learns to
speak, I do not know the first phase, but it not feels me to exclude it.
In
the third phase he learns, for aware
imitation, to use the corrected forms "aperto, coperto, vengo, tengo,
salgo," etc.
As foreign colleagues reported, [11],
hyper-regularisation comes back in adult life, during the acquisition of a
second language, if that last owns irregular forms. Here there are either the
verbal language and mechanisms of the logical thought, which, as
logical-concrete thought, begins conventionally around the 6th year of life.
For such reasons its significance could be debatable, if this datum was the
only one we have.
It instead assumes a relevance of its
own, because the repeating of a learning strategy already observed during the
acquisition of the mother tongue, in a surely pre-logical developmental age.
An attempt analysis of the phenomenon of the
hyper-regularisation.
If
we pay attention, by using of hyper-regularisation, the infant shows to be applying an exact
rule. If then we want to give it a rationalistic explanation, we could say that
the infant learning to speak, puts into action a truth and really syllogism.
This one could be so conceived (concerning the
Italian verb "aprire" (to open):
- all the Italian verbs that end in -ire
[in the infinitive form], end in -ito [in the pass participle]:
- "aprire" ends in -ire;
- "aprire" then will have
[its pass participle] as "aprito".
Since that this hyper-regularisation
comes from infants that are often not two years old, it is unlikely, if not
impossible, that they already know how to handle some simple rules of
Aristotelian logic. Otherwise, we have to erase the period of the pre-logical
thought from the psychology of developmental age.
If it were so, then we would come upon
at once in some problems of difficult solution. In particular, we have to ask
ourselves if the infant learns these principles of logic in the same time he
learns the verbal language. If yes, the
following footstep is to ask us how and why the infant learns them, and what
for, in this age.
But it could be even true even that they are not learned during the acquisition
of the language, because already present. From their function, then, as a tool
for the acquisition of the same language, we could infer that they are part of
the intellectual equipment. That is even before the acquisition of the verbal
language, as it happens of a memory called then as verbal memory.
Since that those principles of logic are
pre-verbal, we have now to hypothesize
their room with reference to the logic. This last as related to the structure
and the activity of the thought, understood as something that runs in terms of
verbal language. From it then it follows
that such principles are not other than pre-logical ones.
Even so, new difficulties arise. In fact, either the infant learns such
pre-verbal principles by the non-verbal
communication that precedes the verbal language, or they are independent from
any communication type. If so, they are
present at birth as ways
neurophysiological mechanisms operate.
I
think that this is the closer explanation. Skipping here the consequences that
it would have for the Aristotelian logic, these normal operative ways of
neurophysiological structures have to be already verifiable even in animals,
and not only among the superior ones.
For the human species in particular, we
have said such "logical" principles as extralinguistic and preverbal.
So since they are presumably attached to different neurophysiological
structures, among which even those involved in the language development. Hence,
it follows that in adult age too they
would have to sign their working, by
influencing many behaviours.
One can think that the preponderant
influence that the verbal communication assumes in human life, and mainly with
reference to the cognitive activity, has determined a poor consideration of
many common events.
The same formal logic, thought as
supremely rational skill and expression of the "logos" itself, here
seems to have been the cause of the misinterpreted analysis.
An attempt of neurophysiological explanation of the
hyper-regularisation phenomenon.
I
shall examine now the examples previously mentioned, with the aim to envisage
an underlining mechanism that can
justify them.
The proposed explanation presupposed a kind
of awareness, understood as ability of discriminating among different signals,
which is independent from any linguistic development. It presupposes also a
verbal memory. It presupposes finally the running of a neurophysiological
mechanism able to "infer" a verification of an identity.
There is
not any difficulty to convey that
all and three these presuppositions, since they act within a pre-verbal level,
they have also to be considered as pre-rational ones. Here for rationality I mean
at least an ability to relate ideas
among themselves, to the elaboration of which the verbally codified symbol
brings a conclusive contribution.
The
explanation of the rule that allows to pass from the desinence in -ire
to the pass participle in -ito seems be founded on a sequence of
six processes of identity. Of them, the first four could be primitive, in
ontogenetic (and phylogenetic) sense. The remaining two, which appear later,
point out the entry of more complex
mechanisms of analysis.
So, by exemplifying, we would have:
1. All those [verbal forms] that end in -ire,
[for this feature] are identified as
[somehow] equal among them.
Sent- (to feel)
Cap- } -IRE (to understand)
Ud- (to hear)
2. All those [verbal forms] that end [to
the pass participle] in -ito, are, [for this feature] recognized
as [somehow] equal among them.
Sent- (felt)
Cap- } -ITO (understood)
Ud- (heard)
3. All those [verbal forms] that have something equal but not the end [not the desinence, but the
root] are recognized, somehow as equal among them.
- ire - ire - ire
SENT- { CAP- { UD- {
-
ito - ito - ito
4. The words formed by the same initial
part [the root] and an equal final part [the desinence] are recognized as one
unit [unit by sound space contiguity or identity
by sound space contiguity].
SENT-IRE SENT-ITO
CAP-IRE CAP-ITO
UD-IRE UD-ITO
5. Following the preceding partial analyses, given a word [a form] in -IRE the brain goes - probably
helped by a mnemonic recall, [and perhaps, even for operation of the temporal
contiguity] - to the word [with the form] in -ITO.
- IRE - IRE - IRE
SENT-{
CAP-{ UD-{
- ITO - ITO - ITO
6. According to the preceding steps, the brain builds a general rule that will
drive to the conviction, and then to the choice, that all those words [verbs]
ending in -IRE [in the infinitive form], end even in -ITO
[in the pass participle]
x - IRE
----> x - ITO, with x =
verbal root.
