Episodes

  • 32. Ma cos’hai nel cervello? Lobi, circonvoluzioni e altre meraviglie

    32. Ma cos’hai nel cervello? Lobi, circonvoluzioni e altre meraviglie
    Oct 16 2025
    Il cervello umano è l’organo più complicato e affascinante che esista in natura, e lo usiamo per tutto, anche (e forse soprattutto) per il linguaggio.In questa puntata esploriamo come la lingua è organizzata nella nostra testa: dagli emisferi e dai lobi, ai solchi e alle circonvoluzioni, fino alle connessioni tra le aree di Broca e Wernicke.Vediamo come queste strutture ci permettono di parlare, capire, ricordare e immaginare parole, e come, nel corso della storia, l’umanità abbia provato a svelare i segreti di questa macchina incredibile. Grafiche: Gianluca La BrunaLa sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.ioGli audio dei pazienti afasici sono stati presi dal Canale YouTube di Tactus Therapy: https://www.youtube.com/@Tactustherapy Afasia di Broca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWC-cVQmEmYAfasia di Wernicke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oef68YabD0FONTI:Basinger H., & Hogg J.P. (2023). Neuroanatomy, Brainstem. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing.Bellebaum C., & Daum I. (2007). Cerebellar involvement in executive control. The Cerebellum, 6(3):184-192.Bernard C. (1865) Introduction à l'étude de la médicine expérimentale. Paris: Flammarion.Binder J.R. (2015). The Wernicke area: modern evidence and a reinterpretation. Neurology, 85(24):2170–2175.Binder J.R. (2017). Current Controversies on Wernicke's Area and its role in Language. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, 17(8):58.Breedlove M., Watson N.V., & Rosenzweig M.R. (2013). Biological Psychology: an introduction to behavioral, cognitive and clinical neuroscience. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer Associates.Catani M. & Bambini V. (2014). A model for social communication and language evolution and development (SCALED). Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 28:165-171.Deacon T.W. (1997). The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language and the brain. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.Ferretti F., Adornetti I., Chiera A., Nicchiarelli S., Magni R., Valeri G. & Marini A. (2017). Mental time travel and language evolution: a narrative account of the origins of human communication. Language Sciences, 63: 105-118.Flinker A., Chang E.F., Barbaro N.M., Berger M.S., Knight R.T. (2011). Sub-centimeter language organization in the human temporal lobe. Brain and Language, 117(3): 103–9.Azevedo F.A.C, Carvalho L.R.B, & Grinberg L.T. (2009). Equal numbers of neuronal and non-neuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaled-up primate brain. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 513(5):532-541.Friederici A.D. (2017). Language in our brain: the origins of a uniquely human capacity. Cambridge, MA & London: The MIT Press. Galaburda A.M., Lemay M., Kemper T.L., & Geschwind N. (1978). Righ-left asymmetries in the brain. Science, 199(4331):852-856.Gazzaniga M.S., Ivry R.B., Mangun G.R. (2002). Cognitive neuroscience: the biology of the mind (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. Indefrey P. (2012). The spatial and temporal signatures of word production components: a critical update. Frontiers in Psychology, 2: 255Ingram J.C. (2007). Neurolinguistics: an introduction to spoken language processing and its disorders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Marini A. (2022). I contributi delle neuroscienze cognitive alla ridefinizione delle basi neurali del linguaggio. In M. Dovetto, T. Raso, & P. Sorianello (Eds.), Le patologie del linguaggio: studi e risorse tra crossdisciplinarità e interdisciplinarità. Special Issue, Chimera. Romance Corpora and Linguistic Studies, 9:3-20. Mohammed N., Narayan V., Patra D.P., Nanda A. (2018). Louis Victor Leborgne (“Tan”). World Neurosurgery, 114:121-125.Nakajima, R.,Yordanova, Y.N., Duffau H., & Herbet G. (2018). Neuropsychological evidence for the crucial role of the right arcuate fasciculus in the face-based mentalizing network: A disconnection analysis. Neuropsychologia, 115:179–187.Nasios G., Dardiotis E., & Messinis L. (2019). From Broca and Wernicke to the Neuromodulation era: insights of Brain Language Networks for neurorehabilitation. Behavioural neurology, 2019, ID 9894571. Papadatou-Pastou M., Ntolka E., Schmitz J., Martin M., Munafò M.R., Ocklenburg S., & Paracchini S. (2020). Human handedness: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 146(6):481–524.Piervincenzi C., Petrilli A., Marini A., Caulo M., Committeri G., & Sestieri C. (2016). Multimodal assessment of hemispheric lateralization for language and its relevance for behavior. NeuroImage, 142:351-370.Roth H.L. (2002). Finding language in the matter of the brain: origins of the clinical aphasia examination. Seminars in neurology, 22(4):335–348.Schmahmann J.D. (1991). An emerging concept: the cerebellar contribution to higher function. Archives of Neurobiology, 48(11):1178.Singh, V. (2014). Textbook of Anatomy Head, Neck, and Brain; Volume III (2nd ed.). Bengaluru, India: Elsevier India.Tremblay P., & Brambati S.M. (2024). A historical perspective on the neurobiology of speech and language: from the ...
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    37 mins
  • 31. Oops! La puntata sulle interiezioni

