Abstract
It is generally assumed that hierarchical phrase structure
plays a central role in human language. However, considerations of simplicity
and evolutionary continuity suggest that hierarchical structure should not be
invoked too hastily. Indeed, recent neurophysiological, behavioural and
computational studies show that sequential sentence structure has considerable
explanatory power and that hierarchical processing is often not involved. In
this paper, we review evidence from the recent literature supporting the
hypothesis that sequential structure may be fundamental to the comprehension, production
and acquisition of human language. Moreover, we provide a preliminary sketch
outlining a non-hierarchical model of language use and discuss its implications
and testable predictions. If linguistic phenomena can be explained by
sequential rather than hierarchical structure, this will have considerable
impact in a wide range of fields, such as linguistics, ethology, cognitive
neuroscience, psychology and computer science.
journal reference (full text free): royalsocietypublishing >>