This "rule" is built on the repetition,
memorization and confirmation of every regular heard case. The rule, as every
rule, goes to reproduce the model, which is to say, to redo something equal to
a precedent one, to produce identity.
By referring again to the pass
participles of the verbs aprire, coprire, their forms aprito and coprito are perfectly lined up to
the result of the sequence just described. They are simply wrong because in
Italian, these two verbs have their pass participles in irregular forms. The
same, as I said, turn completely out for every hyper-regularised form.
The strength of this procedure is surely
so high that it drives to induce the infant to do this bewilders
"error". And that even when - and I think that it happens always - he
has heard, and for often, the correct pass participles: aperto, coperto. Or,
straight, it has primitively learned them.
How
we can infer, a process of this type, which works through building/perception
of identities, in that age, does not work at the semantic level. I am convinced
that similar identities can be realized only within extrasemantic attributes of
the word. These are to identify, at least in the infant who learns to speak, in
the phonetic features of the same word.
Discussion.
The
awareness not rationally conscious.
As
for awareness, - as at least, a discriminating ability among different signals - a lot of animal
behaviour abundantly supports it. This
is a fundamental thing for primary needs
as the feeding, the defence of the physical integrity, the reproduction and,
since low levels of the zoological scale, the breeding of the issues.
We
make a reference on the bees, the understanding of information transmitted by a
picker bee to the other bees of the apiary, information that is communicated
with the so called "dance of the bees". It has at its bases some mechanisms of awareness that allow to
discriminate between the different signals. The picker bee, as the signaller
bee, using the position of the sun as reference for the direction indication,
is forced to program its dance, with factual awareness. The same has to say for
the indication of distance.
We need here to remember that the structure of nervous system of the bee is rather elementary,
and it encompasses together 850000 neurons about. To compare, that of the man
encompasses at least 12 billions, which is to say 15000 times more.
Similar awareness is already present in
the child in his first month life, to the moment of hunger. So, he
discriminates and refuses the pacifier that he had "assimilated " to
his mother breast (assimilation = identity on the attribute of the tactile
form) an object kept in the mouth among
between two feeds.
Even if with this behaviour the baby shows
that this discriminating ability, in that age, is only punctual (or ex post
factum: Only by trying the baby succeeds to distinguish), nevertheless it is
present and results of crucial importance for his survival.
A
memory or memories with not-verbal codification.
As
for the memory, or, at least, for a memory type, being it already in before the
acquisition of the verbal code, it has to use, for the storage of the
information, a not-verbal and pre-verbal code.
If want still refer, for our ease, to
the animal, it is a datum of common evidence that all the motor training, as
not natural activity, but imposed from the man: From the training of the fleas
to that of chimpanzees or of dolphins -
they cannot store
information with the use of a code, the
verbal code, which the animal doesn't possess. Without any memorization, we
cannot reach the training.
It
is even true that in such work the man uses also oral stimuli, mainly when he
works on the training of mammals. We have to exclude that the animal decodes
similar stimuli as semantic stimuli. Here, the verbal stimulus seems an
associative stimulus that can elicit a complex motor response, learned by
imitation, or operant conditioning, or both.
If
we want to go back, in the zoological
scale, we will newly refer to the bees. It makes sense that the picker
bee, a new source of food discovered,
has to memorize the whole information, to be able to communicate it effectively,
when it came back to the apiary. It is already complex information, which
counts at least four signals: the pollen source, the amount of the same, its
distance from the apiary, its position with reference to the sun.
There is more. Risse and Gazzaniga [46], in
1978, have shown even in the man an ability of memorization of information, not
contingent on the verbal codification.
The
experiment, carried out in eight right-handed subjects during their left side
carotidography effected to reach the
diagnosis, gave an unusual result.
Any of the eight men, come back to
normality, could name a common object, palpated with the left hand outside the
visual field, during the anaesthetic
block of the left half-brain with sodium amytal. Nevertheless six of them pointed out it exactly, during a multiple
choice visual test.
For
the authors their research drove to the conclusion that same memory that
patients could not evoke across the verbal system, was codified in a not verbal
form in the right half-brain. They
quickly recall it, when they were
given the opportunity of a not verbal response.
This not verbal memory was unsuitable for its translation, by the
left half-brain, when that last recovered its normal functioning. The inability
to recognize the stimulus, in two patients out of eight, was an event of
difficult interpretation. Yet the exact discrimination of the correct object in
six cases out of eight (75%) Risse and Gazzaniga asserted as a not ambiguous evidence of the
fact that the memory was codified independently from the mechanisms of the
verbal language. [46]
The
problem of the building/perception of an identity.
How
to the brain can infer the identity between two perceptions could have not
found an exact frame of reference, in spite it has a discreet amount of data of the neurophysiological research to
its favour.
To avoid we need to think to something
of exceptional, I shall recall a common experience. When we dream, we are
during a stimulation that comes from the intern of the brain. We succeed to be
aware, while sleeping on, that we are dreaming, we are doing an operation of
negative identity, even if very much complex. What we are living it is not the
real but a dream.
To
a simpler level, I shall try to face the problem, step by step.
Since 1949, Hebb [22], by examining the
problem of the perception to its elementary level, wrote, as a closer
hypothesis, that a particular perception depended from the excitement of precise cells, in some part of the CNS.
The accumulation of neurophysiological
data, mainly those from searches with transplanted microelectrodes in the
brain, gave support to this hypothesis.
Pribram, in 1971 [44] asserted that the studies with microelectrodes found
neural units answering to the one or one
other attribute of a stimulating event, as the direction of a movement, the
inclination of a line, etc.