    31. Oops! La puntata sulle interiezioni
    Sep 16 2025
    Le interiezioni costellano la nostra lingua quotidiana, ma tutti gli “eh?”, “ah!”, “oops!”, “wow!” che diciamo e ascoltiamo sono spesso considerati dettagli marginali. Eppure hanno un ruolo fondamentale: ci aiutano a esprimere emozioni, a regolare i turni di parola, a mantenere vivo lo scambio comunicativo. In questa puntata andiamo dalle funzioni comunicative di Jakobson alle ipotesi evolutive come la “pooh-pooh theory”, per scoprire come questi suoni così semplici siano in realtà il cuore della lingua parlata.Grafiche: Gianluca La BrunaLa sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.ioFONTI:Allwood J. (2008). Multimodal corpora. In A. Lüdeling & M. Kytö (Eds.) Corpus Linguistics: An International Handbook (pp. 207–250). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Ameka F.K. (1992a). Interjections: the universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3): 101-118.Ameka F.K. (1992b). The meaning of phatic and conative interjections. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3):245-271.Austin J.L. (1962). How to Do Things With Words. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Barber C.L. (1965). The story of speech and language. New York: Crowell.Bavelas J.B., Coates L., & Johnson T. (2000). Listeners as co-narrators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79:6941–6952.Bazzanella C. (1995). I segnali discorsivi. In L. Renzi, G. Salvi & A. Cardinaletti (Eds.) Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione Vol III (pp. 225-257). Bologna: il Mulino.Bodur K., Nikolaus M., & Fourtassi A. (2022). Backchannel behavior in child-caregiver zoom-mediated conversations. In J. Culbertson, A. Perfors, H. Rabagliati & V. Ramenzoni (Eds.) Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3072-3079).Colombat B., & Lehaussois A. (2019). Histoire des parties du discours, Leuven: Peeters (Orbis/Supplementa). Corrin J. (2010). Hm? What? Maternal repair and early child talk. In H. Gardner, & M. Forrester (Eds.) Analysing Interactions in Childhood: Insights from Conversation Analysis (pp. 23-41). London: Wiley.Dingemanse M., Torreira F., & Enfield N.J. (2013). Is “Huh?” a universal word? Conversational infrastructure and the convergent evolution of linguistic items. PLOS ONE 8:11e78273.Dingemanse M., Blythe J., & Dirksmeyer T. (2014). Formats for other-initiation of repair across languages: an exercise in pragmatic typology. Studies in Language, 38:5-43.Dingemanse M., Liesenfeld A., & Woensdregt M. (2022). Convergent cultural evolution of continuers (mhmm). In A. Ravignani, R. Asano, D. Valente, F. Ferretti, S. Hartmann, M. Hayashi, Y. Jadoul, M. Martins, Y. Oseki, E. D. Rodrigues, O. Vasileva, & S. Wacewicz (Eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE) (pp. 160-167). Nijmegen: Joint Conference on Language Evolution (JCoLE).Enfield N.J., Dingemanse M., Baranova J., Blythe J,. Brown P., Dirksmeyer T., Drew P., Floyd S., Gipper S., Gísladóttir R., Hoymann G. Kendrick K., Levinson S., Magyari L., Manrique E., Rossi G., San Roque L., & Torreira F. (2013) Huh? What? – A first survey in 21 languages. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds.) Conversational Repair and Human Understanding (pp. 343-380). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Goffman E. (1978). Response cries. Language, 54:4787–4815.Goffman E. (1981). Response cries: forms of talk. Oxford: Blackwell.Gould S.J. (1977). Ontogeny and phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Holmes B. (2025). Huh? The valuable role of interjections. Knowable. https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/mind/2025/interjections-important-for-conversation-flow (l’articolo tradotto in italiano per Internazionale si trova qui: https://www.internazionale.it/magazine/bob-holmes/2025/05/15/parlare-senza-parole)Huls H.A. (1982). Taalgebruik in het gezin en sociale ongelijkheid: een interactioneel sociolinguïstisch onderzoek. PhD Thesis Katholieke Universitet Nijmegen, Netherlands.Jakobson R. (1960). Closing statements: Linguistics and Poetics. In T.A. Sebeok (Ed.) Style in language (pp. 350-377). Cambridge (MA): MIT press. Mondada L. (2018). Multiple temporalities of language and body in interaction: challenges for transcribing multimodality. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51:185–206.Müller M. (1866). Lectures on the Science of Language. London: Longmans, Green & Co.Newport E.L., Gleitman H., & Gleitman L.R. (2020) [1977]. Mother, I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In L. Gleitman, & J. Lidz (Eds.) Sentence First, Arguments Afterward: Essays in Language and Learning (pp. 141–177) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Nikolaus M., & Fourtassi A. (2023). Communicative feedback in language acquisition. New Ideas in Psychology, 68:100985.Norrick N. (2012). Interjections. In G. Andersen, & K. Aijmer (Eds.). Pragmatics of Society (pp.243-292). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter ...
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    24 mins
  • 30. Piccoli morfemi, grandi significati: la morfologia valutativa – intervista con Silvia Micheli

