Which came first, grammatical rules or their exceptions? In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Morten Christiansen, professor of psychology, writes that for decades, linguists bet on rules – but disorder and flux may turn out to be language’s most essential traits.
“Language is a curious mix of order and disorder,” Christiansen writes in the piece with co-author Nick Chater. “All 7,000 of the world’s languages are characterized by elegant rules, quasi regularities and strange inconsistencies. So which came first, the order or the disorder? Answering this question turns out to be crucial to understanding how language works.”
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From left, Steven Jackson, vice provost for academic innovation; Derina Samuel, Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI) associate director; Cornelia Ye Outstanding Teaching award winners Judith Tauber and Amanda Domingues; and Rob Vanderlan, CTI executive director.