Book contents
- Language, Syntax, and the Natural Sciences
- Language, Syntax, and the Natural Sciences
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Computational Component
- Part II Interfaces
- 7 Linearizing Chains at LF
- 8 On the Rationality of Grammar
- 9 The Warped Forge
- 10 Limiting Semantic Types
- 11 Why Is Phonology Different? No Recursion
- 12 Nothing in Syntax Makes Sense Except in the Light of Change
- 13 Neurology and Experience: The Language Organ and Externalization
- Part III Linguistics and Other Sciences
- Index
- References
8 - On the Rationality of Grammar
from Part II - Interfaces
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 October 2018
Book contents
- Language, Syntax, and the Natural Sciences
- Language, Syntax, and the Natural Sciences
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Computational Component
- Part II Interfaces
- 7 Linearizing Chains at LF
- 8 On the Rationality of Grammar
- 9 The Warped Forge
- 10 Limiting Semantic Types
- 11 Why Is Phonology Different? No Recursion
- 12 Nothing in Syntax Makes Sense Except in the Light of Change
- 13 Neurology and Experience: The Language Organ and Externalization
- Part III Linguistics and Other Sciences
- Index
- References
Summary
Universal grammar in its traditional sense is nothing more (or less) than the attempt to look at grammar as a scientific domain and hence with an interest in developing a general grammar. But what is its content? Mentioning recursion or Merge leaves us with formal and generic principles; and mentioning putative universal principles of a formal sort such as the Case filter and attributing this to the genome leaves us with something that we cannot explain (why does Case exist?). Yet grammar may have a distinct content of its own, organizing meaning in a way that we see in no non-grammatical semantic system. This content, I argue, is mapped from abstract grammatical relations of which Case is one type, and which may be foundational for the human-specific cognitive phenotype as such.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language, Syntax, and the Natural Sciences , pp. 164 - 181Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018
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