Abstract
I will assume here an approach to the study of language that takes the object of inquiry to be an internal property of persons, a subcomponent of (mostly) the brain that is dedicated specifically to language: the human “Faculty of Language” (FL), to adapt a traditional term to a new context. This “biolinguistic approach” was controversial when it took shape almost half a century ago, and remains so, but without warrant, in my opinion. A stronger thesis is that the biolinguistic approach has a kind of privileged status, in that every constructive approach to human language and its use presupposes it, or something similar, at least tacitly. That, too, seems to me tenable, but I will not pursue the issue here.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Structures and beyond |
Subtitle of host publication | the Cartography of Syntactic Structures: Volume 3 |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 104-131 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Volume | 3 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780197722503 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780195171976 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2023 |
Keywords
- approach
- controversial
- language
- opinion
- subcomponent
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Arts and Humanities
- General Social Sciences