Form and function

[Dan Everett]

Wallace Chafe wrote:
>
> I find it harder to characterize the beliefs and goals of "formalists",
> but they seem to believe that linguistic form has been wired into the
> human brain through mysterious processes of evolution, and they see it as
> their goal to invent some kind of complex machinery that will be able to
> deal with (describe?) that form, independently of the cognitive, social,
> and historical forces that attract functionalists.  It's evidently this
> philosophical stance that seems to exempt formalists from the empirical
> responsibility that's been the topic of much of this discussion.  If this
> is an unfair caricature, I'd be glad to be set straight.
>
> Wally Chafe

Wally,

I cannot understand why abductive attempts to discover or propose models
of phenomena that were hardwired in by evolution would be a
'philosophical stance' conducive to empirical irresponsibility. If so,
one would think that your criticism would have also applied to the work
of Watson & Crick. It is just wrong to think that formalists have little
concern with empirical responsibility. MANY DO. But the same lack of
concern can be found across the discipline and across the social
sciences and humanities, as tendencies to 'invent' terms become more
popular than slow, careful research. No group, it seems to me, has a
monopoly on responsibility or irresponsibility. And why would belief in
evolution lead anyone towards irresponsibility?

That said, I agree with you that there are forces at work in the
formation of grammars which formalism cannot get at. But there are
always things that no theory can explain well. That doesn't make the
theory anti data.

Best,

Dan