LING 1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Linguistic Universal, Universal Grammar, Universal Property

• School: UConn
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LING 1010
• Professor: Hendrikus Van Der Hulst

Document Summary

Ling 1010 lecture 13 - language and mind: the argument from. There are 6 arguments we will explore in this unit: Something that appears to be true of everything in a common domain: e. g. It is a universal fact that all organisms use. Universals that are not language-speci c do not count. Two steps: description (gathering data, explanation (formulating hypotheses, building theories) Gathering data is crucial, but not always so easy. Many languages do not have a writing system. Diversity: languages can vary in all aspects of grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics) Unity: even so, all languages seem to share certain properties. Possible answer: the innate universal grammar causes the existence of language universals. If property x is innate, it is universal: but not every universal property is innate. We must show: for at least some universals, there is no other possible explanation. However, not being able to nd an alternative explanation does not mean there is none.