teorya ni skinner pinker and chomsky

1. Skinner
Skinner on Language Acquisition
Another leading theorist pertaining to language acquisition is B. F. Skinner, a man who opposes Chomsky's linguistic theory with
his behaviorist approach. Skinner believes that beahvior explains the speaker's verbal activity as an effect of environmental
contingencies: audience response. Via operant conditioning, behaviorists such as Skinner have shown that techniques of positive
reinforcement shape the repertoires of individual behaviors; reinforcement of appropriate grammar and language would therefore
lead to a child's acquisition of language and grammar.
Chomsky devalued Skinner's proposal that "It is hardly possible to argue that science has advanced only for repudiating
hypotheses concerning 'internal states.' " Skinner retaliated by proclaiming that scientists must research this internal states of they
prove to be "the only useful guide to further research." For many years, Chomsky and other notable professors questioned the
validity of Skinner's thoughts but he declined from refuting their criticism; thus, many proclaimed Skinner to be about 35 years
behind his time and labeled him as one of the "psychologist nuts."
Skinner's Theory of Language Development
By Walter Johnson, eHowContributor , last updated November 09, 2011
Skinner's Theory of Language Development
B.F. Skinner's theory of language development is no different from his general theory of behaviorism. It is a simple theory based,
like all of Skinner's work, around a structure of rewards and punishments, each reinforcing certain types of behavior as good or
bad. People begin to repeat actions that lead to pleasure and avoid actions that lead to pain. This is called "conditioning," which
is the same thing as creating a habit.
Behaviorism
Skinner's theory of behaviorism is central to his view of language. Human beings define right and wrong relative to their
conditioned experienced of pleasure and pain, respectively. A certain action, if it receives a painful response, will be avoided,
while those with a pleasurable response, or a reward, will be considered good. Human behavior is totally conditioned by this
pleasure/pain nexus. Behavior, then, is the creation of habits—a habit is developed with an action, done repeatedly, that receives
a reward of some kind. Language is no different.
Features
Children begin to speak ―nonsense‖ words, or babble. None of these are provided with any reward. As soon as the child begins to
mimic the language of his parents, the interest of the parent is piqued. The result is that children, when they speak a recognizable
word, are rewarded by their parents. As a result, those words and phrases are remembered and the nonsense words (that get no
attention) are forgotten.
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Benefits

2. Skinner's theory is extremely simple and easy to apply. This is its main benefit. People do respond to rewards, especially over
time, and become habituated to those actions that have lead to praise. This simplicity makes performing research and
understanding behavior very easy. Humans are merely animals responding to external stimuli only.
Problems
Skinner has had his share of critics. Problems with Skinner's theory of language development are substantial. Skinner does not
take into consideration the complexity of grammar, which cannot be explained through mere imitation of parents. Even more,
children often have a hard time imitating the complex sounds of their parents in the first place. Writers like N. Chomsky hold that
biological necessity is a better explanation for language development. Chomsky's view, to put it simply, is that human beings
need language to cooperate and therefore survive. Therefore, the human mind is already wired to receive language.
Effects
Skinner's theory reduces human beings to mere machines, or at best, bundles of nerve endings responding to external rewards and
punishments. Most of the criticism of Skinner, and Chomsky included, have considered his approach exceptionally simplistic and
unable to explain the complex reasons and ideas of humans.
theories of Language Development
The Learning Perspective
The Learning perspective argues that children imitate what they see and hear,and that children
learn from punishment and reinforcement.(Shaffer,Wood,& Willoughby,2002).
The main theorist associated with the learning perspective is B.F. Skinner. Skinner argued that
adults shape the speech of children by reinforcing the babbling of infants that sound most like
words. (Skinner,1957,as cited in Shaffer,et.al,2002).
The Nativist Perspective
The nativist perspective argues that humans are biologically programmed to gainknowledge.The
main theorist associated with this perspective is Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky proposed that all humans have a language acqusition device (LAD). The LAD
contains knowledge of grammatical rules common to all languages (Shaffer,et.al,2002).The
LAD also allows children to understand the rules of whatever language they are listening
to.Chomsky also developed the concepts of transformational grammar, surface structure,and
deep structure.
Transformational grammar is grammar that transforms a sentence. Surface structures are words
that are actually written. Deep structure is the underlying message or meaning of a sentence.

3. (Matlin,2005).
Interactionist Theory
Interactionists argue that language development is both biological and social. Interactionists
argue that language learning is influenced by the desire of children to communicate with others.
The Interactionists argue that "children are born with a powerful brain that matures slowly and
predisposes them to acquire new understandings that they are motivated to share with others" (
Bates,1993;Tomasello,1995, as cited in shaffer,et al.,2002,p.362).
The main theorist associated with interactionist theory is Lev Vygotsky.Interactionists focus on
Vygotsky's model of collaborative learning ( Shaffer,et al.,2002). Collaborative learning is the
idea that conversations with older people can help children both cognitively and linguistically (
Shaffer,et.al,2002).
There is perhaps nothing more remarkable than the emergence of language in children. Have
you ever marveled at how a child can go from saying just a few words to suddenly producing
full sentences in just a short matter of time? Researchers have found that language development
begins before a child is even born, as a fetus is able to identify the speech and sound patterns of
the mother's voice. By the age of four months, infants are able to discriminate sounds and even
read lips.
Researchers have actually found that infants are able to distinguish between speech sounds from
all languages, not just the native language spoken in their homes. However, this ability
disappears around the age of 10 months and children begin to only recognize the speech sounds
of their native language. By the time a child reaches age three, he or she will have a vocabulary
of approximately 3,000 words.
Theories of Language Development
So how exactly does language development happen? Researchers have proposed several
different theories to explain how and why language development occurs. For example, the
behaviorist theory of B.F. Skinner suggests that the emergence of language is the result of
imitation and reinforcement. The nativist theory of Noam Chomsky suggests that language in an
inherent human quality and that children are born with a language acquisition device that allows
them to produce language once they have learned the necessary vocabulary.
How Parents Facilitate Language Development
Researchers have found that in all languages, parents utilize a style of speech with infants known
as infant-directed speech, or motherese (aka "baby talk"). If you've every heard someone speak
to a baby, you'll probably immediately recognize this style of speech. It is characterized by a
higher-pitched intonation, shortened or simplified vocabulary, shortened sentences and
exaggerated vocalizations or expressions. Instead of saying "Let's go home," a parent might
instead say "Go bye-bye."
Infant-directed speech has been shown to be more effective in getting an infant's attention as
well as aiding in language development. Researchers believe that the use of motherese helps
babies learn words faster and easier. As children continue to grow, parents naturally adapt their
speaking patterns to suit their child's growing linguistic skills.

4. "The principles and rules of grammar are the means by which the forms of language are made to
correspond with the universal froms of thought....The structures of every sentence is a lesson in
logic."
—John Stuart Mill
BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF LANGUAGE
"[H]uman knowledge is organized de facto by linguistic competence through language
performance, and our exploration of reality is always mediated by language". Most higher
vertebrates possess ?intuitive knowledge? which occurs as the result of slow evolution of
species. However, the ability to create knowledge through language is unique to humans.
According to Benjamin Whorf, "language?.is not merely a reproducing instrument from voicing
ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas?. We dissect nature along lines laid down by
language" (Joseph 249). In addition, the development and acquisition of language seems to be
related to "complex sequential processing, and the ability to form concepts and to classify a
single stimulus in a multiple manner" (Joseph 178). AntioneDanchin suggests that the
knowledge we create through language allows us distinguish ourselves from the rest of the world
to produce models of reality, which become more and more adequate due to the "self-referent
loop" which enables us to understand ourselves as objects under study. This "path from subject
to object," which is common to all humans, Danchin claims, suggests the existence of a
universal feature of language
Biological foundation of language may contribute significantly to such universality. The issue
here is not whether language is innate, for, clearly, language must be learned. Nor is the issue
whether the aptitude for learning a language is inborn: it takes a human being, with a functional
brain to learn a tongue. The question to explore is whether there is biological foundation at the
root of organization and internal structure of language.
The scholars considering spoken language acquisition have divided over internal and external
causation dichotomy. Two prototypical models of language acquisition are "selectivist" and
"constructivist" models, respectively. The selectivist model, which depends on internal causation
argument, can be associated with Noam Chomsky. The selectivist model assumes that "language
template is pre-organized in the neuronal structure of the brain, so that the fact of being an
integral part of a given environment selects the borders of each individual neuronal structure,
without affecting its fine organization, which pre-exists" (Danchin 30). The constructivist
model, which assumes external causation of language acquisition, follows lines drawn by
behaviorists such as Piaget and Skinner. This model assumes that "language is built up
constantly from a continuous interaction with a well-structured environment"
NOAM CHOMSKY'S VIEW ON LANGUAGE
Noam Chomsky basic argument is that there exists an innate language acquisition device, a
neural program that prepares them to learn language (Kandel 638). Chomsky assumes the
existence of a genetically determined system of rules, which he refers to as universal grammar,
underlying all tongues. According to Chomsky, a language template is set up by the special
"language organ" of the brain. Chomsky does not deny that the importance of environmental
factors in language acquisition. His claim is that there exist strict biological invariants governing

