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This paper advocates an approach to interspeaker linguistic variation that aligns with the ‘I-language’ view (Chomsky, 1986). On this view, the object of study in linguistics is mental grammar; language is understood as being internal to the individual, in contrast to the ‘E-language’ approach, where language is external to individual speakers. This paper considers a case study from Maay (a Cushitic language spoken in southern Somalia) in which interspeaker variation in a refugee community defies analysis in E-language terms. An I-language approach allows for a straightforward analysis of the observed variation, specifically in the domains of plural noun formation and vowel length alternations. El presente estudio propugna un enfoque de la variación lingüística inter-hablante acorde con la perspectiva de la ‘lengua-I’ (Chomsky, 1986). Según esta última, el objeto de estudio de la lingüística es la gramática mental; se considera que el individuo tiene interiorizado el lenguaje, al contrario de lo que defiende el enfoque de la ‘lengua-E’, en el que el lenguaje es externo a los hablantes individuales. En este artículo se estudia el caso del maay (lengua cusita hablada en el sur de Somalia) y se observa que la variación inter-hablante que se da en una comunidad de refugiados supone un desafío para los análisis en términos de lengua-E. Un planteamiento basado en el enfoque de la lengua-I permite un análisis más simple de la variación observada, concretamente en los ámbitos de la formación del plural en los nombres y de las alternancias en la duración vocálica.

Según Fodor (1975) el procesamiento de la información lingüística operaría sobre representaciones del lenguaje del pensamiento. ¿Podría entenderse el contenido de estas representaciones en términos de la semántica informacional propuesta por Fodor (1997)?. El autor parece sostener que sí, pero en este trabajo quisiera mostrar que el contenido de estas representaciones no podría ser informacional. Las razones se relacionan con las dificultades de adoptar un tipo de semántica externalista (como la informacional) para el caso de las representaciones de los sistemas de procesamiento. According to Fodor the processing of linguistic information would operate on representations of the language of thought. Could the content of these representations be understood in terms of the informational semantics proposed by Fodor? The author seems to maintain that it is possible, but in this work I would like to show that the content of these representations could not be informational. The reasons are related to the difficulties of adopting a type of externalist semantics (such as the informational) for the case of the representations of the processing systems. Fil: Destéfano, Mariela Natalia. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

The state of the art of the debate between externalist and internalist concepts of language is reviewed in this paper, and a new conceptualization of language as a “developmental hybrid” is suggested that entails that it equally comprises environmental and organism-internal component pieces, in an ultimately non dissociable way. The key for understanding this hybrid status is to be found in development, for when individually evolving, a general dynamic is observed in which organism-internal facilities selectively apply to certain designated aspects of the environmental stimulus, which in their turn have a facilitatory impact on these very same facilities. These kinds of loops inspire the conclusion that the internal and the external compose a single, integrated developmental unit.

Five sets of linguistic data from different languages (Bangla, German, Romanian, Turkish) are discussed all of which present us with morpho-syntactic repair processes and concomitant irregularity in semantic interpretation. It is argued that this coincidence cannot be accidental, and that there is a rationale behind the apparently paradoxical situation. This rationale seems to be that satisfaction of formal requirements of the grammar has primacy over semantic interpretation. Semantic interpretation can only succeed if the formal composition (merge) involves lexical atoms that are drawn from sets of alternatives. These alternatives seem to be lacking in repair processes. The lexical atoms that are used in fixing up structure are defaults and as such without peers. The consequence is a priority of form over meaning. A more remote consequence is that it would be difficult to defend a grammar-independent language of thought because such a language would almost necessarily rest on semantic or conceptual atoms and not on the formal devices which are at work in the cases at hand. published

This article examines the ways in which explanation has been achieved in scientific work on language change over the last two hundred years. Explanations have come in many forms and at many levels and are greatly influenced by what are taken as the leading questions, which themselves have varied significantly since the early nineteenth century., Journal of Historical Syntax, Language 89 (4)

Generative Linguistics proposes that the human ability to produce and comprehend language is fundamentally underwritten by a uniquely linguistic innate system called Universal Grammar (UG). In her recent paper What is Universal Grammar, and has anyone seen it? Ewa Dabrowska reviews a range of evidence and argues against the idea of UG from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective. In the current paper, I take each of Dabrowska’s arguments in turn and attempt to show why they are not well founded, either because of flaws in her argumentation or because of a careful consideration of the available empirical evidence. I also attempt to demonstrate how evidence from the fields Dabrowska reviews actually supports the notion of UG. However, arguments are additionally presented in favor of integrating an understanding of domain-specific UG with an understanding of domain-general cognitive capacities in order to understand the language faculty completely.

This essay discusses language uniformity and diversity in the light of recent developments of the minimalist program (Hauser et al. 2002; Chomsky 2008; Berwick & Chomsky 2011, and much related work). It pursues two leading ideas. First, Universal Grammar (UG) is maximally minimal: hence early internal language (I-language) is largely uniform across individuals, language variation being mainly or entirely confined to externalization. Second, the mapping from I-language to external language (E-language) is non-isomorphic (the Non-isomorphy Generalization), morphological processes such as agreement and case marking being E-language phenomena, taking place in the externalization component. The first line of reasoning converges with many of Chomsky’s recent ideas, the second one is more divergent. Keywords: E-language; externalization; I-language; person; tense; non-isomorphy generalization

Comparative psychological research suggests that human and non-human minds comprise an array of encapsulated cognitive systems (‘core knowledge systems’). While most of these cognitive building blocks appear to be shared across species, the cognitive gap between human and non-human minds is nevertheless quite stunning (Hauser’s Paradox). Following recent ideas concerning the crucial role of human word learning in cognitive development, it is here suggested that lexicalization — the association of concepts with words — is the key evolutionary novelty that allows linguistic minds to integrate the various encapsulated conceptual resources into a common mental language.