    30. Piccoli morfemi, grandi significati: la morfologia valutativa – intervista con Silvia Micheli
    Aug 15 2025
    Come si può cambiare il senso di una parola con un -ino, un -one o un -accio?
    Basta un piccolo morfema per far diventare una giornata una giornataccia, o un ciao un ciaone.
    In questa puntata la linguista Silvia Micheli ci porta nel mondo della morfologia valutativa, la parte della linguistica che studia come cambiano le forme delle parole per esprimere un giudizio di valore.
    Vediamo come i morfemi valutativi siano strumenti potenti per comunicare affetto, intensità, approssimazione, ironia o disprezzo, e come il loro uso si trasformi nel tempo.
    Silvia ci guida in una conversazione vivace, tra morfopragmatica e creatività linguistica, mostrandoci come queste piccole unità possano raccontare la storia di una lingua e di chi la parla.

    Grafiche: Gianluca La Bruna

    La sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.io

    FONTI:
    • Bagaglini V., & Micheli M.S. (2022). The emerging Italian affix -iota between blending and derivation. A corpus-based analysis. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 34(1):31-58.
    • Grandi N. (2002). Morfologie in contatto: Le costruzioni valutative nelle lingue del Mediterraneo (Vol. 33). Milano: FrancoAngeli.
    • Grandi N. & Körtvélyessy L. (Eds.) (2015). Edinburgh Handbook of Evaluative Morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
    • Masini F., & Micheli M.S. (2020). The morphological expression of approximation. The emerging simil- construction in Italian. Word Structure, 13(3):371-402.
    • Micheli M.S. (2020). Composizione italiana in diacronia. Le parole composte dell’italiano nel quadro della Morfologia delle Costruzioni. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
    • Micheli M.S. (2020). La formazione delle parole. Italiano e altre lingue. Roma: Carocci.
    • Micheli M.S. (2023). The emergence of approximative values in the Italian prefixes semi- and para-. Zeitschrift für Wortbildung / Journal of Word Formation, 7(1):156-176.
    • Micheli M.S., & Pellegrini M. (2025). Exploring the form of Italian diminutives. Alternation patterns and constructional schemas. Constructions and Frames.
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    43 mins
  • 29. Scrivere la lingua, riscrivere il cervello: invenzione della scrittura e script relativity