5. the function of language. In explanation of his theory on the ontogenesis of spoken language,
Chomsky holds there pre-exists in humans, a language structure that is
one of the faculties of the mind, common to the species,?a faculty of language that serves the
two basic functions of rationalist theory: it provides a sensory system for the preliminary
analysis of linguistic data, and a schematism that determines, quite narrowly, a certain class of
grammars. Each grammar is a theory of a particular language, specifying oral and semantic
properties of an infinite array of sentences. These sentences, each with its particular structure,
constitute the language generated by the grammar. The languages so generated are those that can
be "learned" in the normal way?. This knowledge can then be used to understand what is heard
and to produce discourse as an expression of thought within the constraints of the internalized
principles, in a manner appropriate to situations as these are conceived by other mental faculties,
free of stimulus control
B.F. SKINNER'S VIEW ON LANGUAGE
Behaviorists view the process of language acquisition as a building process that results from
interaction with the environment. In outlining his assertion that humans acquire spoken language
as a result of behavioral conditioning. B.F. Skinner writes:
A child acquires verbal behavior when relatively unpattterned vocalizations, selectively
reinforced, gradually assume forms which produce appropriate consequences in a given verbal
community. In formulating this process we do not feed to mention stimuli occurring prior to the
behavior to be reinforced. It is difficult, if not impossible, to discover stimuli which evoke
specific vocal responses in the young child. There is no stimulus which makes a child say b or a
or e, as one may make him salivate by placing a lemon drop in his mouth or make his pupils
contract by shining a light into his eyes. The raw responses from which verbal behavior is
constructed are not "elicited." In order to reinforce a given response we simply wait until it
occurs.
Skinner views the child as the "passive subject of operant conditioning in whom randomly
occurring behavior is selectively reinforced"
Skinner's seminal work, Verbal Behaviour (1957), begins with a chapter called, "A functional
analysis of verbal behaviour". However, you should be aware that his theory is very far from the
functional, or sociocultural, approach to language, which is followed in this subject. You will
also become aware that the antecedents of the sociocultural approach to language which
underpin this subject, preceded the work of B. F. Skinner by several decades. Nevertheless, this
section begins with an introduction to B. F. Skinner's theory of language as 'verbal behaviour'
(1957). This is partly because his learning theory was transposed into language teaching
methodologies prior to that transposition of the work of linguistic anthropologists and linguists
to language pedagogies; and partly because Skinner's theory has had such definite, and enduring,
influences on language teaching. The residual echoes of his theory can be heard every time one
of us mentions 'positive reinforcement' (or 'negative reinforcement', for that matter) and his
theory is operational every time one of us includes a teaching practice which begins with drills
and grammar study decontextualised from meaning. Skinner rejected the very idea of 'meaning'.
Skinner's view of 'meaning' can be seen in his comment which follows:
As Jespersen [a significant linguist and grammarian whose major work, Language, was
published in 1922] said many years ago, "The only unimpeachable definition of a word is that it
is a human habit." Unfortunately, he felt it necessary to add, "an habitual act on the part of one
human individual which has, or may have, the effect of evoking some idea in the mind of

6. another individual." Similarly, Betrand Russell asserts that "just as jumping is one class of
movement...so the word 'dog' is [another] class," but he adds that words differ from other classes
of bodily movements because they have "meaning". In both cases something has been added to
an objective description (Skinner 1957: 13).
Chomsky VS Skinner
There are two basic theories for language acquisition. Noam Chomsky’s theory,
which is believed people have a basic pattern of learning language inside of their
brain since they were born. On the other hand, B. F. Skinner’s theory which is
believed people have to be taught how to speak by someone for language acquisition. I
mostly agree with Chomsky theory and partly Skinner theory. People usually don’t
remember how they learned to speak, but everybody speaks their first language
without any problems. Some Children even speak more than two languages naturally.
Language is a unique system which only humans have. However, if it’s correct rules
or grammars of language people might have to study. There also seems to be critical
period for learning language.
People speak their language without studying. It means people already have an ability
of language pattern in their brain. When I was in elementary school there were
Japanese classes. I studied writing and reading but not speaking. I could already
speak Japanese. I have a two year old niece. She has already started speaking. Of
course she has never studied. So, people must have some kind of language ability
innately.
According to an article I saw in kccesl.tripod.com, Chomsky says “human brain
contains a language acquisition device (LAD) which automatically analyzes the
components of speech a child hears.” I support this theory. The human brain has
special function, unlikely other animals. That’s why only humans speak languages.
Learning language for a human is very easy because the human brain already
contains ability of language, so even children start to speak language naturally in
their early age.
People in young age are very easy to acquire more than two languages at same time.
Even if those languages are very different, and their parents don’t speak those
languages. It also proves people must have an ability to function in any language
innately.
In contrast theory, there is a very famous case. A girl, Genie, was language got
deprived during her critical period, which is considered to be between 4 and 12, of
learning first language, and she couldn’t acquire her language skill normally even
though she studied. This fact supports B. F. Skinner’s theory. However, this is a very
unusual case. She might not have only language problem, but even mental problem
since she was locked in a room for 13 years. There is also a proof that Genie was
about speak without studying right after she was locked up. “since her mother
reported that she heard Genie saying words right after she was locked up” from THE
CIVILIZING OF GENIE by MAYA PINES.
Since Genie’s case was discovered, Chomsky added to his theory that “the innate
mechanisms that underlie this competence must be activated by exposure to language
at the proper time” from THE CIVILIZING OF GENIE by MAYA PINES. This
theory got little closer to B. F Skinner’s theory. Even young children speak language
without learning, but they often make mistakes in their speech. While they are
growing, their number of mistakes in their speech decreases. They are learning how

7. to speak, so in this case some part of Skinner’s theory is also correct.
Similarly, learning second language for people in older age supports Skinner’s theory.
People have to keep learning language to improve their second language. It hardly
ever gets perfect because people have to learn all rules and structures from beginning
which don’t apply to their first language. If we have learning language system
innately, why can’t we easily adjust to speak another language? We can’t apply
Chomsky’s theory at all in this case.
In conclusion, until people reach critical period of learning language, people learn
their language automatically without being taught because of their innate ability of
language. Furthermore, if there are more than two languages which children hear,
children will be able to acquire both of them at the same time. Nevertheless, the
ability of language has to be activated in the first place by something. Otherwise,
people never begin to acquire their language. Once people past the critical period, it is
hard to learn any language. Thereby, people in older age usually have problem
learning second language. Both Chomsky’s and Skinner’s theories are correct in
different cases and language acquisition system works with both of them together.
What's in a sound?
We define speech sounds in terms of their descriptive
features and use these features to classify the sound
according to the source of the sound in the vocal tract
and the shape of the vocal tract.
Speech sounds can be classified as either vowels or
consonants.
Consonants: The air does not flow freely
Vowels: Lets air flow freely, shape of vocal tract is
altered to create different sounds.
Consonants are classified by:
1) Voicing
2) Manner of production For a more detailed description of
phonology and sounds click the link
3) Place of articulation below. You can click on the tables
and click the symbols to hear how
each sounds. It is neat!
1) Voiced vs. Unvoiced IPA Chart

8. Voiced: A voiced sound is when the vocal folds vibrate
which feels like a buzzing sensation in the throat. Such
sounds could be 'v' and 'z'. These sounds can be either
hummed or sung.
Example: Put your fingers on the front of your throat
and say 'v'.
Unvoiced: Unvoiced sounds do not cause the vocal
folds to vibrate, instead, the unvoiced sounds are
produced typically by turbulence also know as airstream
friction. This friction produces a hissing sound and is Something very interesting is how
produced when air is forced through a small gap such as children all share common
between the teeth and tongue. Such sounds include 'f' phonological processes and errors.
and 's'. Ex: stopping, voicing, consonant
cluster reduction, etc. To learn more
Example: Put your fingers on the front of your throat
about the errors and processes
and say 'F' and then compare it to 'V'.
children go through, I highly
Feel the difference?? encourage you to click the link
below and take a look at a site by
Caroline Bowen.
Here are some pairs of voiced/unvoiced sounds: Caroline Bowen's site
b/p, v/f, d/t, g/k, z/s.
2) Manner of production
stops- air flow stopped completely ex: p, k, d
fricatives: flow restricted but not stopped ex: f, v, s
affricates: stop then fricative ex: ch, dj
glides: w, j
liquids: r, l
nasals: n, m
3) Place of articulation
Bilabial: lips together: b, p, m
Labiodental: lip to teeth: f, v
Interdental: tongue between teeth: 'th' in that and 'th' in
thin

