1887
What Counts as Evidence in Linguistics?: The case of innateness
  • ISSN 0378-4177
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9978
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Abstract

I argue that the following two assumptions are incorrect: (i) The properties of the innate Universal Grammar can be discovered by comparing language systems, and (ii) functional explanation of language structure presupposes a “correct”, i.e. cognitively realistic, description. Thus, there are two ways in which linguistic explanation does not presuppose linguistic description. The generative program of building cross-linguistic generalizations into the hypothesized Universal Grammar cannot succeed because the actually observed generalizations are typically one-way implications or implicational scales, and because they typically have exceptions. The cross-linguistic generalizations are much more plausibly due to functional factors. I distinguish sharply between “phenomenological description” (which makes no claims about mental reality) and “cognitively realistic description”, and I show that for functional explanation, phenomenological description is sufficient.

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/content/journals/10.1075/sl.28.3.06has
2004-01-01
2025-02-13
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  • Article Type: Research Article
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