Biological Localization of Merge with Wh-words in the Silk Scrolls of Tao Te Ching
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Ma Daoshan, Department of English, School of Humanities, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin, China.
This thesis deals with the merge of wh-words in the silk scrolls of Tao Te Ching, unearthed at Mawangdui, Changsha, divided into 2 volumes of Te Ching and Tao Ching (or Dao Ching), which may be regarded as a revealing of the language use in Western Han at the year of 206 BC- 25 AD. Different from the bamboo slips of Tao Te Ching, there are altogether 22 wh-questions in the silk scrolls of Tao Te Ching, among which 7 wh-questions carry a question particle with them at the end of the sentence. These question particles are not merged in internal grammar as complementizers, instead they are sentence affixes attached to the end of the sentences in the externalization at the sensorimotor interface. FOXP2 is not responsible for the internalized language faculty, instead this regulatory gene is involved in the secondary externalization of merge at the sensorimotor interface. Merge, as the basic property of language and a biological object, as well as the central neuronal computational operation and a recycled cognitive procedure that is motivated by biological considerations, recursively operated to constitute the finite yet unbounded system of language, is localized in Brodmann Area 44, which is part of the Broca’s area. The externalization of Merge and the attachment of the mood particles to C at the end of the sentence are both regulated by the FOXP2 gene at the sensorimotor interface, though FOXP2 is not involved in the merge operation in internal grammar. The internal and external merge of the wh-words in the silk scrolls of Tao Te Ching is biologically localized in Brodmann Area 44.
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