Experiments on the rats spatial memory,
even avoiding the simplism of a general detective mechanism general of the type
"point against point", however showed that specific hyppocampal cells
react to different spatial positions of the same stimulus. That means that, if
we modify that last for some features (an attribute: Variation of the
inclination of the same line, as it was done in those experiments) at neuronal
level of first impact - where integrative mechanisms of immediately superior
order do not still act -, there is not a
quantum variation of the cell
excitement, but its silence, and the firing entry of a neighbour cell.
The same Pribram [44] affirms that the electrophysiological analysis of
the receptor fields units in the channels of input points out that, at least in
a certain measure, the selection of the distinctive features of a stimulating
event, has its place into these channels. This detection type of a fundamental
distinctive feature is integrated by the selection of the features which is
sensitive to experience. Pribram asked himself [44] if the experience modified
the detectors of the distinctive features, by itself, or if it instead make working other units. For him, it was
clear that, in the adult organism, the analysis of the distinctive features was
not limited only to the involved detectors: It
had also to take place an analysis of the features, by memory units.
According to the above reported, it
seems that the brain can infer a verification of identity, to its more
elementary level (identity of a
distinctive feature). It does it if, for that
feature, there is a specific cell, only and always the same, that will
be excited (reductio ad unum).
The brain can act this verification:
1. Following two external stimuli (a
feature identical to an other one, both
present in two contemporary stimulating events: Eg. The same tone of green in
two objects both within the visual field);
2. Then, following a relationship between
an external stimulus and an internal one ( when a feature of an external
stimulus - a particular tone of green -,
is recognized as identical to an other one, perceived in pass, memorized
and recalled by the occasion and for the occasion);
3. Finally, as a comparison between features of two stimulating events
perceived and memorized in different times, but recalled contemporarily by an
occasion ( we realize retrospectively that a certain green tone, belonging to
two stimuli perceived and memorized in different times, is the same).
The experience, which has a needed
support of one or several memories, takes over necessarily in the second and in
the third example of identifying
processes, I have just quoted.
In all three the cases the identity is
built by an overlap, more probably a spatial overlap - the excited cell for the
analysis of that distinctive feature is
and/or has been, the same for the
two stimulating events.
It is not yet to exclude even a some
temporal overlap ( the firing frequency of that cell, for the analysis of that
common distinctive feature to the two stimulating events is and/or has been, the same ).
From the above, it follows that the
verification of identity is a neurophysiological process that is done on the
perceived and, for a mechanism of
objectivation, an identity so inferred is then attributed to the stimuli.
We immediately have to say that for us, rational adult individuals, ie.
Individuals that use all a series of complex integrative mechanisms, such identity,
made on the attribute, is only an analogy.
Nevertheless, we need to avoid being
misled from our logical abilities. These last, in the
evaluation the way our neuronal network
runs at elementary levels, condition us and do use of valuation schemes that
are instead specific qualifications of more high levels of neurophysiological integration of the
perceived.
Pribram, in 1971 [44] affirms that the
brain is a machine to build analogical models, putting this affirmation as
subtitle of the second part of Languages of the Brain. There he seems
referring only to the fact that cerebral processes of the perception happen
as analogical models of extra brain
stimuli.
But
two analogical models of two stimuli, the same for some distinctive feature, if
decomposed till the level where the
brain analyses this feature by the
specific detector, are still analogical in the stimulus, but identical between
them.
Among the rules of the "reversing transformations" that Pribram [44]
judges as particularly useful to explain the psychological phenomena, the
fourth one affirms: "When two sources simultaneously evoke a state in
the slow potential microstructure,
correlation between them takes place and the correlation becomes decoded
into nerve impulses".
Exactly in it, if I do not misunderstand
it, there is the neurophysiological explanation of what I called
building/perception of identity by overlapping. It is the perception of
an internal brain process: The brain does not only perceives external stimuli,
but even stimuli produced by bioelectric variations of itself.
Being this type of process, which has
the purpose to bring to
building/perceptions of identity, very basic, it has to be possible to
find again it as a quite pure state at lower levels zoological scale.
For "pure", I mean with poor or without any interference of more
complex integrative mechanisms, leading to disguise it.
On the other hand I have to repeat that
we are dealing with a mechanism of primary importance. In his absence, vital
needs as the feeding, the defence of the own physical integrity, the
reproduction, and the breeding of the issues, if present, could not be possible in many animals. In order that
the related behaviour can put into action, all of these activities need often recognitions
of identity.
Menzel and Erber, 1978, [37] I have
stated it much clear as for the bees. They wrote that the observation of a bee
while flying from flower in flower, shows that it chooses always the same
flower type. It does not pay any attention to close flowers, different in its
form, colour and odour, which yet attract other bees.
It is clear, according to the authors,
that the bee would not display this behavioural model if it did not own two
precise abilities: that to distinguish between two different flowers [and,
conversely, to identify two equal flowers] and that to learn which flowers
offer nectar or pollen, and deserve then a visit. The bee has then [besides the
ability to do identities and disparities] memory and learning skills.
They
also add they have studied this bee's ability in the hope of bringing
light on the cellular base of the learning and of the memory. Finally they
concluded that, although the bee is planned in a very exact way, its mechanisms
of learning are very similar to that of more evolutional organisms, man
inclusively.
It is by now verified that the
distinctive features the bee uses to identify a food source (first step, out of
the apiary: Nearly always a flower) and
again recognize it (a second flower, the same to the first ) is the colour, for a far approach, and the odour, for the close
selection. The bee perceives the form in coarse way, and this last seems to
have scarce importance, for this bug.
To recognize
an identity, then, the bee uses the sequential action of two elementary
analysis processes of the distinctive features as the colour and the smell, and
their interaction. These two analysis processes were verified separately from
Von Frisch, 1927 [55].