    29. Scrivere la lingua, riscrivere il cervello: invenzione della scrittura e script relativity
    Jul 16 2025
    La scrittura non è solo un modo per rappresentare il linguaggio, ma è una tecnologia cognitiva che modifica il nostro cervello.In questa puntata vediamo come i diversi sistemi di scrittura (alfabetici, sillabici, logografici, etc.) non solo riflettono strutture linguistiche, ma modellano anche il pensiero, la memoria e perfino la percezione dello spazio e del tempo.Grazie a risultati sperimentali vediamo come leggere non sia un semplice atto meccanico, ma un’esperienza che riconfigura ciò che siamo.Grafiche: Gianluca La BrunaLa sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.io FONTI: Bergen B.K., & Chan Lau T.T. (2012). Writing direction affects how people map space onto time. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 109. Coulmas F. (1996). Typology of Writing Systems. In H. Günther, O. Ludwig, J. Baurmann, F. Coulmas, K. Ehlich, P. Eisenberg, H. Giese, H. Glück, K. Günther, U. Knoop, B. Pompino-Marschall, E. Scheerer & R. Weingarten (Eds.) Band 2: Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch internationaler Forschung (pp. 1380-1387). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton.Defior S. (2004). Phonological awareness and learning to read: a crosslinguistic perspective. In P. Bryant, & T. Nunes (Eds.), Handbook on children’s literacy (pp. 631-649). London: Academic Press.Derrida J. (1976). Of Grammatology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Elliott R.W.V. (1980). Runes: an introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Green M. (1989). Early Cuneiform. In W.M. Senner (Ed.) The Origins of Writing (pp. 43-57). Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press.Gross M. (2012). The evolution of writing. Current Biology, 22(23):R981–R984.Hadamitzky W., & Spahn M. (1981). Kanji and Kana. Boston: Tuttle.Kuipers J.C., & McDermott R.P. (1996). Insular Southeast Asian scripts. In P. Daniels, & W. Bright (Eds.) The World’s Writing Systems (pp. 474-484), New York: Oxford University Press.Ladikoff Guasto L., (2002). Ahlan - Grammatica araba didattico-comunicativa, Roma: Carocci.Malatesha J.R., & Aaron P.G. (2006). Handbook of orthography and literacy. New Jersey: Routledge. Martin A., Schurz M., Kronbichler M., & Richlan F. (2015). Reading in the brain of children and adults: a meta-analysis of 40 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Human brain mapping, 36(5):1963-1981.Meletis D., & Dürscheid C. (2022). Writing Systems and Their Use: An Overview of Grapholinguistics. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.Pae H.K. (2020). From linguistic relativity to script relativity. In H.K. Pae (Ed.), Script effects as the hidden drive of the mind, cognition, and culture (pp. 37-58). New York: Springer. Pae H.K. (2022). Toward a script relativity hypothesis: focused research agenda for psycholinguistic experiments in the science of reading. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 6:97-117.Pae H.K., & Beckett G.H. (2024). Script relativity in psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics: writing systems as a catalyst for cognition and culture. Docens Series in Education, 6:28-47.Pike K.L. (1967). Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior. The Hague: Mouton.Rath S. (2012). Aspects of manuscript culture in South India. Leiden: Brill Indological Library.Salomon R. (1998). Indian epigraphy: a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit and the other Indo-Aryan languages. New York: Oxford University Press.Schultz T. & Kirchho K. (2006). Multilingual Speech Processing. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press.Steever S. (1996). Tamil writing. In P. Daniels, & W. Bright (Eds.) The World’s Writing Systems (pp. 426-430), New York: Oxford University Press.Talati A., & Hirsch J. (2005). Functional specialization within the medial frontal gyrus for perceptual go/no-go decisions based on “what”, “when”, and “where” related information: an fMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neurosciences, 17(7):981–993.Tan L.H., Liu H.L., Perfetti C.A., Spinks J.A., Fox P.T., & Gao J.H. (2001). The neural system underlying Chinese logograph reading. NeuroImage, 13(5):836–846.Winskel, H. (2022). Script relativity hypothesis: Evidence from reading with different spatial layouts and varied lexical tones. Reading and Writing, 35(6):1323–1341.Woods C. (2010). The Earliest Mesopotamian Writing. In C. Woods, E. Teeter, & G. Emberling (Eds.), Visible language: inventions of writing in the ancient Middle East and beyond (pp. 33-84). Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
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    29 mins
  • 28. Di soggetti, verbi e allineamenti: ergatività per gente normale (o quasi)

    28. Di soggetti, verbi e allineamenti: ergatività per gente normale (o quasi)
    Jun 16 2025
    In questo episodio esploriamo il concetto di allineamento morfosintattico, ovvero i modi in cui le lingue del mondo codificano i rapporti tra verbo e argomenti interni. Parliamo di sistemi nominativo-accusativi, ergativo-assolutivi e di una cosa chiamata 'ergatività scissa', ma senza perderci eccessivamente nei tecnicismi (giuro).
    Diamo anche un’occhiata a fenomeni un po' strani che troviamo in italiano che, pur non rendendolo una lingua ergativa, mostrano comportamenti che ci fanno riflettere su cosa significhi davvero essere un “soggetto”.

