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Is Universal Grammar ready for retirement? A short review of a longstanding misinterpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2018

JOSÉ-LUIS MENDÍVIL-GIRÓ
JOSÉ-LUIS MENDÍVIL-GIRÓ*
Affiliation:
University of Zaragoza
*
Author’s address: Department of General and Hispanic Linguistics, University of Zaragoza, C/ Pedro Cerbuna 12, E-50009 Zaragoza, Spainjlmendi@unizar.es
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Abstract

In this paper I consider recent studies that deny the existence of Universal Grammar (UG), and I show how the concept of UG that is attacked in these works is quite different from Chomsky’s, and thus that such criticisms are not valid. My principal focus is on the notions of ‘linguistic specificity’ and of ‘innateness’, and I conclude that, since the controversy about UG is based on misinterpretations, it is rendered sterile and thus does unnecessary harm to linguistic science. I also address the underlying reasons for these misunderstandings and suggest that, once they have been clarified, there is much scope for complementary approaches that embrace different research traditions within current theoretical linguistics.

Keywords

faculty of languagelinguistic specificitynativismrecursionUniversal Grammar
Type
Looking Back, Moving Forward
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , 01 November 2018 , pp. 859 - 888
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

[1]

I am grateful to three anonymous JL referees and editor Kersti Börjars for comments and suggestions. My research was supported by the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) & FEDER (EU) grant FFI2017-82460-P.

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