9. Alveolar: tip of tongue on alveolar ridge: z, t, d
Palatal: tongue on palate: r, dj, gh
Velar: roll tongue to back of throat: k, ng (sing), g
Glottal: back bottom of throat: h
What are the main aspects we are dealing with here?
Phonology Pragmatics
Phonology is the study of sounds in a language. Pragmatics is the study of the use of
language. Deals with the intentions
Phoneme: the basic unit of sound. behind the utterances.
Syntax
Semantics Syntax is the study of the structure
of language and how words can be
Semantics is the study of the meaning of language formed to create gramatically correct
sentences.
Morpheme: The smallest unit of sound to carry
meaning.
Theories of language and mind
Pinker is known within psychology for his theory of language acquisition, his research on the
syntax, morphology, and meaning of verbs, and his criticism of connectionist (neural network)
models of language. In The Language Instinct (1994) he popularized Noam Chomsky's work on
language as an innate faculty of mind, with the twist that this faculty evolved by natural
selection as a Darwinian adaptation for communication, although both ideas remain
controversial (see below). He also defends the idea of a complex human nature which comprises
many mental faculties that are adaptive (and is an ally of Daniel Dennett and Richard
Dawkins in many disputes surrounding adaptationism). Another major theme in Pinker's theories
is that human cognition works, in part, by combinatorial symbol-manipulation, not just
associations among sensory features, as in many connectionist models.
Language Instinct? Gradualistic Natural Selection is not a good enough explanation
[now see also:Ascent of Intelligence and How Children acquire Language]

10. Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct was a comprehensive and ambitious attempts to account
for the origin of language. It approached the topic from within the Chomskyan framework
(Chomskyan linguists have generally remained silent about language evolution). Language, he
said, was not a cultural artifact but a distinct piece of the biological make up of the brain. We
would all agree that a biological and essentially evolutionary approach is desirable, though
'language instinct' already begs many questions. Chomsky's concept of Universal Grammar is
well known: the brain must contain a recipe or program that can build an unlimited number of
sentences from a finite list of words; the program may be called a mental grammar; children -
'grammatical geniuses' - must innately be equipped with a plan common to the grammars of all
languages that tells them how to extract the syntactic patterns from the speech of their parents.
However Pinker did not share Chomsky's scepticism about whether Darwinian natural selection
can explain the origins of the language organ. This paper seeks to identify where, at a number of
important points, Pinker's account seems unsatisfactory, for example: the idea that language
could have developed, like the eye, by minute steps, under the pressure of natural selection, the
idea that eventually neuroscientists will be able to locate a 'language organ', or behavioural
geneticists discover a grammar gene, the postulation of a uniform distinct language of thought,
mentalese, to be translated into any particular spoken language, his discussion of the
arbitrariness of the sign, his account of the acquisition of language by children.
Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct was published in 1994 and was received as one of the
most complete and carefully argued accounts of the evolution of language. In speaking about
language as an 'instinct' he recognised that the term is no longer thought appropriate in modern
biology but said that he was following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin who had described
language as half-art and half-instinct; Darwin's account of the gradual evolution of instincts
generally by natural selection could be applied also to the human acquisition of the capacity for
language. Darwin was writing at a time when the modern science of language did not exist; he
claimed no particular expertise in the discussion of language generally or of particular
languages. By contrast Pinker accepts Chomsky's current theoretical account of language and
particularly Chomsky's concept of Universal Grammar. The essential feature of this in its
present form is termed by Chomsky the Principles and Parameters approach, that is, the
underlying structures of language, the grammar, are innate and the same for all humans;
different languages are the result of ascribing binary values to a small set of parameters. The
simplest illustration of a parameter is the choice of Head first or Head last; depending on which
choice is made, a language is either SOV or SVO with many associated orderings in other
aspects of syntax. For Pinker, following Chomsky, syntax is the key productive aspect of
language and lexicon is subordinate. If, as Pinker intends, one seeks to present a persuasive
account of the evolution of language, it is of the first importance to settle how best language
should be characterized.
In a critique of The Language Instinct (1994), there are several complexly interlocking issues.
The first is whether the account of language given currently by Chomsky, and accepted by
Pinker, is adequate or plausible. The second is whether a gradualistic account of the evolution of
the Chomskyan language system is conceivable. The third is Pinker's treatment of related
questions such as the acquisition of grammar by children, the acquisition of lexicon. The fourth
is the plausibility in terms of brain evolution, brain structure and function of Pinker's approach.
The fifth is, as Pinker puts it, if Chomsky rejects the idea of the evolution of language by natural
selection, what alternative is there?
On the first issue, the adequacy and plausibility of Chomsky's account, books have been written
and controversy rages. So a contemporary linguist, Givon (1984), speaks about Chomsky's utter
disregard for the nature and significance of cross-language typological variability which allowed
him, on the basis only of English syntax, to make sweeping assumptions about typological-
syntactic universals; Givon accordingly rejects all the tenets of the transformational-generative

11. tradition. Here I will only attempt to note the main features of the Chomskyan theory, as far as
possible using Pinker and Chomsky's own words so that one can get a clearer idea of what
system it is that Pinker believes has evolved gradually by natural selection. A preliminary
observation is that for Chomsky, and for Pinker, the issues of the biological basis of language
and the acquisition of language by children are closely linked; Chomsky's ideas of Universal
Grammar are very much framed to account for the rapid acquisition of language by children.
3. Pinker's Ideas
There are some problems in presenting his ideas concisely and clearly. Comments on different
topics, instinct, syntax, lexicon, language acquisition are scattered across the chapters; the first
rather pedestrian task is to bring the related ideas together. All page references unless otherwise
indicated are to The Language Instinct (Pinker 1994); I include them where the wording is
Pinker's own or a very close paraphrase of it.
3.1 Chomsky's Universal Grammar
Pinker's presentation is largely contained in Chapter 4 'How Language Works' and the following
points are mainly taken from that. For Pinker, Chomsky's writings are classics. Chomsky's claim
that, from a Martian's-eye-view, all humans speak a single language is based on the discovery
that the same symbol- manipulating machinery, underlies the world's languages. Universal
Grammar is like an archetypal body plan found across vast numbers of animals in a phylum
(238-9), a common plan of syntactic, morphological, and phonological rules and principles, with
a small set of varying parameters. Once set, a parameter can produce far-reaching changes in the
superficial appearance of the language. One of the most intriguing discoveries is that there
appears to be a common anatomy in all phrases in all the world's languages. Phrase structure is
the kind of stuff language is made of; traces, cases, X-bars, and the other paraphernalia of syntax
are colourless, odourless, and tasteless, but they, or something like them, must be a part of our
unconscious mental life (124). The universal plan underlying languages, with auxiliaries and
inversion rules, nouns and verbs, subjects and objects, phrases and clauses, cases and agreement,
and so on, seem to suggest a commonality in the brains of speakers, because many other plans
would have been just as useful (43).
3.2 Chomsky and the acquisition of language by children
Children must innately be equipped with a plan common to the grammars of all language, a
Universal Grammar, that tells them how to distil the syntactic patterns out of the speech of their
parents. The unordered super-rules (principles) are universal and innate; when children learn a
particular language, they do not have to learn a long list of rules, because they are born knowing
the super-rules (112). All they have to learn is whether their particular language has the
parameter head-first, as in English, or head-last, as in Japanese. If the verb comes before the
object, the child concludes that the language is head-first as if the child were merely flipping a
switch to one of two possible positions. The way language works is that each person's brain
contains a lexicon of words and the concepts they stand for (a mental dictionary) and a set of
rules that combine the words to convey relationships among concepts (a mental grammar) (85).
3.3 Chomsky as the starting point
3.3.1 A general comment
There are risks in taking Chomsky's current theories as the basis for an attempt to present a
plausible account of the evolution of language. The most striking aspect of the history of
Chomsky's linguistic theories is how rapidly and frequently they have changed over the years
since his first work Syntactic Structures appeared in 1957 and the transformational-generative
approach was born. Most of the key features of that approach have now been abandoned; deep