So
it can happen that an identity recognition based on the analysis of an only
one, or few distinctive features (what, for us rational individual, it is only
an analogy) has as inherent a greater
range of errors. Among the bugs, an error like these has found an economic
setup, of a trophobiotic type.
The relationship between a kind of
aphids (a mirmecophilon type) and the ants, for example, exactly depends
on an error (a misunderstanding) of this type, according to the research of
Kloft [26].
On
one hand the aphid, enough vulnerable and then easy prey of other bugs, finds
protection and care by the ants. In this it seems that even a fragrant matter,
a pheromone, plays its role, so inducing an other error of this type.
On the other hand the ant receives
feeding (a honey like thing) from the backside of the aphid.
This backside, seen from its back, is
similar to the anterior side of a sister ant, from which a hungry ant can get the emission of mouth nourishment.
Now, that such image (an iconic one,
according to the study of Sebeok [48] ) drives to the release of a preset behavioural pattern of feeding, it is
possible and likely.
Nevertheless it does not consider that this
behaviour founds on a verification of identity effected on the basic analysis
of one, or at least, two distinctive features, if we count even the smell.
Anyhow the analysis runs mainly on the form.
Incidentally, we have to note that
the piagetian concept of assimilation,
is inherent to the similarity and not with the digestion. As one out of the two fundamental motivations of the
initial sensomotor development of the child, is lexically wrong. So, because it
defines an identity on the attribute, as it happens in the little child, as a
similarity, which is instead an adult way of conceptualization.
We
need even to remember that, in the baby, the first making of identities happens
through the analysis of the distinctive feature of the colour, to which then is
added that of the form. Again the ontogenesis seems repeating the phylogeny.
As
for identity by contiguity, an identity understood as the building of a unit,
it is easier to understand that two
closer stimuli, as for the space (or for
the time) become perceived as an only stimulus. If then, in any part of the brain,
they were perceived from neighbours cells, where what it is said ephaptic transmission, can
work. This transmission is the reciprocal bioelectrical influence between two
close cells, and it would be an indicative trace, but not the only one.
Again Pribram [44], with one of his
"possible rules of reversing transformation" - which depend
exclusively from the neuronal network functioning - confirms it to us, even if not in a very
punctual way.
The phenomenon this author described is however less simple,
as I think, because the unit building can take place even if a weak continuity
solution exists. The third "possible rule of reversible
transformation" in fact affirms: " Nerve impulses arriving
simultaneously at neighboring locations are spatially superposed, ie.
Neighborood interactions of an additive (or subtractive) nature, take
place".
Later I shall report unusual linguistic
examples, both in the normal individual and in that aphasic one, to support the
existence of this mechanism even in adult age.
The experiments of Luria and Vinogradova
(1959).
I
supposed that the phenomenon of the hyper-regularisation was the following of a
series of identity verifications, done on the perception by the not rational
awareness, with the help of a memory. The brain builds it on a not semantic
distinctive feature of the word. I have specified that this distinctive feature
might be identified with the sound of the word itself.
There exists, as for it, a quite
convincing experimentation on the man, made by Luria and Vinogradova [32].
These two researchers worked with the help of
objective evaluation derived from orientation vascular reflexes and from their
conditioning. So they have investigated
the system of semantic connections of a word, and its dynamics.
The used normal adults and
pre-adolescents as experimental subjects, but also various degree and age brain
damaged mentally retarded.
Of the very extensive report of these
two authors it seems me to underline,
for what here is of interest, the followings:
* The importance of mechanisms of identity
building based on the words sounds;
* The earlier coming of these mechanisms,
in comparison with those where the identity comes out on the meaning; Such a
feature is evident by the fact that they
are mostly present (or the only present) in younger subjects or, or in subjects
less intellectually developed. About these last ones, which means, on the base of the IQ definition, subjects
with lower mental age low as compared to their chronological age;
* The formation of identity field on the
basis of about a complete sound identity, takes place outside the conscience,
or at least of what may be verbally expressed;
* The indication of the fact that these
mechanisms of building identities on the basis of the sound privileges the
ending of the words;
* The regression from fields of semantic
identity to fields of phonetic identity, even in normal subjects, by inhibiting
states of the cerebral cortex, of various origin;
* To find intermediate situations, due to
reduced intellectual development, or provoked by art, where fields of identity
centred on the meaning are present together to fields of identity centred on
the sound;
* The demonstration of the presence of the
two fields, in normal individuals, even when the semantic field has become the
dominant one;
* The importance of the experience, for
the switch of a word from the field of identity on phonetic basic to that of
identity on semantic basis.
As for the explanatory hypothesis I put
forward in my premise (identity by overlapping, said even identity by
similarity built on the sound), I think that it did not need further validating elements. We have only to
remember that:
* at the age the child shows the
phenomenon of the hyper-regularisation, the myelinisation of the CNS, which
comes complete in the third year life, did not end yet or it is just so;
* The corticalisation is well afar from to
be set:
* The linguistic experience is in progress.
From all that it results therefore that more
primitive mechanisms, of extraverbal type, have more easiness to have
a major weigh, even in the acquisition of the same verbal language.
The perceptive importance of the ends of
the words.
In
a literature data review on the
acquisition of the verbal language in various mother-languages, including
Italian, Slobin [50] notices that the end of the words has particular
perceptive consequence. He affirms in fact that infants, often, imitate only
the last part of a word.
Studies of acoustic phonetics, reported in
that same paper, confirm that the ends of the words attract the attention of
the child.
