It is interesting and perhaps surprising to realize that most mammals lack a capacity for complex vocal learning of this sort. Current research suggests that aside from humans, only marine mammals (whales, dolphins, seals), bats, and elephants have it. Among primates, humans appear to be the only species that can hear…
When communicating, bilinguals must successfully manage two conflicting languages; one must be accessed whilst the other is suppressed, in order to avoid involuntary language switching. The cognitive demands of this task are thought to be the origin of the bilingual advantage in executive control. A series of studies…
Consider first the nature of primary linguistic data. This consists of a finite amount of information about sentences, which, furthermore, must be rather restricted in scope, considering the time limitations that are in effect, and fairly degenerate in quality (cf. note 1 4). For example, certain signals might be…