![]() We argue that the limits of Focus capacity rather than the limitations of memory account for the fact that center-embedding is more complicated than initial or final embedding and we provide a different answer to the question why lenition interactions are typically counter-feeding. After that, section “Applications” presents applications of the model on different linguistic both syntactic and phonological phenomena. According to the model, Focus capacity is restricted to a maximum of seven elements, a restriction that forces the structuring of perceived elements. A subset of this set is Focus which approaches the elements in the environment in a sequential way and governs the visual and aural experience. The cognitive system is described as a set of operations on its environment. This model fits within the so-called Gestalt psychology and emphasizes that it is the observer who creates the experienced structures when, as a subject, she operates on the environment. In section “Toward a Gestalt-like approach to structure in language,” we will review the essential elements of this third perspective. This section will be more useful for readers who have no linguistic background than for those readers who are familiar with linguistics. In section “Structure in Language,” we will concentrate on the fact that human language is highly structured. The essential claim is that structural properties follow from the limitations of human cognition in focus. This paper purports to develop and illustrate a third perspective, according to which the structural similarities in human languages are the result of the way the cognitive system works in perception. ![]() A second perspective is that there is no inborn, innate language faculty, but that instead structure emerges from language usage. There is an inborn ‘grammar’ with universal principles that manifest themselves in each language and cross-linguistic variation arises due to a different parameter setting of universal principles. The first, and more traditional, generative hypothesis is that the similarities are due to an innate language faculty. The fact that human language is highly structured and that, moreover, the way it is structured shows striking similarities in the world’s languages has been addressed from two different perspectives. 2Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
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