The study of the acquisition of the
locative indicators drives the same Slobin [50] to formulate a possible
universal rule of the grammatical development. For it, the infant acquires
the post-verbal and post-nominal
locative indicators before the pre-verbal and pre-nominal locative indicators.
This developmental universal rule, for Slobin, is not certainly limited to the
expression of the locative.
In facts, it seems to reflect a
precocious and general trend of the child to pay attention to the words' ends,
for their meaning. This is general
heuristics, or a kind of operational principle that the child uses for the aim
to organize and store the language. In plain English, always according to
Slobin, one would sustain that the following is one of the fundamental
self-instructions for the language acquisition: Operational principle: Take
care to the ends of the words.
Either the problem is set up in
motivational-operational sense, how Slobin does, or it comes out from a working
need of the CNS, at a given moment of its development, a need that could follow
a reduced ability of information transfer from the short-term memory either to
that the long-term memory and in the motor centres of the verbal production, a
reduced ability creditable to a not complete development of higher integrative
mechanisms - and that is what I presume - that doesn't erase the fact that the
words ends of the words result to own particular perceptive importance in the
child.
Three on six of the building/perceptions of
identity I have hypothesized to explain the genesis of the
hyper-regularisation, have its ground on the words endings.
We can add an other well-known datum to
confirm any more the mechanism of identity by perceptive overlapping, built on
the sound identity.
If we ask a child of preschool age to
say the first word, or all the words that he can recall, following a
word-stimulus, mostly he will answer with words that have a phonetic link with
the stimulus (Eg. "metto" (I put) -> "detto" (said)
-> " tetto" (a roof) -> "letto" (a bed))
or having a completion link (Eg.: "porta" (he brings)
-> " -lettere" (letters); -> " -ombrelli" (umbrellas)
-> " -pacchi" (parcels) [33; 14; 41].
The
completion link found with the technique of the verbal associations is the spy
of a mechanism that was already present, besides the partial phonetic
overlapping, in the identities that I have hypothesized for the genesis of the
hyper-regularisation. The partial phonetic overlapping becomes the nucleus of
an identity that is even for contiguity. The power of the overlapping link
seems greater, up to a certain age, of that of the link of contiguity, but the
last one is not zero value.
Anyhow, however, the identity built on a
contiguity without any overlapping seems already a "logical"
mechanism more evolved.
The ontogenesis would result: identity
by overlapping -> identity by partial overlapping and by contiguity -> identity by contiguity.
However it stays the fact that, even in
the moment of greater development, the preceding phases, although into shades,
do not disappear.
The
contiguity, in the above mentioned example, more that a space contiguity, or
merely spatial, seems be even temporal contiguity. For which the identity is
built/perceived following a nearly contemporary excitement of cerebral
analysers of the sound input, and
how to such, unitary memorized.
In
the genesis of the hyper-regularisation, as hypothesized in this study, the
hyper-regularised word forms exactly
following the action of both these "logical" mechanisms.
An identity creditable to the only
action of the mechanism of the phonetic overlapping, as more primitive, has its more exact correspondent in the
lallation: That is the repetition of a sort syllable done by the baby at the
age of 4-7 months.
The same happens in the echolalic
language of seriously mentally retarded or psychotic children, where the
repetition, in the more rudimentary forms (immediate echolalia), involves, as
predictable, the final syllables of a heard word.
Incidentally, we have to remember that
the immediate echolalia is already present in the birds that imitate the human
voice (graculas and parrots), where however, we can find even a delayed
echolalia.
Alliteration and assonance in the Jargon
aphasia.
A
further proof of what here hypothesized, we can derive from studies on the
linguistic alterations in aphasic patients, in particular in patients with Neologistic
Jargon Aphasia, a form that belongs to the group of Wernicke's aphasias.
Green [19] described this linguistic
alteration as alliteration (consonants' repetition) and assonance (repetition
of vowels segments). He wrote that what characterizes the phonological deficit
of the patient's Jargon episodes, especially in the episodes where he shows
difficulty in searching appropriate words, are their stereotyped patterns of
alliterations and assonances.
It is thinkable that alliterations and
assonances, when they are produced adjoining, are creditable to the effort to
seek the right word, by a trials and errors mechanism. But when this phenomenon
happens into the sentence, or in the period, a similar explanation is not more easily sustainable.
That is more likely when alliterations and assonances follow the searched word;
less that never, then, when they emerge independently from such search [27; 9].
Specifically Kreindler et al. [27], affirms
that the context where this appears, shows clearly that the criterion for the
selection of these words is not of semantic type, but exclusively that of the
auditory similarity based on the rhyme.
Naturally, such people can double whole
syllables, by determining so an alliteration and assonance combination [9].
The
linguistic alterations found in aphasic subjects by these authors suggests
close similarities with what Fromkin reported [17; 18], whose data, however, come from verbal errors
produced by normal subjects, in stress conditions.
Going again to the experiments of Luria
and Vinogradova [32], we have here a further confirmation of the instability of
the verbal production in stress conditions, with substitution of the semantic
field with that phonetic one. With which, we could consider the circle again closed.
To return to the Jargon aphasia, we
could think that the aphasic damage is a particular and specific outcome. We
quickly feel that as a mistake by the fact that this type of error is equally
found in demented subjects. In that people, there is a neuronal degenerative
damage, which grows not acutely, as it happens in the aphasic, but in a chronic
way [7].
These linguistic phenomena, finally, are
typical even of the language of certain schizophrenics [8; 12; 28]. Now, we
need to remember that post mortem anatomical studies on the brain of this
people did never have shown evident damages of cortical structures linked to
the language.
If
then it is not enough, it is opportune
to underline that this alliteration
and assonance patterns appear even in the words said during the sleep of
normal subjects [8].