    Grafiche: Gianluca La Bruna

    La sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.io

    FONTI:
    • Anderson, S. (1976). On the notion of subject in ergative languages. In C. Li (Ed.) Subject and topic (pp. 1-24). New York, NY: New York Academic Press.
    • Barðdal, J. & Eythórsson, T. (2009). The origin of the oblique-subject construction: An Indo-European comparison. In V. Bubenik, J. Hewson & S. Rose (Ed.), Grammatical Change in Indo-European Languages: Papers presented at the workshop on Indo-European Linguistics at the XVIIIth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Montreal, 2007 (pp. 179-193). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company
    • Belletti, A. & Rizzi, L. (1988), Psych verbs and theta theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6:291-352.
    • Bertoncin, C. (2006). Ergatività. Quaderni del laboratorio di linguistica, 6:1-13.
    • Breen, G. (2007). The grammar of Yalarnnga: a language of western Queensland. Canberra, ACT: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University.
    • Centineo, G. (1986). A lexical theory of auxiliary selection in Italian. Davis Working Papers in Linguistics, 1:1-35.
    • Comrie, B. (1978). Ergativity. In W.P. Lehmann (Ed.) Syntactic typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language (pp. 329-394). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
    • Coon, J. (2013). Aspects of split ergativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    • Creissels, D. (2010). Fluid intransitivity in Romance languages: a typological approach. Archivio Glottologico Italiano, 2:117-151.
    • DeLancey, S. (2004). The blue bird of ergativity. In S. Gildea, & F. Queixalós (Eds.) Ergativity in Amazonia, 3:1–15. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
    • Dixon, R.M.W. (1979). Ergativity. Language, 55(1): 59-138.
    • Dixon, R.M.W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
    • Dunn, V. & Meakins, F. (2023). Ergativity. In C. Bowern (Ed.), The Oxford guide to Australian languages (pp. 217–225). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    • Lonzi, L. (2009). Caratteri della cliticizzazione di ne. Rivista di grammatica generativa, 34:115-135
    • Loporcaro, M (2008). L’allineamento attivo-inattivo e il rapporto fra lessico e morfosintassi. In: M. Cresti (Ed.) Prospettive nello studio del lessico italiano: Atti del IX Congresso SILFI (Firenze, 14-17 giugno 2006) (pp. 311-320). Firenze: Firenze University Press.
    • Moravcsik, E.A. (1978). On the distribution of ergative and accusative patterns. Lingua 45:233–279.
    • Morgan, M.W. (2009a). Cross-linguistic typology of argument encoding in Sign Language verbal morphology. Paper presented at Association of Linguistic Typology, Berkeley.
    • Morgan, M.W. (2009b). Typology of Indian Sign Language Verbs from a Comparative Perspective. Annual Review of South Asian Languages and Linguistics (pp. 101-132). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
    • Sensini, M. (2009). La grammatica della lingua italiana. Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.
    • Tallerman, M. (2019). Understanding Syntax (5th ed.). Chapter 6. New York: Routledge
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    26 mins
  • 27. Lingue con consonanti che cliccano

    27. Lingue con consonanti che cliccano
    May 16 2025
    In questa puntata esploriamo le ganzissime lingue conosciute come “lingue clic”, un gruppo di idiomi parlati prevalentemente nell’Africa meridionale, noti per l’uso di suoni consonantici articolati tramite veri e propri schiocchi di lingua. Analizziamo i meccanismi fonetici di questi suoni così rari e ci interroghiamo su una suggestiva ipotesi evolutiva: è possibile che questi suoni risalgano alle origini stesse del linguaggio umano? (Spoiler: probabilmente no).

