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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.

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.

This paper outlines a program for the study of phonology as a branch of cognitive science. Building on the legacy of classical generative phonology and biolinguistics, it provides a theoretical framework that strictly differentiates phonological competence from aspects of articulation, acoustics and perception. We argue that phonological competence is to be characterized as a formal—that is, explicit, logically precise, and substance-free—manipulation of abstract symbols. We propose that a productive way to execute this program is to adopt a model called Logical Phonology, where phonological competence is described and explained by a system that maps between phonological data structures like strings via rules constructed from basic set- theoretic operations. We show the merits of this model by applying it to Turkish, Hungarian and English data. The remote and complex relationship between phonological competence and speech is elucidated by Cognitive Phonetics, which proposes that the outputs of phonology are transduced via two algorithms into temporally distributed neuromuscular activities. Taken together, Logical Phonology and Cognitive Phonetics aim to explain the nature of what is loosely referred to in the literature as ‘the externalization of language’ and to delineate its components.

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

Ferdinand de Saussure divides langage into langue and parole. Then he makes langue the subject matter of linguistics. On the other hand, Noam Chomsky claims that linguistics should deal with I-language, contrasting it with E-language. It seems that langue and I-language are very different concepts. But if we closely examine them, it turns out that they have a lot of things in common although there are a few differences between them.

Language has been thought to be the object of linguistics. But Noam Chomsky insists that language is a useless notion for linguistic science. He argues that linguistics should be concerned with grammar. He renames language and grammar, externalized language (E-language) and internalized language (I-language) respectively. According to Chomsky, E-language (language) is something abstract externalized from the actual apparatus of our mind and I-language (grammar) is the physical mechanism of our brain. If we are endowed with Universal Grammar (UG) at birth and get I-language after parameters built in UG are set one way or another and I-language generates E-language, then I-language will be the object of linguistic science. But if there is nothing but language (E-language) spoken or written around us and grammar (I-language) is regularity derived from language (E-language), then we will have a quite different story. In other words, language spoken or written around us will be the object of linguistic science.

近代言語学はノーム・チョムスキーの唯心論や合理主義という哲学的伝統に沿った言語理論の強い影響を受けている。つまり，言語は生物的資質であり，普遍文法の産物で心の所有物として本質的には思考のためのものである。一方，唯物論や経験主義見解では言語は社会現象で主にコミュニケーションのためのものである。近年は言語機能の進化という問題が多くの注目を集めてきた。チョムスキーの見解では，言語機能は最近の進化的発生で，小さな突然変異の結果として出現したと言われている。唯物論や経験主義見解では，言語機能は文化の産物として，またコミュニケーションをより効果的にするために自然淘汰によって徐々に進化してきた。, Modern linguistics has been heavily influenced by the theories of Noam Chomsky, which fit within the philosophical tradition of idealism or rationalism; namely, that as a biological endowment language is a property of the mind, the product of Universal Grammar, and essentially for thought. This is in contrast to the materialist or empiricist position that language is a social phenomenon, primarily for communication. In recent years, the question of the evolution of the language faculty has received much attention. For Chomskyans, the language faculty is a recent evolutionary development that emerged suddenly as the result of a minor mutation. For materialists/empiricists, it evolved gradually through natural selection, as a product of culture and the need to make communication more efficient.

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.

Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky are considered to be the most influential linguists. In this paper, we contrast their accounts concerning the following issues of language and try to make clear differences between them, mainly referring to Saussure’s langue and Chomsky’s I-language: 1) How concepts emerge, 2) How phonemes appear, 3) How languages change, 4) Where syntax belongs to, 5) Whether language is social or biological, 6) What parts of speech are, and 7) Whether languages are delimited or not. By doing so, it will be understood that in what ways the two linguists have common or different ideas about language.

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.

Review of "What Kind of Creatures Are We?" (Columbia University Press, 2015), by Noam Chomsky

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

Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky have had much influence not only on linguistic theories but also on other fields of science. Saussure contends that the language itself is a form, not a substance. While Chomsky claims that linguistics is conceived as the study of I-language and I-language is an aspect of the physical world. It is thought that there are some similarities between Saussure’s “form” and Chomsky’s “I-language.” But these two linguists’ theories are not fundamentally compatible with each other in that “form” is not material and “I-language” is physical.