12. structure from being the foundation of theory has shrunk and virtually disappeared, the idea of
transformation has been abandoned; whilst language is still regarded, in a broad sense, as a
generative process (new sentences created from a limited set of words and syntactic processes),
the technicalities of generation have also disappeared; Chomsky has moved from a system
which placed exclusive emphasis on syntax to one which begins to recognize the importance
also of lexicon, moving from the transformational- generative approach to government and
binding to principles and parameters. Specifically, Pinker explains that Chomsky wants to
eliminate the idea that there is a special phrase structure underlying a sentence called d-structure,
a single framework for the entire sentence into which the verbs are then plugged. The suggested
replacement is to have each verb come with a chunk of phrase structure preinstalled; the
sentence is assembled by snapping together the various chunks. Pinker comments that 'deep
structure' is a prosaic technical gadget in grammatical theory, not what is universal across all
human languages; many linguists - including, in his most recent writings, Chomsky himself -
think one can do without deep structure per se. In a recent interview (Grewendorf 1993),
Chomsky was asked whether generative grammar had gone astray at some point; he admitted
that in retrospect there had been some wrong turnings and that a really significant change took
place about 1980; this, unlike earlier work in generative grammar, constituted a major break and
dispensed entirely with both rules and constructions which he described as 'taxonomic artifacts'
of early generative grammar; there have been a lot of changes in the theory since 1980.
3.3.2 Pinker's own problem with Chomsky
Whilst accepting Chomsky's current principles and parameters approach Pinker makes some
effort to distance himself from Chomsky, no doubt partly because he does not wish to be
committed to deriving Chomsky's concepts in detail from evolutionary natural selection (he
makes no attempt to do this) but also because there is the major difficulty that Chomsky himself
has consistently rejected the idea that language could have evolved by natural selection. Pinker
says that Chomsky's arguments about the nature of the language faculty are based on technical
analyses of word and sentence structure, often couched in abstruse formulations; his discussions
of flesh-and-blood speakers are perfunctory and highly idealized; "Chomsky's theory need not
be treated ... as a set of cabalistic incantations that only the initiated can mutter" (104). Pinker
admits to being deeply influenced by Chomsky. "But it is not his story exactly... Chomsky has
puzzled many readers with his skepticism about whether Darwinian natural selection ... can
explain the origins of the language organ he argues for" (24). Chomsky and some of his fiercest
opponents agree on one thing, that a uniquely human language instinct seems to be incompatible
with the modern Darwinian theory of evolution, in which complex biological systems arise by
the gradual accumulation over generations of random genetic mutations that enhance
reproductive success." (333) Chomsky thinks that "to attribute this development to 'natural
selection' .. amounts to nothing more than a belief that there is some naturalistic explanation for
these phenomena... it is not easy even to imagine a course of selection that might have given rise
to them" (354).
3.4 Language organ and/or language instinct?
3.4.1 The analogy with the evolution of the eye
Rejecting Chomsky's scepticism, Pinker suggests that language should be considered as an
evolutionary adaptation like the eye, its major parts designed to carry out important functions.
Chomsky speaks about the 'language organ' and language is assumed to be a distinct brain
module. The evolution of the eye was a central debating point between proponents and
opponents of Darwinian natural selection; Darwin himself offered a gradualistic account which
has been taken up and refined many times, most notably recently by Richard Dawkins (1986). A
plausible account has been given of how even a rudimentary eye could be selected and increase
the fitness of the individual in whom the advance took place; each small improvement in the

13. functioning of the eye would promote survival of the individual and the individual's offspring
carrying the gene for the improved eye. Maynard Smith and Szathmary in their recent The Major
Transitions in Evolution (1995) also pick up the analogy between development of the eye and
the development of language. This is perhaps not surprising since admittedly they relied heavily
on two sources, Bickerton's (1990) book and Pinker and Bloom's 1990 article which
foreshadowed The Language Instinct.
3.4.2 The analogy with the evolution of instincts
Language is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of the brain (18). The universality of
complex language is the first reason to suspect that language is the product of a special human
instinct. If language is an instinct, it should have an identifiable seat in the brain, and perhaps
even a special set of genes that help wire it into place (45-46). If language is like other instincts,
presumably it evolved by natural selection, the only successful scientific explanation of complex
biological traits (354), the only alternative (Pinker's emphasis) that can explain the evolution of a
complex organ like the eye or like language. Each step in the evolution of a language instinct, up
to and including the most recent ones, must enhance fitness (366- 367), the gradual
accumulation over generations of random genetic mutations that increase reproductive success
(333). The language instinct is composed of many parts: syntax, with its discrete combinatorial
system building phrase structures; morphology, a second combinatorial system building words, a
capacious lexicon; a revamped vocal tract; phonological rules and structures; speech perception;
parsing algorithms, learning algorithms (362).
3.4.2.1 Pinker on the evolution of language by natural selection
Chapter 11 is entitled The Big Bang. Pinker admits that there are genuine problems in
reconstructing how the language faculty might have evolved by natural selection (365),
problems particularly with any gradualistic account. The problems relate both to finding a
plausible account for the transitional stages between the first human articulations and the
complexities of language as it exists, in all its varieties, today and also to accounting, in
biological and genetic terms, for the acquisition of language by children.
To attribute the basic design of the language instinct to natural selection is not to indulge in just-
so storytelling (364). Possibly there was the first grammar mutant, that is the first individual
undergoing a genetic change which produced some capacity, however limited, for syntax; the
neighbours could have partly understood what the mutant was saying just using overall
intelligence. If a grammar mutant is making important distinctions that can be decoded by others
only with uncertainty and great mental effort, it could set up a pressure for them to evolve the
matching system that allows those distinctions to be recovered reliably by an automatic,
unconscious, parsing process (365). Selection could have ratcheted up language abilities by
favouring the speakers in each generation that the hearers could best decode, and the hearers
who could best decode the speakers. Intermediate grammars are easy to imagine (366). Pinker
suggests, following Bickerton, that the languages of children, pidgin speakers, immigrants,
tourists, aphasics, telegrams, and headlines show that there is a vast continuum of viable
language systems varying in efficiency and expressive power, exactly what the theory of natural
selection requires (366). However " Bickerton makes the jaw-dropping additional suggestion
that a single mutation in a single woman, African Eve, simultaneously wired-in syntax, resized
and reshaped the skull, and reworked the vocal tract" (366). Syntax is a Darwinian 'organ of
extreme perfection and complication' (124).
For the origin of language, in all its complexity, Bickerton's suggestion is as improbable as the
idea (advanced by Hoyle as a criticism of evolutionary theory and discussed by Richard
Dawkins) that hurricanes might by chance assemble a jetliner from a scrapyard containing the
aircraft parts. Stone Age people have been found with high-tech grammars (409). If the first
trace of a protolanguage ability appeared in the ancestor at the split between chimps and human

14. branches there could have been on the order of 350,000 generations between then and now for
the ability to have been elaborated and fine-tuned to the Universal Grammar we see today.
Language could have had a gradual fade- in. There were plenty of organisms with intermediate
language abilities but they are all dead (345-346). The utility of language development is
obvious; people everywhere depend on cooperative efforts for survival, forming alliances by
exchanging information and commitments; this puts complex grammar to good use (368). "But
could these exchanges really have produced the rococo complexity of human grammar?" (368)
A cognitive arms race could easily propel a linguistic one. In all cultures, social interactions are
mediated by persuasion and argument (368). Anthropologists have noted that tribal chiefs are
often both gifted orators and highly polygynous; this is how linguistic skills could make a
Darwinian difference in a world in which language in relationships played a key roles in
individual reproductive success (369).
3.4.2.2 Children's acquisition of language
Grammar: Pinker comments on "the mystery of how children's grammar explodes into adultlike
complexity in so short a time" (112). "Do grammar genes really exist or is the whole idea just
loopy?" (322). Children's rapid acquisition of syntax is possible because they are born with the
super-rules hard-wired into their brains; all the child has to do is to attach the right values to the
parameters which determine what the structure of the local language is by listening to the speech
of their parents (22).
Lexicon: The other startling aspect of children's acquisition of language is the acquisition of the
words of the local language. One extraordinary feature of the lexicon is the sheer capacity for
memorization that goes into building it (typically more than 60,000 words) (149). Preliterate
children must be lexical vacuum cleaners, inhaling a new word every two hours, day in, day out
(151-152). A name is rapidly acquired because of the harmony between the mind of the child,
the mind of the adult, and the texture of reality (157). Somehow a baby must intuit the correct
meaning of a word; humans are innately constrained to make only certain kinds of guesses about
how the world and its occupants work. The word-learning baby has a brain that carves the world
up into discrete, bounded, cohesive objects and into the actions that they undergo; the baby
forms mental categories that lump together objects that are of the same kind; babies are designed
to expect a language to contain words for kinds of objects and kinds of actions - nouns and verbs
(153). There really are things and kinds of things and actions out there in the world, and our
mind is designed to find them and label them with words (153). Since word boundaries do not
physically exist, it is remarkable that children are so good at finding them (267).
Each person's brain contains a lexicon of words and the concepts they stand for (a mental
dictionary); the mental dictionary seems like nothing more than a humdrum list of words, each
transcribed into the head by a dull-witted rote memorization (126). A word is a pure symbol; the
relation between its sound and meaning is utterly arbitrary (151-2) , a wholly conventional
pairing of a sound with a meaning. 'Dog' means dog only because every English speaker has
undergone an identical act of rote learning in childhood that links the sound to the meaning (83-
84).
4. Critical Issues
The above conflation of extracts from The Language Instinct show some of the difficulties that
any theory of the gradual evolution of language has to face. I would pick out as the key issues,
both for the evolution of language and for the directly related question of the biological basis for
children's acquisition of language:
1. The genetic basis of the language capacity. He posits language evolution by minimal steps
with, in some sense, the existence of grammar genes and grammar gene mutations.