By all that, I wanted to confirm only
that identity mechanisms built on the sound are typical even of the human
individual. He builds them in early
infancy - what I have affirmed as the base of part of the phenomenon of the
hyper-regularisation - but not only in that age. It happens too in all the
following ages, mainly in pathological
states, but not only in those.
A
such happening strengthens the hypothesis that we are dealing with a different field
out of semantic one. This field is present in the same time with this last,
even if, usually, in the background, as for adult individuals, healthy, not in
stress condition, nor in drowsiness.
As Luria
and Vinogradova's research shown [32], this field of phonetic links emerges, or
resurfaces. So, when persons cannot build the identities in the semantic field
because neuro-physio-pathological impairments (temporary or stable immaturity,
brain trauma, degeneration, disconnection, etc.).
The
same when the semantic field cannot help, as it happens to the first approach
of decoding a totally unknown language.
Elementary logic and semantic fields.
In
accord with Trier [52], we define a semantic field as "a system of words
whose meanings, places its one next to the other as tesserae of a mosaic, cover
exactly all its meanings' range".
To a similar definition we could adapt only the childish preconcepts (intended
ad modum Piaget, 1960 ) [43], our analogical concepts and our operational
concepts.
As
asserted by Melice-Ledent et al. [36], linguists and epistemologists seem
instead going far from the attempts of a purely formal linguistic analysis of
the glossomatics. Now, they look for in the logic and in the epistemology structuring (even partial) of the
lexicon. If the organization of the
semantic fields insists on a not-linguistic structure not-linguistic, but
logical, we have to observe, in some aphasic forms, a joined disorganization of
both the lexicon and the logic.
So,
in the Wernicke's aphasia, as for
Alajouanine [1], we may observe two components: a phonemic one, with the
feature of the issue of phonemic paraphasias, or words deformed ( the so called
"a literal paraphasia" of the old neurologists), which manifests
itself both in the oral language and in spontaneous or repeated writing; An
other one, semantic type, using "a word for an other", without any deformation.
This last one ("a verbal paraphasia", of the old neurologists) has often,
however, a conceptual link with the expected word, and a limited use in the
oral spontaneous or writing language, without any impairment of the immediate
repetition.
Tissot [51] hypothesized that in the
first one the phonological system of the language is impaired. In the second
one a breakup of the conventional link
between the word sound and its meaning would exist, a breakup due to a
disorganization of the semantic fields.
Kept account of that, according to
Martinet [34; 35], Mounin [38] and Prieto [45], the meanings' structure could
involve extra-linguistic mechanisms of logical type, Melice-Ledent et al. [36],
carried out an investigation on the possible alteration of logical mechanisms
in aphasic patients.
They did this research by using four
subjects' groups: i. With Wernicke's aphasia having clear semantic predominance; ii. With
Wernicke's aphasia with phonemic predominance; iii. With Broca's aphasia; iv.
With not aphasic patients, as the control group. All the subjects were given
semantic tests and tests of elementary logic.
In
particular, the aim of this investigation was that to check if the way where
became altered mechanisms of logical type in this three categories of
aphasics was isomorphic. Or, as for the
Tissot hypothesis [51], in patients with dominant semantic deficit, one could
have observed a joined disorganization of the semantic fields and of the
logical operations.
Results were the followings:
-
The performances of aphasics, taken as a whole, were less than that of the control
group, in all the tests, and in a significant manner;
-
Semantic Wernicke's aphasias and that Broca's aphasias clearly differed from
the phonemic aphasias, for what concerned elementary logic tests. These last
aphasias showed not different results in
two tests out of three when compared to the control group;
-
Both in the aphasics and in the control group the greatest part of the semantic
tests and of elementary logic, was significantly correlated among them.
The above-mentioned authors concluded
that the joined disorganization of the semantic fields and the elementary logic
seems characteristic of the semantic deficit. This last one, in the semiology
of the aphasia, had the feature of using a word for an other. This justified
the notion of relative autonomy of the phonemic and semantic systems in the
Wernicke's aphasia.
It also supported the Piaget's
linguistic and genetic hypothesis of the extra-linguistic base of the lexicon
structure. Anyhow, the same did not offer any explanation of the semantic
troubles in the aphasia [36].
There are three points about which I ask
to pay your attention:
- Both in
phonemic and in semantic aphasias
the speaker's errors follow the resurfacing of the overlapping "logics" ( or of the
similarity ): Alliterations and assonances in the first ones, conceptual links
with the expected words in the second ones;
- The notable independence of the phonemic
and semantic systems, which can be damaged separately from the aphasic insult,
have presumably their place in different brain areas, or levels;
- The logic investigated by the tests
given to these subjects, although being an elementary "logic", is
already of a developed type. In particular, in the intellectual development, it
starts to appear in the period that ranges, conventionally, 6 to 10-11 years
(period of the "factual logical thought" ).
It exists, and on this it starts to find increased consent, more
primitive logic but more coarse form, already present since the birth, and linked
to working mechanisms of the neuronal structure.
Exactly about which Pribram [44] started to define, as possible rules of
reversing transformations, the operational rules. Besides, it is always that
same logic that Arieti [2; 3] reported
with the name of "paleologic", and affirmed that it is typical of the
pre-conceptual thought, and of the schizophrenic thought. It is just this
"logic" that, I think, works in the genesis of the
hyper-regularisation.
The contribution of Jakobson to the
understanding of aphasic troubles.
Jakobson [23; 24] has specifically dealt with the aphasic troubles, and what he
wrote may represent an other contribution in favour of my hypothesis.
For this author it exists as a part of the
aphasia phenomenon where, during the last 20 years, a notable accord runs
between psychiatrists and linguists who
dealt with disintegration studies of the phonemic system. This
dissolution shows a time development of extreme regularity.
