universals, innateness & Chomsky

[A. Katz]

On June 22, 2004 Tom Givon wrote:

>2. Universals, innateness and evolution: So far as I can tell, there has
>been only two serious traditional explanation proposed for universals,
>not only of language but also of mind and, indeed, of biological design:
>(i) The Divine; (ii) Evolution. For the peculiar band of non-religious
>relativists that sprang in academic linguistics and anthropology one
>could concede a third one: (iii) Randomness. But, you surely agree, this
>is not much of an explanation. So, if you are not inclined to invoked
>either the Deity (i) or Randomess (iii) as serious scientific
>explanations, and if you recognize at least some  universals of
>language, you have no choice but to concede some  innatenes,
>neurological specialization, genetic encoding--and evolution. You simply
>can't buy one without buying the others. They come together, package
>deal.

Actually, if we distinguish the emergence of language from the evolution
of the anatomy of those who use language, there is a fourth explanation:
some language universals may be dictated by the nature of the universe:
there are physical rules regarding the organization and transmission of
information. Those rules apply whether the information is being
transmitted by a biological entity, like a human, or a mechanical device,
such as a computer, or even by lower level entities such as the
chemical subunits of genetic code.

Once we take the universal origin of some universals into account, their
presence makes the argument in favor of biological innateness far weaker.
Whether the languages we use are hard-wired, partially or totally, or
learned and even to some extent designed by the contributions of
individual speakers is not deducible from those features of language that
any code for the transmission of information must have.

That indeterminately complex messages may be composed from a small number
of subunits and a limited set of patterns for their
configuration is true of human language, computer code, and DNA code, for
instance.

By the way, not all design is of divine origin, so that the dichotomy of
the Deity versus Evolution is a false forced choice. When we examine
computer code, we don't have to choose between the theory of its divine
origin and the idea that it evolved naturally.


Best,


      --Aya Katz

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