Pathways of the Brain

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1. The Window of the Mind     (Click for excerpts)

Investigating language; A focus on people; Four kinds of evidence; Nine questions; The transparency illusion.

Chapter 2. Evidence of the First Two Kinds

Speech and writing; Phonetics; Phonology; Two levels of patterning; Words, words, words; Meaning.

Chapter 3. The Stratification of Language

The linguistic system as a complex of multiple systems; Realization; Evidence from multilingualism; Realizational discrepancy within phonology and grammar; Some quantitative estimates; World-wide correspondences.

Chapter 4. A Network of Relationships

On defining the morpheme; Objects and relationships; Objections; Local and distributed representation; Further examples; Traveling activation.

Chapter 5. Components of Relational Networks

Basic node types; Networks and graphs; Nections; Terminology for nections of different levels; Narrow network notation; Precedence ordering in narrow relational notation; Nections of narrow notation.

Chapter 6. Syntax

Analytical syntax; Syntactic operations; Translating rules into nections; Choice; Tactics at other levels; Differences in sequencing; Analyzing the ordered 'and' node; Operation of the tactic network; It ain't necessarily so.

Chapter 7. Building Models
Three worlds; Four basic properties of mental models of the world; Analysis and catalysis; Introjective models; Descriptive process; Metaphorical models; Is the relational network a metaphor?; Bottom-up and top-down models.

Chapter 8. Interacting Subsystems

Phonological and lexicogrammatical systems; Meaning; Production vs. recognition; The primacy of recognition over production; Bi-directional processing within one subsystem; Multiple semological systems.

Chapter 9. Meaning

Semantic structure; Semantic structure vs. semological structure; Procedures; Social groups; Object categories; The threshold node; Social roles; Processes and their participants.

Chapter 10. Building Connections

Learning in relational networks; Lexicalization and idiomaticity; Consequences for morphological analysis; Irregular inflections; Levels within levels; The learning process.

Chapter 11. Traveling the Pathways

Descriptive overview of linguistic processes; Inner speech; Linguistic processing and traveling activation; Idioms in action; Semantic relationships in action; Context-driven lexeme selection; Visualization in interpretation; Linguistically guided structure building; Interpreting relative clauses and questions; Different people, different systems.

Chapter 12. The Ever-Changing Network

Creativity in the cognitive system; Lines, nodes, and activation; Changes over time; Building network structure; The proximity principle; Competition; Defining proximity; Nection recruitment for long-distance association; Growing new connections; Fine tuning.

Chapter 13. Sources of Linguistic Patterning

Types of patterning; Patterning and cognition; Possible sources of patterning; Fossils of earlier patterns; Redundancy; Conflicting patterns; Parts of speech, parts of vision, parts of thought; Patterning imposed by the observer; Thresholds, pattern recognition, and similarity; Diversity and the survival of perceived patterns.

Chapter 14. Sequence Management

Phonotactics and timing devices; High-speed inner sequencing; Sequence control without constituent structure; Managing new combinations; The mutable lexeme; The mutable sememe; Learning to manage sequences.

Chapter 15. Linguistic Illusions

Semiotic fallacies; The monosemy assumption; Linearity in phonology; The illusion of rules of grammar; Applying the unity fallacy to the linguistic system; Language, thought, and intelligence.

Chapter 16. Introducing the Brain

The brain's biological context; The brain; The cerebral hemispheres; The cerebral cortex; Hemispheres and lobes; Subdividing the lobes; Location and function: general principles; Grey matter and white matter; Neurons and cortical layers; Synapses; Electrical activity from dendrite to axon; Some quantities.

Chapter 17. Neurons and Nections

Degrees of activation; Building connections; Long and short connections; Nections and cortical columns; Excitatory and inhibitory connections; Bidirectional connections; Preponderance of latent connections; Nections that may not be implemented as cortical columns; Local and distributed representation; Arguments against local representation; Arbitrary and functional representation; Coarse and fine coding; relational network representation of conceptual categories; Recognizing new things; Estimating the abundance requirement.

Chapter 18. The Anatomy of Language

Hierarchy; Implications of the proximity hypothesis; Implementing the levels of the model; The language cortex; Neurological evidence on localization; Objections and answers; Communication between cognitive subsystems.

Epilog

Appendix

Some basic principles of neurocognitive linguistics; Arguments for the relational network hypothesis; Some properties of relational networks; Application of the model to conceptual categories.

Notes

References

Index


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