The
aphasic regression revealed a mirror image of the acquisitive process of the
language sounds by the infant, whom it shows the reverse process. Moreover, a
comparison between baby talk and aphasia allows to set up many implicating laws.
The search about acquisitions and losses,
and on the implication general laws, doesn't have limits in the phonemic
system, but it has to regard even the grammatical system.
Later, what Jakobson [23; 24] named
"the trouble of the similarity" and "the trouble of the
contiguity " were analysed, that is to say: the trouble of those two
mechanisms that I invoked for the genesis of the hyper-regularisation.
Jakobson says that an aphasic with
trouble of the similarity, moving from a word, cannot go to its synonyms and to
the equivalent circumlocutions, nor to its heteronymous, which is to the
equivalent expressions in other languages. The loss of the polyglotical faculty
and the restriction to an only dialect kind of only language, are both
symptomatic demonstrations of these disturbs [23; 24].
I think, what is lost here could be even
only the ability to have awareness of a certain identity type, (identity by
semantic overlapping, here). Such identity, in mostly cases, for us adult,
rational, not in state of serious stress individuals, could be only an analogy.
After it Jakobson observed that is the external link of the contiguity that joins the constituents of a context, and
the relationship of similarity that is at the base of the process of
substitution.
Then he wrote that because of it, in an
aphasic with altered substituting
function [ie. The possibility, that is, to perceive identity by overlapping]
and it remains intact that contextual one, the operations that involve
similarity go down differently of those found on the contiguity.
One can foresee that in such conditions,
all grouping will be driven from the spatial and temporal contiguity [identity
by contiguity] rather than by the similarity. The switch from the identity to
the contiguity was particularly amazing in that Goldstein's patient. This last
answered with a metonymy when asked to repeat a given word, and for example, he
said the glass for the window, Heaven for God".
So, the trouble of the contiguity, in the aphasic, makes up instead a
deficiency in the structuring of the context, with the result to decrease the
length and the variety of the sentences
[23; 24].
The
syntactic rules that organize the word in more elevated unity are lost. This
loss called agrammatism, determines the degeneration of the sentence in a
simple heap of words, according to the image of Jackson. The aphasia, in
which the contextualisation function
went down, drives to childish periods of one sentence, or to sentences of one
word. Only fewer little more longer sentences succeed to survive, and they are
the stereotyped sentences, the stock phrase. While the formation process of the
context disintegrates, the operations of selection [based on identity by
similarity] persist [23; 24].
This author went on and wrote that the
relationship between the word and his constituent parts, reflects the same
alteration, even if in a little different way. A characteristic of the
agrammatism is the suppression of the flexing.
So
not marked categories appear, as the infinitive, for the different forms of the
verb, the nominative for all the oblique cases. These lacks pertain in part to
the elimination of the regency and of the concordance, in part to the loss of
the ability to decompose the words in root and ending.
Equally, as a rule, words, derived from the
same root, as "great, greatly, greatness" are semantically connected
by contiguity. The patients we are speaking about have the habit of omitting
the derived words, or to feel as insoluble the combination of a root with a
derivative suffix, or the compound of two words.
It
was often reported the case of those patients that understood and pronounced by
themselves compounded words as
"Thanksgiving" or "battersea". But they were incapable to
grab, or say, "thanks" and "giving", "batter" and
"sea" [23; 24].
Here the process of unity by contiguity
has become so strongly that the composed word is perceived as autonomous,
without any link with the two words that originated it.
On other hand I need to specify that, to
integration of what said over from Jakobson, the words "great, greatly,
greatness" are even joined by partial overlapping, either phonetic and
semantic.
Nevertheless, what I have to underline,
at this stage, it is that the loss of
the ability to decompose the words in root and ending, presupposes also the normal ability to
decompose the words in root and ending.
Nevertheless it presupposes even the ability to compose the words by
root and ending (unity by contiguity ). This is one of the essential requirements
of my hypothesis on the genesis of the hyper-regularisation.
As
more as Jakobson stated, it results that - at least for what concerns the
identity by similarity (identity by overlapping) - there are clear proves for it even in the semantic field,
out of the phonetic field. This fact strengthens the belief that we are dealing
with a not specific mechanism.
Phonetic or semantic troubles in the
schizophrenia.
I
remembered, previously, that in the schizophrenic language we can find phonetic
alterations of alliterations and assonances not different from what found in the Jargon aphasia [8; 12; 28].
This, however, as it is known, it is not the only linguistic trouble of this
illness. For what here of interest, I
need to report an investigation carried out by Braccini et al. [5], on 50
schizophrenics by asking them to
complete with a word the sentences built to explore all a series of linguistic
situations. Many answers revealed as provoked from the entry into action of the
similarity and of the contiguity. Both acted either at semantic level and at
"formal" level, here, the phonetic one.
To
that I want to add an example I
personally met in an Italian psychiatric hospital, and produced from a
schizophrenic of 27 years of age, of artistic high-school education and without
any phonological trouble. He said me a day: " I am God" and to my
request for such a sure affirmation, he answered me: "It is simple and I
can show it. Look at that" and with a pencil he wrote on a sheet, underlined including:
IO ( I ) DIO (God)
and he added: "As you can see, it is
clear." - then he pointed out the
underlined letters - "This is equal to that, for which I am God."
Now, I shall try to explain about what usually becomes defined as a
delusional affirmation (The greatness'
or almighty delusion). By assonance, casual or searched, the patient had
built and perceived an identity not assumed as phonetic datum, as in fact it was,
but as semantic identity. As so he realized it.