    Grafiche: Gianluca La Bruna

    La sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.io

    Fonti:
    • Bennett, W. (2020). Click Phonology. In B. Sands (Ed.) Click Consonants (pp. 115–116) Leiden; Boston: Brill.
    • Catford, J. C. (1997). The myth of the primordial click. In I. Hegedüs, V.V. Shevoroshkin, P. Michalove, &. A. Manaster–Ramer (Eds.), Indo-European, Nostratic and beyond (pp. 51-71) Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
    • Chen Y.S., Olckers A., Schurr T.G., Kogelnik A.M., Huoponen K., & Wallace D.C. (2000). mtDNA variation in the South African Kung and Khwe and their genetic relationships to other African populations. American Journal of Human Genetics, 66(4):1362–1383.
    • Güldemann T. (2007). Clicks, genetics, and ‘‘proto-world’’ from a linguistic perspective. University of Leipzig Papers on Africa, Languages and Literatures Series No. 29 (pp. 1-35). Leipzig: Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität Leipzig.
    • Güldemann T. & Stoneking M. (2008). A historical appraisal of clicks: a linguistic and genetic population perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology, 37:93–109.
    • Gxilishe, S. (2004). The Acquisition of Clicks by Xhosa-Speaking Children. Per Linguam, 20(2):1-12.
    • Hale K. & Nash D. (1997). Damin and Lardil phonotactics. In D. Tryon & M. Walsh (Eds.), Boundary rider: essays in honour of Geoffrey O'Grady (pp. 247-259). Pacific Linguistics.
    • Miller-Ockhuizen A. (2004). Evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of click consonants. Paper presented at the Sixteenth Annual Beckman Frontiers of Science Symposium, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 4–6 November. Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center, Irvine, California.
    • Sands B., & Güldemann T. (2009). What click languages can and can’t tell us about language origins. In R. Botha, & C.E. Knight (Eds), The Cradle of Language (pp. 204–218). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    • Tabain M. (2019). The phonetic properties of consonants. In W.F. Katz, & P.F. Assman The Routledge Handbook of phonetics (pp. 264-289). London/New York: Routledge. Taylor & Francis group.
    • Tishkoff S.A., Gonder M.K., Henn B.M., Mortensen H., Knight A., Gignoux C., Fernandopulle N., Lema G., Nyambo T.B., Ramakrishnan U., & Reed F.A. (2007). History of click-speaking populations of Africa inferred from mtDNA and Y chromosome genetic variation. Molecular biology and evolution, 24(10):2180-2195.
    • van Ginneken J. (1939). Les clics, les consonnes et les voyelles dans l’histoire de l’humanité. In E. Blancquaert & W. Pée (Eds.), Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (pp. 321-326). Ghent: Phonetic Laboratory of the University of Ghent.
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    21 mins
  • 26. La grammatica universale nella storia

    26. La grammatica universale nella storia
    Apr 16 2025
    In questa puntata esploriamo il concetto di grammatica universale, partendo dalla celebre formulazione di Noam Chomsky negli anni ’50, per poi intraprendere una panoramica storica che ne rivela radici ben più antiche.
    L’idea centrale è che esista una struttura innata e universale nella mente umana che rende possibile l’acquisizione del linguaggio, nonostante le evidenti differenze tra le lingue del mondo. Un concetto spesso attribuito esclusivamente a Chomsky, ma che in realtà affiora in diverse epoche e culture. Scopriremo insieme come molte intuizioni moderne fossero già presenti, in forme embrionali, nel pensiero di filosofi, grammatici e teologi del passato, e quanto la ricerca di una grammatica universale abbia attraversato e influenzato l’intera storia del pensiero occidentale.

    Grafiche: Gianluca La Bruna

    La sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.io

    Fonti:
    • Aarsleff, H. (1969). The state of nature and the nature of man in Locke. In: J.W. Yolton (Ed.) John Locke: Problems and perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 99-136.
    • Baskin, W., Meisel, P. & Saussy, H. (2011). Course in general linguistics. New York: Columbia University Press.
    • Cardona, G. (1997) [1976]. Pāṇini: A Survey of Research. Motilal Banarsidass.
    • Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.
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    25 mins
  • 25. Gesti: output visivo nella nostra cognizione?

