There's more to what we know about language

The project 'Logodiversity: On the nature of linguistic unity and diversity' (LOGODIVERSITY) addressed shortcomings of the standard account of language variation (the principles and parameters model). It drew on the evolutionary-developmental (evo-devo) biology approach, which examines changes in developmental processes during evolution and how these contributed to novel features in past and present biodiversity.

LOGODIVERSITY proposed that an entirely new approach is needed to take into account insights from related disciplines as well as alternative linguistic traditions. This is in line with the more developmental/emergentist approach now being applied to the logical problem of language acquisition.

Project research sheds light on various limitations inherent in the architecture of the classical model. For one, the study shows that the learning path is far more complex than that considered in the extant literature, and that there are deeper layers of linguistic variation. These have yet to be comprehensively studied, but they are more directly related to the underlying biology of language.

Recent research in psycholinguistics, neurobiology and genetics call into question the supposedly homogeneous nature of the language faculty. For example, certain findings challenge the notion of a uniform linguistic genotype across the species (in the absence of pathological conditions). LOGODIVERSITY explores this area in work published in Frontiers and Biological Theory.

Other project work examined how hierarchical Bayesian learning models could be used to predict typical language acquisition in children. Work related to the resulting model is published in Language Sciences. Main results presented in articles and book chapters over the course of the four-year project have been incorporated in the book 'Elementary Syntactic Structures'.

LOGODIVERSITY also involved Masters-level teaching in cognitive science and language, and establishing a research group — the Biolinguistics Initiative Barcelona. Other activities include over 60 presentations at international venues and the organisation of 8 workshops on themes related to the nature of language variation.

Project work has contributed new knowledge on the nature of human languages, and paves the way to bridging various schools of thought in linguistics. It has also added to the emerging field of bio-linguistics, which seeks to elaborate on the biological foundations of the human language faculty.