Cognitive science applies diverse tools and perspectives to study human language.
Recently, an exciting body of work has examined linguistic phenomena through the lens of …

The world contains not only objects and features (red apples, glass bowls, wooden tables),
but also relations holding between them (apples contained in bowls, bowls supported by …

Humans often represent and reason about unrealized possible actions–the vast infinity of
things that were not (or have not yet been) chosen. This capacity is central to the most …

Signed languages exhibit iconicity (resemblance between form and meaning) across their
vocabulary, and many non-Indo-European spoken languages feature sizable classes of …

The study of iconicity, defined as the direct relationship between a linguistic form and its
referent, has gained momentum in recent years across a wide range of disciplines. In the …

The underlying structures that are common to the world's languages bear an intriguing
connection with early emerging forms of “core knowledge”(Spelke & Kinzler, 2007), which …

The sign language phenomenon that some scholars refer to as “agreement” has triggered
controversial discussions among sign language linguists. Crucially, it has been argued to …

In the last decade, a growing body of work has convincingly demonstrated that languages
embed a certain degree of non-arbitrariness (mostly in the form of iconicity, namely the …

While it is now accepted that sign languages should inform and constrain theories of
'Universal Grammar', their role in 'Universal Semantics' has been under-studied. We argue …

This book proposes a new two-step approach to the evolution of language, whereby syntax
first evolved as an auto-organizational process for the human conceptual apparatus (as a …