15. 2. The relation of inclusive fitness and language evolution. How if the total system of language,
and of languages, evolved by minimal changes, minimal additions to the system, could these
minimal changes have increased the fitness (reproductive success) of the individuals who first
manifested them?
3. Language as a property of the social framework, of the individual only as a member of the
group. A minimal change in language by an individual is of no value unless it is a change which
is shared in comprehension and production by other members of the group.
4. 'Gradual' evolution of grammar (syntax). Pinker and Chomsky concentrate on syntax in the
narrow sense of phrase structure. They underrate the complexities of grammar in a more
traditional sense, the complicated tense, declension and classification systems of many
languages. In these languages refinements of use and meaning are achieved through lexical
variation, complex modifications of root-words or through individual function words.
5. The source of the lexicon. Pinker and Chomsky treat the remarkable evolution of the lexicons
of many different languages as a relatively trivial matter but it is not.
6. Acceptance of the lexicon within the group. Evolution of the lexicon means both the addition
of new words to refer to new aspects of the natural or social environment and the modification
of words to express different relationships between one word and another. If, as Pinker
(following Saussure) suggests, all this lexical evolution is arbitrary, with no relation between the
sound-structure of a word and its meaning, then by what process can the lexical evolution have
taken place since it must depend on the adoption of the arbitrary word or word-form by members
of the speech-group?
7. Children's rapid acquisition of the lexicon. Acquisition of lexicon by children is described as a
simple matter of rote-learning, or alternatively as a pre-ordained matching of labels to pre-
existing neurally-based concepts in the infant.
8. The relation between language evolution and brain evolution, whether the neural basis of the
language capacity is a single module (language as a brain organ).
4.1 Language as instinct or organ?
Instinct: Pinker comments that to use the term 'instinct' in relation to language is 'quaint'(18) but
it is worse than quaint. It immediately establishes a misleading picture of the nature of the
language capacity. No doubt Darwin spoke about language as being half-art and half-instinct,
that is, language was not an instinct like those observed in bees, rabbits or birds. To call any
aspect of human behaviour instinct can mean no more than that it has a biological basis, a
genetic basis. The confusion is made worse when language is also treated as an organ like the
eye. An organ is not an instinct but a structure. Both 'organ' and 'instinct' are misleading when
applied to language. Language is both physiologically and neurologically based; it depends on
the articulatory structures for producing speech-sound, on the brain for the muscular control of
those structures and for the relation between the speech-sound and the percept or action to which
the speech-sound relates. The idea that language is an instinct and thus must have a specific seat
in the brain suggests that the language capacity must be localised in some area of the brain;
evidence from recent research using PET and MRI brain- imaging (see, for example, the PET
images in chapter 5 'Interpreting Words' in Images of the Mind Posner and Raichle 1994) that
many parts of the brain are involved in the production of a spoken utterance; different areas of
the brain are activated for different aspects of speech. Whether or not 'instincts' in general can be
traced to a special set of genes, and this appears questionable even if one accepts the loose use of
the term instinct, the idea that the whole of what is required for language could ever be traced to
a limited number of genes seems totally implausible.

16. Organ: Pinker treats language as a complex organ like the eye. Language is not an organ and is
not like the eye. The eye is a diversified physical structure which is of no use without the neural
connections within the brain which interpret the patterns of light falling on the retina. If Pinker
had said that language is like the visual system as a whole, or like the perceptual capacity as a
whole, including the brain connections which integrate these systems, this would have been
more plausible. What is more like the eye is the whole articulatory system with the auditory
structures but these are structures which evolved to serve functions completely distinct from
language; the new aspect of language is the use the brain makes of these pre-existing structures.
4.2 Language complexifying by natural selection?
When Pinker says flatly that natural selection is the only successful explanation and that natural
selection is gradualistic, this is too sweeping. In the Darwinian system, natural selection is seen
as the operative force which has quite recently been given a more precise application by the
introduction of the concept of inclusive fitness, the genetic interpretation of Darwin's original
concept. However, in the case of humans there can also be cultural selection, behavioural
selection at the group level, where the patterns of behaviour adopted are not tied to individual
genetic differences. Even in terms of genetic evolution, natural selection does not simply mean
that every system, every aspect of behaviour and use of any structures, must be the result of
gradual change, genetic change, directed solely to that use or behaviour. Darwin himself
recognised that complex structures which evolved by gradualistic natural selection, could in
different environments be put to new uses quite different from those which gradual natural
selection had first produced. The example Darwin gave was the transformation of the swim-
bladder into the lung; whether the lung or the swim-bladder came first and was in some fish
converted into the other, the point remains the same: that a complex structure developed to serve
one function was transferred to serve a quite different function. Other examples can be found in
the development of limbs for locomotion into wings for flying or fins for swimming, of muscles
into electric organs in some fish, of gills into the structures of the ear, of the tracheae into wings
in insects. The essential point is that complexity developed for one function could come to serve
as complexity for a quite different function. More significantly, in thinking about language and
indeed other functions, the neural organization for supporting one function, e.g. respiration,
swallowing, mastication, locomotion, became adapted to serving the new function, e.g. speech-
sound production, flying, swimming.
4.3 Language complexity driving inclusive fitness?
Pinker says that each step in the evolutionary development of language must have enhanced
fitness; he has to say this to attribute the evolution of language to gradualistic natural selection
of language as a distinct organ, instinct or function. That the advance of language from the most
primitive articulation to the perfection of the systems of fully developed languages was due to its
contribution to fitness seems unlikely. Fitness as a concept applies to the individual and not to
the group or society; fitness depends on genetic change in the individual. Pinker makes no more
than a rhetorical attempt to justify the idea that even the limited aspects of language on which he
and Chomsky concentrate could have brought added fitness to any individual. If one confines
attention to the evolution of grammar alone, it is hard to believe that the complexities of the
Greek, Russian or German grammatical systems, the development of the subjunctive, the middle
and passive voices, perfective and imperfective aspects of the verb, case systems, could be the
product of minute changes resulting from genetic mutation, could be linked to genetic change in
an individual which increased that individual's reproductive success, that individual's inclusive
fitness.
Pinker recognises that his approach may be criticised as Just-So story telling and denies that this
is so. However at many points this is exactly what it is. He antedates the first rudiments of
language as far back as the split between the human and chimpanzee lines, making available he

17. says genetic change over some 350,000 generations for the refinement of the language capacity.
He speaks about the first 'grammar mutant'. What conceivably would the first grammar mutant
be, what genetic mutation on Pinker's scheme would account for this? This seems a phrase for
which Pinker provides no content. Whatever 'grammar mutant' may mean, a mutation in an
isolated individual could have no more effect on the social development of language than
mutation producing any other abnormality. He suggests that neighbours of grammar mutants
would come to understand through using their overall intelligence, but they could not decode the
behaviour of the grammar mutant unless they already had brains adapted to appreciate the
refinement the grammar mutant was producing. This is a quite superficial attempt to tackle what
over the centuries had been seen as the great problem about any suggestion that language, or any
aspects of language, could have been invented by an individual; language and languages are
social constructs, not the special capacity of any individual. Neighbours (without language
capacity) could no more by general intelligence decode the grammar mutant than we could by
general intelligence decode the meaning of bird-song. Pinker goes further and makes the
extraordinary suggestion that the grammar mutation in the individual would create pressure on
the neighbours to evolve a matching system, a parsing system which would enable them to
comprehend, and use, the genetic language change in the first individual. This offers the bizarre
picture of the individual in whom the capacity for the subjunctive developed, using this capacity,
transmitting it over generations to his offspring, whilst others, at the incredibly slow pace of
genetic change over generations, evolved to the point where they in their turn were able to use
the subjunctive; it is equally implausible to think that a similar process could apply to other
grammatical aspects, the refinements of the case system, the development of modal forms and so
on. Neighbours could not by general intelligence bring about genetic change in themselves as a
basis for an improved language capacity. Pinker suggests that speakers that others could best
decode would be favoured but, ex hypothesi, others would not have undergone the genetic
changes required to make use of the advances in language made by the best speakers. He makes
the point that language would be socially useful, social interactions are mediated by persuasion
and argument, more specifically that complex grammar would be put to good use in exchanging
information and commitments. Obviously language is useful for humans in social interaction but
whether the complex grammatical structures are required or give any particular added
evolutionary benefit to the individual or the group seems quite uncertain. Language, he says,
could have advanced as a result of a cognitive arms race propelling a linguistic arms race; a
cognitive arms race presumably means that more intelligent, more perceptive, more creative
individuals survived and achieved greater inclusive fitness, that is, their more intelligent,
perceptive and creative children also survived and they competed among themselves in
generating beneficial changes in language. What exactly is meant by 'a linguistic arms race'? An
Oxford or Cambridge debating society? A parliament? An election campaign? Applied to
communities of hunter- gatherers, or warring tribes (depending on which view one takes of the
early social states of human beings) the idea seems improbable. Pinker then produces his
crowning suggestion, that tribal chiefs are judged by anthropologists to be both polygynous and
gifted orators and accordingly one might suppose they achieved the reproductive success
through their superior linguistic skills. The instruments of tribal chiefs in achieving reproductive
success, or success in other ways, are not their language skills but others such as size, physical
strength, rapidity and ruthlessness of action, kinship.
4.4 Intermediate grammars?
In saying that grammars of intermediate complexity are easy to imagine, Pinker adopts
Bickerton's suggestion (also taken up by Maynard Smith and Szathmary) that grades of
protolanguage might resemble pidgin, the speech of tourists, immigrants, aphasics, wolf-
children. Pinker makes no attempt to give any specific illustration of this. The deviant forms
result from the degeneration of already existing fully developed languages; to suppose that in the
total absence of structured language these forms could come into existence is highly unlikely.
The fact that, as Pinker says, Stone Age people may have 'high-tech grammars' (presumably

