This document discusses the history of the Innateness Hypothesis in linguistics from 1965-1986. It proposes that human language ability is hardwired in our brains and follows universal syntactic rules. However, other linguists disputed this view, arguing that meaning is more important than syntax. This led to disagreements over the role of semantics and whether the mind has a specialized language faculty or relies on general cognitive abilities. Ultimately, Chomsky's focus on discovering the universal rules of syntax through movement and X-bar theory became dominant, though X-bar theory was later abandoned.

1. 1965 -1986

2. Innateness Hypothesis

3. We are born with language rules

4. Language and ordinary thought are
separate?

5. Our brains are HARD-WIRED for
language?

6. Hard-wired in a special part of our
brain

7. We are born with rules hard-wired!?

8. What kind of rules?

9. Rules of SYNTAX

10. A bit like this …

11. In the beginning was SYNTAX!

12. Do you think I’m joking?!

13. INNATENESS hypothesis
• Human language ability is SPECIAL PURPOSE
• It is separate from other mental abilities
• It works INDEPENDENTLY from other mental
abilities
• The skills involved in language ability are
UNIQUE to language
• Ordinary mental ability is NOT involved in
language ability

14. Rules of SYNTAX wired in our brains!

15. At birth!

17. It’s hypothetical

18. • Anyway, the Innateness Hypothesis became
very popular
• Chomsky started looking for evidence of how
our unique language ability works
• Analyzing SYNTAX!!
• Everyone believed it!!
• No … actually NOT everyone believed it

19. In the 60s and 70s …

20. War in Linguistics

21. Why is everything SYNTAX?

22. What about MEANING?

23. Isn’t MEANING important?

24. Some people doubted Chomsky

25. George Lakoff

26. Isn’t MEANING more important?

27. Can these trees really tell us so much?

28. Aren’t our minds about MEANING?

29. Paul Postal

30. Chomsky is empty

31. James McCawley

32. Generative Semantics

33. John Ross

34. Generative semantics

35. Ray Jackendoff

36. Cognitive Linguistics

37. No language faculty

38. No universal grammar

39. Just ordinary thinking

40. But Chomsky won!!

41. Syntax (grammar) is MOST
IMPORTANT!

42. Study grammar …

43. … and understand the brain!

44. Trees will tell you about the brain!

45. Chomsky’s grammar was triumphant

46. Unique universal grammar

47. The language faculty

48. How language ability REALLY works

49. Forget about meaning!!

50. Forget about it!!!!

51. Meaning isn’t so important

52. SYNTAX is different and special

53. SPECIAL rules

54. Universal Rules

55. In a special part of our brain

56. So how can we understand our
language ability?

57. We are looking for special, universal
rules

58. Why is the –ed before the verb?

59. It’s “she walked”

60. Not she “–ed walk”

61. That’s crazy

62. Well, we are looking for universals

63. Look

64. Aux is before the verb

65. The tense bit is BEFORE the verb

66. Before the verb

67. We want UNIVERSAL rules

68. • She can walk
• She would walk
• She must walk
• She should walk
• She will walk
• She –ed walk
• It’s UNIFORM!!

69. There must be INVISIBLE movement

70. Or it would be untidy

71. It wouldn’t look UNIVERSAL!

72. Keep it UNIVERSAL by moving stuff!

73. Don’t forget that in the 60s and 70s …

74. Lots of people thought this was wrong

75. But Chomsky’s UNIVERSAL theory
won!!

76. I’m the winner

77. Special rules of SYNTAX …

78. … in a special part of our brain

79. So how about OTHER movement?

80. Did she walk?

81. Maybe the tense bit is moving?

82. To an Operator position

83. Makes a question sentence

84. So we’re getting NEW categories

85. Predicate Phrase

86. Predicate Phrase (just means ordinary
sentence)

87. Predicate Phrase (not a question)

88. Predicate Phrase: more complex VP

89. Carries tense, aspect, mood etc

90. And an Operator node

91. Things can move there

92. Change the kind of sentence

93. Did that girl open the door?

94. Magic!

95. Movement

96. So how about OTHER movement?

97. Move one bit

98. Can give us uniformity

99. Any other ways to get uniformity?

100. Because it’s UNIVERSAL grammar

101. Things should be the same

102. X-bar theory

103. XP, X’, X

104. N, N’, NP

105. V, V’, VP

106. P, P’, PP

107. Perfect

108. Everything is the same!

109. No wait!

110. What about S?

111. And what about aux?

112. What are we going to do about aux?

113. Aux, Aux’, AuxP?

114. • She can walk
• She would walk
• She must walk
• She should walk
• She will walk
• She –ed walk
• It’s UNIFORM!!

115. Well aux carries tense, aspect, mood
etc

116. Aux is the Inflectional information

117. Maybe it’s an INFLECTIONAL phrase?

118. How about like this?

119. All the same!

120. Perfect!

121. It’s perfect!

122. In the beginning was SYNTAX!

123. Rules of SYNTAX wired in our brains!

124. Maybe you’re asking …

125. Do we still believe in X-bar theory?

126. No.

127. Chomsky abandoned it in the 1990s

128. But he still believes in a perfect design!

129. But that’s another story

130. What was the main disagreement in
the Linguistic Wars?
• The importance of meaning/semantics

131. What do Cognitive Linguists say?
• There’s no language faculty
• There’s no universal grammar
• Just ordinary thought processes

132. • Chomsky said we should study SYNTAX in
order to understand the brain.

133. She walked

134. That girl opened the door

135. Did she walk?

136. X-bar theory

137. NP

138. • In X-bar theory, the Sentence (S) was replaced
with IP.

139. What happened to X-bar theory?
• It was abandoned in the 1990s.