LINGUIST List 5.676

Fri 10 Jun 1994

Disc: The Language Instinct

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1. Steve Pinker, posting

I plan to stay out of the discussion of the many interesting issues
raised by Claudia Brugman's thoughtful review of my book The Language
Instinct, but there are three characterizations that I would like to
express disagreement with at the outset.

1. Brugman suggests that I equate "innate" and "universal," but I took
pains to distinguish them, as in the following passages:

 "The ubiquity of complex language among human beings is a gripping
 discovery and, for many observers, compelling proof that language is
 innate. But to tough-minded skeptics ..., it is no proof at all. Not
 everything that is universal is innate." (p. 32)

 "The universality of language does not lead to an innate language
 instinct as night follows day." (p. 33)

 "Do [language univesals] imply that languages are restricted by the
 structure of the brain? Not directly. First one must rule out two
 alternative explanations." (p. 234)

 [Greenbergian universals] "are not the best place to look for a
 neurologically given Universal Grammar .." (p.236)

 "Obviously, [a list of universals] is not a list of instincts or
 innate psychological propensities; it is a list of complex
 interactions between a universal human nature and the conditions of
 living in a human body on this planet." (p. 415)

Of course, I go on to argue that many universals do in fact come from
innate language-specific machinery (using evidence from
poverty-of-input and double-dissociations), and these arguments may be
subject to a variety of criticisms. But it is not accurate to say that
I simply equated innate and universal.

2. I also would not concede that "the issue of how language expresses
the infinity of human experiences is addressed by appeal to recursive
function theory, leaving imagination and cognition ... unmentioned."
The relationships between language, cognition, communication, and the
external world are discussed in detail in pp. 78-82 (Whorf chapter),
153-157 (Words chapter), 222-230 (Comprehension chapter), and 367-369
(Evolution chapter), and the explanations in the syntax and morphology
chapters throughly interweave structure and function.

3. I did not describe Turing machines as "the 'scientifically
respectable' model of mental representation (pp. 73 ff)." I said that
Turing "made the idea of mental representation scientifically
respectable" (by showing that internal representations do not
require an infinite regress of homunculi), quite a different claim.

Naturally, I disagree with other points in the review, but they are
all fair-minded criticisms that are best left to discussion by more
distinterested parties.

Steve Pinker
(stevepsyche.mit.edu)