1965 -1986

Innateness Hypothesis

We are born with language rules

Language and ordinary thought are separate?

Our brains are HARD-WIRED for language?

Hard-wired in a special part of our brain

We are born with rules hard-wired!?

What kind of rules?

Rules of SYNTAX

A bit like this …

In the beginning was SYNTAX!

Do you think I’m joking?!

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

Rules of SYNTAX wired in our brains!

At birth!

It’s hypothetical

• 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

In the 60s and 70s …

War in Linguistics

Why is everything SYNTAX?

What about MEANING?

Isn’t MEANING important?

Some people doubted Chomsky

George Lakoff

Isn’t MEANING more important?

Can these trees really tell us so much?

Aren’t our minds about MEANING?

Paul Postal

Chomsky is empty

James McCawley

Generative Semantics

John Ross

Generative semantics

Ray Jackendoff

Cognitive Linguistics

No language faculty

No universal grammar

Just ordinary thinking

But Chomsky won!!

Syntax (grammar) is MOST IMPORTANT!

Study grammar …

… and understand the brain!

Trees will tell you about the brain!

Chomsky’s grammar was triumphant

Unique universal grammar

The language faculty

How language ability REALLY works

Forget about meaning!!

Forget about it!!!!

Meaning isn’t so important

SYNTAX is different and special

SPECIAL rules

Universal Rules

In a special part of our brain

So how can we understand our language ability?

We are looking for special, universal rules

Why is the –ed before the verb?

It’s “she walked”

Not she “–ed walk”

That’s crazy

Well, we are looking for universals

Look

Aux is before the verb

The tense bit is BEFORE the verb

Before the verb

We want UNIVERSAL rules

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

There must be INVISIBLE movement

Or it would be untidy

It wouldn’t look UNIVERSAL!

Keep it UNIVERSAL by moving stuff!

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

Lots of people thought this was wrong

But Chomsky’s UNIVERSAL theory won!!

I’m the winner

Special rules of SYNTAX …

… in a special part of our brain

So how about OTHER movement?

Did she walk?

Maybe the tense bit is moving?

To an Operator position

Makes a question sentence

So we’re getting NEW categories

Predicate Phrase

Predicate Phrase (just means ordinary sentence)

Predicate Phrase (not a question)

Predicate Phrase: more complex VP

Carries tense, aspect, mood etc

And an Operator node

Things can move there

Change the kind of sentence

Did that girl open the door?

Magic!

Movement

So how about OTHER movement?

Move one bit

Can give us uniformity

Any other ways to get uniformity?

Because it’s UNIVERSAL grammar

Things should be the same

X-bar theory

XP, X’, X

N, N’, NP

V, V’, VP

P, P’, PP

Perfect

Everything is the same!

No wait!

What about S?

And what about aux?

What are we going to do about aux?

Aux, Aux’, AuxP?

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

Well aux carries tense, aspect, mood etc

Aux is the Inflectional information

Maybe it’s an INFLECTIONAL phrase?

How about like this?

All the same!

Perfect!

It’s perfect!

In the beginning was SYNTAX!

Rules of SYNTAX wired in our brains!

Maybe you’re asking …

Do we still believe in X-bar theory?

No.

Chomsky abandoned it in the 1990s

But he still believes in a perfect design!

But that’s another story

What was the main disagreement in the Linguistic Wars?

• The importance of meaning/semantics

What do Cognitive Linguists say?

• There’s no language faculty• There’s no universal grammar• Just ordinary thought processes

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

She walked

That girl opened the door

Did she walk?

X-bar theory

NP

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

What happened to X-bar theory?

• It was abandoned in the 1990s.