    25. Gesti: output visivo nella nostra cognizione?
    Mar 16 2025
    In questa puntata esploriamo il ruolo dei gesti nella comunicazione umana, approfondendo il campo dei gesture studies. Studi scientifici hanno infatti dimostrato che gesti e linguaggio verbale sono strettamente collegati, rappresentando due espressioni dello stesso processo cognitivo. Questo ha portato alcuni ricercatori a ipotizzare un’origine gestuale del linguaggio, suggerendo che la facoltà del linguaggio possa essersi evoluta proprio a partire dai gesti!Grafiche: Gianluca La Bruna La sigla è stata prodotta da White Hot e fornita da https://freebeats.ioFonti:Arbib M.A. (2005). From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28:105–124.Bavelas J., Gerwing J., Sutton C., & Prevost D. (2008). Gesturing on the telephone: Independent effects of dialogue and visibility. Journal of Memory and Language, 58:495–520.Bull P.E. (1987). Posture and gesture. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Clements R.L., & Rady A.M. (2012). Urban Physical Education: Instructional Practices and Cultural Activities. Human Kinetics, 12.Condillac E.B. de (1971). An essay on the origin of human knowledge (1756). In R.G. Weyant (Ed.) Facsimile reproduction of the translation of Thomas Nugent. Delmar, NY: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints.Corballis M. C. (1992). On the evolution of language and generativity. Cognition, 44(3):197–226.Corballis M.C. (2017). A word in the hand: the gestural origins of language. In M. Mody (Ed.) Neural mechanisms of language. Innovations in cognitive neuroscience (199–218) Boston, MA: Springer.Ekman P., & Friesen W.V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1:49–98.Finlayson S., Forrest V., Lickley R. & Beck J. (2003) Effects of the restriction of hand gestures on disfluency., Proceedings of Diss, Gothenburg Papers in Theoretical Linguistics, vol. 90, pp. 21-24.Fonagy P. & Target M. (2007). The rooting of the mind in the body: New links between attachment theory and psychoanalytic thought. Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association, 55(2):411–456.Goldin-Meadow S., & Butcher C. (2003). Pointing toward two-word speech in young children. In S. Kita (Ed.) Pointing: Where language, culture, and cognition meet (pp. 85–107). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Gullberg M. (1998). Gesture as a communication strategy in second language discourse: A study of learners of French and Swedish. Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press.Gullberg M. (2006). Some reasons for studying gesture and second language acquisition (Hommage à Adam Kendon). International Review of Applied Linguistics, 44(2), 103-124.Iverson J.M. & Goldin-Meadow S. (1997). What's communication got to do with it: gesture in children blind from birth. Developmental Psychology (33):453–467.Jacobs N., & Garnham A. (2007). The role of conversational hand gestures in a narrative task. Journal of Memory and Language, 56, 291–303.Kendon A. (1980). Gesticulation and speech: two aspects of the process of utterance. In M.R. Key (Ed.) The relationship of verbal and nonverbal communication (pp. 207-227). The Hague: Moutob and co.Kendon A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. New York: Cambridge University Press.Kendon A. (2007). On the origins of modern gesture studies. In S.D. Duncan, J. Cassell, E.T. Levy (Eds.) Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language (pp. 13–28). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins.Kendon A. (2017). Pragmatic functions of gestures. Gesture, 16(2):157–175.Krauss R.K, Chen Y., & Gottesman R.F. (2000). Lexical gestures and lexical access: A process model. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp.261–283). New York: Cambridge University Press.Lakoff G. & Johnson M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York, NY: Basic Books.Levelt W.J.M. (1983). Monitoring and self-repair in speech. Cognition, 14:41-104.Levy F. (2012). Mirror neurons, birdsong, and human language: a hypothesis. Frontiers in psychiatry, 2, 78.Mayberry R.I., & Jaques J. (2000). Gesture production during stuttered speech: insights into the nature of gesture-speech integration. In D. McNeill (Ed.) Language and Gesture, (pp. 199–214). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Mayberry R.I., & Nicoladis E. (2000). Gesture reflects language development: Evidence from bilingual children. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9:192–196.McNeill D. (1985). So you think gestures are nonverbal? Psychological Review, 92:271–295.McNeill D. (1987). Psycholinguistics: a new approach. New York: Harper and Row.McNeill D. (1992). Hand and mind: What the hands reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.McNeill D. (2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Quintiliano, Institutio oratoria.Rizzolatti G., Camarda R., Fogassi L., Gentilucci M., Luppino G. & Matelli M. (1988). Functional organization of inferior area 6 in the ...
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    26 mins