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Issue 23 (March 2010)
The biological aspects of Chomsky's theory of linguistic ability
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Piotr Wołkowski, The biological aspects of Chomsky's theory of linguistic ability, Diametros 23 (March 2010)
According to Chomsky linguistics should be treated as an empirical science. The foundations of language, if it is considered as a discrete and infinite communication tool, are provided by the specifically human biological system described by Chomsky as the faculty of language in the narrow sense. The faculty of language in the broad sense, on the other hand, embraces all the mechanisms that take a part in language production but are not exclusively human. The properties of language are a starting point for the discussion of the biological aspects of Chomsky's theory. Subsequently, I describe the theory of universal grammar. After that, issues of the language organ, the modular character of the mind, and the narrow and broad senses of the theory of the faculty of language are introduced. Next, I present all the requirements proposed by Chomsky that should be fulfilled by linguistics if it is to be considered an empirical science. Finally, I summarize the relationships between the language organ, universal grammar, and natural language.
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