Daniel L Everett
Biographic Data
| ID | 88349 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel L Everett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel L |
| FAMILY NAME | Everett |
| SIGNATURE | EVERETT D L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bentley University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3727-8765 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 234 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Religion Is of Reduced Importance When Not Needed to Solve the Problems of Social Living
Purzycki and Sosis (2022) review six categories of how religious traditions solve problems of social living. We apply the six categories to the Pirahã, which the authors discuss as a religious small-scale society. We contend that the Pirahã are not religious, drawing on the six categories to explain why. All members of the Pirahã know each other. Supernatural punishment is thus not needed to curtail dishonesty and norm breaking. Food is sufficien…
Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes
Semiotics and the Origin of Language in the Lower Palaeolithic
This paper argues that the origins of language can be detected one million years ago, if not earlier, in the archaeological record of Homo erectus . This controversial claim is based on a broad theoretical and evidential foundation with language defined as communication based on symbols rather than grammar. Peirce’s theory of signs (semiotics) underpins our analysis with its progression of signs (icon, index and symbol) used to identify artefact …
O papel da cultura na língua(gem) e na cognição
Este trabalho apresenta um panorama de algumas pesquisas a respeito de como a cultura está relacionada de forma causal com o entendimento da cognição humana. Particularmente, avalio estudos a respeito da influência da cultura na memória de curto prazo, na percepção visual, na gramática, na cognição numérica, e na evolução linguística. Além disso, apresento um desiderato de metodologias sobre as conexões entre cultura e cognição, e um direcionamen…
Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language
This chapter revisits Everett's controversial claims about the Pirahã language and its supposed lack of recursion, challenging the universality of certain linguistic features. Everett argues that cultural constraints, specifically the Pirahã's 'immediacy of experience' principle, significantly shape their grammar and cognitive processes. He reiterates his observations about the absence of embedding, quantification, color terms, and creation myths…
The role of culture in language and cognition
This paper provides an overview of some recent research on how culture is causally implicated in the understanding of human cognition. In particular, I review studies on the influence of culture on short-term memory, visual perception, grammar, numerical cognition, and language evolution. I also provide a list of desiderata for research methodologies on the connections between culture and cognition and a direction for future research
Dark Matter of the Mind
The state of whose art? Reply to N ick E nfield's review of Language
Language can help us think. Really
Understanding others requires adaptive thinking
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Breathability, learnability, and the illusion of design
Exocognitive Linguistics
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Response to Reboul
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Not quite organizational
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Linguistics, Truth, and Culture
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Syllable Weight, Sloppy Phonemes, and Channels in Pirahã Discourse
Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1985), pp. 408-416
Pirahã culture and grammar
This article responds to criticisms of the proposals of Everett 2005 by Nevins, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues (2009, this issue). It argues that their criticisms are unfounded and that Pirahã grammar and culture are accurately described in Everett 2005. The article also offers more detailed argumentation for the hypothesis that culture can exert an architectonic effect on grammar. It concludes that Pirahã falsifies the single prediction made by Hauser,…
Letters to Language
Letters to Language Daniel L. Everett Language accepts letters from readers that briefly and succinctly respond to or comment upon either material published previously in the journal or issues deemed of importance to the field. The editor reserves the right to edit letters as needed. Brief replies from relevant parties are included as warranted. Response to Nevins et al. October 28, 2009 To the Editor: In the September 2009 issue of this journal,…
Number as a cognitive technology
Contents Vol. 50, 2007
Challenging Chomskyan Linguistics
Chomsky’s theory of language is an accomplishment of the highest order, by any standards. A set of ideas that can excite and occupy some of the brightest minds in the world for over 5 decades, and give them all a sense of communality and feeling that they are engaged in an asymptotic approximation to the Truth, over this entire period of time, must be taken very seriously. What are the components of this theory? There are 2 fundamental ideas: (1)…
Biology and language
‘Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.’ Cool Hand Luke
On Cultural Constraints on Pirahã Grammar
Periphrastic Pronouns in Wari
In this paper, I argue that all demonstrative pronouns in Wari’ are periphrastic “mixed categories,” showing properties of words and phrases simultaneously. Wari’ periphrastic pronouns appear to be transitional forms—new pronouns being formed. I discuss complex kinship terms, claiming that these originated in a way similar to the periphrastic pronouns except that the kinship terms have now completed the evolution from phrases to words. These find…
Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã
The Pirah language challenges simplistic application of Hocketts nearly universally accepted design features of human language by showing that some of these features (interchangeability, displacement, and productivity) may be culturally constrained. In particular, Pirah culture constrains communication to nonabstract subjects which fall within the immediate experience of interlocutors. This constraint explains a number of very surprising features…
Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã
The Pirah language challenges simplistic application of Hocketts nearly universally accepted design features of human language by showing that some of these features (interchangeability, displacement, and productivity) may be culturally constrained. In particular, Pirah culture constrains communication to nonabstract subjects which fall within the immediate experience of interlocutors. This constraint explains a number of very surprising features…
Amazonian Linguistics
Preface List of Contributors Introduction (Doris L. Payne) I. Historical and Comparative Studies Language History in South America: What We Know and How to Know More (Terrence Kaufman) Some Widespread Grammatical Forms in South American Languages (David L. Payne) Valence-Changing Affixes in Maipuran Arawakan Languages (Mary Ruth Wise) Cross-Referencing Changes in Some Tupi-Guarani Languages (Cheryl Jensen) II. Stress and Pitch-Accent Systems Acce…
On metrical constituent structure in pirah phonology
Stress Placement, Syllable Structure, and Minimality in Banawá
Phonetic rarities in Pirahã
Pirahã is interesting from both a phonetic and a phonological perspective. While possessing an apparently simple phonemic inventory (consisting of eight consonants, three vowels and two tones) it demonstrates a great deal of variation at the phonetic level. It is the purpose of this paper to document two phonetic rarities in Pirahã, one of which, [i] has been recorded for no other language, to the knowledge of the present writer
The Status of Phonetic Rarities
Most sounds can be described in terms of a standard set of phonological features, or in terms of values of well-known phonetic parameters. But some languages, particularly the smaller endangered languages of the world, also contain many unusual sounds that test our traditional descriptive theories. An example is the dental plosive followed by a bilabial trill, found in the Chapakuran languages. We suggest that there is a set (with fuzzy boundarie…
Semiotics and the Origin of Language in the Lower Palaeolithic
This paper argues that the origins of language can be detected one million years ago, if not earlier, in the archaeological record of Homo erectus . This controversial claim is based on a broad theoretical and evidential foundation with language defined as communication based on symbols rather than grammar. Peirce’s theory of signs (semiotics) underpins our analysis with its progression of signs (icon, index and symbol) used to identify artefact …
The state of whose art? Reply to N ick E nfield's review of Language
On Cultural Constraints on Pirahã Grammar
Biology and language
‘Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.’ Cool Hand Luke
Mental Representations
Preface Part I. Introduction: The Relation Between Language, Mind, and Reality Part II. On The Direct Interpretation of Natural Languages: 1. Contexts, models, and meanings: a note on the data of semantics James Higginbotham 2. Facts in situation theory: representation, psychology, or reality? Robin Cooper 3. Relational interpretation Elisabet Engdahl Part III. On The Syntactic Base For Interpretation: 4. Bound variable anaphora Robert May 5. On …
Clitic Doubling, Reflexives, and Word Order Alternations in Yagua
Complementary distribution between SVO and clitic-VSO word orders in Yagua receives a natural explanation from independent principles of Case and X'-theories of the Principles-and-Parameters theory of grammar. Word-order variation in Yagua results from the fact that both clitics and arguments compete for a single Case. This conflict is resolved by moving the head of the phrase to the phrase-internal AGR[eement] position and allowing the clitic to…
Pirah clitic doubling
Phonetic rarities in Pirahã
Pirahã is interesting from both a phonetic and a phonological perspective. While possessing an apparently simple phonemic inventory (consisting of eight consonants, three vowels and two tones) it demonstrates a great deal of variation at the phonetic level. It is the purpose of this paper to document two phonetic rarities in Pirahã, one of which, [i] has been recorded for no other language, to the knowledge of the present writer
Pirah clitic doubling
On metrical constituent structure in pirah phonology
Welsh Syntax
Clitic Doubling, Reflexives, and Word Order Alternations in Yagua
Complementary distribution between SVO and clitic-VSO word orders in Yagua receives a natural explanation from independent principles of Case and X'-theories of the Principles-and-Parameters theory of grammar. Word-order variation in Yagua results from the fact that both clitics and arguments compete for a single Case. This conflict is resolved by moving the head of the phrase to the phrase-internal AGR[eement] position and allowing the clitic to…
A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian
The people who live in the Boumaa region of the Fijian island of Taveuni speak a dialect of Fijian that is mutually intelligible with Standard Fijian, the two differing as much perhaps as do the American and British varieties of English. During 1985, R. M. W. Dixon one of the most insightful of linguists engaged in descriptive studies today lived in the village of Waitabu and studied the language spoken there. He found in Boumaa Fijian a wealth o…
Amazonian Linguistics
