The neural basis of predicate-argument structure

Abstract

Neural correlates exist for a basic component of logical formulae, PREDICATE(x). Vision and audition research in primates and humans shows two independent neural pathways; one locates objects in body-centered space, the other attributes properties, such as colour, to objects. In vision these are the dorsal and ventral pathways. In audition, similarly separable “where” and “what” pathways exist. PREDICATE(x) is a schematic representation of the brain's integration of the two processes of delivery by the senses of the location of an arbitrary referent object, mapped in parietal cortex, and analysis of the properties of the referent by perceptual subsystems.The brain computes actions using a few “deictic” variables pointing to objects. Parallels exist between such nonlinguistic variables and linguistic deictic devices. Indexicality and reference have linguistic and nonlinguistic (e.g., visual) versions, sharing the concept of attention. The individual variables of logical formulae are interpreted as corresponding to these mental variables. In computing action, the deictic variables are linked with “semantic” information about the objects, corresponding to logical predicates.Mental scene descriptions are necessary for practical tasks of primates, and preexist language phylogenetically. The type of scene descriptions used by nonhuman primates would be reused for more complex cognitive, ultimately linguistic, purposes. The provision by the brain's sensory/perceptual systems of about four variables for temporary assignment to objects, and the separate processes of perceptual categorization of the objects so identified, constitute a pre-adaptive platform on which an early system for the linguistic description of scenes developed.

The noun/verb and predicate/argument structures

“…James Hurford (2003bHurford ( , 2003c) has pointed to a problem with Aristotle's predicate/subject (or predicate/argument -P/A) structure. Essentially, the problem is that the same kind of term can fill both the argument and the predicate slot.…”

“…The latter is important, as it has been standardly assumed that (1) the predicate/argument structure of natural language corresponds closely or is identical to that of first order predicate logic, and (2) there is no nounargument and verb-predicate correspondence in natural language, as the same kind of term can appear as both argument and predicate (as, e.g., a man in A man dies and Plato is a man). Hurford (2003bHurford ( , 2003c refers to (2) as the 'Aristotle problem'. In chapter 2, I show that the Aristotle problem arises from assumption (1).…”

“…This conjecture is supported by the fact that the linguistic predicate/argument structure is useless without the ability to conceptualize the functions of linguistic argument and linguistic predicate but the ability to conceptualize events is useful even in the absence of language (e.g., in behavioral planning, which increases the individual's fitness). Then, if Hurford (2001Hurford ( , 2003bHurford ( , 2003c) is correct about the cognitive/ perceptual predicate/argument structure being common among mammals, it is plausible that the cognitive/perceptual predicate/argument structure was mapped onto conceptualization in some species 3 , resulting in a conceptual predicate/ argument structure, which in turn gave rise to the linguistic predicate/argument structure in humans (after the emergence of protolanguage -cf. Bickerton 1998Bickerton , 2000Bickerton , 2002Bickerton , 2007Jackendoff 1999;Nowak & Krakauer 1999;Wray 2000).…”

“…It is generally agreed upon that P/A distinction is universal in the world's languages. See Hurford (2003bHurford ( , 2003c for some claims that P/A distinction is even more broadly applicable. I have found only one source where the universality of P/A in natural language is contested.…”

“…The perceptual predicate/argument distinction. According to Hurford (2001Hurford ( , 2003bHurford ( , 2003c, the perceptual predicate/argument structure is a neuroanatomically motivated construct. The perceptual predicate/argument structure differs from the logical and the linguistic ones in being more elementary, e.g.…”