Evolution, and 'functional' + 'social'

[Daniel Everett]

Ole,

Nope. No correction. This quote shows the same point I raised in my
earlier posting. Recall that I said that Chomsky explicitly claimed
exactly this kind of thing. However, neither he nor anyone else in the
theory would ever allow these functional considerations to be causally
implicated (and that phrase, which I have repeated frequently, is key)
in the statement of any constraint, rule, principle, or parameter.
There could never be, for example, a 'Topic first parameter' (unless it
was stated in terms of morphosyntactic, nonfunctional features, in
which  case 'topic' would be a mnemonic label, nothing more).

So it can in fact be irritating to read Chomsky say exactly what people
seriously interested in functional constraints on syntactic form
already know, while otherwise denying (in word and deed) that it could
have anything whatsoever to do with the theory.

As George Lakoff and others pointed out years ago, the exclusion of
function from syntax (a concept Chomsky denies ever having made use of,
namely, 'autonomous syntax') is *forced* on Chomskyan theory by its
view of innatism. If, for example, function (semantics, pragmatics,
processing, etc.) could be causally implicated in the rules that
linguists write, it could be causally implicated in L1 acquistion. But
that latter implication must never be drawn, because it would
effectively eliminate the need for a Language Acquisition Device (or,
in the extremely unfortunate phrasing underscored by a recent book of
the same name, a "language organ"). And that is ultimate nonnegotiable
of the theory.

Let me repeat then: Chomsky will often in informal exchanges allow that
function, semantics, etc. (all apple-pie and motherhood sounding) is
perhaps behind what we see today. But he will never allow it in the
theory at all.

Current Minimalism supposedly has done away with movement, with
distinct levels of structure, transformations (in some sense), etc. But
it must always maintain that which Chomsky says it has never included,
namely, *autonomous* syntax. That is the sine qua non of the research
programme.

It is interesting of course, to see how far one can go writing rules,
constraints, etc, in terms of morphological features. But doing this
and claiming that function may play a role (in some mysterious past) is
having your apple pie and eating it too.

No, the New York Review of Books cover reference to John Searle's
articles on Chomsky got it right -  in 'Chomsky's Thermidor' (and I
ain't talking lobster - think French Revolution) Searle correctly
pointed out that Chomskyan theory was a good idea, it just didn't pan
out.

Frankly, I expect future generations to compare Chomsky and Freud as
two pioneers in the study of mind who got us all to think about things
that were exciting, challenging, and important, just bizarrely wrong.

But I cannot think of many things I have been long-term right about
either, so that is probably not a serious indictment (and I don't think
up things as grand as 'Oedipal complex' or 'Covert movement'. I am
lucky to figure out what a single morpheme means in a language I am
studying).

Dan



On Friday, December 13, 2002, at 08:30  am, Ole Nedergaard Thomsen
wrote:

> Dear Dan,
>
> A correction concerning the Minimalist Program, cf. e.g. Noam
> Chomsky's New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind, CUP, 2000,
> p. 12
> f.:
>       "The displacement property of human language is expressed in terms
> of grammatical transformations or by some other device, but it is
> always
> expressed somehow. Why language should have this property is an
> interesting question, which has been discussed since the 1960s without
> resolution. My suspicion is that part of the reason has to do with
> phenomena that have been described in terms of surface structure
> interpretation; many of these are familiar from traditional grammar:
> topic-comment, specificity, new and old information, the agentive force
> that we find even in displaced position, and so on. If that is correct,
> then the displacement property is, indeed, forced by legibility
> conditions: it is motivated by interpretive requirements that are
> externally imposed by our systems of thought, which have these special
> properties (so the study of language use indicates). (...)"
>
> That is, the formal features are where they are to satisfy language
> use!
>
>
> Ole
> ----------------------------------------
> Ole Nedergaard Thomsen
> Dept. of General and Applied Linguistics
> University of Copenhagen
> Njalsgade 80
> DK-2300 Copenhagen S
> Denmark
> ----------------------------------------
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Daniel Everett wrote:
********************
Dan Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 5660 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/funknet/attachments/20021213/686bf0b5/attachment.bin>