Preface List of Contributors Introduction (Doris L. Payne) I. Historical and Comparative Studies Language History in South America: What We Know and How to Know More (Terrence Kaufman) Some Widespread Grammatical Forms in South American Languages (David L. Payne) Valence-Changing Affixes in Maipuran Arawakan Languages (Mary Ruth Wise) Cross-Referencing Changes in Some Tupi-Guarani Languages (Cheryl Jensen) II. Stress and Pitch-Accent Systems Acce…
Mental Representations
Preface Part I. Introduction: The Relation Between Language, Mind, and Reality Part II. On The Direct Interpretation of Natural Languages: 1. Contexts, models, and meanings: a note on the data of semantics James Higginbotham 2. Facts in situation theory: representation, psychology, or reality? Robin Cooper 3. Relational interpretation Elisabet Engdahl Part III. On The Syntactic Base For Interpretation: 4. Bound variable anaphora Robert May 5. On …
Sapir, Reichenbach, and the syntax of tense in Pirahã
This paper investigates temporal interpretations in Pirahâ, a Muran language spoken in the Brazilian Amazon basin. The analysis assumes the neoReichen-bachian model of tense syntax proposed in Hornstein (1990) and argues that this model provides an elegant account of tense-related facts in Pirahâ, iff it is parametrized. Whereas Hornstein predicts that all tense systems will have a temporal reference point (R), this paper argues that languages ma…
Stress Placement, Syllable Structure, and Minimality in Banawá
The sentential divide in language and cognition
Some linguists have argued that sentences should not be studied in isolation. They argue, rather, that the structure of sentences is largely the result of constraints imposed upon them by the discourses they are embedded in. I want to argue that this approach is misguided and that sentence-level syntax and discourse structure constitute distinct domains of study, at least in part because grammar is underdetermined by function. Moreover, I argue t…
The Status of Phonetic Rarities
Most sounds can be described in terms of a standard set of phonological features, or in terms of values of well-known phonetic parameters. But some languages, particularly the smaller endangered languages of the world, also contain many unusual sounds that test our traditional descriptive theories. An example is the dental plosive followed by a bilabial trill, found in the Chapakuran languages. We suggest that there is a set (with fuzzy boundarie…
Logical form
Pronoun Borrowing
No abstract available
Iambic Feet in Paumari and the Theory of Foot Structure
This paper analyzes stress and moraic constituencies in Paumari, an endangered language of the Arawan family of the Brazilian Amazon. It argues that Paumari feet are quantity-insensitive iambs, built from right-to-left within the prosodic word. Both of these latter claims are theoretically important because they violate some proposed universals of foot structure. The paper also discusses more general implications of the Paumari data for theories …
Periphrastic Pronouns in Wari
In this paper, I argue that all demonstrative pronouns in Wari’ are periphrastic “mixed categories,” showing properties of words and phrases simultaneously. Wari’ periphrastic pronouns appear to be transitional forms—new pronouns being formed. I discuss complex kinship terms, claiming that these originated in a way similar to the periphrastic pronouns except that the kinship terms have now completed the evolution from phrases to words. These find…
Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã
The Pirah language challenges simplistic application of Hocketts nearly universally accepted design features of human language by showing that some of these features (interchangeability, displacement, and productivity) may be culturally constrained. In particular, Pirah culture constrains communication to nonabstract subjects which fall within the immediate experience of interlocutors. This constraint explains a number of very surprising features…
Biology and language
‘Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand.’ Cool Hand Luke
On Cultural Constraints on Pirahã Grammar
Contents Vol. 50, 2007
Challenging Chomskyan Linguistics
Chomsky’s theory of language is an accomplishment of the highest order, by any standards. A set of ideas that can excite and occupy some of the brightest minds in the world for over 5 decades, and give them all a sense of communality and feeling that they are engaged in an asymptotic approximation to the Truth, over this entire period of time, must be taken very seriously. What are the components of this theory? There are 2 fundamental ideas: (1)…
Number as a cognitive technology
Pirahã culture and grammar
This article responds to criticisms of the proposals of Everett 2005 by Nevins, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues (2009, this issue). It argues that their criticisms are unfounded and that Pirahã grammar and culture are accurately described in Everett 2005. The article also offers more detailed argumentation for the hypothesis that culture can exert an architectonic effect on grammar. It concludes that Pirahã falsifies the single prediction made by Hauser,…
Letters to Language
Letters to Language Daniel L. Everett Language accepts letters from readers that briefly and succinctly respond to or comment upon either material published previously in the journal or issues deemed of importance to the field. The editor reserves the right to edit letters as needed. Brief replies from relevant parties are included as warranted. Response to Nevins et al. October 28, 2009 To the Editor: In the September 2009 issue of this journal,…
Syllable Weight, Sloppy Phonemes, and Channels in Pirahã Discourse
Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1985), pp. 408-416
Philosophy (28 works) · Linguistics (27 works) · Computer Science (22 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (15 works) · Grammar (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Language and cultural evolution (8 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (8 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (7 works)