18. meaning elaborately-structured forms) speaks against rather than for the idea that language may
have evolved as a distinct function (instinct, organ) by gradualistic natural selection. How could
these 'primitive' peoples by genetic change evolve their high-tech languages, when in many
cases they did not succeed in evolving a number system going beyond One, Two, Three? Were
their chiefs busy developing case and tense systems, phrase structures, word-order, nouns, verbs,
prepositions, conjunctions? Pinker suggests that the gradual evolution of language may have
taken place over an extremely long period allowing for 350,000 generations of random genetic
change producing minor changes in language. To produce complex and refined languages over
this period by a succession of random genetic changes seems quite as implausible as the
suggestion by Bickerton that the language capacity might have been the result of one massive
super-mutation in a single individual (African Eve). Because no plausible account can be given
of the step-by-step growth of language by random genetic change, Pinker proposes that there
must have been thousands of organisms, and presumably thousands of speech-communities,
with intermediate capacities between animal grunts and the Greek, Chinese, or German
languages, but sadly all these organisms and communities disappeared without trace. There is no
evidence for this and it remains the sheerest speculation.
4.5 Evolution of language acquisition by children?
Pinker is more specific about the capacities the gradual evolution of language by natural
selection should have provided to enable children to acquire the local language as rapidly as they
do. He suggests that children's brains must be structured from birth in particular ways, first by
having grammatical super-rules hard-wired, with provision for a few parameters to be given
specific values derived from the child's exposure to the local language, and secondly by having
the ability to attach the locally-correct labels to the objects and actions of the local environment.
Pinker does not discuss exactly what super-rules are hard-wired and how this hard-wiring might
be produced in neural organisation. As regards parameter setting, the suggestion by Pinker (and
Chomsky) is that children decide whether the local language is SOV or SVO by observing
whether the verb comes first or last in the sentence - but how do children know what word is a
verb and what word is not? The treatment of the acquisition of lexicon by the child is no more
satisfactory than the discussion of the growth of lexicon as part of the evolutionary process.
Children's acquisition of lexicon, of the names for things and actions, can, he says, only be the
result of rote-learning of the arbitrary relation between a unitary pattern of speech-sounds (the
word) and a discriminable object or action. But children do not learn new words by rote
memory; rote memory would mean that their mothers tell them ten times that 'that creature is a
dog'; learning words by children is not like learning the multiplication table, learning telephone
numbers, learning the Kings and Queens of England or learning the catechism (for none of
which children show any special ability). Children learn new words incredibly rapidly in a way
which adults cannot match. Some other explanation than rote learning is required to account for
the acquisition of lexicon by children (and there are similar problems about the acquisition of an
ever-growing lexicon by primitive adults in the gradualistic evolutionary scenario). Pinker notes
that word boundaries do not physically exist (in the instrumental record of utterances) but are
found by children; he rightly regards this as remarkable but attempts no explanation how it is
possible. There is parallel problem of the absence of sharp concept boundaries to which words
are to be related, the gavagai problem discussed by Quine (Quine 1960) which Pinker attempts
to deal with. Pinker sees no real alternative to explain the rapid acquisition of words by children
to the idea the human mind is designed to find objects and label them; there is a pre- established
harmony between the mind of the child and the texture of reality (157); the child somehow has
the concepts available before experience with language and is basically learning labels for them.
What exactly does this mean? How can the pre-existing harmony exist between concepts which
vary between physical and cultural environments and words which vary between the many
different languages? Some explanation is needed but pre-existing harmony, pre-existing
conceptual structure, is not a clear or persuasive or testable suggestion.

19. 5. Summing up
Pinker's The Language Instinct does not offer a satisfactory account of language evolution.
Piattelli-Palmarini (1994: 339) says that Pinker's account (developed with Paul Bloom) is the
best, yet still unconvincing, adaptationist reconstruction. It aspires to give an account of the
evolution of language but is marred by its concentration on the Chomskyan account of the nature
of language, an account constructed largely on the basis of the English language which ignores
or downplays the lexical and syntactic complexities of other languages. There is much little-
examined speculation, about the time when the first rudiments of language might have emerged,
about the manner in which children can acquire lexicon, about the anthropological basis for
improved language capacity, about the role of genetic mutation in bringing about changes in
language structures, about the possibility of survival benefit for the individual flowing from
mutations affecting language competence and performance. The principal error is the failure to
treat adequately the social character of language, as a possession of the group, of the speech
community, and not simply of the individual. Language development and change as increasing
the inclusive fitness, that is serving the long-term reproductive success of the individual, is
simply not a plausible proposition, prehistorically or historically. The other major error is
concentration on the evolution of syntax, grammar (in a narrow Chomskyan sense or in a
broader more traditional sense) and treating superficially the vital role of the development of
lexicon, both as a representation of the perceived world and as an instrument for syntactic
manipulation of utterances through function words, inflections etc. The final and perhaps most
important error is a mistaken view of natural selection as limited to gradualistic change in a
complex structure serving a specified function; natural selection also operates through
serendipitous transfer of complexity developed for one function to a new function, typically the
move from swim-bladder to lung, from webbed foot to wing, from gill to structures of the ear
and so on. The root problem with Pinker's presentation is the imprecise, metaphorical or
rhetorical use of terms: organ, instinct, natural selection.
6. Another direction?
In this paper I have presented a summary account of Chomsky's approach to language which is
the foundation for Pinker's treatment of language evolution in The Language Instinct . Next I
have brought together, in his own words, the main points from Pinker's exposition and proposed
criticisms both of the general approach and of a number of specific points. I have mentioned
only very briefly the identification of language as the fifth major transition in evolution in the
recent book of Maynard Smith and Szathmary. I have also referred to Givon's dismissal of the
entire Chomskyan position and to the characterisation by Piattelli-Palmarini (a convinced
Chomskyan) of Pinker and Bloom's adaptationist account as the best so far but still
unacceptable. If both the Chomskyan approach to language and the gradualistic account of
language evolution are rejected, what alternatives are there? Any theoretical approach to
language has to go wider than phrase structure and cope with the elaborated systems of grammar
and lexicon found in many world languages.
Is there then nothing of value to be extracted from The Language Instinct or from the largely
derivative account of language evolution given by Maynard Smith and Szathmary? There may
be something of value when they consider how language might be represented in the brain. Here
some of Pinker's incidental remarks, and suggestions by Chomsky and his other followers, may
offer clues to a more plausible approach to the evolution of language:
Chomsky: It has also been suggested that the properties of language derive in some fundamental
way from properties of the visual system (Grewendorf 1994: 391) These skills may well have
arisen as a concomitant of structural properties of the brain developed for other reasons (quoted
by Pinker 1994: 362). Organs develop to serve one purpose and, when they have reached a
certain form in the evolutionary process, became available for different purposes, at which point

