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THE UNIVERSALITY OF STRUCTURAL SEMANTICS

IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
A STUDY IN NEUROLINGUSTICS


A Synopsis of the Proposed Dissertation to be Submitted to
Central University of Tamil Nadu
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of



Ph D
IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE



By
JOBY JOHN
jobykeelath@gmail.com








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THE UNIVERSALITY OF STRUCTURAL SEMANTICS IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION:A
STUDY IN NEUROLINGUSTICS.
The proposed dissertation entitled The Universality of Structural Semantics in Language Acquisition:
A Study in Neurolinguistics attempts to study the philosophy of language which is one of the most
important fibers in modern philosophy and linguistics. It is an attempt to spell the structures of language
out in order to come up with the relevance of structure in semantics and to investigate how language
acquisition happens in the brain. It is also an attempt to find out whether there is any universality in
structural semantics in language acquisition. Language origin, its acquisition and meaning production are
most intensely debated topics in linguistics. The advancement in science and technology introduced
Neurolinguistics is a scientifically advanced area concerning the study of the neural mechanisms in
humans controlling various aspects of language acquisition.
The primary aim of the dissertation is to introduce methods that facilitate an objective analysis of
empirical findings in the realm of structural semantics which get shared among different languages. The
foremost pronouncement of this disquisition will be that all languages in the world have a unique structure
in language acquisition, competency and meaning generation. In order to prove the universality of
structural semantics in language acquisition, one of the leading linguistic theories of the East Bhratrharis
theory of Sphota and of the West Noam Chomskys Transformational Generative Grammar will be
scrutinized and applied to the samples of the selected language families. Though the differences among
the performances of the languages are undisputed, all of them are acquired in the brain as a consequence
of consistent means. Thus emotions, thoughts, facts, representations, grammar and the like which are
expressed with other languages, are constructed in the mother tongue. All these varieties are synthesized
in human brain which is of unique structure. The generated impulses in the brain pass through a network
of neurons to produce meaning. The outside reflected realities are received subsequent to their conversion
to transformed nerve / electrical impulses and experienced as how the transformed reflected realities are
interpreted. For example;
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree (Kubla Khan- Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
The articulatory, acoustic and auditory elements of these lines create the experience of the creation of a
stately pleasure dome and give the reader a mental image of dome and the sound of the work. The image



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of the dome will be different as a result of the subjective interpretation of the transformed impulses. But
when the text becomes performance, the explications will be synthesized.This elucidation is the net result
of the chemical reactions in the brain. The absence of the reflections and the incompetence to receive and
interpret the transformed reflected realities, deny the existence of meaning. Even though there are many
vehicles to carry the same content, there is unity in difference. In the case of language acquisition two
vehicles ( Example: Two words which denote same meaning) in which different qualities of content are
attributed will be equalized to get meaning.
The introductory chapter of this dissertation explores the major tenets of language and meaning and
describes at length the multifarious concepts related to it. It also deals with the prescriptive theories which
have assumed that the tenor of a word is simply its 'reference', the matter it stands for. But there occurs a
semantic dilemma when the word has an ideal existence. For example, though a mental picture or
experience is possible, the entity of ' monster' or 'ghost' is abstract. Theories regarding language will be
encapsulated in the introductory chapter.
The second chapter entitled Structural Semantics discusses the fundamental relationship between syntax
and semantics. It also deals with how meanings can be composed from smaller elements by applying
Bhratrharis Theory of Sphota and will probe how not only phonemes and morphemes but also full
sentences are produced within a fraction of time. It will also demonstrate that harmonious utterances
which are articulated together within the meantime generate meaning. The relevance of the
implementation of the theory of Sphota is to solve the problem of semantics in general linguistics and to
examine the global nature of meaning generation. This part indexes to the next portion which studies the
structure of the sentences of different languages.
The third chapter entitled Universal Structure elucidates the uniqueness of the structure of all languages
by examining the samples from selected language families with application of TG Grammar and manifests
the existence of universal structure.
The fourth chapter named Language Acquisition and Neurolinguistics deals with the way children
learn to understand and speak their mother tongue and the acquisition of grammar, growth in sentence
length and complexity. It also deals with the neurological basis of language and contains a detailed study
of brain structure and function. The relevance of this chapter is to underline that language acquisition
occurs in the brain and at the level of structural semantics too.
The concluding chapter will assert that there is universality in structural semantics and it plays a vital role
in language acquisition. The other chapters will be synthesized in the concluding section. It will be
concluded by stating that change in structure causes change in meaning. Hence it will be proved that there
is universality in structural semantics.



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