4.1. General linguistics In general linguistics, the central idea of Noam Chomsky’s revolutionary theory on the psychological and formal foundations of language is centered upon the claim that language is innate. In evolutionary terms, however, the claim that a human faculty is innate implies that its origin must be placed earlier than the emerging of Homo: and no linguist or interested scholar, until recently, would have taken such a hypothesis seriously. On the contrary: under the influence of traditional (and still quite current) assumptions about a (very) recent origin of language and languages, the general tendency was to consider Chomsky’s innatism incompatible with an evolutionary, Darwinian point of view: "Chomsky and some of his fiercest opponents agree on one thing: that uniquely human language instinct seems to be incompatible with the modern Darwinian theory of evolution" (Pinker 1994: 333; cf. Agrawal and Kusumgar 1996; Gontier this volume). A major breakthrough, however, independently m
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 09:16:57 +0000
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