20. the processes of natural selection may refine them further for those purposes. (Chomsky 1988:
167)
Pinker: Language could have arisen, and probably did arise, from a revamping of primate brain
circuits that originally had no role in vocal communication); it is the precise wiring of the brain's
microcircuitry that makes language happen; brains can be rewired only if the genes that control
their wiring have changed. The ancestral brain could have been rewired only if the new circuits
had some effect on perception and behavior (350, 364).
Maynard Smith and Szathmary : there is not only a formal similarity between the construction of
sentences and the performance of manual tasks, but there may be a common physiological basis
for the two abilities; one could suppose that language is a spandrel, that is, an unselected by-
product of design for some other purpose; there is a formal similarity between 'action grammar'
and protolanguage. (Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995: Chapter 17)
Bickerton: True language had to wait on a change in neural organisation that caused us to slot
meaningful symbols into formal structures and to do so quite automatically; the capacity to
construct sentences could in principle have derived from some previously established function,
unlikely, however, unless there already existed some structure and/or function preadapted for
syntax, so that syntax simply utilised existing neural structures. (Bickerton 1990: 130-131)
The idea that language may have been modelled on or directly derived from pre-existing brain
systems has been explored by a number of writers. The possibilities include modelling on tool
use (Greenfield and others), modelling on the visual system (Givon), modelling on throwing
action (Calvin), modelling on motor control (Studdert-Kennedy, Lieberman, Allott). The earliest
suggestion on these lines was by Karl Lashley (1951) who discussed the generality of the
problem of syntax and drew attention to the parallels between the syntax of language and the
syntax of action; there has since been considerable discussion of the grammar of action and of
the grammar of vision Richard Gregory (1976). It is not possible in this paper to present these
alternatives at any length but the following paragraphs briefly describe them.
Greenfield's 1991 paper "Language, tools and brain: The ontogeny and phylogeny of
hierarchically organized sequential behavior" postulated an evolutionary homologue of the
neural substrate for language production and manual action which provided a foundation for the
evolution of language before the divergence of the hominids and the great apes. The role of
toolmaking as a precursor for or as coevolving with language has been extensively discussed.
Perhaps it should be treated as the first approach to investigating the relation between language
and the cerebral motor control system.
Studdert-Kennedy suggested that linguistic structure may emerge from, and may even be viewed
as, a special case of motoric structure, the structure of action. For language, the goal is to derive
its properties from other, presumably prior, properties of the human organism and its natural
environment; we should try to specify the perceptual and motor capacities out of which language
has evolved; evidence from brain stimulation (notably the work of Kimura, Ojemann and
Mateer) almost forced the hypothesis that the primary specialisation of the left hemisphere is
motoric rather than perceptual; language would be drawn to the left hemisphere because the left
hemisphere already possessed the neural circuitry for control of the fingers, wrists and arms,
precisely the type of circuitry needed for control of the larynx, tongue, velum, lips and of the
bilaterally innervated vocal apparatus (1983: 5, 329).
Ojemann and Mateer (1979, 1991) identified common cortical sites for sequencing motor
activity and speech; language arises at least in part in brain areas that originally had a
predominantly motor function; the development of language seems to have incorporated brain
mechanisms originally developed for motor learning.

21. Givon in his 1994 paper for the Berkeley meeting of the Language Origins Society took the
system of visual perception as the basis on which language emerged in a process of coevolution;
in this the evolution of language was linked directly to the development of the visual system. He
discussed the correspondences between visual and linguistic information and suggested that
language processing piggybacked on visual processing; in evolution there had been an early co-
existence of auditory-vocal and visual-gestural codes; the rise of visual-gestural coding provided
a neuro-cognitive preadaptation for a shift to audio-oral coding because of the adaptive
advantages it offered, freeing the hand and body for other activities, transcending the immediate
visual field. He developed these ideas in the light of recent evidence from PET scans and
otherwise of brain localisation of particular aspects of language processing in relation to visual
and auditory brain organization.
Lieberman (1984, 1991) has presented a motor theory of the origin of syntax. According to this,
the evolution of speech and language follows from Darwinian processes; organs that were
originally designed to facilitate breathing air and swallowing food and water were adapted to
produce human speech. The development of language was an instance of the mechanisms of
preadaptation which besides examples such as swim-bladders and lungs, produced the
sometimes surprising preadaptive bases of various specialized organs, for example, milk glands
from sweat glands, the bones of the mammalian middle ear from the joint of the lower jaw. The
initial stage in the evolution of the neural bases of human language appears to have involved
lateralized mechanisms for manual motor control, facilitating precise one-handed manual tasks.
Brain mechanisms that allow the production of the extremely precise complex muscular
manoeuvres of speech, the most difficult motor control task that humans perform, may have
provided the preadaptive basis for rule-governed syntax which may reflect a generalisation of
the automatic schema first evolved in animals for motor control in tasks like respiration and
walking. A change in brain organization that allowed voluntary control of vocalization is the
minimum condition for vocal communication.
Calvin (1989) has argued the case for an even more specific preadaptation for the neural
machinery underlying language in the neural circuitry required for planning sequential hand-
movements such as hammering and throwing. Since hand-arm sequencing circuitry in the brain
has a strong spatial overlap with where language circuitry is located in the left brain, perhaps the
same massively-serial architecture can do double-duty for language and planning ahead. The
well-formed sentence and the reliable plan of action have some strong analogies to more familiar
darwinian successes, a matter of what Charles Darwin called 'conversion of one function to
another' or metamorphosis of function. To describe the original function from which the
conversion of function was made, the better word is exaptation because of the 'preconceived'
connotations of preadaptation. A given piece of anatomy can have more than one function. The
conversion of function, Calvin argues, is an excellent candidate for how beyond-the-apes
language abilities originated. Hominid-to-human language is a 'free' secondary use of neural
sequencing machinery that was primarily shaped by the food-acquisition uses of ballistic
movement skills.
The motor theory of language evolution and function proposes as a universal principle that the
structures of language (phonological, lexical and syntactic)were derived from and modelled on
the pre-existing complex neural systems which had evolved for motor control, the control of
bodily activity. Motor control at the neural level requires pre-set elementary units of action
which can be integrated into more extended patterns of action - neural motor programs. These in
turn have to be linked to and integrated with one another by 'syntactic' neural processes and
structures. On this theory, given that speech is also essentially a motor activity, language made
use of the elementary pre-set units of motor action to produce the equivalent phonological units
(phonemic categories); the neural programs for individual words were constructed from the
elementary units in the same way as motor programs for bodily action are formed from them (in
both cases a neural program is formed in direct relation to the perceived structure of the external

22. world); the syntactic processes and structures of language proper were modelled on the
'syntactic' rules of motor control.
Chomsky, Pinker and Bloom, Piattelli-Palmariniargue against preadaptation on the basis of the
visual or motor systems on grounds which are directly related to their perhaps idiosyncratic
formal analysis of language, with its emphasis on syntax. So Piattelli-Palmarini (in his 1994
paper which rejected Piaget's view that language was derived from or related to motor schemata)
said that the form of linguistic principles is very specific e.g. c-command, X-bar, PRO,
projection of a lexical head, trace of a noun-phrase etc. and went on to say that there is no hope,
not even the dimmest one, of translating these entities, these principles, and these constructs into
generic notions that apply to language as a 'particular case'; nothing in motor control even
remotely resembles these kinds of notions; concrete linguistic examples (drawn from
Chomskyan theory) make it vastly implausible that syntactic rules could be accounted for in
terms of sensorimotor schemata (Piattelli-Palmarini 1994: 324). Chomsky in Language and
Problems of Knowledge said the visual system is unlike the language faculty in many crucial
ways; though there are some similarities in the way that the problems can be addressed, in
relation to vision and language, the visual faculty does not include the principles of binding
theory, case theory, structure dependence, and so on. The two systems operate in quite different
ways (Chomsky 1988: 159, 161).
7. Conclusion
Pinker, Chomsky and Piattelli-Palmarini, in rejecting a preadaptive or exaptational basis for the
evolution of language in the visual or motor systems of the brain because it is impossible to see
how such as a basis could accommodate the formalisms of transformational-generative
grammar, government and binding, or principles and parameters, ignore the unwelcome
possibility that there is something fundamentally wrong with the linguistic theories, not with the
Darwinian process by which there can be conversion of function from an already existing
complex neural system for perception or action to serve as the basis for speech and language
function. Chomsky is left in the awkward position of being unable to conceive of a Darwinian
origin for language even though he asserts that it must have a biological basis; this leads Pinker
to propose a gradualistic account of language evolution as the product of a series of minimal
genetic and language changes, which is implausible in accounting for the step-by-step accretion
of the elements required for Chomskyan phrase-structure theory, and even less plausible to
account for the development of other complex grammatical and lexical features of world
languages. The way out of the impasse is to see the evolution of language as a system founded
on, reflecting and expressing the pre-existing complexities of the perceptual and motor systems
of the brain.
The Language Instinct
The Language Instinct is a 1994 book by Steven Pinker. Written for a general audience, it
argues that humans are born with an innate capacity for language. It deals sympathetically
with Noam Chomsky's claim that all human language shows evidence of a universal grammar,
but dissents from Chomsky's skepticism that evolutionary theory can explain the human
language instinct.
Thesis
Pinker sets out to disabuse the reader of a number of common ideas about language, e.g. that
children must be taught to use it, that most people's grammar is poor, that the quality of language
is steadily declining, that language has a heavy influence on a person's possible range of
thoughts (the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis), and that nonhuman animals have been taught language
(see Great Ape language). Each of these claims, he argues, is false. Instead, Pinker sees language
as an ability unique to humans, produced byevolution to solve the specific problem of

