Culture trumps biology in language development, study argues

[ejp10]

I have not had a chance to read the article in detail, but my comment is that I think most reasonable Chomskyan linguists would admit that language has a cultural component. I speak English and not Chinese because I was raised in an English speaking environment and not in a Chinese language environment. Similarly, the patterns in an earlier stage of English will strongly determine the patterns of a later stage.

On the other hand, the notion that biology is also not involved does seem reasonable to me either. There are certain trends found in all human  languages. For instance although humans are capable of barking like dogs, meowing like cats or squaking like dolphins, these have not been found as part of any language. Instead all spoken languages are essentially formed from vowels and consonants (with some other options like tones and clicks). You can also make other generalizations about size of vocabulary, trends in child language acquisition and trends in historical evolution. Even signed languages follow many of the patterns of syntax found in spoken languages. 

Returning to historical change, a language family may be primarily set with one set of parameter, but even from Dunn's chart it does appear that if one parameter changes in a particular subbranch, the other parameter will also change in parallel. This IS what Greenburg and Chomsky would predict. The percentage of counter exceptions is surprisingly small in this sample.

Elizabeth





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