This differs from the Jargon aphasia and from
the homologous schizophrenic language. There the trouble seems to consist in
the impossibility, by the patient, of getting rid of internal primitive sound
conditioning. It appears as done to
preceding, or following, or somehow interfering word even if not spoken with
the result of obsessive alliteration and
assonance.
In that personal case the assonance
doesn't interfere on the phonetic level, but it turns over on the semantic level, and it originates a semantic identity
built on a partial phonetic identity.
This mechanism corresponds to one of the
principle of Von Domarus [53; 54] that affirms that, in the paleologic level,
subjects are perceived as identical because they have a predicate in common
(ie. A distinctive feature).
It is to say: It doesn't run more ( or,
in childish age, it not runs yet) the principle for which A = A, and A <> B, but that for which if we have
Az and Bz, with z = an elementary distinctive feature, it follows that A = B,
because z is the same end common. By interpreting it from a neurophysiological
point of view, z is the only thing
perceived from both subjects, or at least the one with greater perceptive relevance.
Arieti [2; 3] was particularly
interested in this paleologic thought, and he noted that, over than in
schizophrenics, it appears in infants, before 5-6 years, in certain thought
forms of the so called "primitive people", in the magic thought, in
dreaming.
About the magic thought, according to
Frazer [16] the charms are made on the basis of an identity by similarity or by
contiguity. As for example, to plunge
pins in a figurine that represents the person that one wants to strike: That is
an identity for similarity. To use an object, or a part of the corpus, as
hairs, cut fingernails, etc., as the base for a charm against the person whom
these things belong: an identity by
contiguity.
What happens in schizophrenics, as with
the optics of these studies, could be not other that the resurfacing of
primitive mechanisms, since the illness dissolved, or paid not working, more
developed integrative mechanisms.
These primitive mechanisms, and I want
to underline this point, are not specific of the human species, and in this one
are not specific of the language.
So, even if in the man, for features of our species, or for the fact that is
with the use of the language that we may reveal what is happening, the identity
built on an only distinctive feature of a stimulus, stands out with greater
facility as for the sound of the words.
Conclusions.
The
study of the hyper-regularisation that happens during the acquisition of the
verbal language by infants by itself is other than the study of a curiosity. It
is rather a privileged phenomenon, a
natural "experiment", able to give us interesting information on the
ways the language develops and on the structures that support it.
The
hypothesis has been forwarded that the hyper-regularisation
is creditable to the normal action of particular "logical"
mechanisms, of neurophysiological,
extra-linguistic and prelinguistic nature, not specific of the human species.
These mechanisms are directly attached to the working of the neuronal net of
the CNS.
They
can drive to the building/perceptions of identity by neuronal spatial
overlapping of the perceived (identity by similarity ) and identity by neuronal
spatial or temporal contiguity of the perceived (identity by contiguity). This
hypothesis may its genesis, which it is necessary, and its forms, which are the
same in the subjects belonging to the same mother language area.
The presence of such mechanisms found
its justification i. By studies on the animal; ii. By experiences on the human
language, programmed with another purpose; iii. By data derived from the neurophysiological
research on the working of the CNS neuronal net; iv. By studies on the aphasic disintegration of
the language; v. By studies on the schizophrenic language and thought.
On the base of their features, the
action of these mechanisms would be useful to explain other phenomena, either
when correlated with the verbal language, or dependent from this one, as i. The
assimilation, in a Piaget's sense, as necessary support for the acquisition of
the praxises; ii. The bases of the Gestalt
psychology; iii. The functional structure of the calembour; iv. The
genesis of a several figures of speech; v. The genesis of the rhythm and of the
rhyme as mnemotechnical and later on
formal tools of the poetry; vi. The emotional language and the languages of
politicians; vii. The visual and verbal language of advertising; viii. The
functional structure of several techniques of the psychoanalytic therapy.
I think however they could throw light
upon some social phenomena, where we can find very curious analogies. To tell
the first that come to my mind, beyond the magic thought and its practical
expressions, I will limit me to remember i. The structure of the blood tie; ii.
The relationship of the clientele; iii. The genesis of several types of
hierarchies.
Besides these two neurophysiological
mechanisms I wrote about, I think that we can suspect of at least other
two, some indications already exist for both even in neurophysiopathological
research.
The enough close temporal succession of
two stimulating events would be
accountable for the building/perception of a primitive cause and effect
relationship (post hoc, ergo propter hoc) already seen in the animal. It is
well known to anyone who possesses a dog, for example, which the punishment for
a misdoing has to be supplied within a certain interval of time, not superior
to 5-10 minutes. Otherwise, the animal doesn't perceive such relationship.
Nevertheless it is present in the man too and responsible, in many cases, of a
logical fallacy.
The
second one is perhaps more difficult to be accepted, although i. The presence of the opposite, with forced
association of a thing to its contrary is a well-known element of the psychoanalytic
theory; ii. One of the hinges of that "wild thought" that the
anthropologist Clause Levi-Strauss investigated so much; iii. A normal feature
of same thinking, a limitation, according to Lorenz [30] or highly esteemed and
to the base of the scientific creativeness (The Janusian thought) as said of
Rothenberg [47]. It was even found in the schizophasia and, more rarely, in the
Jargon aphasia [28].
Finally, the presence of the opposite,
as a neurophysiological need to certain working levels of the CNS neuronal net,
could explain a well-known curious
visual phenomenon. That drives to the appearance of the complementary green
colour when one watches for some minutes the red colour, then he suddenly
switches his gaze on a white surface.
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First published on Internet on August 2002. Copyright
by Renato Cocchi 2002
Author’s address: dr. Renato
Cocchi, via Rabbeno, 3
42100 Reggio Emilia (Italy)
renatococchi@libero.it
Theoretical and research bases