Language and Knowledge: Against Modularity as a Viable Theory of Language and Mind
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The document discusses criticisms of the generative approach to linguistics, arguing that it provides an overly restrictive view of language that does not account for many linguistic phenomena. It argues for alternative cognitive and construction grammar approaches that view language as framed within human conceptual systems and experience rather than as an autonomous computational module.
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Language and Knowledge: Against Modularity as a Viable Theory of Language and Mind
- 1. Language and Knowledge: Against Modularity, Atomism, and Generativism as a Viable Basis for a Theory of Language and Mind Dominik Luke š http://dominiklukes.net http://hermeneuticheretic.net
- 12. Consequences and travelling companions of modular generativis m
- 25. Utility of linguistic description
- 27. Variability of linguistic description
- 34. Pseudo-modular effects in language and mind
- 36. Alternatives to modularity: Cognitivism and construction grammar
- 39. LET ALONE F (X A Y let alone B) 'I doubt you could get FRED to eat squid, let alone LOUISE.'
- 40. New knowledge (Frame-based cognition)
- 46. Non-modular sentence structure Construction grammar
- 48. Structure representation semantic properties pragmatic properties phonological properties syntactic properties morphological properties symbolic correspondence link CONSTRUCTION FORM (CONVENTIONAL) MEANING discourse-functional properties
- 50. Organization and use of grammatical knowledge
- 55. Some other alternatives to organization of linguistic strutures
- 58. Cognitivist alternative to universal grammar
- 62. Cognitivist alternative to language acquisition
Editor's Notes
- Or why on earth would philosophers concerned with language want to choose Chomsky as their interlocutor (other than that he’s famous and comprehensible in the analytical tradition)? While I agree that if you want to do philosophy of language, you might as well do linguistics, but you should do linguistics as philosophers rather than mathematicians. Chomsky, however, is only one representative of a whole host of approaches that suffer from assumptions of modularity. I will present some problems which these approaches run into when confronted with language as it is meaningfully experienced by people and suggest how some of the generativist achievements can be incorporated into a non-modular, non-atomistic, non-generative approach. (Using some assumptions of pseudogenerativity and pseudomodularity.) Caveats – not a syntactitian (particularly not skilled in G/B syntax) – main research background in text-level phenomena – out of practice when it comes to arguments with Chomskeans/modularity proponents – purpose of talk is to offer an alternative view with some positive outcomes – main argument: Chomsky’s view of language is too limited in what it describes but the bigger problem is that it is wrong about human language in many important aspects; also its vision of science is suspect - the positive part of the argument will be mostly programmatic – I will give many examples but their consistent application will have to be taken on faith