Unlocking the secret sounds of language

[jess tauber]

Universal Grammar? UG(h)!

There may be a universal supergrammar, but my own guess is that it will be quite a bit vaster than Chomsky envisions, with myriad typological interconnections, not merely linear, but some cyclic as well (thus no particular origin point). Chomsky has nothing to say about how sound symbolism, ideophones, etc. are to be dealt with, or much about pragmatics, or grammaticalization, etc. The situation reminds me very much of that of physics before the discovery of radioactivity, which opened up a whole new world. So sure were physicists that they had discovered all that there was to discover that prospective students were being warned off. The story of the drunk looking for his keys under the lamp also comes to mind...

In a cyclic system, utilizing fixed processing resources, no language is more or less advanced than any other- just at different points in a hierarchical chain that only SEEMS linear when you don't look at the entire picture. I'm sure both structuralists and functionalists will object to different parts of this scenario. So language A doesn't seem to have trait B- so what? It may have trait C which language D lacks. Maybe speakers of D overvalue its traits and assume universality, and  try to force square pegs into round holes by various means.

So everyone has to be just like us? Sounds like the UG-ly American syndrome to me.

Jess Tauber