23. communication among social hunter-gatherers. He compares language to other species'
specialized adaptations such as spiders' web-weaving or beavers' dam-building behavior, calling
all three "instincts".
By calling language an instinct, Pinker means that it is not a human invention in the sense
that metalworking and even writing are. While only some human cultures possess
these technologies, all cultures possess language. As further evidence for the universality of
language, Pinker notes that children spontaneously invent a consistent grammatical speech
(a creole) even if they grow up among a mixed-culture population speaking an informal
trade pidgin with no consistent rules. Deaf babies "babble" with their hands as others normally
do with voice, and spontaneously invent sign languages with true grammar rather than a crude
"me Tarzan, you Jane" pointing system. Language (speech) also develops in the absence of
formal instruction or active attempts by parents to correct children's grammar. These signs
suggest that rather than being a human invention, language is an innate human ability. Pinker
also distinguishes language from humans' general reasoning ability, emphasizing that it is not
simply a mark of advanced intelligence but rather a specialized "mental module". He
distinguishes the linguist's notion of grammar, such as the placement of adjectives, from formal
rules such as those in the American English writing style guide. He argues that because rules
like "a preposition is not a proper word to end a sentence with" must be explicitly taught, they
are irrelevant to actual communication and should be ignored.
Pinker attempts to trace the outlines of the language instinct by citing his own studies of
language acquisition in children, and the works of many other linguists and psychologists in
multiple fields, as well as numerous examples from popular culture. He notes, for instance, that
specific types of brain damage cause specific impairments of language such as Broca's
aphasia or Wernicke's aphasia, that specific types of grammatical construction are especially
hard to understand, and that there seems to be a critical period in childhood for language
development just as there is a critical period for vision development in cats. Much of the book
refers to Chomsky's concept of a universal grammar, a meta-grammar into which all human
languages fit. Pinker explains that a universal grammar represents specific structures in the
human brain that recognize the general rules of other humans' speech, such as whether the local
language places adjectives before or after nouns, and begin a specialized and very rapid learning
process not explainable as reasoning from first principles or pure logic. This learning machinery
exists only during a specific critical period of childhood and is then disassembled for thrift,
freeing resources in an energy-hungry brain.
[edit]Criticism
Pinker's assumptions about the innateness of language have been challenged; opponents claim
that "either the logic is fallacious, or the factual data are incorrect (or, sometimes, both)". [1]
The statement that deaf babies "spontaneously invent sign languages with complex grammar" is
actually only true in groups of deaf children (deaf communities) while a lone deaf child in a
village where everyone else can hear never invents more than simple gestures.[2][3] This actually
supports a view of language as a social adaptation evolutionary kludge.
Richard Webster writes that The Language Instinct argues cogently that the human capacity for
language is part of our genetic endowment associated with the evolution through natural
selection of specialised neural networks within the brain, and that its attack on the 'Standard
Social Science Model' of human nature is effective: "All but the most sceptical readers of his
book are likely to be persuaded that the capacity for language has, at least in some respects, been
genetically programmed into the human brain throughout the many millennia of the evolution of
our species. All but the most recalcitrant will concede that Pinker's broadside against the
'Standard Social Science Model' has some justification. For it would seem almost beyond
question that twentieth-century social scientists have, for ideological or rationalistic motives,

24. tended to underestimate grossly the extent to which human nature is shaped and constrained by
genetic factors." However, Webster finds Pinker's speculation about other specialized neural
networks that may have evolved within the human brain, such as "intuitive mechanics" and
"intuitive biology", to be questionable, and believes that there is a danger that they will be
treated by others as science. Webster believes that such speculations "play into the hands of
those who advocate the kind of extreme genetic determinism whose excesses Pinker himself
generally manages to avoid."[4]
Chomsky
"...People would like to think that there's somebody up there who knows what he's doing. Since
we don't participate, we don't control and we don't even think about questions of vital
importance. We hope somebody is paying attention who has some competence. Let's hope the
ship has a captain, in other words, since we're not taking part in what's going on...
It is an important feature of the igeological system to impose on people the feeling that they
really are incompetent to deal with these complex and important issues: they'd better leave it to
the captain. One device is to develop a star system, an array of figures who are media creations
or creations of the academic propaganda establishment, whose deep insights we are supposed to
admire and to whom we must happily and confidently assign the right to control our lives and to
control international affairs...."
- Noam Chomsky
Chomsky on Language Acquisition
According to Noam Chomsky, the mechanism of language acquisition formulates from innate
processes. This theory is evidenced by children who live in the same linguistic community
without a plethora of different experiences who arrive at comparable grammars. Chomsky thus
proposes that "all children share the same internal contraints which characterize narrowly the
grammar they are going to construct." (Chomsky, 1977, p.98) Since we live in a biological
world, "there is no reason for supposing the mental world to be an exception." (Chomsky, 1977,
p.94) And he believes that there is a critical age for learningn a language as is true for the overall
development of the human body.
Chomsky's mechanism of language acquisition also links structural linguistics to empiricist
thought: "These principles [of structuralism and empiricism] determine the type of grammars
that are available in principles. They are associated with an evaluation procedure which, given
possible grammars, selects the best one. The evaluation procedure is also part of the biological
given. The acquisition of language thus is a process of selection of the best grammar compatible
with the available data. If the principles can be made sufficiently restrictive, there will also be a
kind of 'discovery procedure.' " (Chomsky, 1977, p.117)
Chomsky on Generative Grammar
Chomsky's beliefs about generative grammar are the factors which help differentiate his views
from the structuralist theory; he believes that generative grammar must "render explicit the
implicit knowledge of the speaker." (Chomsky, 1977, p.103) His model of generative grammar
begins with an axiom and a set of well-defined rules to generate the desired word sequences.
The following is an example of how Chomsky proposes individuals spontaneously comprehend
that certain combinations of three words make sense whilst others do not:
One goal of Chomsky's work with linguistics is to create an explanatory theory of generative
grammar. When we are able to provide a deductive chain of reasoning that does not uphold the
general principles of thought, facts termed "boundary conditions" arise and serve as a potential
explanation for the phenomena associated with an explanatory theory. The rules of the English

25. auxiliary system serve as a good example to demonstrate this principle
chomsky on Semantics
"[T]he study of meaning and reference and of the use of language should be excluded from the
field of linguistics. . . . [G]iven a lingustic theory, the concepts of grammer are constructed (so it
seems) on the basis of primitive notions that are not semantic (where the grammar contains the
phonology and syntax), but that the linguistic theory itself must be chosen so as to provide the
best possible explanation of semantic phenomena, as well as others." (Chomsky, 1977, p.139)
"It seems that other cognitive systems -- in particular, our system of beliefs concerning things in
the world and their behavior -- playan essential part in our judments of meaning and reference,
in an extremely intricate manner, and it is not at all clear that much will remain if we try to
separate the purely linguistic components of what in informal usage or even in technical
discussion we call 'the meaning of lingustic expression.' " (Chomsky, 1977, p.142)
"He showed that surface structure played a much more important role in semantic interpretation
that had been supposed; if so, then the Standard hypothesis, according to which it was the deep
structure that completely determined this interpretation, is false." (Chomsky, 1977, p.151)
Chomsky on Behaviorism
"Whatever 'behaviorism' may have served in the past, it has become nothing more than a set of
arbitrary restrictions on 'legitimate' theory construction . . . the kind of intellectual shackles that
physical scientists would surely not tolerate and that condemns any intellectual pursuit to
insignificance." (Bjork, 1993, p.204) Noam Chomsky is known as one of the leading authorities
pertaining to language and language
chomsky
Noam Chomsky believes that children are born with an inherited ability to learn any human
language. He claims that certain linguistic structures which children use so accurately must be
already imprinted on the child‘s mind. Chomsky believes that every child has a ‗language
acquisition device‘ or LAD which encodes the major principles of a language and its
grammatical structures into the child‘s brain. Children have then only to learn new vocabulary
and apply the syntactic structures from the LAD to form sentences. Chomsky points out that a
child could not possibly learn a language through imitation alone because the language spoken
around them is highly irregular – adult‘s speech is often broken up and even sometimes
ungrammatical. Chomsky‘s theory applies to all languages as they all contain nouns, verbs,
consonants and vowels and children appear to be ‗hard-wired‘ to acquire the grammar. Every
language is extremely complex, often with subtle distinctions which even native speakers are
unaware of. However, all children, regardless of their intellectual ability, become fluent in their
native language within five or six years.
Evidence to support Chomsky‘s theory
Children learning to speak never make grammatical errors such as getting their subjects,
verbs and objects in the wrong order.
If an adult deliberately said a grammatically incorrect sentence, the child would notice.
Children often say things that are ungrammatical such as ‗mama ball‘, which they cannot
have learnt passively.

26. Mistakes such as ‗I drawed‘ instead of ‗I drew‘ show they are not learning through
imitation alone.
Chomsky used the sentence ‗colourless green ideas sleep furiously‘, which is grammatical
although it doesn‘t make sense, to prove his theory: he said it shows that sentences can be
grammatical without having any meaning, that we can tell the difference between a
grammatical and an ungrammatical sentence without ever having heard the sentence
before, and that we can produce and understand brand new sentences that no one has ever
said before.
Evidence against Chomsky‘s theory
Critics of Chomsky‘s theory say that although it is clear that children don‘t learn language
through imitation alone, this does not prove that they must have an LAD – language
learning could merely be through general learning and understanding abilities and
interactions with other peopl